Chomsky: The U.S. behaves nothing like a democracy(salon.com)
salon.com
Chomsky: The U.S. behaves nothing like a democracy
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_nothing_like_a_democracy/?source=newsletter
30 comments
OK, Mr Chomsky. Why don't you go talk about democracy to your friend, Fidel "Butcher" Castro?
This has got to be the most stupid, ad hominem, ignorant comment of the whole HN.
Congratulations!
Congratulations!
what?
if one compares the deaths caused by US forces and those of Castro, Castros atrocities are dwarfed to subatomic levels.
Besides, a two-party system can't be democratic.
if one compares the deaths caused by US forces and those of Castro, Castros atrocities are dwarfed to subatomic levels.
Besides, a two-party system can't be democratic.
Chomsky's dogmatism and oversimplification of complicated factors weakens his points (some selective polls I'm not linking to show overwhelming support for things the government doesn't do - but compared to how many things with overwhelming support that is done by the government?). There are certainly plenty of examples of ways the US is not a perfect democracy, or even a perfect democratic republic, but it is trivial to disprove that it behaves nothing like one.
If it is trivial, can you disprove it? Quacks like a plutocracy...
We need better democracies.
We need better democracies.
> If it is trivial, can you disprove it? Quacks like a plutocracy...
Quacks like a democracy with a unitary executive and high level of electoral disproportionality, see Patterns of Democracy, Arend Lijphard (1999).
> We need better democracies.
We have better democracies (i.e., most modern democracies), and we can only understand how they are better and what the defects are in the US system when we understand the US as a democracy, and understand the features that make it a poor one in terms of effective representation.
Hyberpolic polemic like claiming the US behaves "nothing like a democracy" might sometimes have value in drawing attention to the problems (but probably not if it is coming from Chomsky), but it doesn't help understand or fix the problems, and if actually taken seriously it inhibits understanding and progress.
Quacks like a democracy with a unitary executive and high level of electoral disproportionality, see Patterns of Democracy, Arend Lijphard (1999).
> We need better democracies.
We have better democracies (i.e., most modern democracies), and we can only understand how they are better and what the defects are in the US system when we understand the US as a democracy, and understand the features that make it a poor one in terms of effective representation.
Hyberpolic polemic like claiming the US behaves "nothing like a democracy" might sometimes have value in drawing attention to the problems (but probably not if it is coming from Chomsky), but it doesn't help understand or fix the problems, and if actually taken seriously it inhibits understanding and progress.
Proof: We have regular, non-violent, non-coercive elections where the results are typically very close to aggregated pre-election polling. Now you can talk about the influence of money and corruption and people blinded by the media and disenfranchised demographics or whatever, but if we had nothing like a democracy, we wouldn't even have that. Also: see snowwrestler's sibling comment on the mere existence of progressive taxes and a public school system.
What percentage of people vote? The majority don't even vote.
> We need better democracies.
Yes. But for that we need better people
Yes. But for that we need better people
Or, perhaps less corrupt and more broad minded actions from government/business. Positive change can begin with enforcing transparency and social and environmental concerns that presently all but escape the first world's de-facto economic rationalist system, which is rapidly infecting all corners of the planet, crowding out any space for existing or proposed, often functional and noteworthy alternatives. Recommended read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years
People working on a better democracy would do too :) Rather than early 90s web guest book, we need late 90s slashdot, or even better... 2013 HN/reddit.
> The reality is that there is massive state intervention in the productive economy and the free-trade agreements are anything but free-trade agreements. That should be obvious. Just to take one example: The information technology (IT) revolution, which is driving the economy, that was based on decades of work in effectively the state sector – hard, costly, creative work substantially in the state sector, no consumer choice at all, there was entrepreneurial initiative but it was largely limited to getting government grants or bailouts or procurement. Except by some economists, that’s underestimated but a very significant factor in corporate profit. If you can’t sell something, hand it over the government. They’ll buy it.
> After a long period – decades in fact – of hard, creative work, the primary research and development, the results are handed over to private enterprise for commercialization and profit. That’s Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and so on. It’s not quite that simple of course. But that’s a core part of the picture. The system goes way back to the origins of industrial economies, but it’s dramatically true since WWII that this ought to be the core of the study of the productive economy.
Can someone comment on this? I am of course aware of ARPA and DARPA but is it really as one sided as he says?
> After a long period – decades in fact – of hard, creative work, the primary research and development, the results are handed over to private enterprise for commercialization and profit. That’s Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and so on. It’s not quite that simple of course. But that’s a core part of the picture. The system goes way back to the origins of industrial economies, but it’s dramatically true since WWII that this ought to be the core of the study of the productive economy.
Can someone comment on this? I am of course aware of ARPA and DARPA but is it really as one sided as he says?
The beginnings of computers being used for artillery projections and code breaking and then transferred over to commercial enterprise almost wholesale is documented fairly well in a book called Turing's Cathedral, but there were all sorts of pissed off people when Von Neumann went ahead and commercialized stuff that invented by others and was top secret. The british couldnt even comment on the fact that they had computers for a good 30 years.
I didn't believe this when I read it. It was such I shocking statement. So I thought of what I find personally the most important developments in computing and their sources (in no particular order):
1) Unix - AT&T
2) WWW - CERN
3) The transistor - NASA
4) The computer - Government Code and Cypher School
5) The compiler - IBM
6) The internet - DARPA
1) Unix - AT&T
2) WWW - CERN
3) The transistor - NASA
4) The computer - Government Code and Cypher School
5) The compiler - IBM
6) The internet - DARPA
>Yet economic policies have changed little in response to one electoral defeat after another. The left has replaced the right; the right has ousted the left. Even the center-right trounced Communists (in Cyprus) – but the economic policies have essentially remained the same: governments will continue to cut spending and raise taxes.
I like his ability to cut to the truth of the matter. What the people vote for and desire is quite secondary at the end of the day.
I like his ability to cut to the truth of the matter. What the people vote for and desire is quite secondary at the end of the day.
Hey, original poster - this is a blatantly and thoroughly political article.
While it might very well be interesting and worthy of discussion somewhere, that somewhere should be somewhere else.
While it might very well be interesting and worthy of discussion somewhere, that somewhere should be somewhere else.
The above comment is correct, according to the guidelines.
It's probably not worth complaining anymore though, this site really turned a corner with the NSA stuff.
It's probably not worth complaining anymore though, this site really turned a corner with the NSA stuff.
Seriously. Now Chomsky is working his way onto the front page with some regularity?
Not to mention when I woke up this morning the top post was somebody writing for an online magazine of "Art-activism, eco-anarchism, subversion and sedition" positing a conspiracy by the plutocrats to put people in make-work jobs.
Alas, I lost my flagging privileges around the time we had a front page with half a dozen postings about a plane to Cuba that no one of interest was on.
Not to mention when I woke up this morning the top post was somebody writing for an online magazine of "Art-activism, eco-anarchism, subversion and sedition" positing a conspiracy by the plutocrats to put people in make-work jobs.
Alas, I lost my flagging privileges around the time we had a front page with half a dozen postings about a plane to Cuba that no one of interest was on.
>The Federalist Papers were basically a propaganda effort to try to get the public to go along with the system. But the debates in the Constitutional Convention are much more revealing. And in fact the constitutional system was created on that basis.
Does anyone have any insight into this? Is there truth to this claim?
Does anyone have any insight into this? Is there truth to this claim?
> The MIT professor lays out how the majority of U.S. policies are opposed to what wide swaths of the public want
This is a feature of the design of the U.S. federal government. The framers of the Constitution were very familiar with the history of governments and knew that direct democracy was a disaster. It devolves into mob rule, and let's face it, most people don't know much about most things.
Chomsky says that the lower 70% of the population has no effect on policy, but there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. The U.S. system of income taxation is progressive and refundable, meaning that there is substantial transfer of wealth from the richest people to the poorest. The upper income brackets pay a disproportionately large percentage of all income taxes.
U.S. states fund universal public education through high school; a policy that benefits the poor and middle class far more than the rich, who can afford to send their children to private schools. Health care funding like Medicare and Medicaid
I'm not saying that these are bad! Just that they demonstrate the extent to which U.S. policy does benefit a broader swath of the population than you might think from reading this essay.
Ironically, some of the things that Noam Chomsky likes the least are in fact popular with a majority of the U.S. population. Pew reports that 61% of American citizens approve of the drone assassination program, for instance [1].
[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/25/big-gender-g...
This is a feature of the design of the U.S. federal government. The framers of the Constitution were very familiar with the history of governments and knew that direct democracy was a disaster. It devolves into mob rule, and let's face it, most people don't know much about most things.
Chomsky says that the lower 70% of the population has no effect on policy, but there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. The U.S. system of income taxation is progressive and refundable, meaning that there is substantial transfer of wealth from the richest people to the poorest. The upper income brackets pay a disproportionately large percentage of all income taxes.
U.S. states fund universal public education through high school; a policy that benefits the poor and middle class far more than the rich, who can afford to send their children to private schools. Health care funding like Medicare and Medicaid
I'm not saying that these are bad! Just that they demonstrate the extent to which U.S. policy does benefit a broader swath of the population than you might think from reading this essay.
Ironically, some of the things that Noam Chomsky likes the least are in fact popular with a majority of the U.S. population. Pew reports that 61% of American citizens approve of the drone assassination program, for instance [1].
[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/25/big-gender-g...
> Chomsky says that the lower 70% of the population has no effect on policy, but there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. The U.S. system of income taxation is progressive and refundable, meaning that there is substantial transfer of wealth from the richest people to the poorest.
No, it doesn't mean that, because income tax isn't the only tax (or even the only tax on incomes, as the payroll tax, which is regressive, also exists, and, on top of that, forms of income that tend to be distributed more to the richest -- long term cap gains -- have preferential tax treatment over other income), and because while the nominal rates are progressive the distribution of deductions and credits (including refundable credits) are not.
No, it doesn't mean that, because income tax isn't the only tax (or even the only tax on incomes, as the payroll tax, which is regressive, also exists, and, on top of that, forms of income that tend to be distributed more to the richest -- long term cap gains -- have preferential tax treatment over other income), and because while the nominal rates are progressive the distribution of deductions and credits (including refundable credits) are not.
Even with preferential treatment of LTCG, high earners still pay a disproportionate share of income taxes (which include capital gains taxes).
The real bias in the tax code is, perhaps unsurprisingly, around the median income, where many expenses that the poor do not incur to the same degree (home ownership, college tuition, IRAs) are highly subsidized, with most credits and deductions dropping off as you hit a higher income level.
The real bias in the tax code is, perhaps unsurprisingly, around the median income, where many expenses that the poor do not incur to the same degree (home ownership, college tuition, IRAs) are highly subsidized, with most credits and deductions dropping off as you hit a higher income level.
If large numbers of American citizens support drone strikes, that probably reflects more upon the hegemonic control of its media and the failures and biases of its various educational institutions than on the population itself. To put it bluntly, there is no democracy without an educated and informed population, and the US population cannot be honestly characterized as educated and informed.
But you are obviously educated and informed! How did you slip through the hegemonic net of control?
Snarky! But I'll bite. Perhaps the main factor in my own unlikely perspective is that although I was lucky enough to be originally western born and educated (in Australia), I have been fortunate to live over half of my life in 'developing' countries. My worldview is thus shaped by a multitude of experiences across different societies, not one culture's education/media environment. I have also lived for reasonable lengths of time in the US and UK, and was accidentally in Tunisia for the revolution. I am Australian/German/Kiwi by citizenship, and write from Spain, where youth unemployment is reportedly ~40% and perhaps communicate more frequently in Mandarin than in English or Spanish. (I only arrived yesterday) I am not a believer in nationalism, and see no issues discussing the nation's many and varied problems while admiring its natural beauty, admirable facets of its history, and the friendliness of its people. Oh, and sarcasm is the lowest form of wit...
Perhaps your background is telling - you don't have a real 'home', hence you don't feel strongly about protecting it. I mean if things really hit the fan in Australia, you could go to Germany, or vice-versa. (Incidentally I have a similar background mix to you - lived in 3 different countries & have different citizenships and am writing this from Portugal, so know where you are coming from ;)
Most people are not like you. They have a home country that they care strongly about and want it protected. If that means killing some terrorists in a desert, so be it. And if a few people in said desert end up getting killed by mistake (and they tend to give benefit of the doubt to the drone operator) - that's war. Perhaps they shouldn't be hanging out near the terrorists.
My point is not to say whether this view is right or wrong - but to explain that the 'majority' who support the drone strikes understand what is going on and are ok with it.
Most people are not like you. They have a home country that they care strongly about and want it protected. If that means killing some terrorists in a desert, so be it. And if a few people in said desert end up getting killed by mistake (and they tend to give benefit of the doubt to the drone operator) - that's war. Perhaps they shouldn't be hanging out near the terrorists.
My point is not to say whether this view is right or wrong - but to explain that the 'majority' who support the drone strikes understand what is going on and are ok with it.
> the 'majority' who support the drone strikes understand what is going on and are ok with it.
I agree some do, but it's wrong to suggest all do. I think mostly people are uninformed (certainly in the US). Actually I'm headed to Portugal in a week or so, if you're in Lisbon or north do send me an email and we can have a drink :)
I agree some do, but it's wrong to suggest all do. I think mostly people are uninformed (certainly in the US). Actually I'm headed to Portugal in a week or so, if you're in Lisbon or north do send me an email and we can have a drink :)
Thanks - unfortunately could not parse your email and I left Portugal already, so another time :)
This is a link to the transcript of the speech. If you'd prefer to listen (or watch) the talk the recording is available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btlgQs0UDxY