Noam Chomsky Debate | Why is Authority Dangerous? | Mark Lilla, Deirdre McCloskey

[Music] it's a huge pleasure to welcome you back to hey on why I say back because I see many of you have been here many times before and I hope you have and will be coming again and we're starting this evening with a debate that I suspect will be provocative and stimulating in equal measure it's titled darkness Authority and dreams and to discuss the core question at the heart of it do we need authority what kind of authority do we need our and we're getting overseas transmission there as well do we need Authority what kind of authority do we need and how might we rethink Authority for the future we have three very distinguished speakers joining us we have on my left although I think not on anyone elses left so to speak Professor Deirdre McCloskey professor emeritus at the University of Illinois in Chicago an immensely distinguished economic historian on my right a professor melilla of Columbia University author amongst many other books of the recent very successful vol the once and future liberal and joining us from I think Cambridge Massachusetts professor now I'm Chomsky who won almost says needs no introduction but of course immensely distinguished public intellectual professor of linguistics at MIT and the author of a very large number of very distinguished books in times that at least some people consider to be dark troubled turbulent do we need Authority and I go to start if I may with Professor Deirdre McCloskey well we we need some Authority I think is he is the obvious answer to this but but a much smaller amount than we now have the problem about Authority is that it's basically the art of pushing people around of men pushing women around the cops pushing poor people around the United States pushing everyone around and and I I think we need to draw back from this idea that we need laws and authority to run everything I have a cousin who works for the CIA she she said to me and she's very reasonable person and she said well you know a modern economy needs a lot of supervision a lot of authority a lot of people making regulate any trust clause and blah blah blah and I said no it doesn't I I think that like language to speak of our colleague here what language is a is a spontaneous order it's not there's not some central committee that's deciding what conjugation should be in English and the same is true of the economy and the same is true of a lot of our life much more than people think and they think oh we gotta have a boss here and regulations and all gosh and then we have to pass laws all the time now really I say let's stop passing laws let's have a year in which we don't pass any laws in Parliament or Congress and see what happens I think we'd be better off there are too damn many laws too much authority did we thank you very much indeed for that for a cogent statement there I think the way the US Congress is going not passing the laws might soon be the norm in US v John Stuart Mill type 19th century liberal we think that it's a good thing that Congress can't do anything yes and I would like to think deirdre that John Stuart Mill in particular would have worn that sparkly top I could see it very very much on on him there but lemma we've heard from dead in Wroclaw ski that we're passing too many damn laws too much Authority get off our backs is this a viewpoint that you can agree with no I think we suffer from an authority deficit and different kinds of authority the original authority problem if you go back to Plato and Aristotle its authority over the self yes how do you become a subject capable of reaching your own goals and setting goals and reaching them well that only comes when you have you know the rational part of you or the moral part of you has authority over other parts of you now and the only way to establish that because it doesn't come naturally to us is through education and the only way to help people become authoritative over themselves is to give them authoritative education there is no spontaneous order of becoming a self a self conceived in society through authority we're also suffering an authority deficit when it comes to social morays you know if 50 years ago today or now back at back in 1968 people were very happy to question all sorts of authoritative mores and taboos having to do with the treatment of women now what we're trying to do is reconstitute those taboos and those mores and those norms because we got rid of many of them and for many for understandable reasons hypocrisy and all the rest but how do you do that we have to do that in some authoritative way young boys need to learn how to treat young girls and women when they get older that requires that certain Authority yeah finally at the political level Donald Trump is right now destroying as many democratic norms she possibly can know what our norms norms are not things written down there are things that are authoritative because they become taken for granted yeah the thing about it taboo is you don't know you have a taboo until you use lose it it's in that moment that it's gone that you realize that up until then it never would have occurred to you to call for your political opponent to be jailed yes and then once that happens the question in all these realms I'm talking about is how do we put the genie back in the bottle and so I think we're - I think Americans a particular are a paranoid about authority they have been since Tocqueville wrote and one of the problems with that is we put so many constraints on Authority while at the same time asking more and more from government so that government cannot actually provide the things that were asking them to do so we have to choose either we ask for fewer things or we give more leeway and discretion to those in public office in order to reach the ends that we want to so in all those sorts of ways I think we actually need to think through and reacquire an appreciation of authority but within that Montella there is presumably a distinction to use highly sophisticated terms between good Authority and battle authority you're not talking about simply obeying norms or ideas because they're there already because they're inherent well part of the way norms work is that and the reason they're authoritative is because you're not questioning them or at least when you're educated in them you're not questioning them you begin by taking them as authoritative and then hopefully later on either you question I'm going to reject them or you appreciate the reason you know behind them but but we we should do I don't think we should be asking the government to do so much I don't think we should be turning to the government all let's hold that thought there if I move debates already breaking out on stage but we have another voice to hear professor no-trumps you've just heard from Mark Miller here in hey the case for more or authority in the right sort of authority would you agree with that case or would you want to argue against it argue it's dipped in a qualified fashion there is a general simple principle that authority namely that any form of authority the domination hierarchy are not itself justified but they face a burden crew and if they can't meet it which i think is commonly the case they be dismantled here here paper the more free and just social order well there's many different facets this consideration who has to pay attention do we need Authority in dark times first important recognize that yes indeed because in a hand in the any spoons they minutes to midnight poses in the terminal disaster was open one objection I think this breathing be Wesen it Soviet man exploded the fighting bombs who reasons a environmental and the environmental catastrophe and ask what authority deal with these issues the only thing better wait wait question the proper question is whether the authority helps for harms in dealing and I think it we we we see it quite characteristic one the environmental catastrophe acting accelerated with the authorities acting accelerate who raised construction technique no counterparty evil practice by literally taking your boy deliberately that's better it's called a marital deduction and it's often possibly reckless facts of the other issues and it's a learn to achieve voluntary subordination to the Thark there was a meeting of all 40 is that whatever please Prince has the force of law since the people have yielded up to him their power and authority voluntary and contractual mission rules philosophical act we reject that burden in fact plant reality we don't think the European Union of part of its biggest problems is that Authority has been ceded went on elected birthday and the consequences were quite great religion electronically populism better understood as the rejection of illegitimate power and authority with the United State Tennessee fencing research from academic science joining that a single variable campaign funded it is remarkable precise predictions of electability programs pursue other research shows that a large majority the population is literally disenfranchised and that their representatives they know and attention to their opinions living its name the voices of the wealthy and the powerful so more authority and they just pick alas how long they country foundation for economic worthy they very closely resemble two philosophical accident contractual Commission rule the ruling authority and in the early days of the Industrial Revolution such arrangements were literally and then wage slavery the differing from travel Superion ligand the length of the tenure of the laborers the finest may obtain but the principle remain and I think there in greetings question whether an authority or legitimate professor Chomsky may I take that point which you've articulated very clearly and throw it to our fellow panelists here to get some discussion on that we would like to bring it back in and just at just a moment I think Noam Chomsky said several things there that we should pick up in terms of thinking about this question of how and whether centralized Authority is essential for a society to work effectively and actually the last part of what Professor Chomsky said more I'd like to throw to you you've written a great deal about identity and without caricaturing you've argued that identity politics in some ways is becoming very corrosive of democratic society let me take a specific example that I think relates to one aspect of what Noam Chomsky's just said supposing you are one of the many african-americans who feel that the police one obvious sense of a source of authority in society do not represent your interest do not have your interests at heart are not protecting you in your community in an inner city in the United States is that a form of authority which they should be respecting and taking account of or do they have a legitimate legitimate case to say this is something that is widely recognized as authoritative but we don't feel it should be for us oh sure it's very understandable but one has to understand that and if I can back up to answer the question that I I reread recently Lenin's attack on Rosa Luxemburg which is called infantile leftism and I realized that he was totally right and Rosa Luxemburg was totally wrong it's a life you've endorsed Leonard yes you know I'm becoming more Leninist by the day I think but the point is that in the end you need a party you need Authority you have to work within a system of something and there is a kind of infantile leftism that talks about Authority in the way Kafka talked about the castle there's a thority there's the wall and we have social movements where we come up and we're ramming the door and every once in a while authority tosses things down to us right that is not the way democracies work and we cannot exaggerate the problems of legitimacy in our democracies that know there are doors into the earth into the into the castle there are conversations about how about things we might do certain people have more voice than others that's absolutely right but it is not a wall and one consequence of infantile leftism is that in rejecting Authority if it throws itself into the hands of the so called people yeah and one populist Tribune yeah yeah that pretends to speak for the peace and there's a long list of that beginning from the Soviet Union down to Hugo Chavez and a certain kind of infantile leftist that falls in love with these truly authoritarian figures because they're against Authority well I agree with that in part because indeed if you're going to do politics by majority vote which which which ends up with Chavez or urban this this this fellow in in Hungary as an example or god help us Donald Trump that's where you're appealing would not you but one is appealing to a a majority rule we vote and then the minority is crushed you jail your political opponents and so forth but there's a third way which is not infantile it's an optimism about self-organizing humans free humans and indeed as an economist of course I'm very enthusiastic about this notion that a market society doesn't need massive walls massive authorities castles telling them what to do I think you're right that if you take the political view of naive democracy you're going to get naive results are great journalists in the United States and the early 20th century HL Mencken said democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard [Laughter] objected to man's conception that the role that the public should subject itself to the party itself to the central committee it should sell for the maximal leader it would construct the labor army of answering would return to the modern society we have to ask ourselves does the majority in the United States this is majority thinketh our answer is No as I went it up briefly literature there is overwhelming evidence that elections were initially bought assistant Shan Shan who can predict the outcome of an election simply by looking campaign funding and that's only one of the many factors but which concentrated wealth and workers power to determine the nature of legislation with lobbying nao devices and in fact the large majority of the population are indeed underrepresented their own representatives disregard their opinions probably and pay attention to the same centers of power so it's simply not true that from you you don't the formerly that's possible but in fact it isn't and the same is true of labor contract as a classical liberal I who agree with John Stewart and bill that the proper form of Association in an economic system is for working people control their own enterprises not be subordinated to masters the which is a kind of temporary slavery as they called it temporary if you sum this way of getting out then oh yes I think that's the question we're seriously the actual role of authority the way it functions in creating dark times in imposing repression populism shouldn't mean and it probably does mean of taking seriously Thomas Jefferson's distinction between aristocrats want to appropriate to themselves hope our linen was example versus the Democrats regard the common people it's their opportunities for what's now called Liberty democracy to be the safest possible common interest could I put that point professor Chomsky back to our other panelists here I mean Martin Lilla it seems to me that infantile leftist versus future liberal is possibly the worst superhero movie ever but if we wanted to get past today would you accept Professor Chomsky's proposal that the basis the actual basis of what he would call so-called liberal democracy is so corroded so corrupt that actually the pillars of authority that you're putting forward don't really have validity in the first place no because what's being compared is our present reality and the disaster of our campaign finance system which I agree with entirely with some fantasy of a plebiscite like democracy that is not the democracy we have in fact we have constitutional democracy and it was constructed in a certain way so that authority was would be diffuse in different sorts of institutions they would lean against each other in disagree with each other in other ways it's an indirect democracy and that allows consultation and frankly gives room for elites to be in a room and to reflect on these things and our great powers that we get to put people into office is that eventually we can get rid of them and that's the test I think but I think without putting words in Noam Chomsky's mouth you would say that you can substitute a Democrat for a Republican but essentially they all come from the same sort of background with the same sort of assumptions and the same sorts of prepares there it's not really a choice but there's there's an underlying problem here with with both see infantile but very distinguishable of distinguished colleague in the end the and the fascist I don't actually mean that but that we're all we're both of them are assuming that our lives should be entirely political and that politics should dominate the economy the society that that's where all the action is and I I look left and right it's simply an argument over how massive state power will be used on the left encouragement of class warfare on the right encouragement of in the imperial expansion a curse on both their houses let's move to a less governed Society I'm gonna go back to professor little and then to professor Chomsky it was the CIA Desert it was the area's cousin my cousin I'm hoping we will get professor Chomsky on the line because that was actually a really rather well well we do that too I mean III agree with Dina McCloskey more than she might think yeah and if you are the first part of the art of authority is that to the extent that you can have spontaneous order you should have there you go right will join and so but to the extent that you have government that axé it must have authority within the realm that it does there were so the American movie mr. Smith goes to Washington has a lot to answer for yeah there's this idea this kind of Frank Capra view of politics in America that you can find some cornpone guy you know who's this pure individual and he'll go to Washington and I'll see how corrupt everyone is and you know the people will flood in and and everything will change all that's President Trump right right yeah American movies are like that what are they about some corporate structure right and there's one computer programmer there understands everything and the journalists won't listen to MIT eventually they overcome them and that makes Americans suspicious of Authority I would like more limited government but worth orotate of government in the things that government does well I agree with you there but look in in 1913 the share of all levels of government expenditure state federal local in the United States was about seven and a half percent of national income of all the stuff produced in the country seven and a half percent now it's 32 percent okay but dipped across he let me come in on that one of the reasons it rose so fast was two little things one called the New Deal and on the back of the Great Depression and when the Second World War yes are you suggesting the United States either should not have dealt with the Great Moderation or fought the Second World War well I have great criticisms of Franklin Roosevelt's economic policy I guess art into arguments with my mother is 95 on these matters and machines in FDR but the authority of the American system by the end of the nineteen have been heavily corroded by the fact that capitalism at that time seemed to have failed and put up you yeah but haven't failed and hasn't failed look oh here we go we're we're vastly we're vastly better off in in in in nineteen forty one just take one date the average income in the United States was what it is now in Brazil and I love Brazil it's a wonderful place but it's poor and I hope it will stop being poor but the way it's going to stop being poor is the spontaneous order of the market and and I and I want to make again this point that language is a spontaneous order and an argument is a spontaneous order and the and the and the common law is a spontaneous order and they work reasonably well they're not perfect and and we don't need to be bossed around all the time professor Chomsky would you say the spontaneous order of the market will get us through well actually I've lost the last sorry we got most of it actually there but which we're just at thanks for coming back into the discussion with 1941 yeah we're much richer we have all sorts of evidence that we that for most of the population that stops at around 1980 the principles were instituted by now real wages birth majority however it's true that we're much Richard late 40s we have all sorts of things we didn't have then but for example what we're now using the computers and the internet where do they come from they come from the market yeah it's not yeah they came from the dynamic State the economy namely clever decades for decades the creative and risky work was done either in under taxpayer subsidy either in institutions like my own MIT other research institutions under under taxpayer subsidy to but that institutions like IBM which were subsidized and finally when IBM was able to create a computer that was fast and usable button select so it was bought by the government institution Los Alamos well establish that procurement is a major way in which the taxpayer meaning the state subsidizes private enterprise and of a large extent what we call a market is a system of public subsidy in private marketing in the profit and we ought to face the reality I agree with you're gonna cost me we shouldn't take orders and that includes personally the orders that are taken by a worker who rents himself who was young the idea that that private wealth and portrait power don't have an overwhelming effect on choice of on legislation that's a form of subordination to power that we should not accept what I agreed with gossipy that we should not doesn't prosecute which is not they push the political and the economic system they're ugly interwoven but we should face the reality of each of them and question whether the authority that exercise is in fact legitimate so you had possible liberal principles well that question of legitimate Authority I think will lead us very neatly to the next part of our discussion we I think have had plenty of discussion but we're not going to get agreement rightly so I think on the question or whether we have too much authority or too little in various societies but I think we need to bring particular human beings into this more because the question of leaders and leadership has also become a ver every live one in the last couple of years whether in the Western world with the election of President Trump the election of President macro in France a rather different sort of leader from Trump perhaps but certainly someone very strong personality all the criticism of some other leaders perhaps the leaders in Western Europe including for some throughout prime minister may as not having enough authority enough leadership then of course the emergence of Arian in Turkey Xi Jinping in China a whole variety of different sorts of leaders and I suppose the question comes if we turn from authority to authoritarianism which is related but different sorts of question in what Lilla you obviously as other speakers are a based in the United States you've seen the phenomenon emerging there but more broadly globally do you think that we're entering a world where authoritarianism is becoming too attractive a way for leaders to operate oh absolutely and and and what's especially disturbing about it is that these right-wing authoritarians are learning from each other so you know if my authority well that was more in the past but now when or bond does something it might be mimicked on the French right and and so on and you know but but but authoritarianism I don't even sure it's the right word I'm not sure what it has to do with Authority I mean it has to do with nationalism it has to do with racism and has to do with anti-semitism it has to do with militarism it has to do with all sorts of things I don't know what it makes it authoritarianism I think probably idea would be in this case that in in those cases that the authority is embedded in the government indeed is in this case the leaders sense of his or her own sort of the terrorists characterization of authority in that sense I the leader of China I the leader of Turkey I have a leader of the United States perhaps these know the right to do it while there's not a word for it which is simply tyranny and and I'm agin it I think that the tyranny of the women of whites over blacks over rich people over poor people these are the things that I think should be made not should be made how can I say this smaller that is the the range of authority that men had over over women was once extremely large there's a marvelous statement of this by someone had said in the 18th century Kings had power and women had none now it's the other way around and that's okay with me but he really is the problem yeah okay but if we're talking about certain leaders of countries which have in a shrunk their democracies that's one thing yeah would you say that legitimately elected Democratic leaders in the main you know is angular Merkel a tyrant in Germany that's a good no I don't think she look like a she's a she's a German house bro well she's more than that to be fair she kept her you know a dissident background came through a very very male-dominated the question I mean is what is it that makes angular Merkel not a tyrant and presumably also who are you suggesting is because because she listens to people yeah this is the big problem and be be afraid because Donald Trump doesn't listen to anyone he thinks he knows everything he's a complete fool and he's very dangerous precisely for that reason she listens to her opponents to her when she did this terrible mistake of a million people from Syria and she she she reacted she's she's at least many of Donald Trump's voters would say that he listened to them and decided not to letting a million people the United States he did and that's that's the trouble to to that doesn't make him a tyrant that makes him so somebody listens to a different set of people it makes a lot tyrant when he does the things that mark was pointing I know what defines erupted every I think I think I understand your question better now someone like Aaron wants a good example right where who someone who's elected on the basis of a kind of charisma and then proceeds then to destroy the democratic institutions within apart from the power of his presidency if that's what you mean by authoritarian is yeah that is a problem so let me turn to professor Chomsky I mean you have been very critical in the first part of the discussion about the nature of what you say is so-called liberal democracy do you think that tyranny and democracy can be clear differentiated in terms of leaders who who would you choose today as a genuine Democrat and who would you say is perhaps the elected tyrant misleading so if we look at the European Union makes the basic decision yeah it's not the nationally the basic decisions are made by the IMF unelected Commission and the central bank and the reason one of the reasons why we're seeing in Europe the spread of populism in opposition to the establishment establishment who the centrist hundred leftover parties that have plenty of opposition rage anger fear part of the reason is that the decision making has in fact been further removed it was always quite remote further removed from people themselves and the decisions that are being made at the high level beyond popular control basically respond to the northern banks but not to the population the level of austerity that's headed by our economic effects on large parts of population that it is anger rage people when we turn in here is Trump listening to his constituents yeah oh yes one major thing so achievements are for what economist Joseph Stiglitz properly calls the donor tax bill 1917 bill which forms the general population arms Trump's constituency benefit is actual atrocity which is concentrated wealth and power we've been observing in the United States last year it's a sensible system in which the figure in the White House focuses attention on himself but immediate attention on the from as having showing up the pulse of history often forgotten and while he's doing that of the more savage main tip the Republican Party Ryan all the rest for ramming through legislation which is extremely harmful to their pretending addressing their voters and everyone else contracting the world in general so we cannot forget ye the Doomsday Clock that's four minutes to midnight that's an overwhelming fact for passing everything else we're discussing and it's largely because the needs of actions that are being taken under the Congress and others it's a good game but it's very well but it's extremely dangerous yeah Bennet leading the rage anger irrationality and some funds support for Paris Matic figures so professor professor jobs let me put that to the other panelists of a mediator McCloskey would you say that in a sense we shouldn't be distracted by the idea of charismatic leadership figures it's sort of some type of people concentrate on to the distraction to the real issues we shouldn't be distracted and we wouldn't be distracted if the leaders weren't so important in it look let's take that that seven and a half percent national income in 1913 spent whereas now it's over thirty-two percent in France it's 54 percent the government spends fifty four percent of everything that's that's produced in France Henry Kissinger who I don't entirely admire is a war criminal but still he said correctly France is the only successful communist country and there's a lot to do that if if look in in 1930 you have me to Massachusetts but that there were appalling urban politics in places like Boston where I grew up or Chicago where I now live extremely corrupt extremely interested in this in the sense that professor Chomsky is speaking of and yet it didn't matter very much it didn't affect most people in the United States because the government was confined it was small it didn't matter now we have this gigantic government and we're arguing about how this gigantic power is to be used and I wish I wish we would focus more on trying to bring the gigantic power under control so where would you come in on this do leaders matter in the end or not well they do but it's possible to be mesmerized them and I think misunderstand how certain kinds of democracies work let me give you an example had Hillary Clinton become president she won the popular vote had she become president and had she not won Congress very little of her agenda would have been passed and a lot of it would have been blocked at the state and local government for example a few weeks ago the state of Iowa passed a law saying that abortion would now be illegal from the moment the heartbeat of the fetus could be heard which is about six weeks which is normally before most women know they're pregnant now there's a constitutional right to abortion in America but the way the federalists federal system works you have to go and you have to win elections in all these states and the huge problem for the Democratic Party because it's become a cultural elite party at the top because of identity politics where it's focused it's not able to develop a large message or put its concerns about minorities in a larger vision they're incapable of going to a place like Iowa and convincing Iowans if you want to defend women it's not enough to elect Hillary Clinton or knit a hat you've got to go to Iowa win elections in an overwhelmingly white state of people who are very religious and that is the challenge for the Democratic Party it's not looking for a charismatic figure it's working through the party from the ground but it's worth pointing out just on that mark as you just said at the beginning of her own comment there if you're looking at in terms of getting people to vote for you more people voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Donald Trump the Electoral College meant that in fact she didn't get to win but it didn't mean that people wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton or the devil or yes oh no no but not at the state level in a federal system we live in a geographically very polarized country so the two coasts are democratic and blue the vast Center is dominated by Republicans but given our system one has to be able to go to protect women minorities LGBTQ people in Mississippi in Alabama in in Missouri where you know it's a crime to drive while black in many city but some people say the reason that those states in the deep south is so Republican is the fact that a previous generation of Democrats and some Republicans to be fair passed Civil Rights Acts that changed the nature of the voting in those particular states not people who didn't like the changes who were Democrats became Republicans it's true and that's the hit we had to take in Lyndon Johnson knew that but that isn't that with every identity politics to that you have to take some of those hits as well for what you might think is right if you can win but we are not winning in a Center in the center of the country and we cannot protect our own people that's the problem we're talking here about ways in which authority and leadership come together particularly United States but also in Western Europe but it's worth remembering that from first principles there have always been proposals of societies that didn't have leaders anarchy in the truest sense of the word not in the sense of being chaos or necessarily kind of turbulent conflict but operating without those kind of top-down structures I mean Deirdre McCloskey you would be I think frank and saying that you're a libertarian you're sorry once actually I want to take back the word liberal okay I think is the correct word and I'm willing to give to to give to my friends on the Left Noam Chomsky and so on the word progressive I'm a liberal okay so you're a liberal but you're a liberal who wants as little government as possible could you therefore take that thought to its ultimate conclusion could we have a society really without leadership and would that function no I don't think so in here I certainly agree with mark a small government with with authority and it's where you couldn't put bad people in jail but only the bad people not the good people where where the where the government can can defend you in the channel against the French who are always thinking of invading Britain and and and and our problem is Canada which is extremely dangerous countries so so a small government that does those jobs effectively I'm all for but but I I want to go back to something I said earlier and ask Noam Chomsky if he doesn't agree with language is a self-organizing evolution languages your own great scientific work on language is is very much to the point here and I'd and so much of what we do and our is not about people ordering us around now I agree you have to learn i completely agree with your your speech about so then this can this can apply to children but once you're free adults there there should be there there should be an encouragement to spontaneous orders such as language and large parts of the economy I think you greatly good we put those two points together and put them to Nam Chomsky yeah should we be looking to a society in which leadership Authority and that top-down las' should give way to something that's smaller more spontaneous and bottom-up and if so what in practice would that look like I would agree with that I think we're making a mistake solely on the political son yeah the major structure to the party and our society the main construction party in our society are in the economy well the economy is basically running its run but concentrated private power which people can essentially at the very bottom of the Wrentham so and then lastly room meant furthermore that concentrated private power has an overwhelming effect political system matter that I briefly indicated self warden in our society would begin with economic inclusion it would go back to what John Stuart Mill and America and other workers talked about them if you're in Lincoln book about the way countries nineteenth-century self-organized that's who she's in which capital doesn't hire labor but they'd hire that that would be the basic unit institutions well controlled by their own participants that could be I continue forward facing a system in which power is generally dissolved both of the political and economic system carefully and placed increasingly in the hands of popular self government organizations which do accept delegation of authority but only in a present way of constant supervision by liberties poverty groups and role and so on and I think that's a direction so I kind of knew we have to face the reality of this happening so the pig would mark the correctly said about the power respect we should remember however one voting participation is so important so they're going making political scientist for the environment and comments tourism looking at the 2014 election but that's legislative state turns out the voting participation what about the level of what it wasn't deployments more properties inscriptions about the reason like whether that is a collection of the same kind of conditions that are leading with authoritarian be generally anger and temper institutions because of the failure of this has been exaggerated during the West Federation charity programs bear in mind that wages for permanent workers workers today are actually at the level of 1960 it's just not true increasing productivity that's absolutely not true ordinarily that's okay professor jobs he thinks that apart from some little disagreement I did hear at the end there in some senses what did Roma closed ski and Noam Chomsky have said has some areas of convergence in terms of wanting something that looks less like than like top-down leadership and more like spontaneous grassroots operation they also both engage with the term liberal which of course is something that you know very well from your own work do you see a liberal society also meaningfully being one where leadership is less top-down and less organized uh no not not in the modern world we live in with the modern economy but these ideas go hand in hand the idea that authority is this is the castle and the fantasy of living without the castle even Deidre I have to say when you speak the word government it sounds like you're talking about some alien spaceship that comes down right and then sucks all the energy out of the people then flies back up and that's and that's not how things work the whole point in our system is not to fight Authority is to become the authority and that means participation I couldn't agree with Noam Chomsky more about the crisis of participation and that's why I'm the other side I actually think that voting should be required an Australian yeah I think that will be good healthy report so what I'm into the kind of liberalism that I'm for is a kind of a kind of you know what's sometimes called Civic republicanism where there's a sense of public duty public participation and yeah sense of solidarity among citizens as as citizens and but that means engaging and trying to become the authority not have a fan Seve escaping it's out of a free that that vision you have would come out of a freer society in which there's we're in which we aren't slaves that's the key it's it's actual slavery not the not the wage slavery that that the nomes talking about actual slavery ok so we have that different views I think from our panel this debate could go on and on it deserves to but we are coming towards time because we do you thank professor Noam Chomsky professor Mark Miller [Music] professor did Deirdre McCloskey and our newly our newly declared superhero future liberal professor Mark Miller thank you all very much Mada Bates talks and interviews subscribe today to the Institute's of Arts and ideas at IAI TV you

Channel: The Institute of Art and Ideas

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Keywords: noam chomsky, authority, hierarchy, anarchy, authoritarianism, leadership, rules, economics, politics, debate, talk, think, learn, leader, trump, global, dominance, anarchism, people, profit, free, freedom, power, hope

Id: UDoXb1_CbQU

Length: 54min 19sec (3259 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2019