He's 88, still mentally very sharp and probably moved there for the weather(aside from the great department filled with old students).
His work ethic is incredible, he spends 5 hours a day responding to emails from the public- I've received a detailed response every time I've sent one. The amount of time he spends engaging with even terribly misinformed(but well meaning) people is truly astounding, and unparalleled amongst public figures as far as I can tell.
Here's an example(https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/6tz1xp/what_do_you...) of some random kid badgering Chomsky with emails, and he still takes the time out to respond to every one of his questions, even though he gets more than a hundred mails a day.
I think this reddit comment in here sums up my thoughts on reading that random kid post
"Dear mr. chomsky i realize you've been an MIT professor for 60 years. you've made significant contributions to many fields of studies including linguistics, history, computer science, and philosophy and you've debated with towering figures such as Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Jean Piaget, etc... now can you please allow me to condescend to you while i quote Breitbart news about blacks?"
> he spends 5 hours a day responding to emails from the public
rms, another MIT "affiliate", is like this too, although many of his replies are brief. Whenever you see him cracking open his laptop while he's sitting on a panel waiting for his turn to speak, he's almost surely answering email.
Here are pictures of him answering email around the world:
Holy shit that link you shared was so frustrating to read. To think of all the productive things a great intellectual like Chomsky could be doing with his time. Instead he generously chose to engage someone who had already made their conclusion and just wanted to "debate" without actually ceding to any points (take a shot any time OP says "liberal" or "PC"). He even hints at OP's "intentional ignorance" many times too... What a patient soul to debate someone whose entire education on race issues was some /pol/ infographic and right-wing blogs. OP could have taken some time to read some pre-existing literature, to learn the opposing side's arguments and especially when corresponding with an academic, to read their prior writing. Instead we have this..... the state of public discourse on the web 2.0.
Most people do stuff like this to sharpen their teeth.
There's a great recording on Youtube of a biology grad student debating Kent Hovind on the broad subject of evolution. Even though Hovind is essentially a confidence man, the conversation is enlightening nonetheless because the grad student knows his shit and gives some surprising lucid explanations that I haven't heard in other general audience discussions of evolution.
Also, most people rely on a kind of "smell test" to keep from engaging with certain types of arguments. That can quickly create a moral hazard where the person being avoided misrepresents people's reluctance to engage as proof that he/she is a noble dissident with the courage to speak the truth.
When someone like Chomsky, Ken Miller, Glenn Greenwald, or another intellectual engages directly with such people it pushes them into a corner where they either have to deliver the goods, change the subject, or commit a fallacy.
In a debate, Greenwald forced one of the former NSA directors into such a situation when the response was, "Collect everything doesn't really mean collect everything." Trusting nature of most people being what it is, these forced errors have value.
> Instead he generously chose to engage someone who had already made their conclusion and just wanted to "debate" without actually ceding to any points (take a shot any time OP says "liberal" or "PC").
Chomsky was not prepared to cede any points either. In many places, he does not respond to the probing questions asked of him at all (this is assuming the poster didn't add them in afterwards) instead opting to insult the poster.
Poster:
1: By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?
2: For example, how is white supremacy responsible for single-parent families in the American black community? Allegedly single-parent rates have skyrocketed since the Civil Rights Movement.
Chomsky:
Racism is quite extreme today, and by many measures increasing. I don’t know what cocoon you live in.
Perhaps you are completely unfamiliar with racism and its impact, in particular, the extreme racism experienced constantly by African-Americans. If so, I would suggest that you learn something about the world, and then you will understand the mechanisms very well. If you don’t want to have direct experience – which is not that hard –then at least look at the literature.
Again, try following your own logic. It’s not genes, so it is circumstances. Do you perceive any circumstances beyond the extreme white racism that it takes real effort to be oblivious to?
> He even hints at OP's "intentional ignorance" many times too.
Hinting at ignorance is not helpful unless you show a path away from ignorance. Saying that something is obvious or trivial (as Mathematicians say) is not helpful. If it is truly obvious, just provide evidence.
Now this is not to criticize Chomsky, he is still replying rather than remaining silent. And with his limited time, it doesn't necessarily make sense for him to give a solid argument in that case, but his argument in that link wasn't convincing.
> 1: By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?
> 2: For example, how is white supremacy responsible for single-parent families in the American black community? Allegedly single-parent rates have skyrocketed since the Civil Rights Movement.
Chomsky:
> Racism is quite extreme today, and by many measures increasing. I don’t know what cocoon you live in.
> Perhaps you are completely unfamiliar with racism and its impact, in particular, the extreme racism experienced constantly by African-Americans. If so, I would suggest that you learn something about the world, and then you will understand the mechanisms very well. If you don’t want to have direct experience – which is not that hard –then at least look at the literature.
> Again, try following your own logic. It’s not genes, so it is circumstances. Do you perceive any circumstances beyond the extreme white racism that it takes real effort to be oblivious to?
> Why were you and your friends raised in a different non-ghetto culture? Agreed, it has absolutely nothing to do with genes. Rather, it has everything to do with extreme white racism, which includes refusal to acknowledge what has been created by a history of 400 years of vicious slave labor camps which were the source of a large part of our wealth and privilege, a culture of white supremacy that is the most extreme in the world, beyond South Africa, as comparative studies have shown, and very powerful effects right to the present moment. Including what is sometimes called “intentional ignorance”.
Worth noting that the questioner was pretty much stonewalling him by asking the same question over and over. That's not how to have a constructive dialogue.
Chomsky had stated earlier that there are experts to read who cover such things. The kid kept asking variations of the same question. If I were Chomsky I would have been done after a couple of responses.
"These 'experts' agree with me" is not an argument. Indeed, clearly Chomsky did not want to engage the argument so ceasing responding would have been logical.
"These 'experts' agree with me" is not an argument.
What's your point in saying so? I would guess that Chomsky could care less about winning an Internet "argument" with some random dude. From his point of view, it's entirely reasonably to say "go read the literature and come back when you're more informed". If the other party doesn't want to do that, they have no moral claim to Chomsky's continued participation in the discussion.
The example questions you included are just not even wrong and are themselves loaded with racism. It would take hours or days of remedial education just to get the person asking them up to speed on the history and circumstances around black Americans' experiences to the point where the racism in his questions could be addressed. And that assumes he's honestly curious and not just spouting racism disguised as a question on purpose.
In such a forum there just isn't a point to treat the poster as coming from a place of honest discussion.
> The example questions you included are just not even wrong and are themselves loaded with racism.
What about the first question, "By what mechanism do white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today?", is loaded with racism? It is asking for how white supremacy directly affects black culture. I do not see how even the assertion "There is not a mechanism by which white supremacist elements impose American black culture on the American black community today." instead is racist. It may not be an educated viewpoint, but I do not see it as racist.
Besides whether the question is racist, a good answer to the question could be very illuminating. You could probably fill a book responding to that question.
There's immense difference between ignorance and intentional ignorance - for intentional ignorance showing a path isn't helpful, since the problem is taking a step on the obvious path.
That's not really accurate. Chomsky's "key statement" at the very beginning of the thread refers to studies that have demonstrated "white supremacy that is more rampant here even than it was in apartheid South Africa." That, despite the experience of racism being a naked fact that anyone with eyes can see should they make a modicum of effort to break out of their "white racist cocoon". But these studies would presumably detail how white supremacy works, for those that need it explained.
He implies that these studies are readily available, alongside "a huge literature of professional criminology," for anyone willing to look. What he's facing here is an interlocutor that isn't interested in doing the research or following logic, just citing right-wing op-eds.
> Chomsky was not prepared to cede any points either.
That was patently clear from the thread. His followers also showed a complete lack of intellectual honesty, by trying to avoid any of the points made in the thread and instead trying to dismiss with paternalistic non-sequiturs such as "Why should Chomsky waste time shoring up your self-imposed ignorance?"
When a cult-like following forms, they do behave like a cult.
I mean if you're just going to give non-argumentative question-begging, why even respond? I think Chomsky was wasting Chomsky's time more than the kid.
That's why whenever I speak to someone and they have a strong opinion I like to ask them how many books they've read on that subject. It's almost always zero. You can pretty much instantly discard anyone like that as it's a decent baseline litmus test. If you really cared about something, you would read at least one if not multiple books on the subject. Anything less is just laziness and someone who wants to get an endorphin rush from anger or other emotions.
What you described is a lot better (read some pre-existing literature, to learn the opposing side's arguments and especially when corresponding with an academic, to read their prior writing). But usually even bad books are going to blow a DuckDuckGo search out of the water on quality. Especially for those who aren't astute enough to identify good and bad information.
> If you really cared about something, you would read at least one if not multiple books on the subject.
I'm not sure how true that is anymore. If by "book" you mean "monothematic long-form treatise by a small number of authors" then I have read essentially zero books in the past year, although I have done a great deal of reading otherwise. Research papers, magazines, blog posts, Wikipedia articles, cherry-picked single chapters of books can in aggregate absolutely stand in for a few books. And then there are sources of knowledge that go beyond reading, such as personal experience, original research, attending talks, etc.
I think your test would be more accurate if you asked more generally how they learned what they know about the matter.
It probably doesn't apply to you, or a few others in the minority. If you're intelligent enough to be able to identify credible sources vs those which are not, then you're probably better off. I offered that up as a low-bar. That said, usually if you're truly into a given subject you'll eventually find a book by someone that you really want to read.
Example for me other than Marx & Engels that I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, is my passing interest in European Celts. I enjoy reading about Iron Age Europe, so I've had a hard time resisting books on the subject. Caesar's Druids by Miranda Aldhouse-Green was a recent book that I read and something I couldn't pass up. While I accept your statements and agree, I still think the same will be for you if you're truly serious about a given subject.
I agree, it is a pathetic litmus test. It still sounds like a very high bar for the majority of people though, right. Good luck finding people who have even read one book on a subject they're so angry about they'd punch you over it. It really demonstrates interest, not expertise, and potentially not even a well rounded opinion as you stated.
I've found that the book medium invites for a lot of opinions from an author and usually selective references to prove some point. Sort of the same reason that when you read scientific papers, you don't want to just read those written by a single lab.
When I want to find out how something works I usually read a meta analysis or a review in a highly rated journal in the field. That way you get to see everyone's opinions and arguments on the subject. They are usually written to be more or less accessible for people not in the field.
I think it pays to read long-form book reviews about a book if one is concerned that the book has the sort of flaws you mention. I read "From Bauhaus to Our House," a book by Tom Wolfe on modern architecture, and then I went to the local university library and looked up reviews about it. I found many pointers to follow, of which only a few could be followed up that day. Plus in that case I could have researched the various architects mentioned in the book.
I've made my mind about Nazism, because it strikes me as an abominable philosophy. I haven't read any books about it though. Would you dismiss anything I said about it until I read Mein Kampf? Most people have only read a handful of books. If they were limited to expressing their views on those topics, there wouldn't be very much said about anything in society. I'm not sure society would benefit from that.
>I've made my mind about Nazism, because it strikes me as an abominable philosophy. I haven't read any books about it though. Would you dismiss anything I said about it until I read Mein Kampf?
I think that you're using the theme of nazism as a way to make an opinion from a protected standpoint -- it's difficult to refute what you say without sounding sympathetic to nazis.
But i'll say it anyway : I think you, and anyone else in the same boat, hold less authority on a topic without being well-versed on said topic.
It's really that simple for me.
Don't stop speaking to or throw out the opinions of folks uneducated on a topic, just weigh them appropriately along with the expert opinions.
"Making up your mind" without educating yourself on the topic is dangerous, no matter which side you start leaning towards.
I'm not telling you to go pick up 'Mein Kampf' -- not by a long shot -- but to condemn all books on the topic is frighteningly naive as a societal habit. It propagates a certain kind of sneaky "head-in-the-sand" behavior that may lead to even more strife in our world, and prevents the great historic feedback-loop of the knowledge of our past preventing historical repetitions of our worst atrocities.
I think a better example would be Marx's Das Kapital. I probably wouldn't waste any time talking to someone about 20th century political & economic history/theory who dismisses it out of hand.
And I can tell you the vast majority of Americans will dismiss it. The standard response to "I've read it" is: "What, you're a commie?"
That's a very interesting anecdote. About 15 years ago I went to my local library and checked out every book by Marx that I could get. One of the librarians said "why would you want to read THAT". She looked actively disgusted.
I'm not a Marxist, but I have read Marx and Engels. If I had to be pidgeonholed into any political ideology that would be the vein I'd choose. I probably most appreciate Peter Joseph from the Zeitgeist Movement, which is similar and derided as "Communism with robots". But at least I've read a few treatises on the subject. I also went to Moscow about a decade ago, simply because I didn't want to form a strong opinion about a world power that everyone thinks they know about- without actually at least stepping foot on their soil myself.
In sum, people need to put their mind where their mouth is.
You have an opinion about Nazism. You certainly do know less than someone who has read Mein Kampf, so your opinion is to be discarded versus someone like Noam Chomsky's. Who probably has read Mein Kampf. As long as you accept that, and accept why some outsider would take Chomsky's take on Nazism over yours, then we're on the same page.
I do think society would benefit greatly if we cut out the masses who have strong opinions on subjects they haven't even bothered to read.
Your Nazism opinion for example, doesn't sound like it's based on much other than trendiness. If it were 1935 and you were in the environment where it were popular- someone like yourself would probably would be Sieg Heiling with your jackboots on, in all seriousness.
I'd like to think I wouldn't be a brownshirt, because that makes me feel better. But I guess its definitely possible if I didn't make up my own mind about things and I went with the crowd.
I don't know how mentally sharp you get to be called after endorsing Hugo Chavez despite a history of similar politicians with similar policies plunging otherwise strong countries into eternal, unhealing chaos.
I know he has lots of clout, and tremendous work ethic, but I really wouldn't say he's very sharp. If he is sharp, he doesn't seem all that wise; and if he is wise, he would be very cruel.
You misunderstand. He used the term in the context of referring to 19th century racists. Full quote:
"In the 19th century, the US had emigration officials helping drive the native population off their lands, and immigration officials in Europe trying to bring in white settlers to replace them. White. Orientals were entirely excluded."
It is in context, but it's not like he's directly quoting something, so I don't think I misunderstood. E.g., I don't refer to African Americans with the N-word when I'm discussing slavery.
In any case, I don't think anyone is offended by his use of the term here. In fact, AFAIK, it's not even considered that offensive---just a bit dated. I was just making an observation. Not accusing Chomsky of racism or anything.
I see. That's not quite the definition I was using in my head. According to that, if the emails are very well thought-out and written, it _is_ still hard work...
I assumed that, for a work ethic, it had to be as useful as possible too.
I suspect that when Chomsky dies, a burst of new and valuable linguistics research will arrive. I'm not saying I hope he dies soon. However, I think his current impact on the field is probably negative.
Chomsky has far less of a grip on the field than people outside it imagine. There are already lots of people doing research in linguistics that's fundamentally different in its approach. So I would not expect any very sudden sea change once Chomsky dies.
Note that the economist article is very badly informed. Since another poster didn't link directly to the relevant article on the 'facultyoflanguage' blog, here is a link:
> However, I think his current impact on the field is probably negative.
This is obvious if you look at other field "champions" such as Claude Lévi-Strauss in cultural anthropology. His admittedly invaluable contributions were followed by 50 years of stagnation. Granted I only studied it for a year but it was one of my reasons for not sticking with it.
I haven't read his political works but Noam Chomsky as a social phenomenon is interesting. His subject matter is often media and political manipulation and people who haven't read him often feel compelled by an entrenched, opposed political view to voice extremely strong opinions about his work. And they're doing this without any conscious irony.
World-renowned linguist and all people are talking about is his political views (mostly by his own design).
Make no mistake, Chomsky's work was significant to both linguistics proper (X-bar theory, generative grammar, universal grammar) and computer science (Chomsky hierarchy).
In recent years though he more often than not comes across as a grumpy old man who can't seem to accept the fact that linguistic theory has moved on to often simpler, more elegant approaches.
> linguistic theory has moved on to often simpler, more elegant approaches.
As a linguist, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. There have always been alternative approaches. But we have not recently been blessed with any that are clear winners in terms of simplicity and elegance.
HPSG or statistical approaches in computational linguistics, for instance.
Now, of course one can argue - as Chomsky himself has done - that statistical approaches are not as elegant as rule-based ones but as human language faculty quite likely behaves statistically to some degree, statistical methods for describing language do have some merit.
Linguistic theory has not "moved on" to HPSG. HPSG originated in the early 90s and remains a minority pursuit.
The term "statistical approaches" could mean almost anything. There have always been people who are more interested in building, say, practical machine translation systems than in figuring out how kids acquire grammatical knowledge. But again, the field has not "moved on". There are just different groups of researchers working on different problems.
Could mean almost anything but what generativist linguistics (or whatever the latest label for the Chomskyan school) does, which continues to promote the notion that language is essentially algebraic, that "grammaticality" is binary, and so forth. It's simply not the case that Chomsky is "okay" with approaches to the study of language which are not in accord wiht his own. He repeatedly dismisses whole subdisciplines as "uninteresting," but in context those complaints don't mean "uninteresting to me," they mean "worthless."
>promote the notion [...] that "grammaticality" is binary
I don't know a single generative linguist who is committed to the claim that grammaticality is binary. And there is lots of published work in generative linguistics that explicitly does not assume this. Where are you getting this idea from, exactly?
>language is essentially algebraic,
Not sure what this means. If it just means that sentences have structure, then yes, generative linguistics is committed to this obviously true claim.
>He repeatedly dismisses whole subdisciplines as "uninteresting," but in context those complaints don't mean "uninteresting to me," they mean "worthless."
He's entitled to his opinion, no? It's not as if no-one ever criticizes his work.
I heard that the Universal Grammar reached the peak of simplicity and generality by recursively applying "join-a-word" action. Are those rumors exaggerated?
Chomsky is a great critic of social issues like imperialism, manufactured consent, and state capitalism. However he has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela and as of today won't admit the problems with state socialism. I hope his new students realize this.
I'm not sure what you mean by how "he has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela". When Chavez was first elected, Chomsky noted how the oil wealth of Venezuela was finally being shared beyond a small coterie of wealthy European descendants, and was now accessible to the poor and working class Venezuelans of various races. Then six years ago, Chomsky said in an open letter that the Venezuelan government was beginning to take measures that were an "assault on democracy" ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/03/noam-chomsky-h... ).
I don't know how Chomsky "has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela". Do you think these two reactions he had to events in Venezuela were incorrect?
Insofar as human rights, Chomsky saw respect for them beginning to dip six years ago, and reacted accordingly. I should note that eight years ago, Honduras had its first left-leaning president in living memory ousted by a coup from US-trained, US-funded military officers, after which, the US stood alone being supportive of the coup against virtually all other Latin American nations. Actually Wikileaks cables show the US knew what was going on and how they supported this. Elections were scheduled for 2013 and dozens of candidates and supporters were killed. The murder rate of Honduras has exploded, as has immigration from it. You never hear it in the US news though, unless unaccompanied Honduran chidlren appear at the border, and then you never hear why, just arguments between the Trumpites and anti-Trumpites about what to do with them.
Insofar as Venezuela's economy, it has been similar to other economies heavily dependent on energy. Including the energy-dependent areas of the US economy that voted heavily for Trump. It is why Venezuelan minister Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo helped found OPEC in 1960. Venezuela had decades of an up and down economy along with the price of oil before Chavez came along.
Is there some crucial factor in Venezuela's woes which clearly arises from socialism? It seems likely that the US will soon become the latest demonstration that corruption can damage a country with any form of government. Chomsky identifies that as the problem in Venezuela, which I find plausible.
Interestingly enough, redistribution isn't a Socialist policy; if the workers (proletariat) control and own the social means of production, i.e not a state which is clearly not under control of the workers (i.e not a dictatorship of the proletariat) then redistribition would not be necessary unless agreed to on a voluntary basis by the community.
Instead, we see there is still wage labour. Thrre is still money, which as Engels reminds us contains the law of value in embryo, there is still private property, both state owned and private (as we saw in the USSR and Cuba and more obviously in China).
The very fact we are discussing prices shows the proof is in the pudding - there is no Socialism, there is a government attempting to control a capitalist (fitting all of Marx's conditions for a capitalist mode of production as outlined in Capital) economy, the fact that the free market has been limited, or that the state owns private property rather than McDonald's or Microsoft is frankly irrelevant.
Sounds like you are talking about a pure idealized version of socialism. However, I referred to Venezuela as an example of state socialism. Let me quote the wiki article so we both know we are talking about the same thing:
"State socialism is a classification for any socialist political and economic perspective advocating state ownership of the means of production either as a temporary measure in the transition from capitalism to socialism, or as characteristic of socialism itself..."
and: "State socialism was traditionally advocated as a means for achieving public ownership of the means of production through nationalization of industry. This was intended to be a transitional phase in the process of building a socialist economy. The goals of nationalization were to dispossess large capitalists and consolidate industry so that profit would go toward public finance rather than private fortune. Nationalization would be the first step in a long-term process of socializing production..."
So there still may be private capital, prices, money, and other things like redistribution in a state socialist country. Even if they eventually want to transition to pure socialism.
>"State socialism is a classification for any socialist political and economic perspective advocating state ownership of the means of production either as a temporary measure in the transition from capitalism to socialism, or as characteristic of socialism itself..."
I agree that this can exist and has the potential to exist, and the usage of the state temporarily to secure the power of the proletariat (their dictatorship) was something espoused by Marx and Engels. The issue is that it requires the proletariat as a whole to be in control of this state; at the moment, the state is run not by workers but by people who are acting as bourgeois on a global scale - buying and selling in a capitalist economy, trading commodities. They employ wage labour. As such, Venezuela does not operate a state Socialist system.
There is some confusion around the meaning of Socialism; in Marx's day, the word 'Socialism' and 'Communism' were synonymous, though Marx distinguished between lower and higher stages of Communism. The idea that Socialism is a form of state in the first place I am willing to concede, though this is largely a Leninist invention.
>So there still may be private capital, prices, money, and other things like redistribution in a state socialist country.
I don't know if I agree; the key component of a Socialist economy is outlined by what doesn't exist in the capitalist economy, namely in particular the absence of the law of value, which prescribes that commodities have both exchange and use value; if production is predominantly focused such that use values, but not exchange value is being produced (i.e we have products rather than the specific form of product, commodity) then it can be said that the workers own the means of production, that they are not paid wages in order to exchange products. Socialism is the breaking of Marx's chain of exchange (M-C-M').
The nationalisation of industry is conducted in the transition of power from the bourgeois state to the proletarian state (which necessarily incorporates proletarian democracy); however as soon as this transfer of power is complete, the state should start dismantling, withering away is Engels put it.
And we do not see this happening in Venezuela. The state continues to trade on a global scale (oil etc.), employing wage labour (showing that the state is not in the control of the workers) and is thus not Socialist. If you can find any major Socialist theorist who is in support of wage labour within a Socialist economy, I'd be surprised.
> Is there some crucial factor in Venezuela's woes which clearly arises from socialism?
Ah, the never-ending cycle of socialist revolution, followed by establishing socialism, and finally followed by a string of desperate attempts to pin the effects of socialism because no true socialists would ever do any wrong.
> Or the realization that capitalist Venezuela had a worse version of this same crisis.
Don't go lecture me about how bad "capitalist Venezuela" was. I have family members living in Venezuela, and not only did they saw their property and livelihood seized by Maduro's thugs, one family member also died due to restrictions imposed on access to basic medical care by your pet socialist utopia.
Maybe worse is overstepping, things under the capitalist government were often fairly rotten as well. Blaming it all on socialism needs more proof than I've seen provided
Poverty rate, wealth inequality, corruption, violent unrest. Admittedly, 2015 is the last year data seems available for, and pre-Chavez years get very little coverage online. Either way, you can't just point at the problems and say socialism is to blame.
> However he has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela and as of today won't admit the problems with state socialism. I hope his new students realize this.
Doesn't the problems with state socialism result from being attack by state capitalism which tend to be much stronger nations?
The US and europe attacking venezuela and blaming their failures on state socialism is like blaming democracy for ukraine's loss of crimea. When larger nations bully smaller nations, smaller nations suffer.
We can never truly ascertain the merits of socialism, capitalism or any other ism really because it doesn't exist in a vacuum.
The chinese and their state socialism has been the most successful nation the past 40 years after the US decided to play nice with them.
The situation in Venezuela is not the result of US and European attacks, much as their state propaganda would have you believe. It's the result of 19 years of high corruption, and since the death of Chavez, even worse leadership (Maduro is a moron, plain and simple). They, much like the Kirchner governments in Argentina, and the Mujica government in Uruguay, squandered resources to buy good will, spending money they didn't have (and stealing what money they did have).
> Doesn't the problems with state socialism result from being attack by state capitalism which tend to be much stronger nations?
Venezuela has nearly 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, so I think it makes sense to ask why they have done so much worse than other countries. It can't just be due to US meddling.
Speaking as a Venezuelan, what the bloody hell are you talking about?
"...and blaming their failures on state socialism..."
Venezuela's failures are the failure of state socialism. Price controls, capital controls, expropriations, redistribution policies, central planning, disregard for property rights, and other insane economic policies tanked the country. High oil prices were the only thing hiding the structural damage these policies were creating for years.
They are more socialist than capitalist. Besides, there is no pure socialist or capitalist society on earth.
Using that logic, the US isn't a capitalist nation and venezuela isn't a socialist nation. And the guy's assertion that venezuela is suffereing because of state socialism is pointless.
China and venezuela are both socialist countries. You can't just decide to accept one because it fits into your worldview and reject the other because it doesn't.
>Besides, there is no pure socialist or capitalist society on earth.
Yes there is. All nations on earth adhere to the capitalist mode of production, entailing the following: primacy of wage labour, capital accumulation by the owners of the means of production, majority capitalist control over the means of production, the existence of private property and the fact that commodities (which have use and exchange value) are produced rather than simple good (which have only use value).
This is what Marxists mean when they talk about the difference between capitalism and Socialism.
>China and venezuela are both socialist countries.
Why? What precisely makes them socialist, and by whose definition? North Korea calls itself "democratic".
No they're not. Production isn't controlled by the public. China doesn't even classic social-democratic policies like free health care, free higher education or a strong welfare system. It's much more a cut-throat proto-capitalist state, which happens to also also a not a democracy.
China is an autocracy, which is a form of government associated with the east block that used to call itself socialist and communist. Socialism is an economic system that China doesn't have.
In 2017, 36% of the US GDP is government spending, including federal, state and local governments. Of the remainder, most is highly regulated giving government specific controls over how companies can speak, hire, employ, operate, manufacture, and how their ownership is determined and profits distributed.
At what level of government control over the economy do you draw the line between socialism and capitalism? It can't be 100%, that's called communism. If you draw it at 50% for socialism, a very good argument exists that we are there right now, just establish that the government controls anywhere near 20% of the decisions private businesses make.
The point is not so much that these countries are socialist, I agree they’re not, although they have some aspects of socialism. The point is they’re not integrated into the western system. That’s the big distinction or cause of schism.
I'm not sure how that statement can be taken seriously. Puppet leaders of industry, are extensions of the party. The ability to act independently isn't much different than the leeway given to a US executive agency head.
Socialism isn't ever absolute...as if the Nordic Model isn't "socialist" either.
He made some stupid comments about privatization in Brazil in the 1990s. He never lived here, he did not know the absolute mess that Brazil was before the tenure of president FHC. He seems to think that state bureaucracy, inefficiency, inflation, public spending and privileges of public servants are problems so minor that can be ignored.
Chomsky is intelligent and points real problems in USA and capitalism, but he is not infinitely intelligent and should not put the weight of his name in things that he does not have any first-hand experience, because it is damaging. Already some hard-left local people cite Chomsky and call it a day, along with the young lefties that think that Brazil was a paradise until the 1980s.
Brazil was a mess, but it simply makes zero sense to say that the young lefties thinks that our country was a paradise under a right wing military dictatorship, most of them agrees that our country was always riddled with corruption, bureaucracy and a ton of other problems.
On the aspect of privatization, some of that was necessary, but the main criticism is not about the privatization per se, but the way it was handled, giving strategic companies for almost nothing.
If you want to criticize the left, please don't resort to lies just because most of the HN aren't brazilians.
When you say that young lefties thinks that Brazil was a paradise during a time when a right wing military dictatorship ruled the country, you are stating a fact that simply isn't true, not an opinion.
And to be honest, a lot of young right wingers are the ones that miss the dictatorship and say that the country was better in that time, in which case what you said couldn't be more distant from the reality.
This is a nostalgic credo among youngsters that are too far into either side of political spectrum: that there was some sort of 'order' or 'grand plan' for the country until the 1980s. Obviously I don't subscribe to that credo.
Let's not forget that local left worships Getúlio Vargas, which was a right-wing dictator and a full-fledged fascist (a true fascist that fortunately was not a Nazi puppet, which made a lot of difference!). Also, the local military regime belonged firmly to the right, but borrowed some ideas from the left (strong presence of the state in economy, auto-sufficiency in manufacturing). Many times the impeached Dilma was compared to General Geisel; they even committed the same errors regarding the economy.
Anyway I am not sure if you want to debate or just calling people liars.
I'm not sure what you're referencing, but Chomsky has typically not been aligned with state socialism. I think typically it's viewed as another structure which uses it's position to maintain power.
That video has frustratingly little information. Except for the hosts rage and short quotes from a supposed conversation with Chomsky; the only actual study mentioned is discarded immediately on basis of its author having advised some movie on the topic that he's an expert on.
Just Google Chomsky Chavez or Venezuela. I've heard him give plenty of interviews where he talks about how great Chavez is. Sorry I had just provided the top search result.
I have heard these too and that is a misrepresentation of his statements. He does not say Chavez is great. He makes specific and nuanced arguments about value exemplified in some things Chavez did.
This probably didn't need saying, but what an obnoxious generalization to make.
Chomsky opinion about Venezuela is not so difficult to understand if we make a honest effort. Unfortunately a honest effort, as reflected by your link, is not very common.
Chomsky supported initially Chavez, (who, by the way, and not as your link insinuate, was democratically elected), because his government initially improved the conditions of the most humble people in the country. People that lived in misery in one of the most resources rich countries in the world, elected what was then, a new hope.
As frequently happen, the new elite was incompetent, and get corrupted fast. Consequently, Chomsky criticized them.
Here there is video of Chomsky criticizing the Venezuela government:
Venezuela is very far from the government he prefers. In fact it's close to the exact opposite, since he's an an anarchist and vocal critic of Lenin and Stalin. He however supports the rights of Latin American countries to elect their own government over CIA backed dictators who privatise resources and funnel out a country's wealth.
The fact that social democratic countries in Latin America have overall had better development than extreme free market societies like haiti or pre-socialist Brazil is pretty widely accepted, dutch disease inflicted Venezuela notwithstanding.
Which social democracy is doing well here in south america? We are currently paying the price for all the post-socialist economical measures here in Brazil.It's not pretty.
An argument about socialism requires all parties to understand the actual definition of socialism. That is further than most peoples understanding of government.
Actually under Chavez a lot of improvements were made thanks to state socialism. Chomsky’s position in Venezuela currently is that it has a lot of problems, and he’s criticized the authoritative directions the government has taken, but he believes the US should be trying to help, and not start fires there.
As much as Chomsky may have been incorrect, I think it is foolish to call him "depressingly ignorant" without justifying your statement. His international recognition both in his field and in his commentaries did not appear out of nowhere.
This seems to be the theory of multiple intelligences + g-factor denialism + credentialism taken to an absurd extreme. I see this idea used so often in arguments, I think it ought to be a formal fallacy. I'll call it Silo Fallacy for now. The idea that Einstein was as capable of making an argument outside his lane as the person on the street is ridiculous enough, but Chomsky identifies as a "public intellectual" - that is his lane.
I'm not very proficient with the "theories" you've mentioned. I'm more into facts. The quote is not offensive and is not about Chomsky. Personally, I find it empirically true. YMMV
How to define a nonscientific problem. There is none. All sociology problems are related to psychology that is related to biology which is related to chemistry which is related to physics which is related to math. https://xkcd.com/435/
He is not a great man. He is an intellectually dishonest enabler of repressive leftist governments. He was a well known supporter of Hugo Chavez - perhaps the only leader in the Americas dumber than Trump. I'm embarrassed at how many of my fellow techies have fallen under Chomsky's sway.
Does anybody else find these sorts of discussions to be just fundamentally cringey as hell? On both sides. Stuff like "We agree mainstream black culture is terrible."
Like I don't think either would have the guts to say that in front of a black person.
As a UofA grad I can tell you the hippies down there are going to go absolutely apeshit. The university is half Rob Gronkowski and half Cesar Chavez. The Gronks all leave after school but the Cesar's all stick around the university and think, act, and look like Noam. He'll fit right in.
I didn't say anything negative about him or his debating style. I'm just saying I'm not so surprised he chose UofA. Tons of east coast aging hippies fall in love with the desert, get a mansion in the foothills, then only come down into the city for the university dressed like they're on a fucking safari.
If you disregard his halo of authority for a moment, you'll find that most of what he says is usually very laboriously articulated whataboutery. It is "thorough and detailed", but that doesn't make it convincing.
His work ethic is incredible, he spends 5 hours a day responding to emails from the public- I've received a detailed response every time I've sent one. The amount of time he spends engaging with even terribly misinformed(but well meaning) people is truly astounding, and unparalleled amongst public figures as far as I can tell.
Here's an example(https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/6tz1xp/what_do_you...) of some random kid badgering Chomsky with emails, and he still takes the time out to respond to every one of his questions, even though he gets more than a hundred mails a day.