http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPUvQZ3rcQ
Can he get even dumber?
While I agree that many terms we use such as socialism, libertarianism, liberalism mean different things to different people, this speech full of assertions and statist propaganda is just outrageous and finally convinced me that he’s lost.
Perhaps you should actually refute him and bring some evidence that there is “statist propaganda” in this speech?
He does say that an-cap is worse than state-capitalism, but that is not a defense of statism.
Pardon me, what I meant was that he’s using similar “arguments” as made by the establishment against free market and private property.
Chomsky, even if you think this is an incorrect and naive view (and I would tend to agree) does not seperate corporatism from capitalism. He follows the anarchist left’s position that capitalism requires a state to protect the elite’s interest.
To many leftists, capitalism != free markets in a 1:1 ratio.
I have suspicion that he may just be a libertarian socialist without being a straight anarchist. I mean his comments on Ron Paul make me susipicious, he may just be a marxist.:
Soooo, in anarchy, who would enforce not being able to carry a gun? What the hell. Wait, left or right libertarian, which libertarian opposes gun rights?? I don’t think you’d find too many.
" When asked point-blank, “Are governments inherently bad?” his reply (28 January 1988) is no. "
He may be libertarian, but anarchist? Maybe not.
Well, I don’t know about, nor will I defend his anti-gun rules, if he has them. But anarchy != no government. Anarchy means the full expression of self-government; no rulers.
But you are correct, he is more of a reformist, social-libertarian. Idk if he really has any concrete views tho. His concrete stuff is what he’s against.
I mean I like the guy, I’d say he was one of the people who originally turned me to anarchism to begin with. But if there was a button that said “Push to eliminate government”, he may not push it.
I would agree with you there. I think he would want some democratic safeguards in place first. And in some ways I agree with him. I just really think it’s all coming to a head.. maybe it’s cuz I’m young lol
How can he honestly say that Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson were against the free market?
I’ll never understand anti-gun laws.
Me neither, especially amongst people that distrust government. I’m a martial artist, and as such learned about the development of certain traditional weapons as farm instruments, and the Boxer Rebellion.
Adam Smith, in some of his writings, attacks corporations, supports public school systems, and claims that the continuous division of labor will lead to mass idleness. But corporations, in Smith’s time, were unlike the corporations we see today, and the market has introduced certain mechanisms that ease the agency problems he warned about (market for corporate control, stockholder voting blocks, internal competition amongst management, ect). Next, we’ve seen that public school systems yield intellectual infants who are incapable of thinking for themselves. And finally, his last complaint is merely his own personal subjective value judgement that resembles the claims often asserted by various primitivists. It’s meaningless because:
Either way, Noam Chomsky, though a brilliant man, is a Neanderthal when it comes to economics. Like most leftists, he regurgitates doctrines that have been entirely refuted long ago, and he fundamentally misunderstands the processes/mechanisms that facilitate capital accumulation and cooperation (economic organization). He simply shouldn’t be taken seriously; he’s like an intelligent Bill Maher