Noam Chomsky (1928-  )

A number of you have expressed interest in knowing more about the world view of the members of Peace Camp.  As far as I can judge, it is heavily indebted to the work of Noam Chomsky, a brilliant man--sometimes called the "Einstein of Linguistics"--and a prolific writer on political affairs.

Although most of you have never heard of him, Chomsky is actually one of the most important and influential thinkers of our time.  The Chicago Tribune has called Chomsky "the most cited living author," and estimates that among intellectuals of all time, he ranks eighth, just behind Plato (#6) and Freud (#7).

Frequently tagged as "left wing," "radical," or worse, Chomsky may better be described as a man who really believes in the American Creed of democracy, equality, and justice for all.  He simply views that creed as having been manipulated and betrayed by the power elite--that is, the wealthiest Americans and those who govern with their interests in mind.  He is not a cynic.  On the contrary, he believes that if ordinary Americans understood the actual nature of the society in which they lived, they would not tolerate it.  Which is why, in his view, the power elite go to enormous lengths to convince Americans that the status quo embodies traditional American values, promises the best avenue toward prosperity and justice for all, or is, at the very least, better than the alternatives.

The World According to Chomsky

1.    The Media

The starting point for Chomsky's critique is the way in which the media routinely fails to provide Americans with the raw material for arriving at informed judgments but, on the contrary, operates as a ceaseless propaganda machine for the power elite.  It does so less by malevolent intent than by the very structure of the modern media.  In his view, five "filters" operate to bias media coverage in favor of the power elite.

First, it takes millions of dollars to buy into the media market.  That is, in order to own and operate a television station or newspaper, one must already be a member of the power elite.  The primary reason for such an investment is the same as any other investment; i.e., the desire to turn a profit. Further, it runs contrary to reason that having purchased a media outlet, you would then wish to use it to undercut the economic advantages you enjoy. 

Second, the primary source of media income is advertising.  This makes the media outlet more accountable to its advertisers than its readers, and greatly discourages reporting that would cause advertisers to take their business elsewhere.

Third, the media rely primarily on information provided by government, business, and "experts."  Tough-minded, two-fisted, independent reporting is rare.  Federal, state and local governments frequently issue press releases that are inevitably self-serving but nevertheless treated as objective sources of information.  The same is true of businesses.  Experts, for their part, tend to be journalists (whose "expertise" is secondhand) and retired members of government and business.  Note, for example, the military experts used (often actually hired) by the major networks to comment on American operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  These are the same people who a few years ago were making policy in these areas, identify overwhelmingly with their successors, and embrace the same world view as the power elite.

Fourth, the wealthy have the ability to generate flak.  Little guys who write letters to the editor are dismissed as cranks.  Big guys--individual businessmen, corporations, governments, etc.--have the clout to make life miserable for a media outlet that steps out of line.  They have the resources to file lawsuits, withdraw advertising, initiate Federal Communication Commission investigations, freeze the media out of access to information, and so on.

Finally, there's always a Public Enemy No. 1.  For years it was Communism.  Many activities actually undertaken to defend or advance the economic interests of the power elite were justified by calling them "anti-Communist."  A media outlet that challenged such a view risked being viewed as unpatriotic at best and a "fellow traveler" of Communism at worst.  The end of the Cold War has resulted in the emergence of a new Public Enemy No. 1, the Islamic extremist.  Islamic extremists have been around for a long time, but not until recently did the power elite highlight them as the enemy confronting the United States in particular and civilization as a whole.  The advantage of an acknowledged Public Enemy No. 1 is that his existence is taken for granted.  A statement like "The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979" does not have to be explained or defended.  A statement like "The United States invaded Vietnam in 1964-1965," however, requires an extensive defense--even though in both cases, the USSR and US intervened in order to prop up a regime friendly to its interests.

Television exacerbates the "Public Enemy No. 1" effect because it places a premium on brevity.  A statement that fits an accepted world view requires little explanation and can therefore be outlined in a few words. In order to have any chance of being persuasive, a statement that challenges an accepted world view needs more than a sound bite.  Jeff Greenfield, the former producer of ABC's Nightline, ruefully conceded the consequence of TV's insistence on concision.  "It makes about as much sense for us to have someone on Nightline who takes six minutes to answer a question as it does to have someone who doesn't speak English."  This situation is made even worse by the fact that shows like Nightline depend on advertising revenue, and commercial breaks take up about a third of the program.

2.    "Necessary Illusions"

Within the American political tradition, a strong strand of opinion has maintained that ordinary people are incapable of self-government.  Alexander Hamilton held such a view.  So did John Jay, the first U.S. Supreme Court Justice, who believed that "those who own the country should run it."  Gen. William T. Sherman considered the Civil War the product of "an excess of democracy."  Put simply, many elites have always felt that ordinary Americans lack the time, inclination, or wisdom to exercise civic virtue.

Within the context of this course, one may well ask whether real democracy did in fact exist during much of the nineteenth century (at least for white males).  By 1840, universal white manhood suffrage was in effect throughout the United States.  The country was dotted with literally hundreds of newspapers whose "buy-in" cost was a few hundred dollars, as opposed to the millions required today.  Advertising was not an important source of revenue for these newspapers.  They relied mainly on reader subscriptions, and consequently were responsive to what readers wanted.  In many elections (especially local elections), voter turnout ran as high as 80 percent.  As you read James M. McPherson's For Cause and Comrades, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Americans of the 1860s were politically very aware.

What happened to change things?  Chomsky sees the current system mainly as a product of the post-1945 environment, but I think the origins can be traced back to the post-Civil War period.  At that point, large corporations first emerged, the "buy-in" cost for newspaper ownership increased, and advertising became the primary source of revenue.  During this period the American government at all levels (local, state, federal) grew increasingly responsive to the interests of corporations.  Corrupt and blatantly unfair business practices by corporations were widely tolerated by the government.  Attempts to curb them through legislation were often thrown out by unsympathetic courts.  Efforts by laborers to self-organize, on the other hand, were seen as illegitimate, almost as anarchic or insurrectionary.  It is noteworthy that during this period the national and state governments routinely employed the Regular Army and National Guard (the successor of the militia) to break strikes.

The final decades of the nineteenth century were highly volatile thanks to labor unrest and dramatic cycles of boom and bust within the business cycle.  Around the turn of the century, a group of elite reformers known as "Progressives" emerged and successfully tamed the new corporate order by establishing what historian Carl Degler has termed "the policeman state."  At this point you see limited but significant efforts to permit unionization, enact child labor laws, establish regulatory agencies (e.g., the Food and Drug Administration), and break trusts and monopolies

These developments occurred in an effort to stabilize the emerging corporate order.  A significant part of the Progressive movement, however, was anti-democratic.  Many Progressives believed that the new society needed to be managed much like a large corporation.  They placed a premium on administration by experts, and often removed from politics issues that had proven volatile in the past.  Significant voter fall-off dates from this point, as Americans realized that the political realm offered no real "dragons to slay," that real decision-making power was increasingly being channeled into the hands of regulatory agencies.

It is not an accident that the first Progressive president, Theodore Roosevelt, is also considered the creator of the modern, activist presidency; nor that Roosevelt was a life-long admirer of Alexander Hamilton and intensely contemptuous of Thomas Jefferson.

Although real democracy waned, "democracy" remained a cherished word in the American political lexicon.  Here we return to Chomsky's perspective.  Genuine democracy--the ability to arrive at decisions through meaningful political participation--became the province of the relatively few Americans with the financial clout to back political candidates, twist arms, etc.  Today this group roughly corresponds to those who make significant political contributions--about one-half of one percent of the American population. Chomsky estimates that perhaps another twenty percent of the Americans vote regularly enough and are politically aware enough that, as a practical matter, the power elite must convince them that what the power elite desires is best for the country--or at least that twenty percent.  The remaining eighty percent either do not vote or have so little political consciousness that they may safely be ignored.

How to keep that twenty percent aboard?  The messages vary, but among the "necessary illusions" are the following:

1.  American democracy is alive and well.

2.  We live in a classless society where anyone who works hard can make it to the top.

3.  Capitalism--usually called the "free market--is the American way.  The Founding Fathers believed in it, and any other economic order (e.g., socialism) is either impractical or an invitation to totalitarianism.

4.  The free market is based on healthy competition from which desirable outcomes emerge.  The more unfettered the free market, the more it is able to produce prosperity.

5.  People who are poor deserve it. If they are Americans, they are lazy.  If they live in foreign lands, their failure to attain an American standard of living is the result of cultural deficiencies.  They will have to become more like us if they expect to achieve a standard of living like our own.

6.  The American government is a force for good in the world.  It does not engage in aggression.  It opposes aggression.  The flag stands for freedom and the United States is, as Lincoln once expressed it, "the last best hope of man on earth."

7.  Although American foreign policy protects American business interests, it does not advance those interests in ways that are unfair, unethical, or downright under-handed.

8.  The American military exists to defend the United States, period.

9.  This is the best country on earth.  If you don't believe it, go live some place else.

10.  Sometimes the U.S. government has engaged in underhanded activities--e.g., the well-documented coups d'etat in Guatemala (1954), Vietnam (1963), and Chile (1973)--but these are aberrations.  They in no way imply a pattern of behavior.

3.  Who Runs the Show?

Essentially, a small group of wealthy investors compete for control of the government (at all levels).  They then utilize that control to enact policies which benefit themselves.  For example, the United States spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined.  From the standpoint of security, that's overkill.  But as a way to funnel millions of dollars from taxpayers to such firms as Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas, Raytheon, etc., it is ingenious.

Similarly, the United States government leads an international effort to cram unfavorable trade agreements down the throats of less developed countries.  A responsible foreign government might ordinarily insist that the first beneficiary of U.S. investment in their country should be the citizens of that country, though payment of taxes, reasonable pay and benefits for employees, re-investment within the country, etc.  Instead, many trade agreements forbid foreign governments to place substantial restrictions on investors.  That is why a firm like Nike can pay its Indonesian workers $1.25 per day, do almost nothing to act as a "good citizen" of the country, and siphon off profits instead of reinvesting.  Such relationships are not examples of the free market as it operates within the United States or among countries of the developed world.  They are "neo-colonial" in nature.

4.  Don't Want to Believe It?

Nobody says you have to.  But if the power elite doesn't run the show, who does?  And why is Chomsky's critique of the media so eerily on the mark?  (Talk of a "liberal bias" in the news is largely bunk.  When is the last time you heard or saw the mainstream media advocate socialism, call for substantial cuts in defense spending, posit the existence of a class structure in America, etc.)

The great thing about Chomsky is that he's one of those rare people who is so brilliant he can present his point of view with clarity, respect for complexity, and readability.  If you want to know more, start with these two books:

David Cogswell, Chomsky for Beginners (New York and London:  Writers and Readers, 1996)

Noam Chomsky, Profit over People:  Neoliberalism and Global Order (New York, Toronto, and London:  Seven Stories Press, 1999).

Note:  The "liberal" in neoliberalism refers to "liberal" in its original meaning; i.e., a proponent of capitalism and minimal government interference.

Chomsky is the author of numerous books, most of which can be found at Amazon.com.

See also the Noam Chomsky sites listed by Yahoo.

For an "Establishment" view of American foreign policy, see the Council on Foreign Relations.

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