Is Noam Chomsky a statist?

Miscellaneous General
1

I used to be a huge fan of Noam Chomsky. He awakened me to how badly interventionism has affected the third world countries around the world and how our continued economic policy of neoliberalization with imposing unfair policies on other countries around the world is a bad thing. But while he argues agaisnt corporations- he thinks that the government is a voice for the people, and that it’s the only voice we have.

He says that corporations and private businesses are undemocratic, and, he believes that defense spending helps the economy a great deal- and that the government should spend in order to get return on its investmnents, and, that the new deal did a great deal of good. He also believes that Bush caused the economic collapse- yet he defends the economic stimulus by Barack Obama. It looks like unlike Noami Wolf- who has been becoming more and more anti-statist throughout the Obama administration- Noam Chomsky has actually been becoming more of a statist. He even makes a lengthy defense of protectionism in hos book. He also thinks the government should provide welfare services to the people, and, that they should provide health care.

I really don’t see anything anarchist about Noam Chomsky. Is he a statist? What do you think? I’ve been becoming a little dissilusioned from Noam Chomsky. I still believe in non-interventionism and I don’t like corporations, but, I think Noam Chomsky has gone too far from anarchism and anti-statism.

2

Noam Chomsky is an Anarcho Syndicalist. He wants everything to be owned by Co-ops of workers.

3

Then why does he advocate for massive state intervention in the economy? He believes without the state- that the private economy would crumble.

4

He’s a bobble head.

5

I seem to recall here him saying something about eliminating the Warfare state before the welfare state, though I could easily be mistaken on this. He seems really inconsistent at times. I think his reasoning for stregnthing the Welfare state etc. now is as a counterbalance to corporate power or something like that. However, on another note I do recall the quote from Lnguage and Politics were he talks kind of favorably about conservaties here and he calls himself a conservatie here. It is interesting he writes almost sort of favourably about Robert Taft, yet I know he is on record as saying he would have rathered Hillary to Ron Paul here. He seems really inconsistent there to me. Then of course there is Rothbard on Chomsky and Left Anarchists here .

6

The way he calls Ron Paul an ultra-nationalist is sickening. Why does everyone love the UN so much? From my research it appears that the UN have simply exacerbated conflicts rather solved them.

I mean just look at the Iraq economic sanctions which killed about 500,000 Iraqi children. How could anyone seriously support the UN?

http://antiwar.com/radio/2010/07/04/joy-gordon/

7

I’ve never seen alleged radicalism filled with as much pussyfooting as I have in Chomsky.

8

Same. At least the Obamaites and Marxachists are honest about their intentions.

9

Indeed, I think that just about crystallizes it.

10

Probably because its fashionable… if you pressed him on it he would probably say its because he supports interventionism and doesn’t care where it comes from.

11

I don’t think he’s a statist in the sense of believing the state is inevitable or infallible. But on the other hand he has said that the state is not inherently bad.

He makes the same mistake many conservatives make: because of some bad things, liberty must always be forever delayed. He can on one hand say that the media is controlled by rich people and capitalists and that the state serves these interests, but at the same time say that the state is responsive to people’s needs. It would seem that if you don’t like corporate control of media and the state, it would make no difference if you vote or not. But what do I know…

12

fancyshirtman:

I think many on the left support the UN, because they think opposition to the UN is the old canard from rightists that the US should be able to attack and bomb whoever it wants regardless of the UN or international law. Rather than looking at the ineptitude of the UN or how it serves war and is unable to prevent genocide. I think many on the left see it as a block to American Exceptionalism. When really it doesn’t stop us from doing anything we want. We can simply veto what we don’t like. And our superior military power/spending could easily eliminate all obstacles. Of course, all that can be said is that they will be let down again and again and SHOCKED that the UN doesn’t do anything. Much like the Democrats are ‘let down’ Obama was all hype and didn’t achieve anything they wanted.

Then there is the problem of having dictators belong to it… I don’t understand the reasoning behind the belief that if you give dictators bargaining power they will convert to democracy or peace-lovers. It hasn’t seemed to work, surprisingly enough…

13

well, I used to really like Noam Chomsky too, but not so much these days.

Still, I think I might have some insight into this, because I remember a speech where he addressed this question basically. It was on the question of voting, whether he supported a candidate for the Presidential election, and whether that’s compatible with his claim to being an anarchist.

Chomsky replied, as I remember, along the lines of ‘both of the candidates are corporate tools, but one is very marginally better than the other, so you should spend five minutes figuring out which one is slightly better than the other and then take a few more minutes and vote for him, but don’t waste any more time on it than that.’

He then went on further explain, saying he didn’t support a lot of the current political structures, but that there are gradations of difference within them and it’s irresponsible to ignore those gradations. Like, if party A says it will stomp on 1,000 people and party B says it will stomp on 10,000 people, it’s irresponsible towards those 9,000 people not to recognize that there is a difference in the platforms, but it’s also important to recognize they’re both s.o.b.s.

I think this might explain a lot of your points; I really doubt that Chomsky ‘supports Obama’s stimulus policy,’ but I can imagine him saying something like he Obama’s stimulus as compared to doing nothing, or as compared to some alternative D.C. beltway proposals.

Same thing to most of your points, although I have to say, some of them are verifiable, like ‘corporations are undemocratic.’ Well, yeah, and the sky is blue.

14

He believes without the state- that the private economy would crumble.

That’s an interesting point though, isn’t it? What I imagine he means, having read him a bunch, is that a bunch of the current big players in the ‘private’ economy are in bed with government, and that if all of a sudden the state stopped being in bed with them, the current organization of the private economy would crumble;

big banks would fail, major corporations would go under, and the ripple effects would take out a lot of small fish who aren’t directly related to the government. I think this is a really important concept for libertarians to consider, because maybe it explains a lot of why people support the status quo - from the congressman who votes to bail out the banks because some lobbyists scare him (maybe even factually) about how much fall out there will be if they don’t, to the guy who likes big government because of all the government employees who eat at his restaurant.

15

in response to the thread title: yes.

chomsky strikes me as a sort of closet marxist. i really don’t think he can be called an anarchist even in the “social anarchist” sense. socialist anarchists, if they’re consistent, at least believe that grassroots alternative institutions and direct action are superior to state action.

compare that to chomsky’s idea of anarchism which seems to require that an expansive anti-corporate state come into existence and “wither away” first before anarchy can truly exist.

16

SilentXtarian…this might help you understand Chomsky’s (pragmatic ?) view on this …http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aQfV6cOiDc&feature=related

17

He wants the state to fight against the extreme-right…and then to abolish it (once the right is defeated)

18

He beleives in anarchy as the goal, with the state as the means. Which makes about as much sense as commiting rape in order to have more virgins around.

19

Like all communists. He is plain communist. No special description needed. He just likes to play a little hopscotch around labels to gather a wider audience, sell more books.

They support it because it represents the attempt to create the one world state.