Noam Chomsky Attacks American "Libertarians"

[marmar]

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. He set up a Corporatist definition of libertarians, and differentiated it from Smith.

That's pretty easy to do, but corporatism (private companies so large and unregulated that they command state powers and state-like powers) really isn't what that word means. small l libertarianism (big L refers to American Libertarian party) refers to advocating for the liberties of the people in some regard. A "civil" libertarian says the people should be able to do civil activities, like talking on the phone, without the state interfering by tapping it. That does not mean its acceptable to tap their phones by a private company the state may or may not have outsourced to, (corporatism) it means nobody should tap their phone. An economic libertarian advocates against state interference in business in the form of regulation, that does not mean a private entity with state like coercive powers should be able to regulate him either. There are some people who are libertarian on most issues, libertarians proper, but most people are libertarian on libertarian on something. Want the government out of marijuana obsession? You're talking limiting state powers. Think the government should keep its laws off a woman's body? Your a libertarian in that regard. Simple word, simple meaning.

[freedom fighter jh]

3. Yes. Where he's coming from, I think,

is that one thing libertarians seem to be very big on is property rights -- and sometimes what libertarians see as the right to use their property as they choose others see as immoral acts that should be illegal. Think polluting, which interferes with the health of innocent third parties.

The most striking example for me was when one of the Pauls (Ron or Rand, I forget which) said he disagreed with the Civil Rights Act's requirement that restaurants serve all customers, regardless of race. To a potential customer of color, that is an important right; if you can't eat in a restaurant, even though the place is privately owned, you can't feel like a full citizen. But to a libertarian it may be simply a matter of the property owner's right to run the restaurant as he or she chooses. Taken to an extreme, this raising of property rights above all other rights can have the effect of putting corporations in charge of government. It may happen like this: Several businesspeople become very successful and accumulate an amount of money that makes them very wealthy. They may open factories and pollute without regard to anyone else's health. They may open nuclear power plants and endanger everyone's safety. They may hire workers for a pittance, but those workers have to accept it when they have nowhere else to go because everyone else is doing the same thing. They may force their workers to work in dangerous conditions. Etc., until the private sector controls most aspects of everyone's life.

[walerosco]

5. As an African American

I am offended that people think that we need ability to patronize the businesses of racists for us to have complete civil rights. The truth is that I rather burn my money that see it go the KKK store. I dont shop at Abercrombie and Fitch because I heard a rumor once that they are racist, so no way will I shop at the store of an admitted racist.

[freedom fighter jh]

8. I don't blame you for not wanting to patronize racists . . .

But there was a time when almost all restaurants, at least in one part of the country, were segregated. It was not just one racist restaurant owner, or a few of them, but pretty much all of them. The problem was the system and it was the system that had to change.

Having not lived in that time or place, I don't know how much of this was custom and how much Jim Crow laws.

[walerosco]

9. I totally agree with you

The Jim Crow system had to be changed and I dont think Paul is against that. The reason why I responded is because I have seen countless number of people use this example before. Blacks may want to buy the same Chevy, cell phone, water fountain etc as whites but this idea that the majority of us want to go into a business where food is going to be prepared by someone who thinks less of us than his dog is bogus.

The counter sit in was a symbolic protest and I dont believe anyone of those people would actually ingest anything coming out of that restaurant.

What rthe fuck happened to the spell check option?

[napoleon_in_rags]

6. Good response. A couple points.

First, I'm glad you brought up the source of the "Ron Paul is racist" meme that's floating around, his statement that government interference was not needed to tell businesses in the south that they needed to serve blacks when he was asked, a bit of a "gotcha" question that I think came from Rachel Maddow.

In reference to that, I would bring another little man of principle to your attention: His name was Mohandas Gandhi, and the principle he dedicated his life to was non-violence. Mohandas lived his principle in every way, taking clubbings in South Africa, being told to crawl on his knees in India and refusing, seeing his people mowed down by machine guns. But he never wavered from his non-violent principles. History celebrates him now, but they play down an important part of his life: where he was while Hitler was ravaging Europe, attacking the UK? He was, of course, advocating non-violence as the appropriate response to Hitler, and this got him thrown in jail.

If you wanted to do a "gotcha" on Gandhi, it would be easy to argue that he was a Nazi sympathizer, because he was speaking out against the war effort against the Nazis. But that simply wouldn't be true, whether you agree with his non violent methods or not, he was committed to them to the extent he advocated they be used against the Nazis, and his own life gave testimony to that commitment. Similarly, Ron Paul, the man of limited government, didn't believe that government i ntervention was the way to end racism in the south. He believed the free market would get rid of it. Its one thing to say you disagree with his methods, its another to call a him a racist. Just as its one thing to disagree that non-violence would be effective against the Nazis, and another to call Gandhi a Nazi.

We're currently in a situation where 100 year from now, college students may very well be pouring over web records, figuring out how the American Republic collapsed. One of the most compelling theories will be that it was similar to the fall of the Soviet Union, who, under the influence of the KGB and Pravda, simply lost track of reality. Truth became so Taboo that the people were wandering a wonderland situation, and when Andropov and Gorby correctly diagnosed and tried to treat the situation with Peristroika and Glasnost, it was too late: the people were too deeply lost in bullshit. So it goes with the US, except instead of Pravda, its the media networks with their PR and their public perception management have created situations where candidates hair and turns of phrase are more important than the content of their policy positions. This is unacceptable.

So lets do our part to fight it by representing people's political positions honestly, including the opposition.

There was a good exchange between Paul and Chris Mathews (I think) where the environmental question was raised. Paul said people don't have the right to "dump garbage in my front yard" with regard to pollution, and said the correct course was through the courts. Polluters should be sued by those who's property the damaged. Mathews said that this had been tried, but the polluters "build taller smokestacks", so the pollution goes further away, and they can't be prosecuted due to obscurity, therefore direct regulation of the polluters was necessary. That was the exchange. Mathews was advocating for a hack to get around an obscured crime though, that much is worthy of recognition.

As far as the endless accumulation of property, so that every man, woman and child on earth has to pay rent to the supreme owner, the dear leader, I agree with the left. The ultimate say on policy comes from the people in this country, and if that means voting in taxes to take property away from dear leader and redistribute it to the people, that's what it means. Constitution before property.

[freedom fighter jh]

10. Thanks for your reply.

I think the subtext to your message (nothing like insomnia to bring out subtext) is that sometimes people dismiss libertarianism out of hand, without giving it much thought. If that's it, I agree. But on these two examples . . . I don't know.

Your showing two sides to the racism question -- especially the Ghandi example -- kind of illustrates my point (if I can remember what my point was four days ago): Libertarianism brings out issues with two sides. The problem is that what looks like sticking to one's principles to one person looks like a good place for government intervention to someone else. Can we agree that government exists for the purpose of doing things that society needs done, that could not be done otherwise? The libertarian argument is often that intervention comes too soon, before things have a chance to work themselves out naturally, or before an existing government structure (the courts, in the pollution case) has had a chance to work things out. I think there's something to be said here, for example, about healthcare. There was a time when health insurance was optional and most people could at least see a doctor (long-term or inherently expensive stuff like surgery is a different question) without help from insurance. That changed for many reasons, among them improvements in the medical system that make it more expensive -- but one of the reasons it changed, I think, is government medical programs. Now just about everyone in the medical field is very well paid, while treatment is unavailable to some and others have to spend their retirement money for it. I guess I'm trying to say that government efforts to ensure that health care is available to may have contributed to the monster we have today of a health care system. I feel like I don't have to prove what I'm saying because (I think) I'm agreeing with you. But I'm probably disagreeing with 99% of DU readers. And I must admit I'm speculating, putting together the facts that a) There are government subsidies to healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, some provisions in the tax code, and probably . . . here I go again, speculating . . . government funding to medical education and research); and b) There's all sorts of waste in the medical system -- lots of it having to do with insurance and billing -- and people in the field are very highly compensated. So I'm speculating that gpvernment interference contributed to the unaffordability of health care.

Re: pollution, I don't know what you mean by "a hack to get around an obscured crime." I believe pollution is way too cumbersome to litigate and is therefore a good example of a place where government intervention is needed. Dumping garbage in your yard may not be a good example, because it is so obvious. How about dumping mercury in everyone's river? Without environmental law, the person downstream with mercury in her or his drinking water would have the burden of proving in court that mercury is harmful and then would have to find out -- and prove -- where it came from. And that's only if they knew there was mercury in the water in the first place, which they likely would not. Mercury and drinking water, of course, are just examples. Try, also, lead in the air. When children are brain damaged from inhaling lead, should their parents sue the gasoline companies or the drivers? I can't imagine this sort of thing working as a deterrent.

To me, the biggest example of a need for government to step in because individuals won't make the differentce is climate change. CO2 emissions must be limited if the planet is to remain habitable to human beings, but absolutely not going to happen unless there are laws -- that is, unless government makes it happen.

[napoleon_in_rags]

11. Hey, thanks for your response.

First off, let me warn you... I'm not a Libertarian proper, just a small 'l' libertarian on some issues, something of a hold over from when I was a Libertarian proper in my youth. But I'll try to share my perspective as best I can.

"Can we agree that government exists for the purpose of doing things that society needs done, that could not be done otherwise?"

That's a pretty good description of what government does now, but at its core I would say that the purpose of government is to hold a monopoly on the use of coercion and force, so they do not become business practices. (feudalism) This to allow the existence of a more civil society, with things like markets and civil governance.

"government efforts to ensure that health care is available to may have contributed to the monster we have today of a health care system. But I'm probably disagreeing with 99% of DU readers."

Good, I love free thinkers. Don't forget, propaganda works not by convincing the individual that something is true, but by convincing an individual that everybody else thinks it's true. I say think for yourself.

I agree with you on the medical care thing too, I really see it from the inside. I can't talk about work due to confidentiality, but if I could I would give you an earful. The bottom line is that over this last week I've been navigating this byzantine maze related to medical care, probably costing taxpayers a load due to unnecessary medical appointments, that could have been resolved free if a certain medical clinic would allow their doctors to communicate via email and access their records from the other clinic across town without ado. But there is this complacency about that kind of thing being a problem at all.

But what do you do there? Its a hardened calculus of regulations and old policies, with the costs of them pushed out of site to insurance companies, other agencies, etc. At some point you need real reform, and that means breaking through the hardened shell and letting something soft and new grow.

Anyway, that dovetails a little with what I was saying about "a hack to get around [prosecution of] an obscured crime.", and also climate change.

So a Libertarian proper might advocate for less government reach, but my thing is we need less laws, with total reach. Think of this: I'll bet that if you wrote down all the laws of physics, from the Newtonian, Relativity, and Quantum mechanics in their pure mathematical form, so that other laws (such as those in chemistry) could be derived from them, the whole thing would fit in one fat, mathematically dense, textbook. And except for oddities here and there people are trying to understand, the whole goddamned universe, from the level of molecules to to giant stars, basically follows those laws. Yet the laws of man fill libraries, and yet aren't followed.

So with climate change as metaphor, legislatively, we're acting like deniers in a way: Scientists predicted global warming in the 70s, and there it is. They win. But then deniers come in after the fact, to explain the data in a different way, the data they didn't see coming and didn't predict. But that doesn't matter, hindsight is 20/20. Good science demonstrates mastery of reality through FORESIGHT.

So it should be with legislation. The legislature is always outlawing crimes after they take place, always with the hindsight. But their legislation creates uncertainty, unintended consequences, loopholes. So they do it again, the law books filling up create a legal structure where it is virtually impossible not to be a criminal in some ways, and corruption blossoms. There is a clear parallel to bad science, explaining things after the fact. So there needs to be a more scientific process of legislation in place, where laws, like theories, are evaluated by their effectiveness quantitatively. How cumbersome pollution is to litigate is an example of our failed partial system of after-the-fact legislation. Its really an extension of how cumbersome it is to litigate period, much more cumbersome for the poor than the wealthy, regardless of the crimes against them. However, damages are damages. Now that we are in the information age, if we wanted a system of litigation that would handle claims of a single penny, we could have it. But we don't, we absolutely do not want that. The reason why is that the human mind is limited, there is only so far we can see, so people would rather fight to hold on to their place on top of the burning pile of shit than cooperate and build a sky-scraper. People on top of the pile make more money than their neighbors, and that's how they see it, in terms of competition.

Which brings us to climate change, not the metaphor.

The government runs on taxes, produced by the economy. The economy runs on fossil fuels, still by far the cheapest source of energy. The government can't ban fossil fuels without collapsing its own economy, lowering its taxes, and thus its influence in the world. So the country that bans fossil fuels becomes less influential over the others. If a bunch of countries collude to do it together, than the one which doesn't collude, by market principles, gets SUPER cheap oil, and thus a super economy, and gains global economic influence. This situation is a called a Nash Equilibrium.

So there are two ways to deal with this situation. 1) Total domination by one world government. 2) An emergent, decentralized market driven solution that quantifies the damages accurately enough to inspire a self interested push toward solutions. The latter would have to come from the IT realm; total awareness solutions with far reaching predictive capability for business logic, collaborating with all peers against all competition.

Right now my mind is folding over the scene from the movie "A Beautiful Mind" in the bar with the blonde with "The Matrix" scene with the little boy bending spoons...

"Don't try to lay the blonde, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth; that there is no blonde"

That means two things. 1) Nash Equilibria are a products of perception. 2) I need to go to sleep.

PEace

[DeSwiss]

2. K&R

[Douglas Carpenter]

4. knr

[Survivoreesta]

7. Libertarians?>

What a joke!

[xchrom]

12. du rec. nt