Do you think something will happen soon on this front? I am asking because a recent survey suggested that a majority of the American people are in favour of changes in the political system, so it seems to have mainstream appeal.
Noam Chomsky: Not just the US, but everywhere. There is no place in the world that does not have structures of authority and domination that are (in my view) illegitimate, and that should be dismantled in the interests of creating a more free and just society. Furthermore, I expect that to be true forever; it’s part of the “human condition”.
Beyond that, we have to turn to specifics. Take the most powerful institutions in the world: great powers and corporations. I think they are fundamentally illegitimate, and should be placed under democratic control. And I’m including the states here — democratic control is substantially form, not substance, when there are vast internal inequities of wealth and power. The leading American social philosopher of the last century, John Dewey, “as American as apple pie,” was not wrong when he described politics as the shadow cast over society by big business, and when he discussed the reasons for that. And we should, I think, go far beyond what he said. But now we are moving into a domain that requires serious thought and discussion.
As for the population, it’s a complicated matter. An overwhelming majority feel that the political system does not respond to their interests, and that elections are some kind of game among the powerful in which they scarcely participate, except maybe formally. And opposition to corporate power is also far-reaching. Whether this will translate into substantial popular movements to bring about change — as in past history of the US and others, and elsewhere in the world today — there isn’t much point speculating. For people concerned about the matters, the question is one of action, not speculation about what we cannot know.
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Jamaica, N.Y.: If not the United States, who should pick up the gauntlet and lead the world? There will always be a country that is above the rest. Should it not be the United States, we do encurage democracy and the freedom to earn an equal wage, it is not like Ancient Rome, or Germany, we DO promote freedom.
Noam Chomsky: No one should do so, in my opinion. The world is far better off with power diffused. I think that’s true internal to societies as well. I wish it were true that US power was used to “encourage democracy and the freedom to earn an equal wage” and to “promote freedom.” I’m afraid that belief will not stand up to investigation. I’ve explained why in detail in print, including current books, as have innumerable others, but can’t try to elaborate here. But even if it were true, I would reject the premise, just as I would reject the internal analogue. If some power system within the US claimed the right to “lead the country,” we’d all oppose it, and rightly, no matter what they professed.
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Washington, D.C.: How can you seriously promote the dismantling of “great powers and corporations”? Power abhors a vacuum, and unless you want us to turn into a society of small, independent communes, current great powers or corporations would merely be replaced by other conceptions of power and corporation. The lessons learned from the failed Soviet experiment should be evidence enough for the fallacy of this belief.
Noam Chomsky: The Soviet experiment was one of highly concentrated power, from the start, when Lenin and Trotsky moved quickly to destroy the democratic, socialist, and participatory elements of the pre-takeover period. It remained so. So I don’t see the relevance. Could unaccountable private tyrannies be dismantled and placed under popular control in the US? I’ve never seen an argument to the contrary. There many very specific proposals as to how a more democratic economy could run: to mention just one example, the proposals of Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel (together and separately) about “participatory economics,” which you can find in many books. And there are plenty of others. Just how far freedom and democracy can go, we don’t know, but I know of no reason to suppose that we’ve hit some limit.
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Wheaton, Md.: It seems that the same parties throughout the world who resent the power and actions of the U.S. are also the same people who support the complete destruction of Israel and the brutal treatment of Kurds, Sudanese and other minorities under Arab occupation. Do they really fear U.S. hegemony, or do they just fear democracy?
Noam Chomsky: I don’t agree with that at all. In Europe, for example, there is overwhelming opposition to US policy, and virtually no support for destruction of Israel. Same is true in most of the world. As for “brutal treatment of Kurds,” etc., it would be important to clarify what you have in mind. In the 1990s, for example, by far the most brutal treatment of Kurds was in Southeastern Turkey, where millions were driven from their homes and tens of thousands killed, with every barbaric form of torture and terror you can dream of. These were some of the worst crimes of the grisly 1990s. The responsibility traced straight back to Washington, which provided 80% of the arms and crucial diplomatic and other support. In the single year 1997, Clinton sent more arms to Turkey than the combined total for the entire cold war period up to the onset of the campaign of “state terror” — as it is rightly called by Turkish dissidents, even sometimes by government ministers. If you mean the Kurds in Iraq, then the US record is quite mixed. Through the 1980s, when they suffered the worst atrocities at the hands of Saddam Hussein (Halabja, al-Anfal, etc.), Saddam was backed by Washington, including those now in office again or their immmediate descendants, and that support continued long after his worst crimes against the Kurds, and long after the war with Iran was over. The official reasons were quite ugly. Later policies changed, for reasons having to do with power interests, but it remains quite mixed. E.g., the US (and the rest of the world) has refused to provide badly needed medical assistance to the victims of the atrocious gas attacks that they basically supported. We can continue with others.
If you check the record, I think you will find that your assumptions cannot be sustained. I urge that you look into it.
