Noam Chomsky Is Capitalism Making Life Better.

I realized that a lot of our economic system you know has a lot of flaws that a lot of problem problems with it you know like we're age you labor that's not particularly pleasant that you know the rich have the big gap between the rich and poor but I mean it's together now because there's been like increasing standards of living in America and isn't in that one way like a justification for it the why it's still around why capitalism for mine standing has triumphed and it's still so lost not I don't think so I mean there was rising standards of living in slave society slaves were much better off in the early 19th century than in the early 18th century said an argument for slavery well I'm it's a terrible argument you know I mean UN any system in fact you could give that argument for Stalinism there was a very substantial economic growth in the Soviet Union it's the second world not the third it was until 1989 it was the second world not the third world now it's back in the third world because it's undergoing capitalist reforms something you're not allowed to say incidentally but if you read you'll notice they've had ten years of capitalist reforms which have driven them right back into the third world where they came from okay but if you just look at it in terms of economic growth it was reasonably successful that's exactly what bothered Western leaders if you read the the documentary record right up to the 1960s where it sort of runs dry at the moment you find that the great concern was that the second the Soviet Union was presenting itself as a model for modernization within a single generation and that was raising all sorts of trouble not only in the third world but even in the rich countries I didn't care about Russian aggression what they cared about or you know Stalin's terror or anything and didn't bother anybody in fact Truman admired Stalin you know thought is an honest man deal with him and so on he said he didn't care what happens in Russia you know so on but the same of Churchill incidentally who's defending Stalin and cabinet meetings as a great man and so on and so forth they kills Bay peoples they want that's irrelevant the problem was then they never expected them to be attacking anybody you know but they what they were afraid of was the economic growth which was especially in the third world considered quite impressive actually the same is true of Cuba the documents have just been released and they're interesting on a Kennedy in the Kennedy administration in Cuba and it's kind of interesting to see the way the facts are being hidden so for example just to illustrate the that when you know this thing is going on at the World Trade Organization the European Union has brought charges against the United States for violating the World Trade Organization agreements with the Holmes Burton Act and the Cuban embargo altogether and the United States is isolated on that I mean in international arena the only votes for the United States are Israel which is reflexive that's like saying the Ukraine voted with Russia and in the old days so Israel and Uzbekistan for some reason I don't know what whose Beck has done and Israel are the only countries that voted with the United States on this whole European Union's against it what was interesting is that when the United States is simply withdrawn from the World Trade Organization jurisdiction said you have no right to deal with us because we're the boss of the world but the reasons were interesting the reasons were that this is a policy that goes back they said falsely to the Kennedy administration we've had three decades of a policy of overthrowing the government of Cuba and the European Union has no right to challenge our policies I was Stuart Eizenstat the government spokesman well there was no reaction to that kind of interesting in itself it's taken for granted that we have a right to overthrow another government if we feel like it and if anyone challenges that they're off base but there was an interesting response narrower ground by arthur schlesinger in the new york times had a letter and he said to say when remind his friend Stewart isin hats that that he misunderstood the Kennedy administration policies the policies he said were based on I'm quoting Castro's troublemaking in the hemisphere and the Soviet connection but now that's passed so it's an anachronism well as Schlesinger was here comes the discipline of the educated classes for example the people in Fletcher school and so on who certainly know what I'm going to tell you right now the documents that came out not long ago from the early 60s I bear directly on this question Arthur Schlesinger was the head of the Latin American mission of the Kennedy of the incoming Kennedy administration which was laying out you know talking about the problems and the plans for Cuba and there he explains what troublemaking in the hemisphere means and what the Soviet connection means he said the problem with Castro he said is the I'm quoting the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands okay which he said has great appeal to people in Latin America most of whom live in terrific poverty and oppression and are trying to find a more decent life and with the model of this Cuba in front of them they're likely to do all sorts of things so that's Castro's troublemaking in the hemisphere what's the Soviet connection well the Soviet connection he said is that in the background the Soviet Union is presenting itself as a model for modernization in a single generation okay that's the Soviet connection well yeah so therefore we have to overthrow the government because of that kind of troublemaking and that kind of connection and in fact that extent is much more broadly you know Kennedy and McMillan in their discussions in the early 60s were worried about the intention for economic growth of the Soviet Union and what it would imply the same was true of Dulles saying goes right back to 1970 so the facts of the opposite of what you're described perhaps my question could be put that a little differently if if this system is so bad and everything why hasn't there been excuse me our system our system Denzil is so bad why hasn't why hasn't there been graded movements to challenge it well is in challenge all the time I mean we have a for example we have a very violent labor history and hundreds of American workers were being killed right into the late thirty and finally they got labor right there has been a very extensive challenge through the through the 50s in the sixties the whole thing blew up and in fact many concessions had to be made and it still continues I mean we right now happen to be in a period of regression but as I say it's cyclic you know it was much more regression in the 1920s when labor was really crushed so yes there's always challenge and struggle but when you say is the system so bad I don't even know what that means I mean slave societies went on for centuries and centuries without any challenge okay did that justify them and in fact if you really want to be serious about it the slave owners were giving arguments rather like yours so slavery very much like it take a read say George Fitzhugh who was the leading spokesman for the American you know South slave owners in the south at the time when it was becoming a serious issue like around 1840s he had pretty powerful arguments in favor of slavery what he was saying is he was saying is look the reason you northers northerners are against slavery is because you're any Negro racists we are not racists we think that you should take care of your subjects so we treat them nicely and we even do that on economic grounds because they're our capital you know like if I on make an anachronistic analogy if if I buy a car and you rent a car okay and somebody comes a year later and has a look at the two cars which car is going to be in better shape okay well mine because I own it so I'm going to take care of it not yours because you rent it you can just throw it away and get another one okay that's exactly fits Hugh's argument he says look we own people you just rent them so therefore we take care of we treat them well we respect them there are capital besides we have human relations with them we are pre capitalist we still have human relations you just treat them as tools under wage slavery and they are much worse off and so we're the ones who are moral you're the ones who are immoral and in fact under under the slave system if you take a look it was reasonably efficient you know conditions were sort of improving people live better slaves live better in 1850 than in 1750 okay everything you're saying could stand as a perfectly good or not I could be a good argument for slavery but was offered as an argument for slavery similar arguments were given for both of Issachar takes a fascism and why was Hitler so popular now Hitler was the most through the 30s it was the most popular leader probably in German history well the reason is he carried out a social revolution people were living a lot better I mean like not everybody you know not Jews for example but people were but Germans were living a lot better it was very successful Hitler on either understood or you know figured out or his advisers did that large scale scale state expenditures could rescue a morbid capital economy from destruction pretty much what American business learned during the Second World War he was doing it and it was economy was booming they were better off and so on is that an argument for fascism

Channel: RedUmbrellaUnite

Views: 75,137

Rating: 4.8520832 out of 5

Keywords: Noam, Chomsky

Id: eWcsFIxOUKE

Length: 10min 9sec (609 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/RacoonTail]

Not to mention that many vital technological advancements which improved lives came from the public sector

[u/Waphlez]

"It was very successful. Hitler either understood or figured out, or his advisers did, that large-scale state expenditures could rescue a morbid capital economy from destruction."

Nazi Germany's economic policy was unsustainable and required plundering its own citizens and neighboring countries to maintain it. In no reasonable economic sense was it successful. Some sources for this are cited here.

[u/qKyubes]

So I'm no Chomsky but doesn't this seem like a false analogy? I guess it works if you believe in "wage slaves" but this feels a little forced. Just because an argument can be used to support slavery doesn't mean it's a wrong argument.

The question was we're doing better now than ever before isn't that a good sign? Then Chomsky goes into some whataboutism, "it was getting better under slavery too" does that make it a good thing? While never actually addressing the question, he just lets you maybe equate capitalism to slavery. Never making a real claim about capitalism itself.

IDK I know this is just an interview and he was trying to make an interesting point maybe? But this feels like a disingenuous argument.

[u/smokebeer840]

Unironically I can't watch destiny debates and rants anymore after watching enough chomsky and zizek content

[u/Johnchuk]

I don't know do you think Chomsky's being a little bit disingenuous with his assumption that the only reason the west had to fear the U.S.S.R was because it presented an economic model for modernization in one generation? Even if ideology wasn't an issue at all, you'd still be talking about two massive supper-powers pointed at each other with nothing better to do but figure out who's going to run the world.

And I dont think a sane person could look at what happened in Russia and say "this is a good model." Plus there was the whole stealing half of Europe thing. I do take the point that Russia is straight up not having a good time under capitalism.

[u/totalrandomperson]

Norman "Genocide the deluge for the Khmer Rouge" destroys libtard with fackts and locik

[u/rar_m]

I don't agree with the comparison between wage labor and slavery. Someone taking a small cut of your value output as a cost to providing you a platform to create value from your work is nothing like life long slavery w/o a choice.

Saw his iphone video next, also pretty lame take. To talk as if the private companies contribute no value by actually inventing the device, even if they used publicly funded research to start from.

I think it's pretty obvious that both systems have their benefits, capitalism isn't pure evil but it's also not the holy grail of a society either. I don't understand why socialists/communists think that everything capitalism offers, they could offer and more.

I haven't seen much of Noam Chomsky but I'm really not impressed, maybe a longer talk where he has time to flesh out his ideas more would be better or maybe someone with a less biased take.

[u/CrazyLegs88]

At what cost, though? Let's just grant the premise, and say that all of our progress of modernity is because of Capitalism. Granted. But, we are, as a species, still headed towards ecological collapse.

So, let's say that you have a time machine, and you travel to 2100 and you see that humans have, in fact, destroyed themselves. Then, you travel back to the 17th century, and you see the beginnings of Capitalism taking place. Do you try and stop it, knowing the outcome? Or do you embrace it "for the gains"?