When I read that interview with Chomsky a few weeks ago, I couldn’t but remark on what a hypocrite he is. To wit:

“Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago.”

“they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public”

“because basic R&D is typically publicly funded”

“Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation,”

“He also wants to dismantle it” (viz. Social Security)

In other words, Chomsky’s response, as an anarchist, to Ron Paul, is to criticize that Ron Paul wants to limit government. Chomsky cites all the good that government (allegedly) does, and is angry that Ron Paul would do away with it. What the hell? That’s anarchism???!!! Apparently, Chomsky is apparently the type of anarcho-socialist who wants to erect a radically democratic, socialistic government (Hoppe tells us that democracy IS socialism), but rape the dictionary and say that that government isn’t really a government; as opposed to anarcho-socialists like Bakunin who believed in liberty and freedom and simply predicted (wrongly, in my opinion) that people would voluntarily choose to live in communes if given the choice. That latter type of anarcho-socialist, I would consider nearly identical to an anarcho-capitalist.

I think his genre of libertarian is called socialist libertarian. The first time I heard this term I refused to accept there is any such thing. It is such a contradiction! In reality all his views are no different than core socialist beliefs except the claim that communities would make decisions and not the govt but he cannot say how that would take place. It is unfortunate that no libertarian society has existed and that the same human nature of self-interest ultimately makes or will make all societies full of special interest demands for the poor and the rich and a middle class which will spend a life time working to make ends meet uninterested in politics, cheering decisions which ultimately harm them. 

Of course, I agree that the two parties are very close to each other—closer than most perceive. However, a restricted range of political ideas is itself a good thing if that range is in the right place: That, however, is the big if. Russia before the takeover and Germany before the Nazi rise to power were both places of extremely divided and wide political opinion. They did not turn out so well.
 

Chomsky can’t find ANYTHING nice to say about Ron Paul?  

I guess it’s not surprising; I remember reading that he is totally repulsed by the arguments of Murray Rothbard, describing his views as a world full of hate and tyranny.  And I remember watching Chomsky videos on anarcho-capitalism; the man is either confused, a shallow thinker, or both. 

I’d love to see a debate between Chomsky and Walter Block. 

Chomsky is right in his assessment of the political spectrum.  But I read the interview with his “simplistic views,” and wow–talk about a guy who doesn’t get it.  Ron Paul wants everyone to run around freely with assault rifles?  Are you kidding?  That’s the same logic as defending the Drug War because if you don’t the streets will be littered with the bodies of junkies overnight–somehow a belief that the Government laws and regulations really do put a stop to flaws of human nature.  You have to be joking!  I’m confused though–is Chomsky in some way trying to refer to himself as libertarian, or are there people who are trying to refer to him as such?  I wasn’t sure what “school of libertarian thought” he belonged to, but it isn’t one I’ve ever heard referred to as libertarian. 

Chomsky calls himself a libertarian socialist. He wants to replace the government with unions. That’s like chasing the wolves away so the jackals can eat too.

It’s difficult to debate Chomsky because he never argues in favor of anything. He is against the status quo … great, but what do you replace it with? Such is the paradox of anarcho-syndicalism. He wants to topple the state but maintain its social welfare system. He’s a very intelligent man with close to zero understanding of economics.

Oscar Wilde would have defined Chomsky as a classical cynic:

Someone who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

Noam Chomsky is a well known liberal and supporter of social welfare, but he is also anti-war and anti-police state.

Actually, from what I have heard, the term “libertarian” was originally applied to the left and referred to a variant of anarchism. Murray Rothbard co-opted the term to apply to his version of anarcho-capitalism. But Rothbard’s term has become more widely accepted because the Rothbard/Ayn Rand schools of thought have become more widely accepted.

Before he began writing about politics, Chomsky was a well-known linguist. His famous theory of “transformation grammar” was wildly popular among computer geeks because if offered a theoretical approach to making computers capable of language. However, it proved unsuccessful, and Chomsky early popularity turned into notoriety.

Still, as a professional linguist, his comments on the nature of the public debate carry the weight of professional authority. His comments on political theory do not. Nor is he reliable in the area of historical fact.

In fact, Chomsky usually doesn’t even make much sense. His early fame arose as an apologist for Pol Pot. He more or less invented the idea the mass starvation in Cambodia was the result of the US bombing. Left entirely out of this narrative is the fact that the bombing ended two years before the starvation began. How bombing would cause mass starvation two years after it had ended but not while it was going on is a pretty tough sell, but Chomsky simply ignored the dates.

Supporters of Chomsky point out that he never defended the Pol Pot regime directly. But if the US caused the mass starvation, then the Pol Pot regime is acquitted of doing so. So the fact that his apology for the regime was disingenuous, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t intended or that it wasn’t effective.

Do you have any sources for this?

Maybe because it’s implying that there are no other people in the world except for GE and the person that needs the job. In the real world there would be some other employer offering something better or perhaps there would be another person willing to help that person out til they got on their feet.

There’s this too, and I know it sounds pretty a-hole-ish, but without GE offering even that crappy of  a job, where would this fictitious person be? Out hunting their own food?

I am just appalled by the fact that Chomsky couldn’t even manage to say even one good thing about Ron Paul and his brand of libertarianism that revolves around individual liberty.

How does one even analyze the concept of liberty yet arrive at such radically different conclusions about what it implies?

I don’t mind Chomsky’s disagreements with Ron Paul. I just find him incredibly disingenuous for not even pointing out a single good thing about Paul and his devotion to liberty. The fact that he’s one of the few members of Congress that isn’t bought out by corporate interests is itself something worthy of respect.

You’re right, Tom. I can’t respect Chomsky either after reading those comments.

Jack is on the right track here.

I’d also point towards the existence of organized labor in a free market. Collective bargaining is equally protected under the law as is free speech and freedom to organize. Chomsky’s assertion that we’d all be exploited by corporations is absurdly extremist given this fact.

Another important point to remember is that labor is a commodity much like any other product or service in the economy. There is a supply and demand for it. And because economic growth hinges on production, labor is constantly demanded as it is supplied. The marketplace’s natural interaction between the supply and demand for labor, both skilled and unskilled, gives birth to negotiated wages and benefits.

The Left will dismiss this as “voodoo economics” but the interesting thing about these ideas is that we have a history of it. Sure, there are clearly cases of abuse on the part of corporations, but they’ve been gradually uprooted by the maturation of our civil society in the free market.

Besides, I wonder why Mr. Chomsky couldn’t acknowledge the other side of the coin — how Ron Paul votes against every single corporate subsidy, bailout, public/private partnership, and the colossal Federal Reserve that continually robs the taxpayer.

First we have to consider what the purpose of jobs are. The purpose of jobs is to create things that we want; things like pizzas, ipods, and TV’s. If pizzas and ipods and TV’s rained down from heaven, we wouldn’t need to work anymore. The purpose of jobs isn’t to have everyone work. If that’s all you want then here is the solution: Have one-half of the country dig holes, and have the other half of the country fill them up.

One thing people get wrong is they think that there are only a limited amount of jobs available for people to do, hence a person who can’t get a job is “forced” to take anything they can get, like a horrible job from GE. Actually, there are an unlimited amount of jobs, because people have an unlimited desire for goods. Think of jobs as like having a wish-list with all of the things that we want and dream of on the list. The more jobs we accomplish at the beginning of the list, the further down the list we can go. 

Think of it like Swiss Family Robinson. At the beginning of their list are tasks like “Get Coconuts,” then “Build House,” then “Build Raft” then maybe far down “Create Work Of Art.” The more things they can produce, the further down the wish-list they can go. When a company is able to increase their efficiency and thereby produce more goods with the same amount of labor, they then are able to sell us those goods for less money. That means we then have money to spend on something further down our wish-list. Like a new bicycle for instance. And guess what that means for the bicycle company? They now need to hire new people to make more bikes which everyone is now buying because they can suddenly afford it. So jobs just shift down the wish-list.This actually cuts through the baloney in that scene in I, Robot, where Will Smith tells the executive that his robots are crapping on the little guy because they are doing jobs like furniture-making that people used to do. He doesn’t get that if robots made all of our goods, then the goods would be so much more abundant and therefore cheaper because greater supply lowers prices. And the furniture-makers could move down the list and start making works of art or whatever. Think about this: 99% of the jobs people used to do, like farming for example, are done by giant robot machine combines that can do in 5 minutes what a man took a day to do. So why don’t we have 99% unemployment today?The reason why there aren’t an unlimited amount of jobs in America today and there is unemployment is because of things like unions [voluntary unions are fine, government backed unions are not], minimum wages, zoning, managed trade agreements like NAFTA that benefit big corporations because only they have a team of lawyers that can maneuver through them, Dept. of Agriculture laws where the government pays farmers for growing millions of dollars worth of food and letting it rot in the fields so that the price of food goes up (uhhh… how about not doing that and letting those farmers work on another item on our endless list?) and the Federal Reserve that causes the boom-bust business cycle and inflation.