Free Market Fantasies by Noam Chomsky 5/5

[gshooting]

@shortywheat Exactly what credentials does Noam Chomsky have to talk about economics?

[HoRostam]

@gshooting i guess that means you must have a phd in economics, just like every other free market fanboy

[gshooting]

@HoRostam Ok, imagine you were taking an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and your lecturer had a PhD in English, nothing else. Wouldn't you wonder that your lecturer really has no business teaching you about mechanical engineering?

[HoRostam]

@gshooting his credentials include, in addition to being able to hold lots of info in his head, being an activist, and having seen the effects of the market in other parts of the world, etc. The main difference here is that free market people wanna look at the third world or other underdeveloped areas, including domestic problems, as either primitive or caused by govt, and more liberal people see those areas as PRODUCED by the free market itself. i find the second argument convincing

[gshooting]

@HoRostam That's ridiculous, the third world is rife with government corruption and lawlessness, and in some countries the general environment for arable production is terrible. That is not the fault of the free market. Getting the government to take over a barren piece of land that can hardly produce any crops doesn't make anyone better off than they would be with the free market.

[HoRostam]

@gshooting right, well i was just illustrating the differences between the mindsets... which i guess i did. but its also funny that a complete free market advocate would be critical of "lawlessness," think about that one... but youre right, they are corrupt, but corrupt in collusion with western business interests. i wasnt talking about farming so much as, say, congo... which is one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in human history, but no one talks about, tot all about computer parts etc

[gshooting]

@HoRostam Adovcating free markets is not the same as advocating anarchy, although even anarchists (not the commie-types that want to just destroy everything) would replace public defence with private defence, so instead of having public police, you would just have a private police and instead of the US Army, you would have Haliburton and Blackwater exclusively.

[HoRostam]

@gshooting and by govt, i mean big bad cartoon govt that the right supposedly hates... chomsky is very critical of military-industrial complex etc

[jeenthough]

amaizing!!! i'll watch that again.i just wonder-how does he know all this. isn't it supposed2b secret?lot's of guessing,i guess,but u need facts too,and he names them.its been so obvious-i m Bulgarian bourn living in Holland-I ve been witnessing how "capitalism"has been developping in both countries. when arrived here 20 years ago i instantly said-this is some form of (nacioanal)socialism,the same goes 4 Bulgaria.virtualy most small businesses has been killed4 the sake of the suppermarkets.

[37Dionysos]

Have to repeat my thanks for posting this talk, have come back to it a lot. NC's view that a corporation is just an instrument for intervening in actually-free markets to increase profit rings true for me as an historian. Early Modern capitalism and its corporations (or, the grouped bodies of European aristocrats) financed the conquest of Native America and its (incorrect delusion of) empty land and limitless wealth. So we still see this delusion---Profit, No Limits, No Consequences. Psychosis.

[highwaymaen]

Abuse of power: If humanity is not willing to accept slavery -- it is condemned to die of thirst, and starvation...

[mooktank]

"By 1995, 5% of capital transactions represented real economic activity, while 95% were merely speculation." Big problems here.

[BobSlydell100]

Just listened to the whole thing. He could not be more right.

[chuckiepoo222]

i play wif my dick

[enomarekim]

Whoever owns the mill will eventually hire someone else to work for them. There is no way to stop this. If the workers hate not owning the factories, why don't the unions pool money and buy the factories? Then the workers could vote for who runs the companies. Or does the government protects the company owners. Either way, this will become irrelevant when robots replace all manual labor.

[DystopianEmpire01]

@enomarekim 1. The unions have more power as things are.

2. Who the government protects, slightly depends on what party currently has majority.

3. People are cheaper.

[YankeeTom63]

Don't believe me? Look at governments in the Netherlands , Switzerland, Iceland, Look at worker rights in France , Germany.

[Pentazoid111]

He says corporations are greedy: well so are other entities , like small businesses, the consumers who buy goods and services at these small businesses and coporations; and of course , the government is greedy for wanting more rules , scientists are greedy for wanting more knowledge; the athletic for wanting to be a more skilled athlete Businesspeople don't have a monopoly on greed ; I have people who have the power to restrict these desires and the only entity who has that power is the govt.

[MrXfromPlanetX]

The only problem is the Corporations control the government. They also manipulate the opinions of average people using the media. Check out the book Propaganda by Edward Bernays originally published in 1928:

"The minority has discovered a powerful help in influencing majorities. It has been found possible so to mold the mind of the masses desired direction. In the present structure of society, this practice in inevitable."

He was trying to sell people on the idea

[DystopianEmpire01]

@MrXfromPlanetX Propaganda is as old as civilization.

[demik027]

im having a hard time trying to understand your argument. it is widely know that if not all most human institutions have ingrain qualities because humans created them. it sound to me that you would preffer the lesser of two evils which in this case is human nature or motive vs mindless submission to power. a human mind shape out of this regressive thinking, by my definition is mostly shaped by the capitalist impose conditions to our environment

[jakiner]

i agree with you in a way Pentazoid111... individuals do have the power to resist greed. However, corporations don't have this power because Unions have been smashed since the 1920's.

[bapyou]

The thirst for knowledge and the greed for money are the same thing? You're a sick asshole.

[TheHandOfGovernment]

fuck you noam

[wcropp1]

I'm still wondering what the effects of a truly free market would be like - one in which there is no state to manipulate it and that addresses the hierarchical concerns of capitalism. Certainly a mutualist or individual anarchist market economy like the ones suggest by Proudhon and Tucker would be a major improvement compared to what we have now. However, how do they compare to more collectivist economies in practice? I suppose, in theory, a truly anarchist society would be composed of both

[wcropp1]

types of economies. The world has had limited experience with both. Experience will have to teach us as usual. And also, I wonder how successful "true" libertarians would be in reforming the state and subjecting corporations to the same "tough love" the average worker is subjected to. Or would we be better off with a social democracy type government? Obviously social revolution would be preferable, but in a pragmatic sense, I wonder who is the lesser of the two evils in a democratic society? The

[wcropp1]

state or the market? A democratic socialist state or private industry in a more radically free market? Democratic socialists or "real" libertarians? I guess this is why reform is so unsuccessful - none of the candidates do what they say they will.

[theonlynever6]

Truly free markets exist in third world countries, and that's one big reason why they still are third world countires.

[Pentazoid111]

Well , we certainly no what effects the state would have if It had complete control of a country's economy (Soviet Union, North Korea, ); Hong Kong's economy is the closest thing to a real free market on this planet, and they are not slipping into the realm of economic chaos. Thoughout the ages it has been shown that the more economically successfully economies have be capitalistic economies and the less successful countries have been countries with unfree economies.

[YankeeTom63]

Those were dictatorships / fascist in nature. Chomsky is a Libertarian Socialist. Your use to Corporate entities owning your government and setting the agenda, Noam Chomsky wants you to have a share of ownership and government to Liston to you. That means personal Liberty from Government AND Big Business!

[lordblazer]

lol HK isn't slipping because it has a strong tradition as being an international HUB. MAny expats live in that city and many people of different nationalities live there.. Of course one thing you have to know is there is still some form of regulation done in the HK or else the whole thing does truly fall apart. Also the HK has quite a few social problems that are welll hidden even when they were under British rule as a colony until 1997.

[vktrsx]

His point at 8:48 is crucial: To speak of "corporate greed" is to miss the point of corporations, which is to navigate markets to their own advantage. Greed is the entire point!

[vktrsx]

The term "corporate greed" implies that some are not, which is absurd!

[DennisDuine]

tautology

[DJLorenzen]

Sounds very depressing. Do someone know if the situation is better or worse today on a global scale!?

[TimLoganKnows911623]

worse!

[sruser92]

The lecture overall brought up some interesting points about state-corporate corruption and deception, a faulty monetary system and bad union policy. But the conclusion left some unanswered questions. Are all forms of corporation (def. needed) inherently greed-based and corrupt? If so, what would it be replaced it with? Would it take a plausible economic structure?

[godhammer9]

I think the point was that it isn't a matter of whether corporations are corrupt or greedy. It is the nature of corporations to maximise profit, which forces them to drive down the prices of their materials and the conditions of the workers while driving up the prices of their goods. The other point was that the owners of the means of production should be the people who actually work for them, ie the people who work in the mill should own it.

[DJLorenzen]

hmm what is his way

anarchism?

socio-liberalism?

peoplerule?

[tokotokotoko3]

You can say Anarchism - although he doesn't really call himself Anarchist. There are some talks of his about this here on youtube, check the user TrystanCJ.

[Seiku]

Strange I thought I heard him say or read an article saying he was an anarchist.

[TimLoganKnows911623]

Anarcho-syndicalism is what he is, specifically. Anarcho-syndicalists seek to abolish the wage system, regarding it as "wage slavery," and state or private ownership of the means of production, which they believe lead to class divisions.

[Seiku]

So what do they believe should dictate wages? Individual contracts?

[TimLoganKnows911623]

Syndicalisme is French for "trade unionism" hence, the "syndicalism" qualification. So they basically believe that workers organizations the organizations that struggle against the wage system, and which, in anarcho-syndicalist theory, will eventually form the basis of a new society should be self-managing. They shouldn't have bosses or "business agents" rather workers should be able to make all decisions affecting them.

In other words, they think unions should have the final say.

[Seiku]

I see, thanks for the information.

[lapwiz]

That is incorrect.

Trade unionists often regard anarcho-syndicalism as a direct menace, sometimes viewing the Anarchist objections to authoritarian leadership and to the closed shop as equivalent with Conservative attacks on free trade unionism. Yet at the same time Conservatives view anarcho-syndicalism as "trade unionism gone mad."

from Anarchism: Arguments for and Against, AK Press, 1996: Edinburgh, pgs. 79 - 83.

[lapwiz]

TRADE UNIONISM tends to become a division of the working class separating employed from unemployed/unwaged, and creating job categories to which one is very often bound for life. It is sometimes, in the English system certainly, impossible to get a job unless you have a union card and impossible to get a union card unless you have a job.

[lapwiz]

ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM is based on the unity of all the workers in the region, grouping all employed, unemployed or self-employed in the local workers' centre, and providing entry regardless of 'category.'

[lapwiz]

TRADE UNIONISM in many countries looks to a closed shop to defend workers' interests, which - while it means on the one hand the union can obtain limited reforms or increases for all - also means the union is dependent more on parliamentary action than industrial action. The leadership becomes all-powerful since once it exerts its right to expel a member, that person is not only out of the union, but out of a job.

[lapwiz]

ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM rejects the closed shop and relies on voluntary membership, and so avoids any leadership or bureaucracy. One or two paid officials sufice for a membership of thousands, and sometimes even that much is considered unnecessary. Fights private enterprise and State control alike. Its aim is to abolish both.

[macadomus]

I believe once society foreign business are taken care or not present we focus on things domestically changing work laws and rights for workers. The unquie thing between 00-08 they were going on at the same time. Confussing and seperating people from a central issue which benfits both those who profit from policy changes domestically and foreignly.

[eftekhar2006]

this is the best episode of the 5 installments.

[sturgonhaldor]

Great!

[brendanmcooney]

Great stuff! What is the date of this lecture?  I'm guessing 1995...

[IntelligentHoodlum]

It was recorded at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 13th, 1996.

[Petar101]

I hope that this is you anticonsumer. If so, thank the good lord you are back.

[ProFreeSpeech]

Sorry, I´m not anticonsumer. Just watch my channel. Everything is explained there...