Government in the Future (Open Media Series)
by Noam Chomsky
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Book Summary Information
Author: Noam ChomskyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-04-05
ISBN: 1583226850
Number of pages: 80
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Book Reviews of Government in the Future (Open Media Series)
Book Review: Only By Revolution - From Prior Oppression
Summary: 5 Stars
A small book of only 67 pages from a talk given in 1970 and yet valuable, relevant, undated information.
In this book Chomsky goes into four main avenues of government This is not a perfect interpretation.
1. Classic Liberalism - a tamed down version of the dog eat dog, Laissez-Faire economics, which is small government or non-government intervention in a capitalist society, but here minus the rugged individualism and wage slave labor. So it's sort of a combination of the Laissez faire liberty with the civil libertarian of individual social freedoms which are, not obstructed by entrepreneurial capitalist greed of free market fundamentalism.
2. Libertarian Socialism - anarchism, council communism - here the working class becomes the government, but not a dictatorship of the proletariat, but rather a democracy of the proletariat, councils and committees vote on issues, not elected representatives who act as the decision makers. There is no state ownership and authoritarian domination but self governing through democratic means. Some anarchism wants to do away with the political organization of the state, where as here the commune exists All of this is experimental and is believed to be achieved only by revolution and only when the conditions are ripe.Only by active participation of the masses in self-government and social reconstruction could bring about what Rosa Luxemburg described as the complete spiritual transformation in the masses degraded by centuries of bourgeois class rule, just as only their creative experience and spontaneous action could solve the myriad problems created in libertarian socialist society. Here there would be no vanguard party here but equalitarian participation through technology and education.
3. State Socialism And 4. State Capitalism
It is here the range of decisions that are in principle subject to public democratic control are quite narrow, from the political decision makers and central institutions as well as the centers of private power which exert an inordinately heavy influence through media, thought control of political organizations by biased concentrations of private power and autocratic institutions. Democracy is limited mainly to elections which subsequently can by pass public opinion in decision making and use means of control or propaganda to influence public policy. Centralization of power becomes dominant over democratic decision making., from the top down as opposed to the bottom up.
"American society is indeed open and liberal values are preserved. However, as poor people and black people and other ethic minorities know very well, the liberal veneer is pretty thin.. . . . Roughly speaking, I think it's accurate to say that a corporate elite of managers and owners governs the economy and the political systems as well - at least in a very large measure. p. 64 It is here that the deciding of issues by the electorate is secondary to the election of the men who are to do the deciding. where the political parties act in concert in competitive struggle for power. If that weren't so, it would be impossible for different parties to adopt exactly or almost exactly the same program.(Joseph Schumperer).
Summary of Government in the Future (Open Media Series)
In this classic talk delivered at the Poetry Center, New York, on February 16, 1970, Noam Chomsky articulates a clear, uncompromising vision of social change. Chomsky contrasts the classical liberal, libertarian socialist, state socialist, and state capitalist world views and then defends a libertarian socialist vision as "the proper and natural extension . . . of classical liberalism into the era of advanced industrial society."In his stirring conclusion Chomsky argues, "We have today the technical and material resources to meet man?s animal needs.We have not developed the cultural and moral resources or the democratic forms of social organization that make possible the humane and rational use of our material wealth and power.
Conceivably, the classical liberal ideals as expressed and developed in their libertarian socialist form are achievable. But if so, only by a popular revolutionary movement, rooted in wide strata of the population and committed to the elimination of repressive and authoritarian institutions, state and private. To create such a movement is a challenge we face and must meet if there is to be an escape from contemporary barbarism."
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