Noam Chomsky: U.S. has never had anything remotely resembling capitalism

clip from 2002 documentary Power and Terror - Noam Chomsky in our Times

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[mojorhythm]

@jonathanaconway He considers Ayn Rand to be one of the most despicable charlatans of the 20th century. He doesn't really have an opinion on Austrian economics.

[jonathanaconway]

I'm amazed that left-wing Chomsky would admit that capitalism "might" work. He must have finally allowed himself to consider the very strong moral arguments being made Objectivists, as well as the well-reasoned economics of the Austrian school.

[Samsgarden]

@RSFO

I read an interesting article once on the Nordic model. It's the Scandinavians attitude that makes it work, plus a very strong private sector.-freer than the U.S. It's a mix of capitalism and safety net but at one point in time, Sweden's social democrat party simply wasn't balancing the books and the marginal tax rate was staggeringly high. I don't think you can attribute their success to just ideology.

[Samsgarden]

@RSFO

What- druid society?

[Samsgarden]

@RSFO

Of course, and America's corporate/government hegemony is very much like Communism, as in the Stalinist, Maoist kind.

I agree if I think I know what you're saying, the name doesn't mean much, be it socialist or capitalist, none of it is realised and all of it is government divvied wealth.

The answer to all these problems is smaller government. Anarchists on both ends of the spectrum have it right.

[RSFO]

@Samsgarden I think I misread you before. I think you actually understood what he said. What democratic or libertarian socialists who are rather pragmatists than puritans think is that welfare state social democracy is better than corporate democracy, because there is more public control with the government that way. It is more visible in the Nordic countries in Europe than anywhere else where parliamentary democracy is king. US's one-party system is far from that.

[RSFO]

@Samsgarden The evidence for anarcho-syndicalism or similar communist societies are far greater than that for what is called capitalism in this context.

[RSFO]

@Samsgarden You think you know it all, huh?

Chomsky means that actual capitalism is impossible. What we have is what he oftens call a kind of state capitalism. Perhaps we could call it corporate democracy. Sometimes he also calls it socialism for the rich. People forget that words change their meaning, and that they do not have an exact meaning nor the same everytime they are expressed. Hear the metaphoric points so you can understand what is actually and practically said.

[RSFO]

@Samsgarden @vince33x Actually Noam Chomsky like Norman Finkelstein thinks Middle-East policies are driven by US interests that are control with oil prices in the world rather than access, because USA has enough oil for itself. But control with oil prices in the world gives huge power in the world; something US inherited from the UK in 1945. Israel's regime can only remain in power by politically being a Jewish state. Somehow this mingles with US interests in the that region.

[vince33x]

@Samsgarden The USA is in far too many places it ought not be. John Quincy Adams, when he was Sec'y of State, remarked that: "America should be friends of Liberty everywhere, defenders only of our own; this nation must never go in search of foreign monsters to destroy." He was right and there is only ONE Presidential candidate who stands by this policy and it's Ron Paul and he is being vilified in the Left-Wing, Jew-dominated media.