Noam Chomsky, introduced by [Michael Albert]( http://www.zcommunications.org/introducing-chomsky-by-michael-albert) was the keynote speaker at the conference organized by Peace News in London with the sponsorship of the Joseph Rowntree foundation and Quaker Peace and Social Witness. The central theme was how to progress the radical agenda through an equally radical Media.
Instead, Chomsky decided to focus his opening presentation on the #Occupy Wall Street movement and its offshoots in the US and other parts of the world, acknowledging but not giving much weight to the roots of this movement in the Arab spring and others. He celebrated these important events as the end of apathy, stressing that the inadequacies of the system are to be filled by those who have radical priorities. However he found some unusual mainstream support for this movement rather curious. The head of the Federal Reserve has declared the mobilisations “understandable”. The Financial Times carried a front page story: “thousands rally against US inequalities”. The Unions have joined in and again he stressed this is very rare as they tend to always support the government, e.g. with “the New Deal” of the 70s in which radical labour activity aimed at achieving more control over their workplace and dignity. He also mentioned the feminist labour movement. However in his view it all came to an end very quickly by the end of the 70s. For the last 35 years the Reagan/Thatcher ideology has been undermining workers rights and increasing inequalities.
He gave some insight into US peculiarities about class consciousness. The term “working-class” seems to be unmentionable in polite company. “My father is in jail” means underclass, “my father is a janitor” means middle-class.
In terms of the demands being made by the Occupy Wall Street movement Chomsky stressed that it is necessary to separate the obtainable from the unobtainable in the near future. He strongly supported the demand for regulation and taxation of the hedge funds, stressing that it had been the Clinton Administration that had broken the law that separated investment from speculation. However the more radical demand to end the two party Plutocracy, dismantle the Federal Reserve and the banking system he found that it would destroy the country and that such thing is not possible. In his view what appears to be deterioration during the last few years with corporations buying elections and the manifest corruption of the economic system has in fact been happening for more than 100 years. So if reasonable and doable demands are too far away from the more radical ones, if there is no awareness that only a long-term effort can achieve things, then his fear is that people will get discouraged and “give up to become a stock broker”, as happened with the anti-war effort.
Perhaps this was his central concern, having seen so many radical movements rise and fall, like in the 30’s with the New Deal (when management really feared that the workers would be taking over the factories). The same happened with the civil rights movement and its long hard struggle, with Martin Luther King’s popularity starting to wane when he moved from race to class issues. He stressed that in relation to the Arab Spring things happened in an interesting way where there had been previously a militant labour movement.
He highlighted the need to instil consciousness and understanding on the general population. For instance, more could have been done when local factories were closed by the multinationals that owned them. Although those small industries were in fact profitable, they were not profitable enough for the multinationals’ standards. The workforce could have bought them with public support. Similarly, the bailed out US auto industry could have seen the government, now its owner, handing it over to the workforce. They could have converted the technology to build much needed trains.
In response to the question: how to separate the “predators from the producers”, he stated that banks in fact have a function, if they did what they are supposed to do, e.g., taking unused savings and putting them into production as it had happened during the 50s and 60s, then things could have been okay. In the 70s everything changed.
In relation to health care he said that the US system is an international scandal, private, unregulated, cruel and savage, with 50 million people who have no cover of any kind. “If the US had a system like the one the UK is destroying there would be no deficit. 85% of the population supports the change but Obama gave it away”.
With respect to the nuclear issue he acknowledged that some of his friends see it as a moral issue but he regards it as a technical one, where it is necessary to evaluate the choices available. However in terms of nuclear waste he views the problem of Somali pirates, for example, as a consequence of the destruction of fishing in the area by the dumping of nuclear and other toxic waste.
He criticised the “intelligent minorities” for keeping the “ignorant masses” out of the decision-making. The Media pick on this and replicate it. He suggested that blaming the Media for undermining the left was like blaming the banks for making money.
When asked for his advice to the Assembly that was taking place on Westminster Bridge (by the Houses of Parliament) in support of the NHS and preparation for the October 15th mobilisation he suggested not to get trapped in a litany of complaints but to focus on feasible objectives. Leave the unobtainable goals out for now, the demonstration can spark efforts to gain understanding and organisation that end up making unattainable goals feasible. “Let us set up the structures, it is not a matter of instant gratification”.
As for the market system, its inherent nature is to ignore externalities, “Even if that means the destruction of a species.”
