BillCosby

Update: I E-mailed Prof. Chomsky for confirmation. Z magazine is an official source, but some Ron Paul supporters are calling the forum comments a hoax or a fake. View Prof. Chomsky’s response here.

From the znet sustainers forum:

Questioner: Hello Mr. Chomsky. I’m assuming you know who Ron Paul is. And I’m also assuming you have a general idea about his positions. Here my summary of Mr. Paul’s positions:
- He values property rights, and contracts between people (defended by law enforcement and courts).

Noam Chomsky: Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.

- He wants to take away the unfair advantage corporations have (via the dismantling of big government)

Noam Chomsky: “Dismantling of big government” sounds like a nice phrase. What does it mean? Does it mean that corporations go out of existence, because there will no longer be any guarantee of limited liability? Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)? Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded — like what we’re now using, computers and the internet? Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation,….? Does it mean that we should be ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability to the general public, while all democratic forms are tossed out the window? Quite a few questions arise.

- He defends workers right to organize (so long as owners have the right to argue against it).

Noam Chomsky: Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you’ve already mentioned.

There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. Just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power — itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.

- He proposes staying out of the foreign affairs of other nations (unless his home is directly attacked, and must respond to defend it).

Noam Chomsky: He is proposing a form of ultra-nationalism, in which we are concerned solely with our preserving our own wealth and extraordinary advantages, getting out of the UN, rejecting any international prosecution of US criminals (for aggressive war, for example), etc. Apart from being next to meaningless, the idea is morally unacceptable, in my view.

I really can’t find differences between your positions and his.

Noam Chomsky: There’s a lot more. Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally, then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn’t themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens). His claims about SS being “broken” are just false. He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based — the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need. He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we’re at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).

So I have these questions:

1) Can you please tell me the differences between your schools of “Libertarianism”?

Noam Chomsky: There are a few similarities here and there, but his form of libertarianism would be a nightmare, in my opinion — on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.

2) Can you please tell me what role “private property” and “ownership” have in your school of “Libertarianism”?

Noam Chomsky: That would have to be worked out by free communities, and of course it is impossible to respond to what I would prefer in abstraction from circumstances, which make a great deal of difference, obviously.

3) Would you support Ron Paul, if he was the Republican presidential candidate…and Hilary Clinton was his Democratic opponent?

Noam Chomsky: No.

Edit: It’s interesting to note that his position pretty much mirrors my own thoughts from my blog posting, “The Ron Paul-blem.” - personman

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jdanton

Bravo.

There's a lot of Ron Paul that scares me. That post said it quite well.

thanks

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Brainpolice

Noam Chomsky is a confusing individual. On one hand, he claims to be an anarcho-syndicalist. On the other hand, he actively supports government interventions (particularly having to do with the welfare state) in the present, thus functioning as more of a contemporary liberal then an anarchist in practise. I think his positions on foreign policy and big media are great, but when it comes to economics I think he is an economic illiterate who is still stuck thinking in Marxist terms. If he didn't strategically support the state, he would indeed count as a brilliant left-libertarian. But his confusion about economics allows him to support a good deal of government intervention which ruins his libertarian credentials. The welfare state has nothing to do with a genuine far left-wing anarchist view of the world; it is viewed as just another part of "state-capitalism".

His arguement against contractualism is silly. He simply presents an incredibly extreme and unlikely scenario, and then uses it as if it debunks the entire idea of voluntary contract. I don't believe any propertarian libertarian advocates the type of scenario that he spells out. For a self-described libertarian, Chomsky is incredibly out of step in acting as if government is any more accountable then corporations. One need not be a capitalist type to see that the government is not "accountable to the people" by any stretch of the imagination. Even genuine left-libertarians do not support the long list of government interventions he mentions (R&D, regulation, public schools, public roads, public transporation, etc.). Left-libertarians would still view those things as part of the corporate state. As for foreign policy, while Chomsky may reject Paul's rationale for a non-interventionist foreign policy, both of their foreign policy positions are practically identical.

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cheapseats

If you mean the example of signing up for shit conditions under financial duress, extremity is one thing and likelihood is another. Extreme Circumstances R Us. It is everywhere evident.

It is not that government is any more accountable than corporations but, rather, that a People can more readily oblige a representative government unto accountability than it can so oblige a free wheeling corporation.

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Brainpolice

I'm sorry, but the vast majority of Americans, even at the relative bottom of the economic ladder, are not facing starvation. Go to Africa to see some real starvation. We might have poverty problems but it is not the type of "starve to death or be enslaved" scenario that Chomsky depicts.

I don't think that's true. I think the corporations are just spawns of the government, and the government cannot be held accountable any more easily, and the corporations lack of accountability stems precisely from the government's special protections of them (limited liability included).

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serum114

Noam Chomsky: Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.

BP I really think He makes a good point in this paragraph. I've seen it for many years now in my work envirement.

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cheapseats

Two things:

1. Everything is relative. No, Americans are not starving like starving Africans are starving. But the rugged end of America and the rugged end of Africa, socioeconomically speaking, are not starting from the same point. We do not mean, I hope, to let America's low end get THAT low before acknowledging that poverty, and all its attendant miseries, are not manifestly evident in the United States.

2. Globalization, globalization, globalization. It's not just for the business paradigm. It is also for the betterment of the standard and substance of the Life of Man, or it means fuck-all.

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VKMHVM2

Chomsky and many other phony progressives of the Controlled Left receive huge sums of cash from the big political foundations, owned and controlled by the same oligarchic dynasties that exercise their power over this nation and the rest of the world.

leftgatekeepers.com: The Shame of Noam Chomsky and the Gatekeepers of the Left' (3 parts)

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cheapseats

Originally Posted by cheapseats
It is not that government is any more accountable than corporations but, rather, that a People can more readily oblige a representative government unto accountability than it can so oblige a free wheeling corporation.



I know you don't think that's true. That's the kind of thing that reveals your practical inexperience.

Corporations are spawns of Government, as in...spawned by Government? I disagree. The Corporation is a brilliant construct in several important regards. Constructs brilliant in several regards do not, by and large, emanate from Government. Government is not much motivated to be brilliant.

The lack of corporate accountability is not single-fold.

Between protectionism and lobbying alone, the Government Thumbprint isn't even single-fold.

This reality can no longer be ignored: THE HEALTH AND WELFARE OF LABOR DOES NOT MUCH FIGURE, EXCEPT AS A COST THAT MAY BE TRIMMED, INTO THE CONTEMPORARY PROFIT PARADIGM.

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Brainpolice

This reality would not be the case without years and years of government intervention to concentrate capital, limit liability and lower the costs of large size.

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