How the World Works (Real Story) - Soft Skull Press Book | Political Science & Global Affairs | Perfect for Students, Researchers & Political Enthusiasts

Noam Chomsky is one of the great intellects of our time. He is a professor at MIT and a leading scientist-philosopher and political theorist with special contributions in the areas of theoretical linguistics and cognitive science. This book is a compilation of interviews and speeches largely focused on political theory, covering a wide range of topics from NAFTA to East Timor. As a result, it is a great primer on his thought.While Chomsky’s grasp of history and world affairs is unparalleled, perhaps his greatest intellectual gift is his ability to distill the diversity and complexity of world events down to a simple picture, simply explained. Such ability for distillation, of course, often offends those whose opinions and perspectives don’t survive the distillation, either because they are inaccurate or irrelevant, which is why we don’t hear more about him in the US media. All the more reason, I believe, to hear what he has to say.The lens through which he distills the world in this book is the power of capital. It is not greed, because once you are the richest nation on the planet or individually worth more than 100 billion dollars, but will still do almost anything for more, greed is no longer rational or relevant. Power, however, is a cup that never overflows.America, Chomsky argues, has never been a democracy. And while that has always been true in a technical sense (The Electoral College and US Senate were, from the beginning, designed to be barriers to allowing the populace to control its own destiny.), he sees our constant reference to democracy as the distracting hand of the magician who is, with his other hand, picking the pockets of the world.Despite what our leaders in Washington tell us, there is no democratic ideology in American politics and foreign policy. There is only the quest for power that flows from unbridled wealth. He quotes the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London as concluding that, “while the US pays lip service to democracy, the real commitment is to ‘private, capitalist enterprise.’” In other words, our true ideology is how to further enrich and empower the corporations, hedge funds, and other capitalist cabals that own the country and the political process. As John Jay said, “The country should be governed by those who own it.” And indeed they do.If, as John Dewey put it seventy years ago, “Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business,” how have they pulled off “capital’s clear subjugation of labor,” and taken such firm control of both Americans in general, including the ones so subjugated, and the political process in particular?The simple answer is sleight of hand. Chomsky argues that for years that magical distraction was the Cold War, funneling untold wealth and the research and technology paid for by American taxpayers through the Pentagon and its proxies, through its enormous funding of research, unimaginably large spending power, and virtual guarantee that every country in the world will bow to American corporate will or suffer the might of the greatest military every assembled.The Pentagon and its proxies even created the American tech revolution, which we have naively attributed to the genius of a few young visionaries who could see the future the rest of us couldn’t, when, in fact, if was the Department of Defense and the US taxpayer who made it all possible. (And who, by the way, have never received a nickel in financial return on the investment.)With the end of the Cold War, and the realities of the tech world now emerging into the light, exposing both the limits and the evil realities it has unleashed, our government effortlessly substituted jobs as the great justifier of our continued capital pillage.And now, it seems, having created jobs that few people seem to want, (worker engagement runs at an all time low) we have once again effortlessly shifted the distracting hand of the magician to the defense of democracy. Authoritarianism, we are told, is the new enemy of freedom and prosperity. Will the sleight get enough traction to continue to fuel our brand of free market capitalism or will labor – all labor, long subjugated, insist that its voice be heard?If you are an American who believes that we are the strongest nation in the world due to the strength of our democratic institutions and that our politicians rule solely for our benefit, there is much in this book you won’t agree with. There is some I don’t agree with. But that, in my mind, is all the more reason to read it. If you can’t defend your own perspective against Chomsky’s insight and reasoning, then you are just another magician.I won’t recommend that you read this book. But I do challenge you to.