
Noam Chomsky: Neoliberalism Is Destroying Our Democracy - rbanffy
https://www.thenation.com/article/noam-chomsky-neoliberalism-destroying-democracy/
======
ankushnarula
There is an absence of pragmatism and an excess of moral prosecution in
Chomsky's criticisms. He can't point to historically successfully (and hence
tested) societies based on his ideals. This isn't a problem as an academic
exercise - but it has become fodder for the neo-Marxists/Trotskyists masked as
"socialist democrats" wreaking havoc in liberal institutions.

~~~
crdoconnor
Except for that book he wrote about it:
[http://libcom.org/files/1345266991261.pdf](http://libcom.org/files/1345266991261.pdf)

~~~
cholantesh
Isn't this just a collection of essays on the promise of anarchism? It's been
many years since my sister lent it to m, but I don't recall any discussion of
contemporary anarchistic societies. My contention is that if they were a truly
viable alternative, more people would migrate into them, and attrition would
not be a significant problem.

------
MichaelMoser123
The 'golden age of capitalism'/social democracy thing didn't work so well
throughout the seventies - that's why the neoliberals were voted into office,
mainly due to problems with the economy.

I am also not convinced about the democracy part during the 'golden age' \-
once upon a time you had unelected bureaucrats and union bosses who would do
the decisions (you have some of that in the EU now). Also mighty Goldman Sachs
didn't enact Glass-Steagall - you need a government for that.

~~~
candiodari
The EU is the exact opposite. It started out as the union of coal and steel
"community" (for the bosses of the companies). It is the exact opposite of a
worker's union: for the largest part of it's existence it was 50% dedicated to
taking away rights of employees. It very much was a voice for capitalists,
owners and generally the ultra-rich (not even the 0.1%, we're barely talking
the top 10 richest of Europe at the time here)

~~~
jordanb
Another example is how the ECB has no dual mandate. Its only mandate is to
control inflation. It has no mandate to limit unemployment.

As the Euro crisis began to cause political instability they've backed off a
little, but they took their single mandate very seriously and stuck to their
"no fiscal stimulus" guns for a very long time during the crisis.

------
jimmywanger
In this article, he argues both for and against populism.

" What happened is that large parts of the population—which had been passive,
apathetic, obedient—tried to enter the political arena in one or another way
to press their interests and concerns"

vs.

" There was a lot of elite discussion across the spectrum about the danger of
too much democracy and the need to have what was called more “moderation” in
democracy, for people to become more passive and apathetic and not to disturb
things too much"

Basically, we want more people who believe in what we say to be involved.

[https://reason.com/archives/2017/05/31/noam-chomskys-
venezue...](https://reason.com/archives/2017/05/31/noam-chomskys-venezuela-
lesson)

Chomsky is pretty virulently anti market and anti capitalism. His linguistic
genius does not give him authority when commenting on policy.

Basically, he praised Venezuela (and Chavez, and socialism) until it went to
crap, and then blamed the capitalists and the fact that they did not implement
"true" socialism (whatever what means) as a reason for why he was never wrong.

"Speak up unless you disagree with me."

~~~
dragonwriter
There is no argument for or against populism in your examples (there's an
argument that both a popular wave occurred and that attempts to suppress
populism occurred, but not an argument for or against populism.)

> Basically, we want more people who believe in what we say to be involved.

No, actually, the argument he makes isn't about who should be politically
involved, it's about how those people ought to be served.

~~~
jimmywanger
> No, actually, the argument he makes isn't about who should be politically
> involved, it's about how those people ought to be served.

You know that you're being incredibly condescending right now? People ought to
be served something they don't choose?

------
Grue3
A communist caring about "his" democracy? That's new. Wasn't he pro-Pol Pot?

~~~
crdoconnor
No

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-01/brull---the-boring-
tru...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-01/brull---the-boring-truth-about-
chomsky/2779086)

That whole controversy centers around him pointing out that a book by a guy
called Ponchaud which was being used as a pretext to try and go to war was
full of errors.

It _was_ full of errors.

~~~
galacticpony2
Ponchaud's book was _not_ full of errors, it was based on accounts that were
(at the time) unverifiable and Chomsky went on to question their credibility.

For an outline of the points brought forth, you may read this:
[http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomsky/wma.html](http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomsky/wma.html)

What the article you linked refers to as "full of errors" was in fact a
_review of the book_ by Jean Lacouture.

------
galacticpony2
Two points that keep coming up:

"Real wages have gone down"

Well, how high should they have risen? They can't rise indefinitely. Yet, the
products you can buy for the same money have vastly improved. What car could
you buy for (the equivalent of) 10,000$ in 1979? Would you _trade_? All sorts
of goods have become either cheaper or better, or have literally _come into
existence_.

Now, you will blame the rise of Chinese manufacturing on these improvements,
but then please also consider how much wages have improved for the Chinese.
The _standard of living_ is rising across the board, across the globe.

"It all goes in the pockets of a few super-rich"

It's repeated like a mantra on the left, but when do they ever show you the
actual numbers? Do yourself a favor and take _all_ the wealth and _all_ the
income of the top 10% and distribute it across the other 90%. Now tell me, has
the wealth and income gone up dramatically for those 90%? Wealth/Income
inequality is a psychological problem more so than an economic one.

~~~
grraaaaahhh
According to this report
([https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51846](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51846))
the average wealth for the top 10% in 2013 was ~$4 Million. Spread equally
around everyone that represents a ~25% increase for families in the 50-90th
percentile, and over a 1000% increase for families below that. Seems pretty
significant to me.

~~~
galacticpony2
Percentages are misleading. Going from 1$ to 10$ is a 1000% increase, yet it's
not significant.

Do the math again, this time with actual dollar amounts, then try again. Take
all the money the top 10% have, then spread it among the rest. Also remember,
you can only do that _once_.

~~~
uoaei
Productivity has been rising steadily pretty much since they started keeping
track of it, while the median family income has stagnated over the past 40
years or so.[1] Productivity is defined as the ratio of the volume of outputs
to inputs, or equivalently, the "money out to the money in." If the money is
not going to the median families, where is it going? It certainly isn't going
to the lower class. It is going to the upper class, and is seen as a
"concentration of wealth" since the money is all going into more or less the
same pockets (the fuzziness of the wording is due to the fact that sometimes
people die and other people become richer to move into the upper class).

To come to the challenge posed in your comment, let's examine some other
indicators of inequality.[2] The top 1% holds around 42% of the wealth.
Meanwhile, the bottom 50% holds around 1% of the wealth. Doesn't that seem a
bit ... unequal? Of course, to have valid concepts of "top 1%" inequality must
of course exist on some level, but the disparity is staggering. There are 160
million people in the bottom 50%, and about 3 million in the top 1%.

The average person in the top 1% holds about $2240 for every $1 belonging to
the average person in the bottom 50%. The price of a $1m car to the top 1% is
on par with the cost of a current-gen gaming console (~$450) to the bottom
50%, on average.

Even without getting into the top 0.1% and their obscene amounts of money
hoarding, this is a lot. We can go there too if you want.

We could also just ask the people who arguably have the best access to such
data: the Congressional Budget Office.[3] The graphic on the front cover is
enough to illustrate the difference, but you can also go through the findings
in the body if you need more convincing.

All of this is freely available on the internet, and found with Google via
"total wealth in the us". Either you didn't know this was possible, or you
don't want to know the facts.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Productivity_and_Real_Med...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Productivity_and_Real_Median_Family_Income_Growth_in_the_United_States.png)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._economic_variables_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._economic_variables_related_to_the_distribution_of_wealth_and_income.png)

[3] [https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-
congress-2015-...](https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-
congress-2015-2016/reports/51846-familywealth.pdf)

~~~
galacticpony2
You're missing the point entirely. I'm not saying inequality doesn't exist. Of
course it exists.

I'm asking again: What happens if we take the wealth not just from the top 1%,
but the top 10%, then spread it among the rest? How much does everyone get?
Would it be a _life-changing_ amount of money?

~~~
uoaei
As of 2013, the top 10% of people had 85% of the wealth and the bottom 90% of
people had 15% of the wealth.[1] FRED says the total net worth of households
and nonprofit organizations was $79 trillion.[2] The population of the US at
the end of 2013 was around 317 million.[3]

Crunching the numbers, we can determine that the top 10% had $67.15 trillion.
If this full amount is distributed equally to every person in the bottom 90%,
as the question states (let's call this the "kill the bourgeoisie" scenario),
each _person_ in the bottom 90% would receive $235,000 on average.

If we wanted to forcefully distribute the money while leaving the people at
the top intact (let's call this "blunt force redistribution") such that the
current top 10% has 10% of the wealth, then each _person_ in the bottom 90%
would receive $208,000 on average.

I would definitely consider this a life-changing amount of money.

[1]
[http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Net...](http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Net_worth_and_financial_wealth.png)
via
[http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html](http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html)

[2]
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HNONWRA027N](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HNONWRA027N)

[3] [https://www.census.gov/popclock/](https://www.census.gov/popclock/)

Edit: Especially when you consider that this article[4] came out in 2013, a
majority of people will be able to 1) basically completely exit debt and 2)
start contributing substantially to the economy again. Not to mention afford
college, afford healthcare, afford good food for themselves and their
children, drop a whole lot of stress, and generally build their lives back up.
There would be zero people below the poverty line. Who knows if the
traditional refrain of "velocity of money increasing means inflation means
collapse" would be realized in such a radical redistribution, and if a sudden
and drastic shift such as that would end up hurting more than helping. We can
only ever play the speculation game in matters like these.

The numbers in the main body reflect also the worth of nonprofits. Not sure on
the proportions on that one, but even if you take it to be 10% of all the
wealth (IMO an absurdly high estimate) the number still shifts to $187,000 per
person in the bottom 90%.

[4] [http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-
savings/index.h...](http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-
savings/index.html)

~~~
galacticpony2
> If we wanted to forcefully distribute the money while leaving the people at
> the top intact (let's call this "blunt force redistribution") such that the
> current top 10% has 10% of the wealth, then each person in the bottom 90%
> would receive $208,000 on average.

They would receive assets _valued at_ 208,000$ at current (arguably inflated)
prices, most of it not being cash. You might expect the biggest expropriation
in US history to be somewhat upsetting to the markets.

Now that we've established an upper bound, maybe we can talk about what
percentage of that money can realistically be taken and what problems it could
actually solve.

~~~
uoaei
>They would receive assets valued at 208,000$ at current (arguably inflated)
prices, most of it not being cash. You might expect the biggest expropriation
in US history to be somewhat upsetting to the markets.

Technically true, but the path of this redistribution would be in the form of
taxation and offered public services, which is extracted purely as cash.

According to the Obamacare website, poverty levels are around $11,000 per
person, scaling sublinearly with the number of people in a single household.
If we use that as a baseline, we'd need to tax the top 10% about 5% more per
year and redistribute that in cash or an equivalent value of provided services
(education, healthcare, etc.) to create a buffer that effectively nullifies
the concept of a poverty level. In reality this would likely be applied more
as a progressive tax, so the top earners would be taxed more and more benefits
would go to the people who are actually poor.

