What free market ideologues purposefully obscure. Chomsky on Libertarianism and Free Markets.

Whether you are for or against the Occupy Movement, understanding this is critical to understanding what American capitalism is all about. In addition, Chomsky's explanation buttresses our argument: Capitalism and Socialism are both utopian ideologies, beautiful in the abstract, responsible for unparalleled levels of terrorism and exploitation in practice.

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[CelticKraut]

War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength

Chomsky is Following a playbook.

Debasing the language. Distorting meaning.

Newspeak

[OccupyIdeas]

@CelticKraut Interesting. Can you expand on this? What in the above clip specifically evidences this assertion?

[mortalisk]

@mortalisk Chomsky is simply not informed about free-market libertarianism. Since he is probably opposed to the idea of private property, he conflates everyone who has that opinion, and thinks they are all basically the same, supporting each other in everything. This is a normal mistake to make, and the reason why politics divide people in two camps, getting nowhere fast.

[mortalisk]

@OccupyIdeas He might be on target for what is wrong with the standard neo-con way of seeing and doing things. But the libertarian ideology simply cannot be rammed down any ones throats. It is an ideology of non-violence and is absolutely dependent on popular support to make any sense. A dictatorship means forced central planning. Libertarians are fundamentally opposed to force and many distrust central planning for economic reasons.

[OccupyIdeas]

@mortalisk WWWLAW is on target. Chomsky appears here to be referring to 1) SAP's, and 2) US funded right-wing dictatorships that have implemented economic policies that favor only the metropole and the colonial elite.

[tantrikwizard]

Chomsky is still insane. Intelligent, but insane. Articulate, but insane. He has a great memory, but is insane. Monsters and goblins around every corner and dark sith lord puppet masters manipulating society like a bunch of toddlers playing with legos, the man is insane.

[WWWLAW]

@mortalisk No, when he says "rammed down peoples throats" he is talking about trading agreements that other countries are forced to sign, like Haiti, South Korea and basically every country the US deals with.

[mortalisk]

When he says free markets have existed only where it has been rammed down peoples throats, I cannot follow his thinking. A free market cannot be rammed down anybody's throats by definition. He might be correct that it never truly existed, and it definitely does not exist today. But I do think it is to the degree there has been a lack of violent control between people, that there has been prosperity in the world.(These days there is not prosperity, only waste)

[mortalisk]

@OccupyIdeas Well, as I understand it so does libertarians, because they see the non-aggression principle as the one to follow. Now, I am from Europe, but it is from the US I first ever heard the term libertarian, so I don't know what he is talking about when he says that outside the US libertarian is not contradictory of socialism. When people say it's contradictory, it is because non-aggression is contradictory of involuntary wealth-distribution.

[OccupyIdeas]

@mortalisk This echoes a long-running right-wing critique of Chomsky, but that's one reason we actually posted this specific clip. Listen closely to it. He is not "ignoring...corps...state." In fact, quite the opposite. He states that corps and gov. are intimately entangled. Listen carefully to 2:20- 3:00: where he talks about "...use[ing] the levers of state power..." This is actually key to his argument. And there's no denying the truth of it - at least as far as US hist. goes.