Understanding Power: the indispensable Chomsky

by Noam Chomsky, Peter R. Mitchell (Editor), John Schoeffel (Editor)

Here is a major collection from ‘arguably the most important intellectual alive’ (the New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the pre-eminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky’s recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power.

In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions, all published here for the first time, Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during Vietnam to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between America’s imperialistic foreign policy and the decline of domestic social services, Chomsky also discerns the necessary steps to take toward social change.

With an eye to political activism and the media’s role in popular struggle, as well as US foreign and domestic policy, Understanding Power offers a sweeping critique of the world around us and is definitive Chomsky. Characterised by Chomsky’s accessible and informative style, this is the ideal book for those new to his work as well as for those who have been listening for years.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, History, Economics, Sociology, Political Science

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2002

About the author

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants (his father was William Chomsky) in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B.F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard M. Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

This really is the indispensable Chomsky. It's a summary of his views on just about everything.

Many of Noam's views are very left wing, progressive, anti-American policy, anti-Israel policy ... so a lot of people care not much for him. He is to me the most rational, truth seeking person I've read.

The book is not "writings" of Chomsky's. Rather it is edited transcriptions of Q&A sessions from a great number of teach-ins and college talks that he has given over the years. The editing has been done to add foot-notes, and of course to make both questions and answers read better and be more succinct in their wording and give greater depth to the answers (I would guess) than was done on the fly. In that sense, they are closer to writings than most Q&A transcriptions would be.

Ch 1. Weekend Teach-In: Opening Session (primarily Rowe Mass., April 1989)
Ch 2. Teach in: Over Coffee (ditto)
Ch 3. Teach-In: Evening (ditto)
Ch 4. Colloquy (primarily Fort Collins CO, April 1990)
Ch 5. Ruling the World (discussions in NY, MA, MD, CO, IL and Ontario, 1990 and 93-96)
Ch 6. Community Activists (discussions in British Columbia, MA, IL, MD and WY, 1989 and 93-96)
Ch 7. Intellectuals and Social Change (discussions at Woods Hole and Rowe MA, 93-96)
Ch 8. Popular Struggle (discussions in MA, MD, Ontario, CA and WY, 1989, '94 & '94)
Ch 9. Movement Organizing (discussions at Woods Hole MA, 93-96)
Ch. 10. Turning Point (discussions in IL, NJ, MA, NY and MD, 94-96 & '99)

Each of these chapters is in turn divided into 10-20 subtopics (all given in the TOC)

For example, Chapter 7 has the following subtopics:
- The Leninist/Capitalist Intelligentsia
- Marxist "Theory" and Intellectual Fakery
- Ideological Control in the Sciences and Humanities
- The Function of the Schools
- Subtler Methods of Control
- Cruder Methods of Control
- Forging Working-Class Culture
- The Fraud of Modern Economics
- The Real Market
- Automation
- A Revolutionary Change in Moral Values

The footnotes are not in the book itself. They are downloadable from a web-site as a PDF document. This I have done. It is 1.7 MB, 450 pages long - the footnotes. These footnotes are not only references but additional explanatory information.

The book has a pretty good index.

The book is more wide ranging than many of Chomsky's other publications, hence is not what you want if you only want his views on Media, or U.S. Foreign Policy. But making up for this, it probably gives a pretty good sample of his views on a full range of topics.

I use the word "views" here to try to be non-argumentative. But for a vast amount of this stuff, the evidence that Chomsky present qualifies the positions he outlines not as simply his views, but as flat out the truth. But it's a truth that the average American (unlike in many cases the average European) has no idea about - because the mainstream U.S. Media just refuses to print factual news which runs contrary to the U.S. exceptionalist view which we have of ourselves - news which commonly appears in the British, French, German, even Israeli press.

Rather than try to give any sort of summary of Chomsky's insights (there, a better word than "views"), I'll just conclude by quoting a paragraph from the back cover of the book.

In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions ... Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades [the last decades of the 20th century] covering topis from foreign policy during the Vietnam War to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between America's imperialistic foreign policy and social inequalities at home, Chomsky also discerns the necessary steps to take toward social change. With an eye to political activism and the media's role in popular struggle, as well as U.S. foreign and domestic policy, (the book) is definitive Chomsky.

That it is.

[David M · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read Chomsky as a teenager. At first I couldn't believe what he was saying.

I never wanted to be a radical; it's just that when I started checking the footnotes I couldn't stop.

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intellectual Dissident 101:

Preamble:
--I first heard of Chomsky from an interview by Rage Against the Machine's vocalist which was bonus material in one of their live concert DVDs. Back then I was an apolitical teenager in Canada (thus, a default liberal, i.e. cosmopolitan capitalism) and had no idea about the interview topics (other than a feeling that they were “controversial”).
--Despite some false starts, Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance flipped my liberal geopolitics back to reality, as Chomsky became my introduction to critical thinking on politics, synonymous with "intellectual" and "dissident".

The Good:
--Some critique Chomsky's presentation style, from his dry writing style to his chalkboard eraser speech. If I could guide my apolitical past-self, this book would be the first work by Chomsky to start with. It's a superbly edited volume of his most concise lectures (including Questions/Answers with audiences, always useful).
--The essential Chomsky:

1) Media literacy:
--This is the first tool for beginners trying to learn how the world works.
--Crucially, it's not as simple as saying all of "mainstream media" is "fake news", like how Trump reactionaries cherry-pick what they want to hear and conjure up fantasies for everything else!
--Propaganda is usually more nuanced, and so is fact-finding. Capitalists need certain facts to run their businesses, so business news targeting them are often filled with useful information. The manipulations come with how things are framed, so op-ed opinion pieces are often more unhinged. So, it's important to consider the target audience and various biases.
--Chomsky has a useful set of lectures on this, including the role of the intelligentsia, how our assumption of public opinion is mis-framed, etc., in: Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies
--Similar principles should be applied to international news, where foreign outlets offer certain insights. For case studies in US media coverage of foreign policy, see Herman/Chomksy's famous Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

2) Power: Private vs. Public:
--Power must prove its legitimate uses: Chomsky's political roots are in anarchism/libertarian socialism (see later for other perspectives to consider).
--Democracy under capitalism is restricted and contained in the political theatre, where the public are mere spectators. This is why the public need to build social movements to pressure the political theatre. Meanwhile, capitalist power is in the private sphere where finance and industries rule the economy.
-The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power)
-The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement
--Of particular interest is the changes in activism: how mild the anti-war movement was during the war on Vietnam (i.e. "we should stop because we are losing") and how it progressed and forced the US elite (i.e. "Vietnam Syndrome") to rely on its own clandestine terror agencies, funding other mercenary states/groups, and replacing the draft with a mercenary army:
-Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations
-The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
-A People's History of the United States
--Since this is a collection from 1989 to 1999, it misses the War On Terror and beyond. However, the foresight demonstrated throughout the topics further cements the methodology/conclusions (including a good bit setting up the election of Trump!).
-The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump
--Despite complaints of government overreach, this complain is only when the public pressures for crumbs of redistribution. There is no complaint for all the essential services the government provides to make capitalism operational:
i) violent enforcement of capitalist property rights, including the global division of labour (military) and domestic (courts/prisons).
ii) long-term research and development
iii) physical infrastructure
iv) social infrastructure: education
v) reproduction of system (including social consent), demand management, clean up after crises
...see discussion between Chomsky/Varoufakis


The Missing:
1) Historical Materialism:
--While Chomsky does sometimes reference Marx/Marxist historical materialism, his anarchist leanings seems to bias him to leave this for Marxists (similar with Graeber, ex. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity). Indeed, Chomsky seems to cite Classical Liberals (ex. Adam Smith) more than Marx; while I enjoy Chomsky flipping Smith around vs. today's vulgar economists, this does contribute to Marxists calling Chomsky a "liberal".
...So, as an introduction, there's a huge gap that needs to be filled. I.e. the changing material conditions and how this affects political bargaining power, ex. the World Wars forcing women and racial minorities (esp. black, given US history) into the professional workplace, inadvertently facilitating mass social mobilization for feminism and Civil Rights.
...Luckily, there's "What is Politics"? video series just for this, especially episodes:
-"6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works and Why | What is Politics?"
-"7. The Origins of Male Dominance and Hierarchy; what David Graeber and Jordan Peterson get wrong"
-"7.1 Material Conditions: Why You Can't Eliminate Sexism or Patriarchy by Changing Culture"
-"8. Materialism vs. Idealism: How Social Change Happens | What is Politics?"

2) (Geo)political Economy:
--With Chomsky's (geo)political framework, I would then recommend the following for "the Economy" (which my past self was even more lost in with its abstractions and misdirections):
i) Ties history with economic conditions: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions
ii) Lifts the veil of "economics" to consider its fascinating paradoxes: Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails

The Questionable:
1) On Marxism/Leninism/real-world socialism:
--While I still find light-hearted humor with Chomsky's quips about not knowing what “dialectics” and “praxis” are, his one-liners like "the USSR was a dungeon" (maybe not from this volume but you'll hear it if you follow his lectures) seem counter-productive for an US audience so paranoid with Red Scare perversions of historical context.
...US audiences need a hearty dose of the following:
i) Vijay Prashad (Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism): playlist of speeches
ii) Michael Parenti (Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism): playlist of speeches
iii) Utsa Patnaik (Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present): playlist of speeches
iv) Radhika Desai: playlist of speeches

2) There was a strange bit about capitalism being against racism:
--Here is how it went:
i) Race is a human construction.
ii) Capitalism is anti-human, in that it wants humans to be reduced to interchangeable cogs.
iii) Now, in the short-term, racism may be advantageous, but in the long-term capitalism will work against racism.
...Now, this may be just a small rhetorical remark and I do get Chomsky's surface logic, but I find such grand philosophical musings to be vague and distracting. I would say there are strong examples throughout history to today where various forms of racism are directly exploited and magnified by capitalism for divide-and-rule (which fits with capitalism's abstraction of social relations, ex. global division of labour).
...And I do not see how one can classify short-term vs. long-term implications here, when it is foundational to your argument. For more on time as a unit of analysis, see: World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction.
...Could Chomsky's interpretation be too focused on idealism (race = human construction) and lacking analysis of materialism? See the "What is Politics?" episodes I listed above, especially the last 2.
...There are plenty of theories on capitalism and racism that I find more useful, from classics like Eric Williams' (later the first prime minister Trinidad and Tobago) Capitalism & Slavery to Gerald Horne's modern interpretations.
...Same can be said for capitalism and patriarchy, esp. care-work/"social reproduction":
-The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values
-Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto
-Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation

[Leonard Gaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apart from his scientific work on linguistics (notably his groundbreaking generative grammar theory), Noam Chomsky has always been quite outspoken about his political views, ever since his criticism of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He also contributed quite substantially to media studies and the questioning of propaganda in America (see Manufacturing Consent). Today, albeit in his 90s, Chomsky is still quite combative and a towering — in fact, a rock-star-like — figure in left-libertarian and anarcho-syndicalist academic circles.

This book is a sort of fix-up (with abundant footnotes) of several talks Chomsky gave in the U.S. around the 1990s (during the Clinton/Bush administrations). Essentially, Chomsky provides answers to questions from his audience. And although most of these questions were dealing with current affairs at the time (now a bit outdated, obviously), the essence of Chomsky’s answers is still quite relevant some twenty-odd years later.

He covers everything from media manipulation by corporate interests to freedom of speech, religious fanaticism and terrorism, state capitalism vs. communal libertarianism, the military-industrial complex and the nuclear threat, the Middle-East conflict, the Gulf War, the situation in East-Timor, climate change, activism and resistance and the charlatanism of post-modern thinkers (worth watching in hindsight: his 1971 debate with Michel Foucault on human nature, at the height of the antagonism between “continental” and “analytic” philosophy).

In short, the whole thing is an analysis, from different angles, of the U.S. Totalitarian Empire State. It is indeed a fascinating book, although some of what Chomsky says sounds quite a bit like a conspiracy theory. It is also perplexing that he hasn’t been much intimidated by the oppressive system he has been denouncing for so many years. Quite indispensable nonetheless.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to understanding international politics? Want to know how to read between the lines of the days headlines? Want to know where to start with Noam Chomsky? The answer to all those questions is: Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky.

[Thomas Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002, based on talks he gave 1989–1999. 401 pages. isbn 1565847032. 449 pages of footnotes at understandingpower.com


Real power is not in the political system. It’s in the private economy: that’s where the decisions are made about what’s produced, how much is produced, what’s consumed, where investment takes place, who has jobs. Political changes can make only a minor difference. So long as power remains privately concentrated, everybody has to make sure the rich are happy. If they’re happy, they’ll invest, the economy will work, things will function, maybe something will trickle down to you. If they’re not happy, everything grinds to a halt.

Suppose Massachusetts were to increase business taxes. Most of the population is in favor of it. Business would run a public relations campaign, saying, truthfully, “Raise taxes on us, capital will flow elsewhere, you’ll have no jobs, you’ll have nothing. You make us happy or you’ll have nothing. You live here, but we own the place.” [p. 63]

For me, this is the indispensable insight Chomsky clearly states and illustrates in this book. Understanding it, we lose our unrealistic expectations of politicians.

Until there’s popular control of industry—workers’ control, community control, extending democracy to economic power—unless that happens, political power will be feeble. [p. 64] Real democracy will require that corporate capitalism be dismantled. You have to build up alternative popular institutions, which could allow control over society’s investment decisions to be moved to working people and communities. A participatory economy. [p. 140] [The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, usworker.coop is a few people making a start. Very few. As of 2016, the Democracy at Work Institute counts just 7,000 co-op workers in the entire U.S., in 350 worker co-ops, working for an average of $25,000/year per worker. goodreads.com/review/show/2000479083]

Build community. Organize. When people get together, all sorts of things are possible. If you’re isolated, you’re going to break. [pp. 121, 185]

If you could get to the point where a reformist candidate had a chance, you’d already have won; you’d already have done the main thing—build mass support. [p. 139] Power was never in popular hands. [p. 267] But there’s progress. Keep fighting. [p. 268]

And yet—a century ago, governments were revoking corporate charters when corporations didn’t live up to the public interest. [p. 347]

Every form of authority and domination and hierarchy, has to prove that it’s justified. [p. 201]

States are not moral agents. They’re vehicles of power, working in the interests of particular internal power structures in their societies. [p. 163]

The product of the media is audiences! Their market is advertisers! [p. 14] “I asked an editor why coverage of Palestine is so awful. He laughed, ‘How many Arab advertisers do you think we have?’” [p. 22] Mainstream press portrays a uniformly pro-corporate world. A New York Times columnist says angrily, “Nobody tells me what to write!” True. He already knew what to write. That’s why he’s a New York Times columnist. [p. 112] Warner Communications closed a publisher to keep a Chomsky book from being distributed. [p. 209] Universities, corporate-funded, select for obedience and conformity, punish independence. [pp. 236, 265] Chomsky can teach in any department except political science. [p. 244]

In communities with listener-supported community radio and other alternative media, the mood is strikingly different. [p. 180]

In economically weak countries around the world, the U.S. prevents the rise of independent governments—to keep siphoning wealth from the global poor to the global rich—through corporate control of land and resources, low wages, industry-friendly policies. [p. 64] The United States arms foreign militaries, so they can and do overthrow their own governments that don’t pursue the welfare of multinational corporations. [p. 7] Noriega was our thug in 1985. In 1989 he was getting independent. [p. 152] Around the world, the countries that developed economically are those that weren’t colonized by the West. [p. 65] The U.S. government spends some $10 billion a year to maintain U.S. domination of Central America—probably exceeds the profits banks and corporations plunder there. [p. 67]

Free-market capitalism led to the Great Depression. Every economically successful country is near-fascist—massive government intervention in the economy. Every industrial economy has a massive state sector. In the U.S. it’s mainly through the military. The government funds corporate research and development; if something profitable comes out of it, the corporations take the profit. The parts of the American economy that are competitive internationally get massive government subsidies: agriculture, high-tech, pharmaceuticals. The U.S. prevents third-world countries from doing as we’ve done. [pp. 72–73] Military spending goes to the rich. Social spending goes to the poor. The rich have the power, so that’s where we spend it.

Violence or its threat empowers authoritarianism. [pp. 11, 70, 90]

Cuba’s “crime” is successfully caring for its people: a virus that could spread, and interfere with corporate plunder. [p. 149] Vietnam was fought to prevent Vietnam from becoming a successful model of economic and social development for the third world. So far we’ve won. [p. 91]

Chomsky is, I think, wrong about some things:

Chomsky is right that mostly, the boot of wealth is on everyone’s neck. Mostly. “Pursuit of self-interest helps everybody” is mostly a lie. But since owners haven’t yet vacuumed up all wealth and power, they sometimes have to give some of the rest of us something for their gains in wealth.

So it’s not enough to simply destroy capitalism, have all business decisions made by worker co-ops. Permitting people to make a profit, when it also benefits the nonwealthy, can be a good thing.

Chomsky’s right that wealth will always fight hard to eat our lunch. We have to win that fight, muzzle not kill the beast. With progressive taxation of corporate and individual wealth and income; regulation; and, public-interest research-and-lobbying groups on every issue that wealth lobbies on (in the Citizens’ Utility Board mold).

Chomsky is right that, to curb wholesale environmental destruction, enserfment, and rampant authoritarianism, the power of the rich to get richer at everyone’s cost must be destroyed. It’s true that worker co-ops replace dictatorial owner power, serving wealth concentration—at any cost to workers and community—with workplace democracy, with goals of business survival, decent pay, and service to community. Yet majority rule doesn’t mean fairness. (Ask any minority!) Longtime co-op workers vote themselves higher pay for the same work as newcomers—far above any claimed greater productivity. A co-op can degenerate to rule by popular clique.

Chomsky is a bit of a free speech fundamentalist. You can forgive him, in that, if public opinion had not shifted so fast and strongly to antiwar in 1968, Chomsky would have been sentenced to many years in prison for criticizing the government’s prosecution of the war.

But there must be limits on speech. Not just “you don’t have the right to yell fire in a crowded theater,” but also:

You have no right to say, “Do what I want or I will hurt you.” That’s felony assault or felony extortion.

You have no right to say to a public official, “I bought you. I own you. You work for me.” That’s graft.

You have no right to say, “Here, try this!” when “this” will harm you and take away your ability to choose not to do it. In my view, advertising is the only truly criminal act of the illegal drug trade. And neither should nicotine, alcohol, and gambling advertising be permitted. (John Warren Kindt, "College and Amateur Sports Gambling: Gambling away our Youth" online here (33 pages):
paperity.org/p/81539170/college-and-a...
Legal gambling's socioeconomic costs, including addictions, crime, corruption, and bankruptcies, exceed costs of illegal drugs.)

You have no right to present lies as news.

Chomsky feels we can’t trust the government to censor speech. He has good reason to feel that way. Yet we have to trust the government to evaluate safe foods and drugs, keep snake-oil salesmen from making false ads.


“Too much competition” Chomsky sees as a very bad thing—and it is, for the profiteers. For the rest of us, “too much competition” is the Econ 101 world, “many buyers, many sellers, no one has control over price”—and if anyone who wants to produce and sell, can do so, then the best anyone can do is recover long-run marginal cost—and if they do, they can stay in business forever, all the employees, supervisors, managers, and suppliers getting paid, the customers getting a fair price. The only people who don’t get paid are the investors, and why should they? Why should they expect to keep getting more and more wealth, for doing nothing, merely because they started with more money than they needed to spend?

But Chomsky is wrong that “excess competition” causes depressions. What causes depressions is insufficient aggregate demand—which happens when many people, who need lots of stuff, have too little money and can’t buy it—because a few people, who already have everything they could use and then some, have hoarded all the wealth. [pp. 72, 74]

Chomsky thinks boycotts are not much use. [p. 337] To the contrary, as Howard Zinn said, to live, today, as we think people should live, is itself a great victory. As much as we can deny exploiters profit by our participation in their system, we should.

Chomsky thinks there’s no evidence the CIA isn’t under White House control. [p. 349] To the contrary. The CIA does what the CIA wants. Sometimes that’s the same as what the white house wants. Sometimes not. Thoroughly documented in, for example, Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner, and JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass.

Chomsky cites many worthwhile authors, including:

Mishel, Lawrence
Rothstein, Richard
Carnoy, Martin
Bivens, Josh
McQuaig, Linda
Sellers, Charles Grier
Noble, David F.
Ware, Norman
Sklar, Holly
Medoff, Peter
Collins, Chuck
Stockwell, John
Hertsgaard, Mark
Parenti, Michael
Bagdikian, Ben H.
Herman, Ed
Postman, Neil


Mishel, Lawrence
Rothstein, Richard
Carnoy, Martin
Bivens, Josh
McQuaig, Linda
Sellers, Charles Grier
Noble, David F.
Ware, Norman
Sklar, Holly
Medoff, Peter
Collins, Chuck
Stockwell, John
Hertsgaard, Mark
Parenti, Michael
Bagdikian, Ben H.
Herman, Ed
Postman, Neil

Mishel, Lawrence
Rothstein, Richard
Carnoy, Martin
Bivens, Josh
McQuaig, Linda
Sellers, Charles Grier
Noble, David F.
Ware, Norman
Sklar, Holly
Medoff, Peter
Collins, Chuck
Stockwell, John
Hertsgaard, Mark
Parenti, Michael
Bagdikian, Ben H.
Herman, Ed
Postman, Neil

And if you’ve ever seen a video of him speaking, you know it’s almost all without notes. Chomsky is mind-bogglingly well-informed about precisely the things the powers that be don’t want us to know. Thank you, Noam.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chomsky is a national and international treasure. It saddens me that his life won't go on for another 50 years.

There's so much good content here so I'll just pick one passage. Chomsky is speaking no later than 1999:

Actually, I think that the United States has been in kind of a pre-fascist mood for years--and we've been lucky that every leader who's come along has been a crook. See, people should always be very much in favor of corruption - I'm not kidding about that. Corruption's a very good thing, because it undermines power. I mean, if we get some Jim Bakker coming along, you know, this preacher who was caught sleeping with everybody and defrauding his followers - those guys are fine: all they want is money and sex and ripping people off, so they're never going to cause much trouble. Or take Nixon, say: an obvious crook, he's ultimately not going to cause that much of a problem. But if somebody shows up who's kind of a Hitler-type--just wants power, no corruption, straight, makes it all sound appealing, and says, 'We want power'--well, then we'll all be in very bad trouble. Now, we haven't had the right person yet in the United States, but sooner or later somebody's going to fill that position--and if so, it will be highly dangerous.

So our saving grace may be that Trump is a corrupt grifter.

[Eric]

I'm always afraid of reading political things (A) because I'm scared of it being completely over my head and (B) because I'm aware that I have a tendency to uncritically accept what people say [which makes for a lot of fun if you read different points of views because everything everybody says (even the contradictory stuff) sounds 100% right:].

This book was very conversational (partly due to format, transcribed Q&A sessions and I imagine partly due to Chomsky's dislike of the idea of an 'intellectual' class apart from common folks), so it didn't run into the over my head problem.

Good interesting stuff, very grounded (it seems), very sane. This is extremely different from the sort of attitudes I got from socially conscious types I met at University. I'd always reacted a bit badly to them (while largely agreeing) because it felt like they were attacking Big Evil Names (I dunno, the IMF is EVIL or something) without putting things into perspective, seeing the big picture etc. Now it turns out that they were most likely the ones who knew what they were talking about and I was the ignorant one, but [and forgive me for committing this sin of stupid debating:] there was always something about their /tone/ that rubbed me the wrong way, something kind of well-meaning-but-stupid. Anyway point is that this sort of tone is totally absent from the book. Well-meaning-and-tremendously-well-informed (and now makes me feel a bit guilty for my negative reaction to the dreadlocked vegans of my past).

I particularly like the idea that it's not so much that certain individuals or organisations are evil, but about institutions that reinforce/encourage/perpetuate evil behaviours (eg. CEO of BP is probably a perfectly nice chap, but...). It's also a bit uncomfortable to see how clueless I am about the kind of stuff that goes on in the world. Oh well.

It'd be nice to see what happens when smart right wing friends read this.

[Kaelan Ratcliffe ▪ كايِلان راتكِليف · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Future Of History

I believe this to be the ultimate way to understand and experience Chomskys work. It strikes the perfect balance. For those who find his lectures / talks too dry and dull, yet struggle with his written work due to its academic nature, this provides an excellent compromise. By transcribing many conversations the Professor has had over the years, we as readers are able to read - in a relatively informal language - dozens of topics discussed by the man.

My attention never wavered at any time reading the 401 pages of this book, and despite having listened to the Professor talk on YouTube many times (and once in person) I still came away having learned an incredible amount about the world we inhabit. What's more, despite the fact that the transcriptions in this text are between the 80's and 90's and no further, this could easily read as if it were printed today. Chomskys predictions of the future and mastery of knowledge about the past are uncanny (and slightly scary if im being honest), and make for an engrossing page turner.

I hope, fellow book lovers, that even if you haven't heard of Chomsky before, you pick this up (or other more recent transcripts like Who Rules The World or Global Discontents) and really give it a go. Once you've opened your eyes to how our societies function, you'll really struggle to close them again.

[Shadin Pranto · Rating 5 out of 5]

ক্ষমতা মূলত কীভাবে কাজ করে, জনতাকে রাষ্ট্রীয় মতাদর্শের ঘোল গিলিয়ে নিষ্ক্রিয় রাখার প্রক্রিয়ার আদ্যপান্ত জানা যায় 'Understanding Power:The Indispensable Chomsky' শীর্ষক গ্রন্থটি পড়ে। এটি চমস্কির দেওয়া সাক্ষাৎকারসংকলন৷ আশির দশক থেকে নব্বইয়ের দশকের শেষাবধি দেওয়া অনেকগুলো দীর্ঘ কথোপকথনকে মলাটবদ্ধ করা হয়েছে এই বইতে৷

চট করে পড়ে ফেলবার মতো বই নয়৷ ধীরেধীরে পড়েছি৷ চমস্কির কথাগুলো বুঝবার চেষ্টা করেছি। যেখানে তিনি অনেক প্রচলিত তথ্যকে একেবারেই ভিন্ন দৃষ্টিকোণ থেকে দেখেছেন৷ পাঠককে ভাবতে বাধ্য করবে চমস্কির কথোপকথন।

নোয়াম চমস্কি তো যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের কট্টর সমালোচক। বেশিরভাগ ক্ষেত্রেই তিনি ইউএসের চণ্ডানীতির বিরুদ্ধে কথা বলে থাকেন৷ তাহলে কী তিনি এই বইতেও নিজেকে যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের কুকীর্তিগুলো স্মরণ করিয়ে দেওয়ার মধ্যই সীমাবদ্ধ রেখেছেন? উত্তরটি হবে, না৷ শুধু মার্কিনদেশই নয়, বিশ্বরাজনীতি, অর্থনীতি, গণমাধ্যমব্যবস্থা এবং নব্যসাম্রাজ্যবাদের মতো ইস্যু নিয়ে নিজস্ব ভঙিতে কথা বলেছেন নোয়াম চমস্কি। সবচেয়ে বেশি জোর দিয়েছেন সরকার জনতাকে আই ওয়াশ ও ব্রেন ওয়াশ করে অন্ধ এবং বধির করে রাখবার প্রক্রিয়া নিয়ে৷

চমস্কির নিজের বইগুলের ভাষা যথেষ্ট উঁচুমানের হয়ে থাকে৷ তাই কোনো কোনো ক্ষেত্রে আমার মতো নাদান পাঠকের তা বুঝতে কষ্ট হয়৷ কিন্তু সাক্ষাৎকারে চমস্কি একেবারেই ভিন্ন মানুষ৷ সহজভাবে কঠিন ও জটিল বিষয়গুলো নিয়ে কথা বলে পাঠককে আলোকিত হওয়ার সুযোগ দিয়েছেন চমস্কি। অবশ্য পাঠ্য একটি গ্রন্থ।

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a feat of editing. It condenses aspects of Chomsky's talks from across decades and references them at a separate website, understandingpower.com. Here are some favourite quotes:

You should not expect an institution to say, "Help me destroy myself," that's not the way institutions function. And if anybody inside the institution tried to do that, they wouldn't be inside it much longer.


If you're getting accepted in elite circles, chances are very strong that you're doing something wrong - I mean, for very simple reasons. Why should they have any respect for people who are trying to undermine their power? It doesn't make any sense.


Part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history, and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it's necessary to distort history and make it look as if Great Men did everything - that's part of how you teach people they can't do anything, they're helpless, they just have to wait for some Great Man to come along and do it for them.

If power is actually rooted in large parts of the population - if people can actually participate in social planning - then they will presumably do so in terms of their own interests, and you can expect the decisions to reflect those interests. Well, the interest of the general population is to preserve human life; the interest of corporations is to make profits-those are fundamentally different interests.


Either control over these matters is left in the hands of existing power interests and the rest of the population just abdicates, goes to the beach and hopes that somehow their children will survive - or else people will become sufficiently organized to break down the entire system of exploitation, and finally start putting it under participatory control. One possibility will mean complete disaster;
the other, you can imagine all kinds of things. For example, even
profitability would no longer be all that important - what would be important is living in a decent way.




As the first Secretary of the Air Force, Stuart Symington, put the matter very plainly back in 1948, he said: "The word to use is not 'subsidy,' the word to use is 'security.'

The world does not reward honesty and independence, it rewards obedience and service. It's a world of concentrated power, and those who have power are not going to reward people who question that power.

If you look at the results of human nature, you see everything:
you see enormous self-sacrifice, you see tremendous courage, you see integrity, you see destructiveness, you see anything you want. That doesn't tell you much.

When someone comes along claiming a scientific basis for some
social policy or anything else having to do with human beings, I'd be very skeptical if I were you.

For people to have the opportunity to live full and rewarding lives they have to be in control of what they do, even if that happens
to be economically less efficient.

The idea of developing the kind of society that Orwell saw and described in I think his greatest work, Homage to Catalonia - with popular control over all the institutions of society - okay, that's the right direction in which to move, I think.


The ones who are ruthless and brutal and harsh enough to seize
power are the ones who are going to survive. The ones who try to associate themselves with popular organizations and help the general population itself become organized, who try to assist popular movements in that kind of way, they're just not going to survive under these situations of concentrated power.

Notions like Marxism and Freudianism belong to the history of organized religion. So part of my problem is just its existence: it seems to me that even to discuss something like "Marxism" is already making a mistake. Like, we don't discuss "Planckism." Why not? Because it would be crazy.

It's extremely rare, outside of the natural sciences, to find things
that can't be said in monosyllables.

Eighty percent of Americans literally believe in religious
miracles. Half the population thinks the world was created a couple
thousand years ago and that fossils were put here to mislead people or
something - half the population. You just don't find things like that in other industrial societies.

If we ever had a popular reform candidate who actually achieved some formal level of power: there would be disinvestment, capital strike, a grinding down of the economy. And the reason is quite simple. In our society, real power does not happen to lie in the political system, it lies in the private economy: that's where the decisions are made about what's produced, how much is produced, what's consumed, where investment takes place, who has jobs, who controls the resources, and so on and so forth. And as long as that remains the case, changes inside the political system can make some difference - I don't want
to say it's zero - but the differences are going to be very slight.

Look, G.A.T.T. is something of major significance. The idea that it's going to be rammed through Congress on a fast track without public discussion just shows that anything resembling democracy in the United States has completely collapsed.

There is never any point in getting some person into office unless you can continue forcing them to be your representative, and they will only continue to be your representative as long as you are active and threatening enough to make them do what you want, otherwise they're going to stop being your representative.


There are parts of philosophy which I think I understand, and it's most
of classical philosophy. And there are things that I don't understand,
because they don't make any sense - and that's okay too, these are hard questions. I mean, it's not necessarily a criticism to say that something doesn't make sense: there are subjects that it's hard to talk sensibly about. But if I read, say, Russell, or analytic philosophy, or Wittgenstein and so on, I think I can come to understand what they're saying, and I can see why I think it's wrong, as I often do. But when I read, you know, Derrida, or Lacan, or AIthusser, or any of these - I just don't understand it. It's like words passing in front of my eyes: I can't follow the arguments, I don't see the arguments, anything that looks like a description of a fact looks wrong to me. So maybe I'm missing a gene or something, it's possible. But my honest opinion is, I think it's all fraud.

Anybody who wants to be President, you should right away say, "I don't
want to hear that guy any more." You should say, "I don't want to listen to that person any more." Anybody who wants to become your leader, you should say, "I don't want to follow." That's like a rule of thumb which almost never fails.


People should not be asking me or anyone else where to turn for an
accurate picture of things: they should be asking themselves that. So
someone can ask me what reflects my interpretation of the way things are, and I can tell them where they can get material that looks at the world the way I think it ought to be looked at - but then they have to decide whether or not that's accurate. Ultimately it's your own mind that has to be the arbiter: you've got to rely on your own common sense and intelligence, you can't rely on anyone else for the truth.


I think the smartest thing to do is to read everything you read - and that includes what I write, I would always tell people this - skeptically. And in fact, an honest writer will try to make it clear what his or her biases are and where the work is starting from, so that then readers can compensate - they can say, "This person's coming from over here, and that's the way she's looking at the world, now I can correct for what may well be her bias; I can decide for myself whether what she's telling me is accurate, because at least she's making her premises clear." And people should do that. You should start by being very skeptical about anything that comes to you from any sort of power system - and about everything else too. You should be skeptical about what I tell you - why should you believe a word of it? I got my
own ax to grind. So figure it out for yourself.

[Keyur Prabhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should definitely be your starting point for Chomsky if you are interested.

[Robb Seaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look, you don't need to read this book. Here's how Chomsky works:

1. Identify an authority.
2. Is it necessary? If not, dismantle it.

How do you identify an authority? Watch when someone gets fired, put in prison, forced to resign, etc. What aren't you allowed to say or do? What happens when you push something too far?

Now, I'm partial to this algorithm, but it's not at all obvious that it's a good idea, for all the same reasons that it's not obvious that it's a good idea to eradicate an unnecessary animal.

Plus, the book is decidedly useless when it comes to, you know, understanding power. "Because they're evil" is not analysis, and I wasn't at all impressed with Chomsky's scholarship, unlike many other reviewers. Chomsky draws almost no connections between his own narrative and work in other disciplines. Economists, he says, are brainwashed, so why listen to them? Very convenient.

If you're on the left and want to listen to someone agree with you, sure, then read this. Or if you're interested in the history of activism, read it -- that's essentially what Chomsky is, a historian specializing in activism. Otherwise, I'd recommend just watching the movie *Manufacturing Consent*.

[Clif · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a necessary, indispensable book for modern mankind. You must read it.

Noam Chomsky is now 91 years old. His voice has become faint and slow and I suspect he will not be with us much longer, but what a contribution he has made not only in his professional life studying language but in his private life as the premier critic of the American way of life and the American empire. The man is not simply a genius, but broadly so and of a kind beneficial to all of us. He holds the title at MIT of "Institute Professor" with the incredible privilege to teach a course in any department of the university and that includes both the sciences and the humanities.

This book is particularly appealing as it is a dialog. People attending lectures of Chomsky's over the years prior to 2000 pose questions to him and quite often follow up those questions when something Chomsky says is not clear or appears contradictory to the questioner. This makes for a free flowing text that ranges broadly over our modern situation.

Chomsky has always given intellectuals a good name, speaking clearly with a simple vocabulary and a wonderful droll sense of humor that any audience can appreciate. And audiences have been many as Chomsky has traveled the country and the world to present his incisive opinions that rely on his incredible ability to digest an immense amount of information and remember it in detail even over decades. He says he relies on others to send him clippings but there can be no doubt that his own readings have served him well. How many people do you know who have an Associate Press wire service in their homes? He speaks of facts only, his opinions tightly constrained by truth.

Knowing how easily despair can come, Chomsky doesn't allow it to stop him, though freely admitting that things can appear hopeless, he cites reasons for believing we can do something to help ourselves if we work as a group to act rather than to merely complain. He refuses to be prophetic and calls for organization in light of the fact that solitary action cannot produce more than very limited results. He states that things can change unexpectedly and very rapidly even when all looks very dark. For all that analysis can provide us, tomorrow is unknown.

At the same time, he is a socialist calling for democracy to rule the allocation of wealth. Capitalism in his view is, to the degree it is free to operate without intervention, a system that cannot last but will by the nature of calling for immediate and maximum profit destroy the civilization that hosts it.

Power is first of all dedicated to maintaining itself. Nationalism presents a false picture that we are good and they are evil. Leaders will deceive us as well as themselves. The relative few who hold power will act together to keep the many in ignorance and in a state of dependency allowing more or less complete control. More wealth will go to the top the only limitation being the degree to which the many will tolerate the theft.

There is no part of this book that is better than the rest or any of it that is not captivating reading particularly for Americans. The fact that it was published 20 years ago should not deter anyone from reading it. Time and again the truth of Chomsky's words come through, but there is one paragraph from the book that I feel bound to reproduce because the insight in it took my breath away. Chomsky writes of his travels in America, and keep in mind that this was written before 9/11 when Clinton was president:

...the country is very disturbed. You can see it in the polls and you can certainly see it traveling around - and I travel around a lot. There's complete disaffection about everything. People don't trust anyone, they think everyone's lying to them, everyone's working for somebody else. The whole civil society has broken down. And when you talk about the mood of the people - well, whether it's on right wing talk radio, or among students, or just among the general population, you get a very good reception these days for the kind of things I talk about. But it's scary, because if you came and told the people, "Clinton's organizing a UN army with aliens to come and carry out genocide, you'd better go to the hills." you'd get the same favorable response. That's the problem, you'd get the same favorable response. I mean you can go to the most reactionary parts of the country, or anywhere else and a thousand people will show up to listen and they'll be really excited about what you're saying - no matter what it is. That's the trouble: it's no matter what it is. Because people are so disillusioned by this point that they will believe almost anything.

I hate the thought that we will lose this man.

[Nikola Jankovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sjajan Čomski. Otvara oči na svet. Em jedan od najpametnijih ljudi danas, em se slažem sa njegovim pogledima. A još bolje ga je čitati u vreme kad je aktivizam aktuelan, kao što je aktuelan ovih nedelja kod nas.

Bez obzira na masovnost nekih okupljanja, mnogo ljudi mi kaže "ne vredi, šta se može postići"? Zapravo mnogo, i to je jedna od stvari koje Čomski objašnjava kroz ovu zbirku predavanja. Aktivizam je naporan - počinje sa par ljudi u tvojoj dnevnoj sobi i to može da traje godinama. Ali kad dođe pravo vreme, stvari se ekstremno ubrzavaju. Ukidanje robovlasništva. Fministički pokret. Prava za tamnopute u Americi. Rat u Vijetnamu. Zaustavljanje genocida podržanog od SAD u Istočnom Timoru... Na kraju krajeva, reke Stare planine i Rio Tinto.

Na njegovim predavanjima ljudi se žale da smo postali suviše pasivni. Ovo je pisano 90-ih, ali je veoma aktuelno. Čomski poredi Ameriku 60-ih i 80-ih, i šta je postignuto takvim pasivnim pritiscima. Aktivista je naizgled manje, ali urađeno je mnogo - vlast ne može više direktno da ubija milione kao u Vijetnamu, mora da radi ispod radara, sa manjim operacijama u Nikaragvi, kratkim ratovima u Iraku i Gvatemali, bombardovanjem Jugoslavije umesto iskrcavanjem trupa. Koliko mrtvih bi bilo bez takvih pritisaka javnosti?

Čomski donosi i teorije zavere (fraza za koju on kaže da je postala "prljava reč"), ali na jednom drugom nivou. Nema tu priča o gušterima i (ne)pristajanju na Mesec, a te teorije često nisu potpuno skrivene. Čitanjem državnih dokumenata može se doći do istine - samo treba znati gde i šta čitati i razumećeš šta znači "pritisak na vlade koje rade protivno interesu nacije", "podrška američkom kapitalu" ili "saradnja sa tajnim službama država" (Izrael, Južna Afrika, Saudijska Arabija, koje Čomski naziva "plaćeničkim državama, koje za SAD obavljaju prljavi posao koji ova više ne može da obavlja sama - upravo zbog pritisaka aktivista"). Takva teorija zavere može na primer biti informacija da su za vreme raketne krize na Kubi 1962., SAD izvele seriju terorističkih napada protiv Kube, da su masovno potapali ribarske brodove ali i razneli fabriku na Kubi, pri čemu je poginulo 400 radnika.

Ako se pravilno čita, onda ti je jasno šta znači "containment operation against Soviet Union" ili "defensive operations in 1918", koje su ustvari bile slanje armije u novostvoreni SSSR. Odbrambene operacije na teritoriji strane države? Ovo je samo jedna od takvih operacija u američkom 20. veku.

A kao lingvista, Čomski se posvećuje i rečima i frazama. Pretražio je američke mejnstrim medije 60-ih i u nijednom se nije spomenulo da su SAD izvršile invaziju na Vijetnam. Amerikanci se uvek brane ili "podržavaju demokratiju". Mirovni proces - to je ono što SAD uvek podržava, po svaku cenu, makar i po cenu rata. New York Times, koji se smatra za predvodnika slobodne reči u SAD, je u svim (bukvalno, 100%) člancima od 1980. do 2000. SAD opisivao kao predvodnika mirovnog procesa.

Priča i o kapitalizmu, sistemu koji "radi na pohlepu". Nije to briga za druge ili za društvo - to je sistem u kom svi zajedno treba da se trudimo da bogati ostanu srećni. Ako ne budu srećni, povući će investicije, uložiti drugde i svi smo u problemu. A dok god privatni kapital ima takav uticaj na odlučivanje i politiku, tako će i da ostane.

Kao anarhista, Čomski se zalaže za potpuno ukidanje uticaja države. Zapravo za ukidanje države i institucija kao takvih. Žao mi je da se ovde nije više posvetio toj ideji. Šta uopšte znači ukidanje države? Gde su zakoni, policija, ko štiti slabije? Ko sprovodi zakone? Čomski to priznaje, pa iznosi pomalo čudnu kontratezu, gde se on kao anarhista zalaže za osnaživanje državnih institucija, što bi bila nekakva međufaza u oduzimanju moći korporacijama. Nakon toga - anarhija. Ali, kakva je to krajnja faza koju vidi za društvo?

Objašnjava i želju vlasti za depolitizacijom javnosti. Vlast (prema njemu - korporacije) se trudi da ljudi izgube interes za politiku. Vlast želi da ulaže u naoružanje (što po njegovom i nije toliko loše za pokretanje ekonomije), ne u društvene projekte. Ako ulažeš u škole, puteve, bolnice, onda se ljudi uključuju u politički proces. Po��nu da se interesuju, istražuju, zato što je to nešto što ima uticaj na njihov život. Zašto se škola ne izgradi u njihovom kvartu? A interes javnosti nije dobar ni za jednu vlast - bolje je da ljudi ostanu pasivni, da moć zadrže "oni gore". Bolje je ulagati u nešto što ljude ne interesuje (npr. u novi nosač aviona), pa makar bilo potrebno da se zbog toga stalno stvaraju novi neprijatelji. A finansiranje vojne industrije je direktno finansiranje korporacija, ništa drugo osim toga.

Ali šta možemo da uradimo, s obzirom da će ti gore uraditi sve da se zadrže na vlasti i da sistem ostane nepromenjen? Da li treba samo da sedimo i udaljimo se? To su ljudi pričali i za feudalizam i za robovlasništvo, kaže Čomski. Ne treba da budemo izolovani, svako za sebe, treba da se udružimo i onda je sve moguće. (Sredinom 90-ih najavljuje i internet - koji je s jedne strane odličan za komunikaciju među aktivistima, ali koji će potpuno da otupi ljude i uzme im volju da se aktiviraju uživo, a bez toga nema aktivizma). Možda još nije vreme za pravi slobodni socijalizam ili za anarhizam, ali dugo nije bilo pravo vreme ni za ukidanje robovlasništva.

Za kraj - simpatičan mi je i u odbrani i u napadu na države koje su predstavljale "socijalizam" u dvadesetom veku. Najpre se pita, zbog čega se bogastvo Sovjetskog saveza poredi sa Zapadnom Evropom, pa da onda na osnovu toga zaključujemo da ta vrsta državne organizacije nije bila uspešna? Trebalo bi gledati države koje su bile slične SSSR u 1913., pa videti kako su se razvijale do 1990. Treba porediti Bugarsku i Gvatemalu, SSSR i Brazil, a ne SSSR i Veliku Britaniju. Ako uzmemo takva poređenja, pokazaće se da rezultati uopšte nisu toliko loši.

S druge strane, nimalo ne simpatizira sa tim pogrešnim oblikom socijalizma i komunizma. Lenjin i Staljin uradili su sve što je protivno socijalizmu. Nakon Oktobarske revolucije, razorili su sovjete, ukinuli fabričke odbore osnovane u februarskoj revoluciji. Uveli su državni kapitalizam. Kažemo da "socijalizam nije uspeo i da ne treba da se vraća", a pri tome mislimo na socijalističke države poput Sovjetskog saveza ili one koje u svom nazivu imaju reč socijalizam. Zašto ne kažemo "demokratija nije uspela", kad imamo države poput Nemačke Demokratske Republike ili Demokratske Narodne Republike Koreje? Čomski tvrdi da je u onim državama sa "socijalizmom" u nazivu bilo otprilike toliko socijalizma, koliko je demokratije u ovima drugima.

[FOYSOL MAHMUD · Rating 5 out of 5]

এই বছর ডিসেম্বরের ৭ তারিখে নোয়াম চমস্কি পালন করেছেন তার ৯২তম জন্মবার্ষিকি। বলা হয়ে থাকে তিনি বর্তমান বিশ্বের জীবিত মোস্ট সাইটেড স্কলার। অনেকের মতে তিনি হচ্ছেন, “the most important intellectual alive”। তিনি Massachusetts Institute of Technology-এর একজন Institute Professor Emeritus, কাজ করেন ভাষাতত্ত্ব, বিশ্লেষণমূলক দর্শন, কগনিটিভ সাইন্স ও রাজনীতি নিয়ে। চমস্কি ১৫০ এর উপরে লিখেছেন বই, দিয়েছেন শতশত পাবলিক স্পিচ, ১৬০ এর উপরে মুভি, টিভি সিরিজ ও ডকুমেন্টারিতে রয়েছে তার উপস্থিতি। তবে তার সবচেয়ে বড় পরিচয় হলো তিনি আমেরিকান পররাষ্ট্র নীতি, পুঁজিবাদ এবং মেইন্সট্রিম মিডিয়ার একজন বিশ্ববিখ্যাত সমালোচক।

তার “Understanding Power” বইটা পড়লাম, ২০০১ সালে প্রকাশিত ৪১৬ পৃষ্টার এই বইটি বিভিন্ন টকশোতে দেয়া তার বক্তব্যের একটি সংকলন। সবচেয়ে আশ্চর্য্যের বিষয়টি হলো, এই বইতে তিনি বলেছেন পাবলিক স্পিকিং ও টকশোর জন্য তার স্কেজিউল আগামী দুই বছরের জন্য বুকড। সেই সঙ্গে বুঝতে পারলাম কেন এই ব্যাক্তি আমেরিকায় বসবাস করে একসময় আমেরিকার মতো শক্তিশালী একটি দেশের প্রেসিডেন্টের এনিমিলিস্টের উপরের দিকে জায়গা করে নিয়েছিলেন।

যাই হোক, বইয়ের শুরুতেই চমস্কি সমালোচনা করেছেন গনতন্ত্রের নামে আমেরিকার আগ্রাসনকে এবং মার্কিন মূলুকের মানুষদের বোকা বানিয়ে রাখা (তার মতে) মেইন্সট্রিম মিডিয়াকে। তিনি বলেছেন, সাধারনত যেকোন দেশ, জাতি বা গোত্র কোন অসৎ উদ্দ্যেশ্য সাধনের জন্য ভাড়াটে সন্ত্রাসীর কোন একক ব্যাক্তি বা দলকে ভাড়া করে কিন্তু আমরা এতই বিত্তশালী যে আমরা এইসব কাজের জন্য ভাড়াটে সন্ত্রাসী রাষ্ট্রকে (তিনি ইসরাইল কে ইঙ্গিত করেছেন) ব্যাবহার করি। এক মহিলা রিপোর্টার চমস্কিকে প্রশ্ন করেছিলেন সত্য প্রকাশে মিডিয়ার কাছে আদর্শগত বাধা কোন জায়গায়? এর জবাবে তিনি বলেন, আমি Boston Globe-এর এডিটরকে একবার জিজ্ঞেস করেছিলাম আপনারা ইসরাইল/ফিলিস্তিন দ্বন্দ্বকে এত খারাপ ভাবে উপস্থাপন করেন কেন? উত্তরে ঐ এডিটর হাসলেন এবং বললেন, আমরা এটা করি কারন আমাদের কোন আরব এডভারটাইজার নাই।

চমস্কির মতে বর্তমানে আন্তর্জাতিক পরিসরে মানুষকে সবচেয়ে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ যে দুইটা জিনিস নিয়ে ভাবা উচিত তা হলো, এক. আন্তর্জাতিক অর্থনীতির পরিবর্তন এবং দুই. পরিবেশের উপর হুমকি। পুঁজিবাদ যেভাবে কাজ করে সেটা একটা সেলফ ডেস্ট্রাকশান মেথড। এই সিস্টেমের প্রকৃতি হ'ল লোভ দ্বারা চালিত হওয়া; কারও পক্ষে কারও জন্যই উদ্বিগ্ন হওয়ার কিছু নেই। পুঁজিবাদের চিন্তা ভাবনা হচ্ছে “Maximizing sort-term profit without concern for the long-term effect”, যেখানে প্রত্যেকটা এনটিটি হচ্ছে একেকটা লিথাল ওয়েপন। তাই আর যাইহোক পুজিবাদ দিয়ে পরিবেশকে বাচানো সম্ভব না। পরিবেশকে বাচানোর একটাই উপায় আর তা হলো সম্মিলিত সামাজিক পরিকল্পনা।

তাকে প্রশ্ন করা হয় এই যুদ্ধাস্ত্র প্রতিযোগিতার উদ্দ্যেশ্য কি? তিনি বলেন মনে রাখবেন একটি দেশের প্রাথমিক শত্রু হচ্ছে তার নিজের জনগন। যদি একবার আপনার নিজের দেশের মধ্যে পলিটিক্স ছড়িয়ে পড়ে তাহলে এটি একটি ম্যাসাকারে রূপ নিবে এবং জনগনকে বাধ্য রাখার সবচেয়ে কার্যকরী উপায় হলো International Conflict, যার মাধ্যমে জনগন ভয়ে তটস্থ থাকবে ও নিজের অধিকার ছেড়ে দিতে বাধ্য হবে। এই যুদ্ধাস্ত্র প্রতিযোগিতা একটি দেশের অর্থনীতিকে সঠিক ভাবে চালানোর জন্যে একটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ ভূমিকা পালন করে, এই অসম প্রতিযোগিতার কারনেই হাই-টেক ইন্ডাস্ট্রিতে ভর্তুকি প্রদান সম্ভব হয়। যেমন, কোন পলটিশিয়ান যদি বলেন, আগামী বছর থেকে আপনারা বেশি ট্যাক্স পে করবেন যাতে আমরা IBM-কে একটি পঞ্চমপ্রজন্মের কম্পিউটার ও NASA-কে মঙ্গল অভিজানের জন্য ভর্তুকি দিতে পারি। দেশের কোন নাগরিকই এর সাথে একমত হবে না। কিন্তু আপনি যদি এইখানে International threat-কে নিয়ে আসেন তবে দেশের নাগরিকেরা তা মানতে বাধ্য।

আমি “Free Market”-এর একজন সাপোর্টার কিন্তু চমস্কি এই Free Market সম্পর্কে আমার ধারনা পালটে দিয়েছেন। তার মতে এটি আমেরিকার সাধারণ জনগণের বিরুদ্ধে একটি অস্ত্র, কারণ এটি সামাজিক ব্যয়ের বিরুদ্ধে একটি যুক্তি, এবং এটি বিদেশের দরিদ্র মানুষের বিরুদ্ধে একটি অস্ত্র, কারণ আমরা অন্য দেশকে বলতে পারি "তোমাদের আমাদের প্রদান করা বিধিগুলি মেনে চলতে হবে," এবং যখনই তারা তা মানতে শুরু করে আমরা তাদের লুঠ করতে শুরু করি। চমস্কি উদাহরন দিয়েছেন ঢাকা কে —রবার্ট ক্লাইভ যখন ঢাকায় আসেন, তিনি ঢাকাকে তুলনা করেন “the Manchester of India” হিসেবে। কারন তখন ঢাকা ছিল ধনসম্পদে পরিপূর্ণ, লোকে লোকারণ্য। ঢাকায় তুলা চাষ হতো, ছিল তখনকার সময়ের অত্যাধুনিক ইন্ডাস্ট্রি, ছিলো রিসোর্স—যেমন পাট। উৎপাদনশীলতার দিক থেকে তুলনা করলে ঢাকা তখন ইংল্যান্ডের সমকক্ষ ছিল। কিন্তু আপনি যদি এখন ঢাকার দিকে তাকান তবে দেখবেন “the Manchester of India, is the capital of Bangladesh—the absolute symbol of disaster”। চমস্কির মতে যারাই ওয়েস্টের দ্বারা শ্বাসিত হয়েছে তার প্রত্যেকেই বর্তমানে একেকটা ধংসস্তুপ আর যারা ওয়েস্টের দ্বারা শ্বাসিত হয় নি তারাই আজকের লিডিং ইকোনমি।

এই বইয়ের সবচেয়ে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ অংশটি হলো আমেরিকা সহ ওয়ার্ল্ড একাডেমিয়ার ডার্ক সাইড নিয়ে তার আলোচনা। বর্তমান স্কুল সিস্টেম গঠন করা হয়েছে এইভাবেই যেন বাচ্চারা স্বাধীন ভাবে চিন্তা না করে একরকম সিস্টেমের দাসে পরিণত হয়। কারন আপনি যদি স্কুল সিস্টেম এনালাইস করেন তাহলে দেখবেন একটা বাচ্চা যদি কোন সাবজেক্টে সি গ্রেড পায় তবে এটা অথরিটির জন্যে কোন মাথাব্যাথার বিষয় না। কিন্তু ওই বাচ্চাটাই যদি তিন মিনিট দেরি করে স্কুলে আসে তবে তাকে প্রিন্সিপালের অফিসে ডেকে শাসানো হবে।

একাডেমিয়াতে স্বাধীন চিন্তা ভাবনা কে কিভাবে দমিয়ে রাখা হয় তা উল্লেখ করে চমস্কি একটি ঘটনার বর্ণনা দিয়েছেন। ১৯৮৪ তে Joan Peters নামের একব্যাক্তির লেখা From Time Immemorial একটি বই বের হয়। সামগ্রিকভাবে এই বইয়ের সারাংশ ছিল এই যে, ফিলিস্তিনিরা প্যালেস্টাইন বা ইসরাইলের আদি বাসিন্দা নয়, তারা হচ্ছে ইমিগ্রান্ট। বইটি ওই সময় আমেরিকাতে খুবই জনপ্রিয়তা লাভ করেঃ Washington Post, New York Times থেকে শুরু করে সব জায়গায় পজেটিভ রিভিউয়ের ছড়াছড়ি। অর্থাৎ, সবার মরাল এক্সসেপ্টেশান ছিল এই যে ইসরাইলিরা চাইলে ফিলিস্তিনিদের তাদের দেশ থেকে তাড়িয়ে দিতে পারে। কিন্তু সমস্যা বাধালো Norman Finkelstein নামের ���্রিন্সটনের এক গ্রাজুয়েট স্টুডেন্ট। সে বইটা পড়লো এবং রেফারেন্স খুজতে গিয়ে দেখলো পুরো বইটাই একটা ধাপ্পাবাজি ছাড়া আর কিছুই না। সে এটা নিয়ে একটা আর্টিকেল লিখলো এবং জার্নালে সাবমিট করা শুরু করলো। যদিও লিডিং জার্নাল গুলো তার এই আর্টিকেল সাবমিশানে কোন রেসপন্স করেনি এবং করার কথাও না, কিন্তু ইলিয়নসের একটা বামপন্থি জার্নাল তার আর্টিকেল প্রকাশ করলো। এটা ছিল তার জীবনের একটা মারাত্মক ভুল। এই আর্টিকেল প্রকাশের পর তার ডিপার্টমেন্টের প্রফেসরররা তার সাথে মিটিং এর স্কেডিউল নেয়া এমনকি কথা বলাও ছেড়ে দিল। Finkelstein তার প্রোগ্রাম কুইট করলো এমনকি ডিপার্টমেন্ট পর্যন্ত চেঞ্জ করতে বাধ্য হলো।

এই বই পড়ে কেউ যে ওয়েস্টের বিরুদ্ধে যুদ্ধ ঘোষনা করে দিবে বা আমি নিজেই যে আবেগে আপ্লুত হয়ে গেছি এমন না। তবে বইটাতে ফ্যাক্ট আর ইনফরমেশান যে ভাবে তুলে ধরা হয়েছে, Freedom of speech, Automation, Abortion, Free Trade, International war, ইকোনমিক্স থেকে পলিটিক্স, তাবৎ দুনিয়ার অতীত থেকে ভবিষ্যৎ মাত্র ৪১৬ পেইজে যেভাবে নিয়ে আসা হয়েছে সেটি অসাধারন। আসলেই ক্ষমতাকে বুঝতে হলে আপনার এই বইটি পড়া উচিত।

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eye-opening book which is accessible for almost everyone to read without too much trouble and a great introduction to many topics surrounding the politics of Power. Packed within these 400 pages, Chomsky discusses US foreign policy & US politics in general, Israel, Palestine & the Middle East, histories of labour and social movements, propaganda techniques of the mainstream media, the military-industrial complex and the UN to name just a few. He also talks about activism and the need for people to get together and mobilize for change (I found Chapter 6 especially interesting for this). Chomsky doesn't offer answers to the difficult questions, only suggestions as it's up to people to decide what they want for themselves and their futures - no-one should ever make those decisions for you, and I really admired that.

I would recommend this to anyone who wants to find out what's really going on in the world and why.

P.S The extensive footnotes that are online which accompany the book are also incredibly useful and thorough.

[Aaron Gertler · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I never wanted to be a radical; it's just that when I started checking the footnotes I couldn't stop."

Statements about power that are often true:
* Power is brutal.
* People with power use it brutally.
* People who have been powerful for a long time have also been brutal for a long time.

Noam Chomsky writes about power, and the way it has been used (brutally) by the United States. He also writes about language, and how we settle into ways of using it that distort our perceptions. This is one of the best books I've read on either subject.

Even on topics that most authors treat as a tug-of-war, Chomsky is less likely to join one side or the other than he is to pull the rope sideways, or point out that it's been tied to a brick wall:

Some of you are journalists: try talking about the American "attack" on South Vietnam. Your editors will think you came from Mars or something, there was no such event in history. Of course, there was in real history.

His views are often straightforward, but rarely simple:

"I mean, it's a difficult judgment to try to figure out whether Nixon or Humphrey is going to end the Vietnam War sooner [in 1968], that's an extremely subtle judgment to make; I actually didn't vote on that one, because I figured Nixon probably would. I did vote against Reagan, because I thought the guys around Reagan were extremely dangerous-Reagan himself was irrelevant, but the people in his administration were real killers and torturers, and they were just making people suffer too much, so I thought that might make a difference. But these are usually not very easy judgments to make, in my opinion."

The book is mostly people asking Chomsky ideological questions and getting back practical answers. Is now the time for revolution? Well...

"[America's] depoliticized, cynical population could easily be mobilized by Jimmy Swaggart [a televangelist], or it could be organized by environmentalists. Mostly it just depends on who's willing to do the work."

Is capitalism racist? Well...

"Capitalism basically wants people to be interchangeable cogs, and differences among them, such as on the basis of race, usually are not functional. I mean, they may be functional for a period, like if you want a super-exploited workforce or something, but those situations are kind of anomalous. Over the long term, you can expect capitalism to be anti-racist, just because it's anti-human. And race is in fact a human characteristic-there's no reason why it should be a negative characteristic, but it is a human characteristic."

He isn't always right, but his "does this make sense?" filter is always on, and it catches a lot of potential mistakes before they happen. It also lets him cut through the Gordian Knot of tangled pro-America journalism which dominated the media landscape for several decades (and caused immeasurable damage during the Iraq War). To see someone with a similar mind take on our current politics, see William Arkin's resignation from NBC.

Anyway, back to the main review: Understanding Power was endlessly fascinating. I learned about bits of history I'd never heard before (like the story of Vladimir Danchev or the theory of "Diaperology"). I saw old bits of history in a new light (Watergate was a piddling violation of "American values" compared to FBI raids on the Socialist Workers Party; Bill Clinton helped to overthrow democracy in Haiti). And I came to appreciate the mind of the author, who in many ways is a consummate rationalist, always asking more questions and refusing to clap for the applause lights of any party. (I had never realized how deeply he held Marxism in contempt; shame on me for painting him with a broad brush.)

This isn't to say he's perfect, of course. I'll quote a passage from my notes, written minutes after I finished reading:

As a big thinker, he has big weaknesses; the one that first comes to mind is that he doesn't seem to see businesspeople as... human? He claims that people are very difficult to predict or understand, unless they are businesspeople, in which case they will murder their way to profits every time.

Understanding Power doesn't really understand capitalism; Chomsky may have a reasonable model of what it's like to be CEO of Lockheed Martin or United Fruit, but I saw no evidence in this book that he has any idea what it might be like to live inside the mind of Elon Musk or Joe Coloumbe. Also, after reading his thoughts on American libertarianism, I wished that I could find a time machine and arrange things so that he'd been forced to room with Bryan Caplan in college (they could have been such good friends, and Caplan may have corrected a few of Chomsky's silliest mistakes).

Still, the book's minor flaws barely dim its brilliance, and they certainly don't undermine its central point: The American government does not hate you, but it doesn't love you; you are made of atoms it can use for something else. And Americans have built-in blinders to stop them from recognizing this (we also have new blinders in the twenty-first century, but the old ones never slipped off). We have murdered and bombed and killed people at frightening rates, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. We try to protect people, and we have good intentions, but we almost always put ourselves first.

...of course, other countries are much the same. To study power in global politics, one should study the United States, but had Chomsky been a Russian in an alternate universe where the Cold War went the other way, I think he'd be saying the same things about the USSR (though he may not have lived quite so long).

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough to create a Chomsky-style review. He's really smart and says a lot of true things that are easy to forget whether or not your politics are "mainstream". He is steadfastly pro-human and really seems to care when people get hurt. He has a coherent view of the world. He tells funny gossipy stories about George Will and other journalists acting ridiculous. He is worth reading.

[BeeQuiet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have strong feelings moving in both ways on this book, as whilst Chomsky does make very good points on multiple issues, his attempts at modesty occasionally fall flat as it becomes apparent that he thinks he understands the whole world order more than he does. I do feel that his analysis of the media is by and large correct - if one is funded by advertisers, those advertisers must be pleased and they will not be pleased if you run the wrong messages. I know plenty of people who simply swallow assumed 'common sense' knowledge without questioning it and this is in part indoctrination. As Chomsky notes, governments have in the past been relatively open about the need for propaganda to keep the public doing what they should and keep them from interfering in politics.

I do not believe Chomsky is the be all and end all - he over-generalises and he writes off some theorists as being ridiculous because they are not directly useful for campaigning, whilst showing in a similar example that the 'hard sciences' work in the same way entirely with his support. This is just one example, but my overall view is that anyone who follows the 'bible of Chomsky' without critically engaging and coming up with their own version has made a big mistake. But then that is something on which both Chomsky and I would wholeheartedly agree upon.

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chomsky is one of the critical deans of American political history: ironic and pessimistic; forever probing and analyzing the decrepitude, deceit, and delusion rife within the ready presentation and understanding of the United States as an exceptional force of good in the world, and a constant decrier of the various means and manipulations the government and media undertake to stoke this view; content in generally limiting himself to pointing out the flaws in the system, the hypocrisy and moral failures and falsehoods, in order to heighten the reader's awareness in lieu of offering any realistic or practical solutions, while displaying a certain naïveté of functioning politics, a somewhat idealistic (or at least selective) view of the world, though whether as a cause or an effect is not clear to me. His analysis of the problems is acute and convincing; his conclusions never seem of the real world in which we are all forced to live. I respect Chomsky and his unwavering commitment to presenting what he believes to be an unvarnished and necessary antidote to a rampant American Exceptionalism; but I find that I am often left feeling immensely helpless in the wake of his endless detailing and criticism, bereft of any workable solutions and suspecting that, in his pursuit of the darkness inherent in the American Dream (as filtered through the Military-Industrial Complex), he has become quite blind to the sides and shapes of it that are positive and bright, as well as increasingly morally obtuse whenever the perpetrator(s) of the policies, actions, and propaganda that he abhors is(are) not of the first world. Perhaps a case of a prolonged peering into the Nietzschean abyss, with all of its attendant perils.

[کافه ادبیات · Rating 3 out of 5]

"نوآم چامسکی" به عنوان یکی از برجسته ترین روشنفکران عمومی عصر مدرن مورد قبول جهانیان است. طی سی سال گذشته ، مخاطبان بسیار متنوعی برای شرکت در سخنرانی های او جمع شده اند. اکنون در کتاب "فهم قدرت" ، "پیتر میشل" و "جان شوفل" برگزیده ای از اندیشه های "نوآم چامسکی" درباره سیاست های گذشته ، حال و آینده را گردآوری کرده اند.
"فهم قدرت" مجموعه ای گسترده از بحث ها و سمینارهای رونویسی شده و قبلا منتشر نشده (از 1989 تا 1999) با تحلیل سیاسی "نوآم چامسکی" است.

[Nikolay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not assembled by Chomsky, but by some genius editors who organized and very precisely cut pieces of many interviews with him. I loved the format. The covered a much broader range of topics than I expected and the more conversational style made it a lot easier to swallow.

Now, to the more complicated part of the review – the content itself. Based on knowing a little bit about Chomsky, my approach to listening the book was to pay closer attention to the facts and explanations how and why the works and tactfully let his ideas about how the world should go in one ear and out the other. This strategy worked marvelously.

Some of the topics covered are: US foreign policy and its brutal aggression, capitalism and how capital effectively governs the country, media/education/intellectualism and how they are mostly used as propaganda tools, dissent and how they had an actual effect on US government actions.

My two main takeaways:
- After learning more about how the world works, the only way to deal with the imminent depression and being overwhelmed is to stick to the things we can change and enjoy and work on changing them day after day, putting one foot in front of the other, until we see an improvement.
- While flawed, the current system works reasonably well – we live longer, violence is minimal compared to the past, with a little bit of luck one can lead a decent life. Not to say we should accept the status quo, but amount our regular rage about how fucked up the world is, let's at least for a second acknowledge the current complex (and surprising, to me) balance.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven't read Chomsky, this is a good place to start. It's a well-edited collection of Chomsky's talks, so it's rather wide-ranging, but it always circles back to the same themes so it doesn't seem scattered. I started this a few days after the presidential election, hoping it could help me with the universal question: "What the Fuck?" It did, sort of. Take this, for example:

I think that the United States has been in kind of a pre-fascist mood for years -- and we've been very lucky that every leader who's come along has been a crook. See, people should always be very much in favor of corruption -- I'm not kidding about that. Corruption's a very good thing, because it undermines power. I mean, if we get some Jim Bakker coming along -- you know, this preacher who was caught sleeping with everybody and defrauding his followers -- those guys are fine: all they want is money and sex and ripping people off, so they're never going to cause much trouble. Or take Nixon, say: an obvious crook, he's ultimately not going to cause that much of a problem. But if somebody shows up who's kind of a Hitler-type -- just wants power, no corruption, straight, makes it all sound appealing, and says, "We want power" -- well, then we'll all be in very bad trouble.

Yay for corruption! The pieces in this book are a little bit out of date, but let's hope that Noam is right, on this count at least. We're about to find out.

[Zach Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best single source of Chomsky's work I've come across. A triumph of editing, this book is made up of excerpts of talks Chomsky gave throughout the 80s and 90s. Loosely organized by topic, the book is highly flowing and readable. It includes an encyclopedic reference section available online that is longer than the main text of the book. This is where I recommend anyone not familiar with Chomsky's work to begin; it's the most comprehensive and accessible compilation of his thoughts. Many of the discussions quoted within were in question and answer format. The audience participation is included in the text. Many of the audience questions are obvious questions anyone unfamiliar with the subject matter would have, and the opportunity to read Chomsky's detailed responses to a huge range of questions offers much deeper understanding than simply reading one of his books by yourself.

Understanding Power is a glimpse into the mind of one of the most brilliant, profound, and insightful social critics of our time. He touches on virtually every influential issue in US history, and readers are bound to walk away with a much deeper appreciation for how power functions in society, and how divergent American standard explanations of the world are from reality.

[Jostein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a transcription of talks done by Chomsky in the 90s, and people ask him all sorts of questions. However, the main topics are american politics, both foreign and domestic. Chomsky sounds like a living lexicon as he talks about every single US intervention, the sciences and just about everything else. And he has a remarkable ability to break problems down and explain everything in a very understandable way.

His world view seems quite cynical at times. I wondered sometimes if his interpretations were a bit far-fetched, but usually he has pretty sound logic to back up his statements.

This is a very interesting book as it presents deep reflections on so many topics. Agree or not, Chomsky makes you think. And he says straight out that he does not want to tell people what to do. But he wants people to open their eyes to the power structures around them, and he wants to inspire people to organize. For lots of quotes from this book, check out Tara’s great review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[waitsforsleep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally changes your world view. I've seen a lot of people mention how they became disillusioned at mainstream media and even stopped following politics and news in general because this book showed them how hopeless the status quo is. But I arrived at the exact opposite conclusion. Chomsky reads between the lines, and breaks down events in a lucid and satisfying way. You need not give up on news altogether, just need to learn how to process it. 10/10 highly recommended for anyone

[Mathias · Rating 1 out of 5]

The books is very good edited, for a long time, I wanted to give it 5 stars, then 4, then 3, than 2 and I didn’t think I would go lower than that but something happened that my sorrowful rating rests at 1.75/5 stars, rounded down. So why only one star at goodreads?
Chomsky, buried somewhere toward the end seriously says that those who are in favour of free markets are ok with a 14yo being raped and the forthcoming child being starved. Such a vile, intellectually-free attack on his opponents deserves the 1 star rating and I guess it also tells a lot about Chomsky himself. The demons he fight might very well be within himself.

On the other hand, the book has a lot of interesting stuff about parts of history that I don’t know much about, like Central America (Despite just having listened to small audiobook on this topic), etc. This is why I give it a 1.75 rating, rather than just 1.0, but goodreads isn’t that finetuned.

Where do his hatred for capitalism and free markets come from? Frankly, I’ve no idea, I know, from this book, that he’s up to selling something else, participatory democracy, he only mentions it a few times briefly. Maybe he’s aware of its flaw. It’s a system where capital is democratised, or better, given to the workers so that they can democratically decide how to use or save the capital. It’s certainly an interesting proposal. But to me the main question is, if it’s working so much better, why don’t we already have it, or at least experiments that show us its superiority? Does the mean old banks not give credits for such a lucrative experiment? Has the whole country (or world?) be transformed at once in order for it to work? But why would that be? A capitalistic experiment would succeed very well in a communistic/socialistic/whatever environment because it’s a superior and more ethical system of organising the world. So even a small bit a capitalism often helps a country a lot (e.g. Lenin’s New Economic Policy, which went back nearer to a market place oriented system). But somehow, all these wonder-solutions, that lack serious scholarship, somehow need everybody to believe in it and no one is allowed to work in the old ways, only then can they show us how marvellous it is. Sound like a Hollywood or Disney production.

So, let’s now get nearer to the book. He was asked whether he would write about some controversial Nicaragua election. Obviously, it wasn’t a free election, because of US interference (America should the get fuck out of there, pay restitution where possible, apologize and end their war on drugs and until then they better should shut their mouths concerning unfair portrayals of themselves). Noam Chomsky sensibly replied that he can’t write about Nicaraguan’s election because that’s the job of the Nicaraguans but he can write about the US reaction to this election and he did. His verdict was that it shows how deeply totalitarian the US has become. He backs this with some plausible examples. This is something that concerns me a lot too.

What I found best about his book was his filter-theory. He says that since kindergarten *problematic* children are filtered out of the system, so that only the docile survive it till the end. Because the filter is not hidden but is there for everybody to see, students learn to adopt what’s expected from them (dutifulness), and they learn how to behave, communicate (what’s appropriate to say and what not) and think (don’t waste your time on crazy ideas). This why we get streamlined journalists of whom you know what they’re going to write beforehand (i.e. they’re controllable and the whole system if a form of self-censorship).
It would have been great if Chomsky would have expanded on the mechanism of this filter system, this would have been a very important research project.

Than he spoke about Watergate. He said Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia, which killed (euphemism for murdered) about 100’000 people was far worse than Watergate. This reminds me a bit of myself, when I try to let people remember that an US Attack, murdering some unlucky guys, his indefinitely worse that a Trump tweet. When I say that, people just stare at me as if I violated some unspoken behavioural code. Not once did I get a reasonable reply.
He also mentioned that the COINTELPRO was released in the same year as Watergate happened and I have to confess, I didn’t even knew what the COINTELPRO was – a stash of secret documents that brought to light that the FBI harassed and targeted groups like the Socialist Workers Party or the Black Panther Party and even murdered Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party (Via the Chicago Police Dept.). This shows you how through and through corrupt the police system in the USA is. It needs to be abolished at once and replaced by a better working private system. There is some dissatisfaction, which I share, about the BLM being social Marxists in disguise. But instead of being simply white and angry, one should look at the history of black resistance or reformatory groups. A lot got simply ignored, Frederick Douglass got badmouthed and libelled, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. both got assassinated. Fred Hampton, as just mentioned got murdered by policemen. So let’s say the this wasn’t the best peripherals for a sound group to develop. So now the spot got stolen by social Marxists, who know they have nothing to fear because they’re not really about blacks getting a better future.

What Watergate shows, says Chomsky, is that the mass media has become docile and unfree, they write whatever the power groups want them to write. This is contrary to many mediocre people who erroneously believe that Watergate shows that the media worked back then.
Chomsky speculates that because Nixon ended Bretton-Woods (The gold-exchange standard) a lot of influential people were pissed and wanted revenge and used Watergate to get rid of him. Unfortunately, we’re still on a fiat system.

He then cites a study that shows that the more a country tortures, the more US Aid it gets. And mentions Columbia as an extremely bad offender who gets very much many.

Unfortunately he repeats the health care myths about Kuba and Canada. This hurt me personally, having final stage cancer, I know that, would I live in these countries I would long have been dead, having suffered very much.
Chomsky said this in the 90s and I think we have much more information now, and Canada’s health system has further collapsed since the 90s, but still his susceptibility to left-wing propaganda myths shows a lack of economic understanding. Instead of simply using the poly-logic argument on all the classic economists (he bashes Ricardo, J.S. Mills and many more, except Marx), which means saying “Hey, they’re all defenders of greedy capitalists. They hate humankind, especially the poor, children and women. Therefore we have refuted all their arguments and can proceed as if they didn’t existed”. If you do that, you lock yourself out from an important step to growth and maturity. If you’re about a 100 years old and it never occurred to you there might be something like economic laws then you must have some mental handicap or simply be as stupid as fuck (which Chomsky doesn’t seem to be, so I go with the first one).

He very astutely remarks that the Europeans have become brainwashed by the US so much that it’s a joke. The European, while still thinking he’s culturally and scientifically advanced to the “stupid” American, which is often the target of his jokes, doesn’t realize how much of a bleak, shadow American he has become. Chomsky remarked this already in the 90s. Living in the heart of Europe, I’ve only experienced it personally in the last twenty years, before that I was too young to follow politics.

He shortly speaks about Libertarianism and calls the European Libertarianism the correct one. He calls Rothbard’s Libertarianism an aberration of no importance. He asks the rhetorical question who would want to live in such a society of hate? Well, count me in. I’m not deterred by your slurs and cheap name callings. It’s adamant that whenever Chomsky is out of arguments (i.e. when he argues against the market instead of the state), he simply uses insults and abuses and he has no moral problem doing so. Maybe his fanboys wouldn’t like it so much, if he would admit that he, as a human being, cannot know everything in the world.

Like Mises, he sees intellectuals as guards of the powerful, of those who rule the state.

He says that (even) Adam Smith thought division of labour was horrible. And Smith did make at one point a remark that “too much” division would not be good. But this statement of Chomsky shows how far off he is in economics. Division Of Labour exists since the old stone age. To end it, would mean the end of mankind.

Chomsky says that the way to go is the 1936 Anarcho-Syndicalism, as it’s most near to (Euorpean) Libertarianism in the real world and Orwell wrote a book about it called Homage to Catalonia (Great book by the way). The non-austrian anarcho-capitalist Bryan Caplan (Interesting figure) has a digital booklet on the subject called The Anarcho-Statists of Spain: An Historical, Economic, and Philosophical Analysis of Spanish Anarchism I’m halfway through and it has some gruesome passages that make me think twice about following Chomsky here. No seriously, I have no lust getting butchered by some unwashed morons. Thanks, but no thanks.

But then Chomsky says something sympathetic and important. He admits having no clue what dialectics means. I looked the term up several times, but I’ve no clue either. He says that you should always be cautious when you don’t get it. Often it has to do with the author who either tries to write simple things in very complex ways or it’s outright batshit. This is also my own experience reading stuff. Obviously, as he mentions, there are exceptions like quantum theory.

Than he comes up again with some nonsense economic theory. Private markets are always unprofitable per se. They become profitable because of the state. All the high tech industry got their products for free from the pentagon and then made it big in the markets. Sure, that’s exactly how it was for Facebook and Instagram. He brings other examples like agriculture being successful because of subsidies. What he lacks is any sort of proof that agriculture would not be successful without the subsidies. Imagine that the sector who supports us with nourishment isn’t successful. Did we start eating iron in the mean time? How can a grown man believe such nonsense, it’s beyond me. And in the same time, he makes perfectly astute remarks in other fields. It’s like economic thinking is blocked because of some childhood drama.

And this is also funny: The Japanese won over the Americans, economically, because its state has better production plans.

Then for some conspiracy theory: The US destroyed public transport in the 50s because cars and airplanes were more profitable to private investment.

Some historical revisionism: The luddites didn’t really destroy machines. They only wanted the machine to develop with them, so as no one would lose their job or something like that.

He talks about free speech and holds the important view that free speech is very important. He also mentions that the US is the only country with free speech and that only since a couple of decades. I’d say the campaign funding laws are still, I mean, more than ever, violating free speech.
It’s certainly true that here in Switzerland we don’t have free speech, e.g. can’t lie about the holocaust (but of course you can about the Holodomor [If you don’t know what that is watch the 2019 movie Mr. Jones], even without diminishing your academic reputation). As a decent person you may be thinking now: wow, who would want to do that anyway? But as Chomsky points out, the law is here to protect the speech that you don’t like, the stuff you like anyway doesn’t need protection. And this unfortunately includes assholes, anti-Semites (a subgroup of assholes), etc.

However, he does not understand ethics as he thinks there’s a problem between free speech and sexual harassment (and other things). Somehow he thinks that in the workplace the right of free speech should be counted lower as the “right not to be sexually harassed” (another of thousand coocoo rights made up by people before they informed themselves what rights are), in the open street however, according to Chomsky, free speech prevails, i.e. it’s ethically ok to sexually harass people.
The problem with this approach is that it forgets that it’s not Noam Chomsky who makes the rules. The ethical rules are clear and easy: Free speech per se always overrules concerns about sexual harassment. There are different strategies victims of sexual harassment can apply. But let’s hope that it doesn’t come that far. Because what every firm can do is implement a contract rule that sexual harassment is not allowed and gets sanctioned in this and this way. In a feminized culture like the US, the courts could even assume that such a rule has been in the contract and firms that would want to tolerate sexual harassment as part of their core values would have to put it in the contract that they want to allow such speech. The same goes with streets, but unfortunately, most of them have been subjugated by the state.
So no, rights don’t clash with each other. That’s only an impression gained by not knowing what rights are and how they function, how they are applied to human relationships. Rights build upon each other with the right to one’s own body (the most intimate form of private property) being at the bottom, i.e. being the beginning of all rights.

He makes further the claim that the radio station system in the USA is privatized. This would mean that certain firms would own certain radio frequency ranges which I don’t think is the case in the USA. I just did a 5s search on google and found out that you need a FCC radio station license. So the system seems fairly similar to here in Switzerland, except that they don’t seem to have the huge directly state run stations. But they are, more or less, as far from a market solution than we are.


My original review is about 680 words longer, but there's a restriction on goodreads. Who knows, maybe I collect my reviews someday and bring them out as an ebook. Then you get the whole stuff. For now and here, we have to finish.

[Bryan]

Intentions Good, Views Dangerous: Understanding Power is, without question, the most comprehensive and compelling presentation of Noam Chomsky's ideas. Reading this book will change the way you see the world. If you are interested in Chomsky, it is likely that you are a noble person who genuinely cares for others and yearns for a better world. Beware, reader, and make sure you choose the right vehicle for your hope. While his intentions are for a peaceful, safe, and healthy world, Chomsky's political writings systematically assume conscious malevolence without evidence, ignore context, and romanticize Third World struggles, regardless of their goals.

Let's briefly examine some of his convictions on a pressing topic: the War on Terror. Following the September 11th attacks, Chomsky immediately presented them as our fault: the result of U.S. Middle East policy, and equally evil U.S. Cold War efforts (training Mujahadeen to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan). His presumption here is that if the United States changes its behavior, that terrorist attacks will then cease. Islamic terrorists, in fact, want a pan-world government under Talibanesque repressive sharia law, a vision that mandates the overthrow of all free nations beginning with ours. These facts are easily learned by reading about the historical development of Islamic radicalism, which is rooted in reinterpretations of the Qur'an's dictates for action, NOT in wishes to live peacefully in a U.S.-free Middle East. These facts, however, do not enter into the Chomskyan world-view, which romanticizes Third World underdogs as brave and legitimized no matter what they stand for.

The linguist also described the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan as a conscious "silent genocide," predicting wrongly that millions would be severed from food supplies. As is typical, Chomsky here focused solely on the negative aspects of the situation, those for which the U.S. deserved his bitter recrimination. For a man who lives prosperously in America and is supposedly the voice of the downtrodden, Chomsky certainly did not put himself into the shoes of the Afghan women. For them, whose existence was akin to slavery, the liberation was a cause for great joy. Actual sentiments were fully antithetical to Chomsky's condemnatory remarks to his villainous U.S. government, which he and he alone believed was consciously bent on killing as many innocent Afghans as possible. Omitting what is significant (the liberation of people living under tyranny, in this case) to emphasize his often ludicrous misperceptions about American motives and motivations is a constant in Chomsky's writings. His Cold War depictions are even more stunning, as Understanding Power's abundant examples attest.

In the case that you are already entrenched in his manner of thinking, at least admit that Noam Chomsky MIGHT be wrong, and see if his positions hold up under review: read Chomsky's articulate, sane critics. If he is perfect, then you have nothing but gain to acheive from this exercise; it will only serve to strengthen your ability to effectively argue and implement Chomsky's ideas in the world. After clear-eyed reassessment of his political writings, if you STILL think he's on-point, then all the best to you. If, however, you reevaluate his "wisdom," you will have saved yourself from much needless confusion and despair.

Were Chomsky's views simply false, there would not be need for this posting. They become perilous, however, in their blind, wholesale demonization of the United States. Chomsky's own fear and anger about the state of our world are projected, with great urgency: anger at and fear of U.S. "elites" is the Chomsky program. The result is often flat-out hatred. What would Chomsky do were he President? We do not know; he avoids that inconvenient question by telling us that were he to run (which he admits he would never do), the first thing he would do is tell us not to vote for him. Furthermore, why does Professor Chomsky not include himself in the "elites" so prominent in his analyses? Does he not pay taxes, and drive a BMW, and teach at a cushy, prestigious university? The questions may seem too simplistic, but they point to a core issue: if Chomsky cannot look into the mirror regarding his own status and societal position, then how much more impaired must his assessments be of things outside of himself? On paper, it is unclear exactly what Chomsky IS calling for, and putting aside the constant onslaught of judgment-filled writings and audio programs, neither does his life provide us an example of what he conceives to be right-action. Those who want an idea of who believes IN Chomsky, however, need look no further than Hugo Chavez, who recently proclaimed allegiance and military support to his "brother" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad, for anyone who needs reminding, daily denies the Holocaust, and calls for the destruction of Israel and the United States. Is it a coincidence that those who love Chomsky also embrace a world-view rooted in blame, anger, and vilification?

Good and evil do exist in this world, but Noam Chomsky is not capable of distinguishing between the two. The U.S.A. is not perfect, and never will be. Nevertheless, if we fail to recognize the good that IS here, we may soon lose our nation. Chomsky's writings are little more than a good reminder that appearance is not essence. It is worth noting as well, that Chomsky is an avowed atheist, and believes that life is meaningless. If we bear in mind that evil is in the eye of the beholder, then Chomsky--an American, an Israelite, a millionaire--is instantly unmasked in all of his self-revulsion. Understanding Power should be retitled as "Understanding Blame." Stear clear and take heart, reader; there is hope in this world, and your country is good, but you will discover neither in Avram Noam Chomsky.

[Avi Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edit in 2024: I read this book in 2017, and the review does not necessarily reflect my current beliefs/opinions.

Understanding Power is a collection of discussions sessions that Chomsky has had with attendees of his talks. The discussions covered in this book happened in 1989-1999, and discuss US policies in the 1960-1990 period. The central thesis behind Chomsky's arguments is that the US is essentially a plutocracy, and is backed up with a lot of evidence - a substantial portion of which comes from those in power itself - declassified documents, memoir written by bureaucrats, articles in right-wing news outlets like WSJ, Economist, etc. Another line of discussion is how the ruling class exercises thought control among the intellectual class - by essentially restricting the debate in most news outlets to issues in which there is a difference of opinion among the aristocrats themselves, and how the supposed liberal newspapers (most notably The New York Times) are little more than mouthpieces. Chomsky and Ed Herman's book Manufacturing Consent, which I'll probably read soon, has more on this.

One thing that I found particularly interesting was how, at the end of the book, Chomsky almost predicts the rise of a Donald Trump-like figure. Some direct quotes from the book: "Because people are so disillusioned by this point that they will believe almost anything.", "they're high school graduates, mostly white males, a segment of the society that has really taken a beating", "Actually, I think the US has been in kind of a pre-fascist mood for years - and we've been very lucky that every leader who's come along has been a crook... But if somebody shows up who's kind of a Hitler-type just wants power, no corruption." Let's hope that Trump is also a crook, and nothing more.

Personally, this is the 26th book I completed this year (out of the ~35 that I started), and it took me the longest to read (about a month). This work has has altered my perspective more than anything else this I've read this year.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having only read Chomsky in snippets here and there, I thought this book was a broad, accessible introduction to Chomsky's thoughts on the issues for which he is best known in pop culture (those relating to politics and power). Regardless of what one ultimately thinks of Chomsky's opinions (and he reiterates constantly that his intent is to provoke discussion, not to provide all the answers), the man is at least important to understand for modern democratic citizens. His knowledge of global current events (political, social, economic, military) is prolific and unparalleled, and his analyses of these phenomena are valuably thought-provoking. Chomsky does tend, in my opinion, to err on the side of the conspiratorial at times; though he constantly claims to be simply describing "how things work" in government, he often imputes nefarious motives and disingenuity to individuals and institutions without giving any consideration to their actual guiding principles. Chomsky (perhaps unintentionally, and I think to his detriment) creates an air of lofty malevolence around institutions and arrangements of power, thus alienating the reader from such groups and arrangements. Political change requires an intimate understanding of one's opposition, and the dark picture Chomsky paints is, though sometimes accurate from a certain moral democratic standpoint, ultimately obscuring of the powers-that-be.

That said, it was an extremely informative read, written in an entertaining and engaging conversational style. Chomsky's thoughts on the media are the transcendently valuable core of the book, and his thoughts on global politics and power are original and merit careful consideration. If Chomsky aims to provoke critical thought and discussion, then he achieves his aim here.