I'm a Ron Paul supporter and a friend recently hit me with this drivel from Chomsky. I'm somewhat new to the libertarian scene and still have a lot to learn. While I feel many of these points are straw man arguments or just plain misinterpretations/misrepresentations of what Ron Paul believes I don't have the knowledge and sufficient experience with regards to libertarianism to respond properly. Thus, I am wondering how you guys would respond to Chomsky's assertions here.
http://www.geekarmy.com/geekblog/politics/transcript-of-noam-chomsky-on-ron-paul/
Any opinions, advice, help in general would be much appreciated. Thank you!
Pete
Allow me to be the first to post here and say that I do believe that I was the one on Reddit who pointed you to here. This being said, give me a few moments to address the questions.
This is really old, I feel like this has come up on here before.
Before I'd like to go any further I'd like to state that I think that Chomsky is quite an intelligent person. He has better reasons for believing that which he believes than most people who have ever walked this earth. I also have a great deal of respect for his belief in the limited knowledge of humans and the need for polycentrism. He even admitted once that markets may not need to be dismantled (I don't know how much you know about Chomsky's position but he's a socialist anarchist although with many aknowledgements) as the alternative could be even more negative. I believe that Chomsky's blunder comes from the "Hierarchy bad" view of the egalitarian radical left, despite the fact that hierarchy is a natural thing (so is cancer) and isn't necessarily negative. If one man is wiser than the rest of us and he understands the situation and has the best wishes for the enterprise at heart, then why not give him a greater deal of control over affairs?
Response time! I'll try to keep this sort and concise.
"Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc."
Why would he be forced to make such an agreement in a wealthy free market society? Real wages rise for everyone in a free market over time. Furthermore what kind of a society would allow this to happen if property rights were upheld? Why wouldn't people who, in Chomsky's view, are supposed to act sponteneously and with a good deal of mutual respect, not from some types of organizations which would help to prevent such arrangements? Why wouldn't Mr. Chomsky himself work to help give this man money, or better yet a loan to go and get work experience? This would help him by giving him a higher paying job, and the rest of society would be aided as well by receiving his more productive services?
"Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago."
It is nothing short of impossible that this is the case. If companies were treating their workers that poorly when they could afford not to then competators could have easily bid away the laborers to better working conditions. If such poor conditions were the correct cause then such 'democratic solutions' would result in mass unemployment because businesses could not afford to hire laborers. Furthermore why is the majority, or indeed even a significant minority, helpless if they don't have government power?
"Does it mean that corporations go out of existence, because there will no longer be any guarantee of limited liability?"
If they are such poor enterprises that they cannot survive without limited liability. What's wrong with that? This means that currently they are unproductive and cause harm to other people.
"Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window"
That's a fools argument Mr. Chomsky. That's like saying that because we get rid of the department of education that there will be no more education. Everything you're talking about preceeded government intervention, and to pretend that businesses have some advantage to treating their employees like crap is foolish. They would have to worry about having their employees bid away from them and bad performance by their employees. Many of today's most sucessful enterprises have become sucessful because they treat employees well and give incentive to free thought (apple and google spring to mind) and to pin this all down on the government is foolishness. You're the anarchist! Allow people to associate freely and see what conditions people are willing to work at and consumers are willing to support! Top down solutions aren't the best idea.
"Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded — like what we’re now using, computers and the internet? "
First of all the collapse of R&D would not mean the end of the economy, at worst it would mean general stagnation, but most importantly the fact is that there are pleanty of profit incentives for people to invest in Research and Developement because they have a short monopoly advantage and a label behind what they do. An Ereader isn't hard to make, and Amazon wasn't the first on the market with it but it's still a good example. It was the first really big Ereader campaign when the time was right, and indeed it was one of the first. Amazon is rolling in the grean right now from its Kindle because it was first on the market, had its name out there, and provided a good product. Why can the same not be done with most developement? Furthermore why can't voluntary public institutions fund them? Who doesn't want to help science thrive?
Also the computer and internet were fully developed by private use. If it were left up to 'the public' computers would probably still be a thing of big businesses and cash registers. The computer you can make an argument wouldn't have been developed but for the government, because the first was a government machine, but the internet could have easily been made by private industry. Universities had been linking to each other for years through computers, there's no reason why the government was needed to bring this on a wide scale.
"Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation,….? "
Each one of those things can be provided publically. Toll roads exist under tax funded governments, private schools exist and public schools suck, trains and buses cost tolls, environmental regulation has been botched and abused by the government for centuries.
"Does it mean that we should be ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability to the general public, while all democratic forms are tossed out the window?"
The idea that private industry is unaccountable is foolish. At very least it's accountable to the law and it can't aggress or violate the property rights of others. However all private companies and institutions are accountable to the consumer. If a company is wasteful and provides a crappy product it's at very least not going to make as much money as it could, more likely is it's going out of business. If a voluntary institution doesn't serve its constituents what's going to happen to it? It's going to lose them. Private industry is directly accountable to the law, it's employees who can leave at any time, and the consumer. The government is accountable to the whims of politicians and vaguely the voting process which can be utterly bastardized through politics. Even when democracy works perfectly the fact is that people often act in a mindless heard without any actual coherent thought.
Democracy is a good slogan, but what does it actually mean? It means mob rule, no accountability for the voters for bad decisions, no direct influence, no incentive to be educated, and the ability to use force against other people.
"There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. "
Organized labor can put up pleanty of resistance to private corporations. If it can find other employees then this shows that there are those who could be better off if they just took the current conditions. You're demanding higher conditions for some whilst others are all to willing to work at the wages they are currently scoffing at.
He is proposing a form of ultranationalism, in which we are concerned solely with our preserving our own wealth and extraordinary advantages, getting out of the UN, rejecting any international prosecution of US criminals (for aggressive war, for example), etc.
This is especially strange because I've heard Chomsky agree with Paul on foreign affairs before. Anyway, the idea that this is ultranationalism is foolish, and the underlined section could be the stupidest thing I've ever heard him say. Paul has said so many times that the United States shouldn't invade other areas just to manipulate the areas resources for its own advantage. I personally think that Paul would be more than happy to see war criminals be punished (although by the United States like the constitution allows for, another topic though) but guess what? That would be very unpopular. Extremely unpopular amongst the American public. In fact, I think the majority might not like it.... BUT... BUT... DEMOCRACY!!!
" He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based — the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need. "
Need is no excuse for trying to enslave other people. I also find it odd that as soon as people are given democratic force they are saints, but as soon as that is taken away they are selfish monsters.
Oh, and the social security system is broken, it's unsustainable.
"There are a few similarities here and there, but his form of libertarianism would be a nightmare, in my opinion "
That's really not an answer to the question in the first place, but I think that you're version of libertarianism would end up pretty tyrannical and pretty poor.
That would have to be worked out by free communities,
Why not free individuals? Why should a supposed libertarian who supports individual rights oppose the individuals rights when it comes to economic affairs and property?
I hope that helps.
""Does it mean that we should be ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability to the general public, while all democratic forms are tossed out the window?"
Implying what? That governments as they currently exist are accountable to the public? What a croc. His whole career has centered on the fact that they are not especially in the United States. What a joke.
Edit: i think this is Chomsky being very conservatively reactionary here. For a man that prides himself on being liberal and forward thinking it's quite telling.
Brilliantly enlightening. Thank you mate!
I don't understand how someone like Chomsky can be so smart, yet so terribly wrong.
Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago.
What Chomksy misses (or more likely, ignores) is that value is subjective. This implies that the individuals entering into the contract see themselves benefitting in comparison to rejecting it. On part of the worker, Chomsky pretty much made the argument for us - if it were not for (in this particular scenario) General Electric, the worker would surely starve. Now, considering GE is undeniably giving the worker a means to survive, I'd say the worker is blessed by the corporation's presence, and the corporation blessed by the worker. Seems like a pretty damn harmonious relationship to me.
Now, someone may object with the mere opinion that the working terms are emotionally revoking to the average person. Well, we then have to ask, who is the average person? A U.S. citizen, whose poor are incomparably wealthier than the vast majority invidivuals in the history of civilization? Or is it a mother starving in Africa wishing she had any employment opportunity, so as to feed her starving children? I think you get my point. Context must be applied to all situations. Economic progress was hardly a given throughout the most of human history. Furthermore, these situations only arise in the first place from a fundamental scarcity of goods, which can only be alleviated by greater production through captial investment.
As a note, Chomsky says this form of "slavery" (the kind of slavery where nature won't yield us infinite goods, I guess) was conqurered by "democratic politics long ago." It is up to him to prove this statement. If he means via wealth redistribution schemes, you can look up the statistics on your own to realize how impoverishing they actually are. From 1900 to 1965, the poverty rate decreased from 90% of the total population to about 10%. From 1965 until recently, welfare spending per person had quadrupled, and yet poverty has stagnated. In summary, these schemes do nothing to create economic growth (the enemy of poverty); in fact, they do the opposite.
Lastly, Chomsky utterly fails in his moral analysis. If he believes, as he seemed to indicate, that the worker is entitled to a wage (or other contract conditions) merely by his existence, the consequence of this thinking is nothing short of slavery (by its coherent definiton).
In Chomsky's view, we are entitled to a "living wage" merely by existing. Of course, a living wage is not just a money income, but the goods that the money purchases. And of course, for goods to exist in such a way, someone must have produced them. Now, what is it called when one individual is entitled to the the product of another individual's labor? Slavery. Little does Chomsky realize, no matter how poor the benefits our peers offer us, we are blessed by their presence, as if they didn't exist, the most of us would certianly die. In the scenario discussed earlier, had the corporation not existed, the worker would have died. And yet the corporation, by giving the worker the opportunity to survive, is said to be enslaving her? Now that's perverse.
His comparison of "private tyrannies" to "state tyrannies" is laughable. One literally extorts you; the other's existence is completely predicated on its ability to pursuade people to engage in trade with it (I'm shaking in fear).
I agree. There can be a "private tyranny", but state action, by definition, can qualify as tyranny. Once a "private" agency goes rogue, it starts acting like a state. This is the paradigm that should be used in this type of analysis, but leftists are hung up on the private/public or "capitalist/government" dichotomy.
I'd love to see Keith Preston and Kevin Carson's take on this. Kind of reactionary leftoid stuff I'd expect to see in the New York Times or Daily Kos, not a "radical" or "anarchist" like Chomsky. Anyhow;
I am not a left-libertarian/mutualist. Nonetheless, I gotta say; even by your standards, this stuff has got to be ten times more vulgar than anything George Reisman or the Adam Smith Institute has ever written. Anyone who endorses Hillary Clinton over Ron Paul is not a libertarian in any way, shape or form, be it left, right, center, third positionist, collectivist, individualist, syndicalist, etcetera.
In general: This is why I think alliances with syndicalists/the New Left/Occupiers et.al are a waste of time. They only hate the government because they think it's the protector of private property and "white privilege", and only hate the IMF/World Bank/other globalist groups because they think they are "neoliberals" who want to dismantle "democracy" (i.e. localist Progressive interventionism or outright communism ala Venezuela).
Do they criticize the cronyist American financial sector? Sure. So did the Soviets and Nazis. Much like the Soviets only criticized the banksters due to them being the "bourgeois" and the Nazis only criticized them due to being "der Juden", these folks only hate corporatism because it offends their egalitarian value system. There's no fundamental oppositon to the concept of compulsory wealth and income redistribution or government-business partnership, only that it's done by and to the "wrong" people.
Chomsky's hysterical spiel on Ron Paul's foreign policy is especially hilarious. It's like he wants to be seen as taking a totally different stand on the issue from the evul raysist right wing anti-democratic reactionary Ron Paul, and so throws out all that rhubarb about "ultranationalism". Call me Glenn Beck, but I'll take Ayn Rand or even Pat Buchanan any day of the week over a Mao/Pol Pot apologist who rambles on about "communal decisions".
Chomsky is a shill, he's a disinfo agent ... I assume his paycheck is signed in Langley, VA.
- He values property rights, and contracts between people (defended by law enforcement and courts). Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.
Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.
Here he confuses (unqualified) contractarianism with property rights.
As far as "private tyranny" goes, the dichotomy between "private" and "public" tyranny is a false one. There's just tyranny and - except in the case of mob riots or lynches - it is always exercised by a single actor. Even an oligarchy must select someone to chair the board if it is truly acting as an organic unit.
- He wants to take away the unfair advantage corporations have (via the dismantling of big government) “Dismantling of big government” sounds like a nice phrase. What does it mean? Does it mean that corporations go out of existence, because there will no longer be any guarantee of limited liability? Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)? Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded — like what we’re now using, computers and the internet? Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation,….? Does it mean that we should be ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability to the general public, while all democratic forms are tossed out the window? Quite a few questions arise.
“Dismantling of big government” sounds like a nice phrase. What does it mean? Does it mean that corporations go out of existence, because there will no longer be any guarantee of limited liability? Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)? Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded — like what we’re now using, computers and the internet? Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation,….? Does it mean that we should be ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability to the general public, while all democratic forms are tossed out the window? Quite a few questions arise.
Chomsky should stick to linguistics and leave the economics to economists. Parroting Paul Krugman's opinion pieces is not economics.
The question is ill-formed because Ron Paul does not support "dismantling of the government" and he's never said anything to that effect. To be specific, he supports a restriction of the powers of the Federal government to those enumerated in the Constitution. He advocates cession of all the powers which the Federal government has illegally seized back to the States, all 50 of which have democratic governments by which they can decide these issues on a state-by-state basis.
- He defends workers right to organize (so long as owners have the right to argue against it). Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you’ve already mentioned. There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power — itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.
Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you’ve already mentioned.
There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power — itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.
Again, he should leave the economics to the economists. He is correct that employers have asymmetrical power in the employer-employee relationship but this is exacerbated by regulations which are supposed to restrict the power of employers. He should read Bastiat's essay That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen to understand the pervasive fact of unintended consequences that are the rule, not the exception, of government policy.
The proponent of "corrective" or "preventive" regulations might argue that government doesn't get it all that as bad as we claim. In fact, government policies accomplish mostly what they intend to accomplish with minor deviations. But this proves too much. If it is true that government policy generally accomplishes exactly what it sets out to accomplish then we can only conclude that government policy is not what politicians say it is but is, in fact, quite different. Does the fact that Pruitt-Igoe was government policy mean that government is waging a subversive war on the black community? Does the fact that the 9/11 attacks were - by the government's own admission - blowback for prior US foreign policy in the Middle East stretching back almost to the end of WWII mean that the US government is intentionally picking pick a fight with the entire Muslim world, especially in light of the massive escalation of those policies since 9/11 (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Arab Spring, etc)? I could go on and on with this.
- He proposes staying out of the foreign affairs of other nations (unless his home is directly attacked, and must respond to defend it). He is proposing a form of ultranationalism, in which we are concerned solely with our preserving our own wealth and extraordinary advantages, getting out of the UN, rejecting any international prosecution of US criminals (for aggressive war, for example), etc. Apart from being next to meaningless, the idea is morally unacceptable, in my view.
He is proposing a form of ultranationalism, in which we are concerned solely with our preserving our own wealth and extraordinary advantages, getting out of the UN, rejecting any international prosecution of US criminals (for aggressive war, for example), etc. Apart from being next to meaningless, the idea is morally unacceptable, in my view.
But we don't need the UN to prosecute US war criminals (e.g. GW Bush)... we just need to stop arming and voting the power to those criminals in the first place.
And how can Ron Paul be both an ultra-nationalist and be trying to dismantle the national government at the same time?? This whole "interview" is disjointed and confused, at best.
Clayton -
I really can’t find differences between your positions and his. There’s a lot more. Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally, then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn’t themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens). His claims about SS being “broken” are just false. He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based — the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need. He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we’re at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).
There’s a lot more. Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally, then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn’t themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens). His claims about SS being “broken” are just false. He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based — the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need. He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we’re at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).
Chomsky's claim that the claim that Social Security is broken is false is false. I mean, come on. How ridiculous can you get? Social Security was supposed to be paid by the same people who would later collect. This changed (quite quickly) into a system where today's workers pay directly today's retirees. This seems to be what Chomsky believes that the Social Security program was originally intended to be, but that is simply factually incorrect. If that is the system that Chomsky espouses, then he needs to explain how the act of taking money from Peter and giving it to (retired) Paul (because retired Paul once had his money taken and given to then-retired Pierre) is preferable to having just allowed Paul and Peter to respectively prepare for their own retirement in their own way. Back in the day, many people just moved in with one of their children when they retired, a practice still common in many parts of the developing world. I'm not sure what the big crime would be if we had a little more family bonding on an economic basis.
The idea of "people running around freely with assault rifles" is funny because I doubt that Chomsky is a consistent opponent of private gun ownership. Surely, bodyguard services, contract protection services (e.g. private diplomatic security companies) and armored transport are all examples of private gun owners which I doubt Chomsky would favor restricting. So what's the defining difference? Licensing, etc. is not the difference. The difference is that these are institutions who are run by "responsible" and "serious" people such as CEOs and boards of directors, they are not just "rabble" who are, as he says, "running around freely with assault rifles."
I'm willing to forgive the elitism in this view for the sake of argument if only Chomsky would be honest and admit that that's what this is really about and argue his position on the basis of practical concerns, perhaps that a corporation with a large capitalization can be held materially liable for crimes committed by one of its armed agents, etc. But since he wants to pretend to hold the populist high ground, he has to be disingenuous about it.
So I have these questions: 1) Can you please tell me the differences between your schools of “Libertarianism”? There are a few similarities here and there, but his form of libertarianism would be a nightmare, in my opinion — on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.
1) Can you please tell me the differences between your schools of “Libertarianism”?
There are a few similarities here and there, but his form of libertarianism would be a nightmare, in my opinion — on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.
Chomsky is a socialist, not a libertarian. It is impossible to say that socialism and libertarianism are compatible unless you shift the definition of human nature.
2) Can you please tell me what role “private property” and “ownership” have in your school of “Libertarianism”? That would have to be worked out by free communities, and of course it is impossible to respond to what I would prefer in abstraction from circumstances, which make a great deal of difference, obviously.
That would have to be worked out by free communities, and of course it is impossible to respond to what I would prefer in abstraction from circumstances, which make a great deal of difference, obviously.
He waffles on this because he's a hardcore communist, just read anything he's written on politics. He's only cast as a "libertarian" and "anti-government" because he's anti-US government because "it's capitalist" (LOL!)
The fact is that Chomsky sees no role whatsoever for private property rights. As he says, it would be worked out by "free communities"... which is, I suspect, a euphemism for Soviet committees.
Long rips Chomsky a new one here::
http://praxeology.net/aotp.htm#2
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
Chomsky is always making that ridiculous point, that much R&D is funded by the Pentagon ergo the free market fails, QED.
On the "WITHOUT THE STATE WE WOULDN'T HAVE INTERNETZ HURR" line, see this video.
Basically, the internet's time had already arrived when the market developed the integrated circuit. Plenty of businesses have also developed private LANs. The only real contribution the government made was ARPANET, which used the TCP/IP protocol we're still stuck with that provides no way to price packets, leading to a 'tragedy of open access' scenario: the overuse and abuse of the internet we see today.
On the myth of science as a public good, see Terrence Kealey:
As well, Chomsky praises Pentagon funding when it's actually been responsible for subsidizing an extraordinary amount of waste, price-gouging, and, most ironically, the huge, tyrannical corporate structures which hedespises so much. On this, see Seymour Melman's work on the cost-plus contract and Kevin Carson's excellent study "The Great Domain of Cost-Plus".
Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago.
Lol. The way "democratic politics" "overcomes" such "savage" contracts is simply by making them illegal, as if you could make a harsh reality go away by ignoring it. Apparently, it's better for someone to starve than to suffer the indignity of being rid of starvation in a manner Chomsky disapproves of. No one should be allowed to make decisions on their own without Chomsky's personal moral approval. I'm not sure what kind of worker wants such "rights."
Honestly, all you have to do to rebut Chomsky is recall what happened when the US passed the Child Labour Deterrence Act in 1993, banning the import of Bangladeshi textiles made with child labour. Did these children suddenly go on to become doctors and engineers, as they would in left-wing fantasy land? Let's take a look:
UNICEF, State of the World's Children, 1997:[...] [G]arment employers [immediately] dismissed an estimated 50,000 children from their factories, approximately 75 per cent of all children in the industry. The consequences for the dismissed children and their parents were not anticipated. The children may have been freed, but at the same time they were trapped in a harsh environment with no skills, little or no education, and precious few alternatives. Schools were either inaccessible, useless or costly. A series of follow-up visits by UNICEF, local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) discovered that children went looking for new sources of income, and found them in work such as stone-crushing, street hustling and prostitution — all of them more hazardous and exploitative than garment production. In several cases, the mothers of dismissed children had to leave their jobs in order to look after their children. Lord praise democratic politics! | Post Points: 5
Lord praise democratic politics!
Here my summary of Mr. Paul’s positions: - He values property rights, and contracts between people (defended by law enforcement and courts). Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.
Here my summary of Mr. Paul’s positions:
- He values property rights, and contracts between people (defended by law enforcement and courts).
Horray! Beginning with the completely out-of-the-blue contrived scenario. As an anarchist, he should know better than this.
What he's doing is taking the system and initializing it with a scenario that is allowed within the system but not one that is probable.
Take this example:
Constitutional democracy is evil. Why? Well, in constitutional democracy if you get 75% of the people to vote to enslave the other 25% (I am discussing Constitutional amendments), then you suddenly have a 25% slave population. Now, do we really believe that this is a valid critique of democracy? No. Why? Because this is not likely to happen.
Take a contrived scenario now designed to critique libertarianism:
Walmart owns all the world's resources and decides to not sell us any food any more and we starve and die. The scenario could technically happen under a libertarian society. Now, would it? Of course not.
What is the inherent flaw behind this argument? The market is a process. Unless you have dictatorial powers, you can't actually create this omnipotent Walmart out of the blue. It has to come out of voluntary interactions in the market. If Walmart is about to turn evil, then the market would not let it become a monopoly. If it actually does, then the entire world population is therefore retarded (no, literally) and would do no better in any system whatsoever.
Contrived scenarios thus fail because we can set starting conditions for them that are ridiculous and would never happen.
Apply this principle to his example - the evil utility company.
Let's break it down.
1) Apparently there is no charity for this man to keep him from starvation. That includes charity from people like Chomsky himself, who would apparently stop caring for the poor.
2) Apparently there are no other jobs for him to take to prevent him from starving
3) He has no stores of food
4) He has no land to grow food himself
5) Utility companies randomly like to torture desperate people who have literally no other option left to them
6) The company takes explicit care to make the life of this specific man miserable (they create special conditions for him separate from those of others, thus needing additional office space to replicate the disgusting working conditions of some evil factory).
7) If, instead, all men are treated badly, then I really fail to see how this factory is still operational. Now, they in fact may be still treated "badly" according to what we think, but the alternative for them was worse (as was the case for the late 19th century US).
8) This company is a monopoly which can afford to not care about the welfare of any of its workers
9) This monopoly arose out of pure markets, somehow subjugating the entire human population at once under its iron rule
Do you see why this scenario is stupid? This would never happen. In the one out of infinity cases in which it does happen, no system whatsoever is immune. At all.
I can shell out contrived anarcho-communist scenarios all day at Chomsky, if he likes. Alternatively, he could stop making straw men and committing gigantic fallacies.
More to come!
Wheylous, you're right. This reminds me of Tibor Machan's appearance on Firing Line, when he was pit against Buckley's annoying court sophist Ernest Van Den Haag:
Transcript, pg. 12:MR. VAN DER HAAG: [...] Suppose there are a number of orphans in the society. They never had an opportunity to provide for their future; they were orhpaned at age 2. They can obviously not provide for themselves. And now let me make this assumption, which is not that unreasonable: For one reason or another private charity is not sufficient, is not forthcoming to take care of them. [...] Are you maintaining that since you are bitterly opposed to government intervention, these orphans should be left to starve? MR. MACHAN: Notice I did not say that they should be left to starve. I would maintain that they should not be left to starve, but it doesn't follow from my maintaining that they should not be left to starve that the government should do anything about it, and in fact I would oppose the government doing anything about it because it's not its business. Its business is to protect the rights of the people of the society from foreign aggression and from criminals, and anything else that needs to be done ought to be done by the people of the society. MR. VAN DEN HAAG: You have not answered my question. I stipulated that there is no private initiative-- MR. MACHAN: Then there will not be any help. MR. VAN DEN HAAG: --and no private help, so the only possibility is either government help or starvation. Are you opting for starvation? MR. MACHAN: Yes, as a matter of fact. MR. VAN DEN HAAG: Thank you. Now-- MR. MACHAN: Before you continue--because obviously this sounds like a, you know, great touche--now let me just respond a little bit. Almost any political system can be asked that kind of a question with the stipulations of the sort that you made. For example, the Federal Communications Commission or the FTC or the Health and Welfare Department goes bankrupt; it hasn't got any money. I stipulate that. Now, let's see how we help unwed mothers. We can't and they starve. So we have a system in the welfare state very similar to the one that you've just outlined about a libertarian society. I think both of them are totally unrealistic, but nevertheless, if you do push me that way, that's the case. MR. VAN DEN HAAG: I'll let that pass. The orphan case unfortunately is not unrealistic. It did happen historically. But let me ask you-- MR. BUCKLEY: Where? MR. VAN DEN HAAG: Through many societies, including medieval societies and so on. MR. BUCKLEY: You're not talking about America? MR. MACHAN: They were not libertarian societies. MR. BUCKLEY: You're not talking about America. Apparently things would have been swell for middle age serfs if only they'd had a welfare state! Obviously the children "shouldn't" starve; they would starve only as a result of the pointless assumptions of the question, which could have been put in an altered form to anyone of any political stripe. | Post Points: 20
- He wants to take away the unfair advantage corporations have (via the dismantling of big government)
As a libertarian, I do not support state-created LLC. This protection could be created in the free market through voluntary contracts, but new forms of businesses might also arise.
The only safety regulations that should be allowed to remain are those that protect individuals from direct physical property damage (including the self) by others. It is a historical mistake to think that government was the actor who improved working conditions for the common man. There was a progressive shift towards safer environments. It is also a mistake to think that somehow during the late 19th century people were forced to work in factories. Since they chose to do this, then it was the better option available to them. The ages before industrialization weren't some romantic past where all farmers were happy and then Carnegie et al came in and enslaved everyone. No, those were hard times that were greatly ameliorated by the industrial revolution.
Basic R&D is typically state funded, yes. So was food production in the USSR. His point? Simply because it's funded by the state doesn't mean it can't be funded by anyone else.
Eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation - all straw men. Let me rip them apart:
1) Roads: we do not "eliminate roads." Libertarians understand better than anyone that destruction of wealth cannot lead to more wealth. The roads do not magically vanish in a libertarian society. This would violate the law of conservation of energy. Instead, the roads are owned by companies, communities, and individuals. Additionally, there are easements which at allow free movement over some land that has been used (while unowned) for travel.
2) School - The idea that only the state can provide schools is one fiercely pushed by statists. Check out this article to help to challenge some ideas about private education:
https://www.mises.org/daily/1425/media.aspx?action=author&ID=369
Furthermore, despite all the schooling we get today, people are still largely uneducated. How come? Gosh, well, if they treat all kids like pieces of an assembly line, then they're gonna get an assembly-line product: of average quality and with interchangeable parts. Why does everyone need to learn advanced biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, art history, European history, etc? The current educational system believes that all knowledge is valuable to everyone and must be had by everyone, while this is not true.
3) Public transportation - You mean this?
4) Environmental regulation - actually, enforcing property rights might just do more for the environment than any regulation the government would make.
Ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability - well, last time I checked the laws of supply and demand did a decent job of not creating private tyrannies. The burden of proof is on him, really.
No accountability to the general public - Oh, you mean like the Fed or the bureaucracy?
Goddammit Clayton! I was actually planning on saying this at the end of my responses! I work in the field of linguistics, so I felt like I could have connected my real world experience to a theoretical conversation, but no, you had to go and ruin it for me! Frickin capitalist.
Friends! Romans! Misesians!
I feel that after all that has been said that we can safely say that Mr. Chomsky's statements are, for lack of a better word, "Wrong".
Rationality has been served!
.... That is all....
Very nice Tunk and Wheylous.
From http://www.lewrockwell.com/wall/wall26.html
""Chomsky has published a large number of books dealing with world events and American foreign policy, since his first collection of political essays, American Power and the New Mandarins, came out in 19691. In this book he rightly and tellingly criticized the ostensibly value-neutral approach of the managers of the United States' war on Vietnam and their apologists, pointing out that all statements of action under declaredly objective and neutral intent are in fact a power-serving and often cynical defense of the status quo and of a particular, dominant ideology." "What those coalitions of ‘investors' (the gangs of power-seekers) and their sycophants dislike, more than anything, is for their intentions and their propaganda to be shown up for what they are: and in my opinion Chomsky's primary skill lies in doing just that, in the psychological work of analyzing and unmasking underlying structures and processes." "In his academic work in linguistics, Chomsky developed the conviction of innate human potential and creativity into an extensive theory. In place of earlier, empirically-based theories, he developed and consolidated the idea — more philosophical than linguistic — that there are intrinsic (even biological) qualities of mind which enable us to generate rules of grammar and use of language without having first had to learn them all. In so doing, Chomsky countered the mechanistic conception that we start out like a completely blank sheet of paper on which environmental factors — instructors, social engineers, culture — work their influences and totally shape the resulting human being. This was forcefully put in his essay entitled ‘Psychology and Ideology,'2 a rightly celebrated demolition of then highly influential behaviorist arguments of B. F. Skinner, whose best-known work was, notoriously, entitled Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1972)." ------------------------------------ What I've always thought James Ostrowski has made the best overall critique of the utopian nature of Chomsky's ideas in his January 2003 article entitled "Chomsky's Economics." He writes: "Economics requires study and systematic thinking about the implications of action, choice, and ownership in a world of scarcity. It is a science that delineates the limits of how far the human mind can wander when thinking about what society can and should be. This is one reason that intellectuals, even great ones, take such pains to avoid studying economics, and instead latch on to fantasies like socialism and syndicalism." "He also quotes Chomsky as once having said, "There are supposed to be laws of economics. I can't understand them." This pinpoints a seemingly willful ignorance when it comes to economic matters. I do not find this surprising in the context of Chomsky's intellectual interests but, as the passage of time has demonstrated, it of course limits the application of his ideas to the real world, and to bringing about any substantive changes to that world."
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"First, a brief explanation. The description ‘libertarian' is claimed by both ‘left-libertarians' and ‘right-libertarians.' Left-libertarians and left-anarchists, including Chomsky, see libertarian socialism (or non-aggressive, non-violent anarchism) as the true legacy of classical liberalism, while anarcho-capitalists and libertarians of the right, because of their focus on economics, tend to see ‘libertarian socialism' as a contradiction in terms: for them, libertarian is diametrically opposed to collectivist, and socialism is by definition collectivist. Part of the problem lies in what left and right define as ‘socialism.' However, it is sufficient to understand that the tussles between left and right over the legitimate use of the words ‘libertarian' and ‘socialist' tend to generate misunderstandings and to confuse the issues. In fact, there is much common ground between left- and right-libertarianism, principally the opposition to state power and to war." "Chomsky has acknowledged this in the past: "I find myself in substantial agreement with people who consider themselves anarcho-capitalists on a whole range of issues; and for some years, was able to write only in their journals. And I also admire their commitment to rationality — which is rare…." ~ Noam Chomsky, in an interview entitled "Noam Chomsky on Anarchism," December 1996" "In the same excerpt, however, Chomsky goes on to say, "…I do not think they see the consequences of the doctrines they espouse, or their profound moral failings." Here he is referring to the alleged inability of anarcho-capitalists to admit that concentrations of private power (as found, for example, in large American and multinational corporations) can be as bad or worse than the coercive power of the state. As far as Chomsky is concerned, this is the additional and vital humanistic element in his preferred, leftist form of anarchism, as opposed to right-anarchism or anarcho-capitalism." "The problem with this approach, as critics have pointed out, is that it produces seemingly arbitrary support for coercive or aggressive state action, in situations where state action is deemed the lesser of two evils. Chomsky believes that in such situations the state can and should act as a restraining influence so as to check "the ravages of an unconstrained corporate-capitalist system," a typical expression which he used in a recent interview. It is for this reason that he has been called ‘the coercive anarchist.' Joe Peacott writes in "Chomsky's Statism": "Chomsky bases his support for the federal government on his contention that private power wielded by corporations is much more dangerous to people than state action, and that government can, and should, protect its defenseless citizens against the depredations of the capitalists. While the power of private corporations in the United States is truly awesome and oppressive, this power exists because these businesses are supported by the state, a point that Chomsky concedes." "One can see why Julian Sanchez begins his article "Two Cheers for Chomskyism" with the words, "Libertarians are not supposed to like Noam Chomsky." Chomsky rather unthinkingly dismisses the (right-)libertarian vision laid out in, for example, Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty as "a world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it, … a world built on hatred," something "not even worth talking about … a special American aberration, it's not really serious." And yet, as Sanchez points out, he is "a hell of a lot closer to [right-]libertarians than he or his groupies dare admit." Is this not because the ultimate objection is not to capital itself, but to the corporatism under which some capitalists cozy up to the state, contriving monopolies, subsidies, and other distortions of the true free market, while others simply take possession of the apparatus and offensive capability of the state to rig the markets in their favor? The end-result of all this is that all one can say about Chomsky's form of politics with any certainty is that he is more often anti-state than not. This is hardly satisfactory for anyone looking for a clear and positive political stance, or a straw man to knock down, but is comprehensible when you realize that Chomsky would probably much rather not adopt any particular political stance, and I suspect does not much care whether he is judged an anarchist or not, or whether he understands the laws of economics: his ultimate interest is in process and structure. Empirical facts are of course important to him, but like any true polemicist, he is selective in his choice of those facts. That he is still criticized for this is indicative of the extent to which the belief in desirability of objective neutrality and balance in socio-political analysis still prevails. Chomsky implicitly condemns this idea in all his work: for him, supposed objectivity and balance mask underlying ideologies of dominance and discrimination."
The only one I found particularly interesting was the comment on Paul's ultranationalism. Couple with his support for Private Defense Agencies, that one raises a point I haven't really seen in any discussion of paul. Having a blackwater type defense agency guarding a US corporation's oil wells in another country, going apeshit, and then not being accountable to the rest of the world is troubling to me.
And when discussing Paul, the private tyranny, or at least local tyranny, argument is one that needs to be addressed. In Michigan, state law gave us emergency managers (governor appointed dictators that run the cities in 'financial trouble').
And as a final note, the argument that "once a private agency goes rogue they're a state" reeks, just absolutely reeks of no true scotsman. The difference between private and public property has to do with ownership, not morals. If someone violates NAP they don't become a state. They're an individual that violated the NAP. Given that private agencies have a history of 'going rogue' when it comes to radical union organizing, that's not a point that can be easily dismissed.
Birthday Pony, I guess what I was trying to say with regard to the "acting like a state" business is that people act and only people aggress against other people. Tyranny is tyranny, it doesn't matter what the form of it is. Maybe I didn't read Chomsky close enough, but my point was that state action is ipso facto tyrannical but that private action may or may not be. I wouldn't deny that a private agent could cause harm to someone else. It would still be "private", but it wouldn't be "libertarian". I guess that was my point. He sounded as if this is what libertarians would accept as part of their system:
And any libertarian worth his salt would say, "no", because tyranny is tyranny, public or private. The main argument against the state's existence is that it is tyrannical in and of itself, so it's not "public" ownership that libertarians disagree with which makes them anti-statists, it is the tyrannical nature of the state. If the state wasn't tyrannical, it wouldn't be a state in other words. Libertarians aren't against state action per se, they are against the root of state action and if a private individual's behavior is reminiscent of the root of state action, it "acts like a state."
I also never said they qualify as a state, I only said they act like one. I would define state as a monopolistic legal agency over an accepted geographic area that has the power to tax. A robber is not a state, but they act like one (i.e., they steal money).
BP - what prevents a commune from going ballistic and destroying other communes?
"And any libertarian worth his salt would say, "no", because tyranny is tyranny, public or private. The main argument against the state's existence is that it is tyrannical in and of itself, so it's not "public" ownership that libertarians disagree with which makes them anti-statists, it is the tyrannical nature of the state. If the state wasn't tyrannical, it wouldn't be a state in other words. Libertarians aren't against state action per se, they are against the root of state action and if a private individual's behavior is reminiscent of the root of state action, it "acts like a state.""
That's a good answer. And I think given that, especially if we're granting libertarians as much as not being against state actions, Chomsky has a point. The democratic parts of the state were always given out grudgingly, as little as they do, and they are usually the one part that is accountable to the general population. Still, I think Chomsky made a pretty lame argument against Paul, probably granting his audience more comfort than his ideas.
"BP - what prevents a commune from going ballistic and destroying other communes?"
In a vaccuum, nothing. Communes are structurally more accountable than private entities or hierarchies, however. And history has yet to show massive violence on the side of the commune structure that communist anarchists support. A private company, only accountable to its shareholders, is much harder to file a complaint to, let alone alter the direction of it altogether. And hierarchies, where individuals are only accountable to their hier-up, are practically impossible to change without being at the high end of them.
Nobody can guarantee against people or groups of people acting tyrannical. People built the state. Building more accountable and approachable strucutres is the way to go if you want to curb that behavior.
"Building more accountable and approachable strucutres is the way to go if you want to curb that behavior."
Private defense is perfeclty accountable, the checks against it are more thorough than those of traditional democratic states.
I had an argument about checks and balances with a friend whose entire point was that there were no "checks or balances" in an anarchist society but the fact is that there are many. Let's assume that an agency "goes rogue", these are the checkes against it.
1. People will stop paying the organizations because they aren't being protected but violated
2. The law turns against these agencies and people resist them in a case where they are legally armed
3. These agencies have to convince their soldiers to fight and kill innocent people without the guise of the state. The reason that these soldiers are engaging in tyranny is because of the pay from their superiors. They can't hide behind ideology or anything of the like, they are hired killers who are helping to opress their friends and family, or, at very least, innocent people.
4. They have to fund a war to obtain money for supplies and the like with a very small actual base. War is a costly business, so they have to fund it, but from what? You can say that they will steal money but the fact is that with such a threat even the most greedy of businesses are going to have a difficult time justifying their trade with such an organization. You could argue that they would just go out and practically enslave people, but this would then require direct opression by their soldiers, decreasing moral and the amount of manpower available everywhere else
5. The leaders know that if they are defeated then they will be held as war criminals
6. Other defense agencies would be able to recieve a great amount of funding extremely easily to defeat such an organization, they would have a great increase in support from other areas who would want to see the rogue organization obliterated and the righteous organization would have a huge support of the area it would be attempting to invade would do whatever it could to help it
7. Watchdog organizations would likely spring up in order to attempt to prevent such abuse. You can bet that these would become more prevalent and invasive into the company each time that power was abused
8. Communal militias or something of the like could certainly exist. Indeed if companies started abusing their power then more horizontal or communal organizations would almost certainly start to gain a greater and greater market share.
Abuse in a free market is extremely unlikely.
That's all very nice Neodoxy, and it's clear you've thought this through, but that just has not been the case in places where there are examples of private defense agencies. The PDAs employed by oil companies in the Middle East are routinely the most violent against civilians. Mine owners hired the pinkertons, who were also ruthless killers. In South America, coke employs death squads to break union organizers' legs or kill them.
The general population is, no doubt, seriously upset about all of this when they encounter it, but most of it happens on private property that they do not own (land owned by oil companies, mine land, or the bottling factory). The clientel are very happy with the work of said PDA. The people of the communities they operate near are not. No such channel exists for them to hold the PDA or its employer accountable.
Chomsky is still alive? Doesn't the sun have better things to do than to keep him warm?
A class in labor economics, even given by a socialist, so long as they have mathematical training, would destroy 90% of what Chomsky says right of from day one even with usual Pareto indifference-curve analysis.
None of his work is ever analysis properly so-called.
All his points are based singly on suspicion and fear.
For instance, if you fear private companies, than any ability of them to do anything is bad, no matter how competent they are. In fact, more competent they are worse people like Chomsky fear them. Economic arguments do no persuade such people.
They respect authority or National Will of Our One Nation in anthropomorphic words of Samuelson, because people with chest of medals are "more elegant", like Brezhnev, who pronounced "straniy socialistitiskiyiy" [socialist countries] as "srany sosiyskiyiy" [shitty sausages] every time he gave a speech.
Which is why I ask: how is he still alive? Doesn't he avoid the supermarket.
Isn't he suspicious that capitalist wreckers will poison his food (because private companies try to do evil things, according to him, for sake of giggles).
Just caught this and figured it might as well go here:
Noam Chomsky in defense of Ron Paul
BP, I haven't read about the specific examples you give, and I withhold from giving a complete response, but I would like to throw out some ideas:
1) Who sold the land to these oil companies? Likely a corrupt state official protected by the state apparatus.
2) How come people in the countries being occupied don't have strong police forces? Likely because they are economically underdeveloped thanks to lack of freedom.
3) State officials in occupied countries likely prevent social backlash over the violence. The roads used by the company are likely state owned, and the state is paid off.
4) Reading about the Pinkerton affair, it doesn't appear that it was that unreasonable - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Strike
There were hundreds, if not thousands of people on the guy's property, armed with guns, and ready to fire on the Pinkertons. Not only was there trespassing, but trespassing with weapons and intent to fight.
The Pinkertons got licked pretty badly, too.
And according to the article, Frick expected the state militia to come out to support him - hence, there was an expectation of state backing.
Lastly, there is bound to be some initial friction when a system begins to emerge (I am speaking specifically about Pinkerton). If you think about it, the change from agricultural to industrial life was pretty gigantic, with the rise of numerous societal structures that did not exist before that. The market is far from equilibrium.
"1) Who sold the land to these oil companies? Likely a corrupt state official protected by the state apparatus."
I don't quite see how that's relevant when you don't support expropriation, and this is a point that you've been called out on numerous times. How is the state to do away with any of their assets? How is any property justified? The state is the arbiter of titles, and aside from a few obvious cases of homesteading, the waters are looking pretty murky.
"2) How come people in the countries being occupied don't have strong police forces? Likely because they are economically underdeveloped thanks to lack of freedom."
Once again, you're going to have to explain to me how you think this is relevant. Does that justify the implementation of foriegn PDAs that regularly kill civilians? And on what basis can these countries develop stronger protection? Seeing as how contractors are the de facto police force in many areas of countries like Iraq, I don't quite see what your point is.
"3) State officials in occupied countries likely prevent social backlash over the violence. The roads used by the company are likely state owned, and the state is paid off."
Are you forgetting that I am not a statist? Replace "state" with "landlord" and I'm not quite sure how the substance of the situation changes. My solution is not to use the state. By now you should be pretty clear on that.
"4) Reading about the Pinkerton affair, it doesn't appear that it was that unreasonable - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Strike"
Since we've established you're able to use wikipedia, why don't you check out the article on the pinkertons rather than one incident out of context? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_National_Detective_Agency Here's a couple gems
"Pinkerton's agents performed services ranging from security guarding to private military contracting work. At its height, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed more agents than there were members of the standing army of the United States of America"
"During the labor unrest of the late 19th century and early 20th century, businessmen hired the Pinkerton Agency to provide agents that would infiltrate unions, to supply guards to keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, and sometimes to recruit goon squads to intimidate workers."
So as it stands the PDA infrastructure we have, which legitimately owns and controls (according to the theories espoused here) their workers and arms, is run by people who will unflicnhingly work for the state, have no problem with intimidation, and have a history of acting against free association by not letting workers associate with unions or unionists. Yes, after having their legs broken, being intimidated, and then forced out of their work place, steel workers showed up with arms. If you follow the logic of your first concern in that last post, none of the action of the pinkertons was legitimate as they mostly gained prominence through working for the state. But of course, that would negate the justification for almost any private property in existence, and we've beat that one into the ground.
PS if we follow the logic of your first concern, then the laborers were actually the people homesteading the property in the first place, meaning they were the owners, meaning that most of the infrastructure of the US belongs to the workers and not the state or corporations. By following the logic of your first concern, you start supporting the ends that communist and socialist Anarchists wish to bring about.