[D66] Chomsky: Is the World Too Big to Fail?

[Antid Oto]

[Naar aanleiding van zijn recente bezoek aan A'dam, AO]

    Is the World Too Big to Fail?
    The Contours of Global Order
    By Noam Chomsky

    The democracy uprising in the Arab world has been a spectacular display of
courage, dedication, and commitment by popular forces -- coinciding,
fortuitously, with a remarkable uprising of tens of thousands in support of
working people and democracy in Madison, Wisconsin, and other U.S. cities. If
the trajectories of revolt in Cairo and Madison intersected, however, they were
headed in opposite directions: in Cairo toward gaining elementary rights denied
by the dictatorship, in Madison towards defending rights that had been won in
long and hard struggles and are now under severe attack.

    Each is a microcosm of tendencies in global society, following varied
courses. There are sure to be far-reaching consequences of what is taking place
both in the decaying industrial heartland of the richest and most powerful
country in human history, and in what President Dwight Eisenhower called "the
most strategically important area in the world" -- "a stupendous source of
strategic power" and "probably the richest economic prize in the world in the
field of foreign investment," in the words of the State Department in the 1940s,
a prize that the U.S. intended to keep for itself and its allies in the
unfolding New World Order of that day.

    Despite all the changes since, there is every reason to suppose that today's
policy-makers basically adhere to the judgment of President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s influential advisor A.A. Berle that control of the incomparable
energy reserves of the Middle East would yield "substantial control of the
world." And correspondingly, that loss of control would threaten the project of
global dominance that was clearly articulated during World War II, and that has
been sustained in the face of major changes in world order since that day.

    From the outset of the war in 1939, Washington anticipated that it would end
with the U.S. in a position of overwhelming power. High-level State Department
officials and foreign policy specialists met through the wartime years to lay
out plans for the postwar world. They delineated a "Grand Area" that the U.S.
was to dominate, including the Western hemisphere, the Far East, and the former
British empire, with its Middle East energy resources. As Russia began to grind
down Nazi armies after Stalingrad, Grand Area goals extended to as much of
Eurasia as possible, at least its economic core in Western Europe. Within the
Grand Area, the U.S. would maintain "unquestioned power," with "military and
economic supremacy," while ensuring the "limitation of any exercise of
sovereignty" by states that might interfere with its global designs. The careful
wartime plans were soon implemented.

    It was always recognized that Europe might choose to follow an independent
course. NATO was partially intended to counter this threat. As soon as the
official pretext for NATO dissolved in 1989, NATO was expanded to the East in
violation of verbal pledges to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It has since
become a U.S.-run intervention force, with far-ranging scope, spelled out by
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who informed a NATO conference
that "NATO troops have to guard pipelines that transport oil and gas that is
directed for the West," and more generally to protect sea routes used by tankers
and other "crucial infrastructure" of the energy system.

    Grand Area doctrines clearly license military intervention at will. That
conclusion was articulated clearly by the Clinton administration, which declared
that the U.S. has the right to use military force to ensure "uninhibited access
to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources," and must maintain
huge military forces "forward deployed" in Europe and Asia "in order to shape
people's opinions about us" and "to shape events that will affect our livelihood
and our security."

    The same principles governed the invasion of Iraq. As the U.S. failure to
impose its will in Iraq was becoming unmistakable, the actual goals of the
invasion could no longer be concealed behind pretty rhetoric. In November 2007,
the White House issued a Declaration of Principles demanding that U.S. forces
must remain indefinitely in Iraq and committing Iraq to privilege American
investors. Two months later, President Bush informed Congress that he would
reject legislation that might limit the permanent stationing of U.S. Armed
Forces in Iraq or "United States control of the oil resources of Iraq" --
demands that the U.S. had to abandon shortly after in the face of Iraqi resistance.

    In Tunisia and Egypt, the recent popular uprisings have won impressive
victories, but as the Carnegie Endowment reported, while names have changed, the
regimes remain: "A change in ruling elites and system of governance is still a
distant goal." The report discusses internal barriers to democracy, but ignores
the external ones, which as always are significant.

    The U.S. and its Western allies are sure to do whatever they can to prevent
authentic democracy in the Arab world. To understand why, it is only necessary
to look at the studies of Arab opinion conducted by U.S. polling agencies.
Though barely reported, they are certainly known to planners. They reveal that
by overwhelming majorities, Arabs regard the U.S. and Israel as the major
threats they face: the U.S. is so regarded by 90% of Egyptians, in the region
generally by over 75%. Some Arabs regard Iran as a threat: 10%. Opposition to
U.S. policy is so strong that a majority believes that security would be
improved if Iran had nuclear weapons -- in Egypt, 80%. Other figures are
similar. If public opinion were to influence policy, the U.S. not only would not
control the region, but would be expelled from it, along with its allies,
undermining fundamental principles of global dominance.

    The Invisible Hand of Power

    Support for democracy is the province of ideologists and propagandists. In
the real world, elite dislike of democracy is the norm. The evidence is
overwhelming that democracy is supported insofar as it contributes to social and
economic objectives, a conclusion reluctantly conceded by the more serious
scholarship.

    Elite contempt for democracy was revealed dramatically in the reaction to
the WikiLeaks exposures. Those that received most attention, with euphoric
commentary, were cables reporting that Arabs support the U.S. stand on Iran. The
reference was to the ruling dictators. The attitudes of the public were
unmentioned. The guiding principle was articulated clearly by Carnegie Endowment
Middle East specialist Marwan Muasher, formerly a high official of the Jordanian
government: "There is nothing wrong, everything is under control." In short, if
the dictators support us, what else could matter?

    The Muasher doctrine is rational and venerable. To mention just one case
that is highly relevant today, in internal discussion in 1958, president
Eisenhower expressed concern about "the campaign of hatred" against us in the
Arab world, not by governments, but by the people. The National Security Council
(NSC) explained that there is a perception in the Arab world that the U.S.
supports dictatorships and blocks democracy and development so as to ensure
control over the resources of the region. Furthermore, the perception is
basically accurate, the NSC concluded, and that is what we should be doing,
relying on the Muasher doctrine. Pentagon studies conducted after 9/11 confirmed
that the same holds today.

    It is normal for the victors to consign history to the trash can, and for
victims to take it seriously. Perhaps a few brief observations on this important
matter may be useful. Today is not the first occasion when Egypt and the U.S.
are facing similar problems, and moving in opposite directions. That was also
true in the early nineteenth century.

    Economic historians have argued that Egypt was well-placed to undertake
rapid economic development at the same time that the U.S. was. Both had rich
agriculture, including cotton, the fuel of the early industrial revolution --
though unlike Egypt, the U.S. had to develop cotton production and a work force
by conquest, extermination, and slavery, with consequences that are evident
right now in the reservations for the survivors and the prisons that have
rapidly expanded since the Reagan years to house the superfluous population left
by deindustrialization.

    One fundamental difference was that the U.S. had gained independence and was
therefore free to ignore the prescriptions of economic theory, delivered at the
time by Adam Smith in terms rather like those preached to developing societies
today. Smith urged the liberated colonies to produce primary products for export
and to import superior British manufactures, and certainly not to attempt to
monopolize crucial goods, particularly cotton. Any other path, Smith warned,
"would retard instead of accelerating the further increase in the value of their
annual produce, and would obstruct instead of promoting the progress of their
country towards real wealth and greatness."

    Having gained their independence, the colonies were free to ignore his
advice and to follow England's course of independent state-guided development,
with high tariffs to protect industry from British exports, first textiles,
later steel and others, and to adopt numerous other devices to accelerate
industrial development. The independent Republic also sought to gain a monopoly
of cotton so as to "place all other nations at our feet," particularly the
British enemy, as the Jacksonian presidents announced when conquering Texas and
half of Mexico.

    For Egypt, a comparable course was barred by British power. Lord Palmerston
declared that "no ideas of fairness [toward Egypt] ought to stand in the way of
such great and paramount interests" of Britain as preserving its economic and
political hegemony, expressing his "hate" for the "ignorant barbarian" Muhammed
Ali who dared to seek an independent course, and deploying Britain's fleet and
financial power to terminate Egypt's quest for independence and economic
development.

    After World War II, when the U.S. displaced Britain as global hegemon,
Washington adopted the same stand, making it clear that the U.S. would provide
no aid to Egypt unless it adhered to the standard rules for the weak -- which
the U.S. continued to violate, imposing high tariffs to bar Egyptian cotton and
causing a debilitating dollar shortage. The usual interpretation of market
principles.

    It is small wonder that the "campaign of hatred" against the U.S. that
concerned Eisenhower was based on the recognition that the U.S. supports
dictators and blocks democracy and development, as do its allies.

    In Adam Smith's defense, it should be added that he recognized what would
happen if Britain followed the rules of sound economics, now called
"neoliberalism." He warned that if British manufacturers, merchants, and
investors turned abroad, they might profit but England would suffer. But he felt
that they would be guided by a home bias, so as if by an invisible hand England
would be spared the ravages of economic rationality.

    The passage is hard to miss. It is the one occurrence of the famous phrase
"invisible hand" in The Wealth of Nations. The other leading founder of
classical economics, David Ricardo, drew similar conclusions, hoping that home
bias would lead men of property to "be satisfied with the low rate of profits in
their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their
wealth in foreign nations," feelings that, he added, "I should be sorry to see
weakened." Their predictions aside, the instincts of the classical economists
were sound.

    The Iranian and Chinese “Threats”

    The democracy uprising in the Arab world is sometimes compared to Eastern
Europe in 1989, but on dubious grounds. In 1989, the democracy uprising was
tolerated by the Russians, and supported by western power in accord with
standard doctrine: it plainly conformed to economic and strategic objectives,
and was therefore a noble achievement, greatly honored, unlike the struggles at
the same time "to defend the people's fundamental human rights" in Central
America, in the words of the assassinated Archbishop of El Salvador, one of the
hundreds of thousands of victims of the military forces armed and trained by
Washington. There was no Gorbachev in the West throughout these horrendous
years, and there is none today. And Western power remains hostile to democracy
in the Arab world for good reasons.

    Grand Area doctrines continue to apply to contemporary crises and
confrontations. In Western policy-making circles and political commentary the
Iranian threat is considered to pose the greatest danger to world order and
hence must be the primary focus of U.S. foreign policy, with Europe trailing
along politely.

    What exactly is the Iranian threat? An authoritative answer is provided by
the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence. Reporting on global security last year, they
make it clear that the threat is not military. Iran's military spending is
"relatively low compared to the rest of the region," they conclude. Its military
doctrine is strictly "defensive, designed to slow an invasion and force a
diplomatic solution to hostilities." Iran has only "a limited capability to
project force beyond its borders." With regard to the nuclear option, "Iran's
nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing
nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy." All quotes.

    The brutal clerical regime is doubtless a threat to its own people, though
it hardly outranks U.S. allies in that regard. But the threat lies elsewhere,
and is ominous indeed. One element is Iran's potential deterrent capacity, an
illegitimate exercise of sovereignty that might interfere with U.S. freedom of
action in the region. It is glaringly obvious why Iran would seek a deterrent
capacity; a look at the military bases and nuclear forces in the region suffices
to explain.

    Seven years ago, Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld wrote that
"The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned
out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they
would be crazy," particularly when they are under constant threat of attack in
violation of the UN Charter. Whether they are doing so remains an open question,
but perhaps so.

    But Iran's threat goes beyond deterrence. It is also seeking to expand its
influence in neighboring countries, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence
emphasize, and in this way to "destabilize" the region (in the technical terms
of foreign policy discourse). The U.S. invasion and military occupation of
Iran's neighbors is "stabilization." Iran's efforts to extend its influence to
them are "destabilization," hence plainly illegitimate.

    Such usage is routine. Thus the prominent foreign policy analyst James Chace
was properly using the term "stability" in its technical sense when he explained
that in order to achieve "stability" in Chile it was necessary to "destabilize"
the country (by overthrowing the elected government of Salvador Allende and
installing the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet). Other concerns about
Iran are equally interesting to explore, but perhaps this is enough to reveal
the guiding principles and their status in imperial culture.  As Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s planners emphasized at the dawn of the contemporary world system,
the U.S. cannot tolerate "any exercise of sovereignty" that interferes with its
global designs.

    The U.S. and Europe are united in punishing Iran for its threat to
stability, but it is useful to recall how isolated they are. The nonaligned
countries have vigorously supported Iran's right to enrich uranium. In the
region, Arab public opinion even strongly favors Iranian nuclear weapons. The
major regional power, Turkey, voted against the latest U.S.-initiated sanctions
motion in the Security Council, along with Brazil, the most admired country of
the South. Their disobedience led to sharp censure, not for the first time:
Turkey had been bitterly condemned in 2003 when the government followed the will
of 95% of the population and refused to participate in the invasion of Iraq,
thus demonstrating its weak grasp of democracy, western-style.

    After its Security Council misdeed last year, Turkey was warned by Obama's
top diplomat on European affairs, Philip Gordon, that it must "demonstrate its
commitment to partnership with the West." A scholar with the Council on Foreign
Relations asked, "How do we keep the Turks in their lane?" -- following orders
like good democrats. Brazil's Lula was admonished in a New York Times headline
that his effort with Turkey to provide a solution to the uranium enrichment
issue outside of the framework of U.S. power was a "Spot on Brazilian Leader's
Legacy." In brief, do what we say, or else.

    An interesting sidelight, effectively suppressed, is that the
Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal was approved in advance by Obama, presumably on the
assumption that it would fail, providing an ideological weapon against Iran.
When it succeeded, the approval turned to censure, and Washington rammed through
a Security Council resolution so weak that China readily signed -- and is now
chastised for living up to the letter of the resolution but not Washington's
unilateral directives -- in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, for example.

    While the U.S. can tolerate Turkish disobedience, though with dismay, China
is harder to ignore. The press warns that "China's investors and traders are now
filling a vacuum in Iran as businesses from many other nations, especially in
Europe, pull out," and in particular, is expanding its dominant role in Iran's
energy industries. Washington is reacting with a touch of desperation. The State
Department warned China that if it wants to be accepted in the international
community -- a technical term referring to the U.S. and whoever happens to agree
with it -- then it must not "skirt and evade international responsibilities,
[which] are clear": namely, follow U.S. orders. China is unlikely to be impressed.

    There is also much concern about the growing Chinese military threat. A
recent Pentagon study warned that China's military budget is approaching
"one-fifth of what the Pentagon spent to operate and carry out the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan," a fraction of the U.S. military budget, of course. China's
expansion of military forces might "deny the ability of American warships to
operate in international waters off its coast," the New York Times added.

    Off the coast of China, that is; it has yet to be proposed that the U.S.
should eliminate military forces that deny the Caribbean to Chinese warships.
China's lack of understanding of rules of international civility is illustrated
further by its objections to plans for the advanced nuclear-powered aircraft
carrier George Washington to join naval exercises a few miles off China's coast,
with alleged capacity to strike Beijing.

    In contrast, the West understands that such U.S. operations are all
undertaken to defend stability and its own security. The liberal New Republic
expresses its concern that "China sent ten warships through international waters
just off the Japanese island of Okinawa." That is indeed a provocation -- unlike
the fact, unmentioned, that Washington has converted the island into a major
military base in defiance of vehement protests by the people of Okinawa. That is
not a provocation, on the standard principle that we own the world.

    Deep-seated imperial doctrine aside, there is good reason for China's
neighbors to be concerned about its growing military and commercial power. And
though Arab opinion supports an Iranian nuclear weapons program, we certainly
should not do so. The foreign policy literature is full of proposals as to how
to counter the threat. One obvious way is rarely discussed: work to establish a
nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the region. The issue arose (again) at the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference at United Nations headquarters last
May. Egypt, as chair of the 118 nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, called for
negotiations on a Middle East NWFZ, as had been agreed by the West, including
the U.S., at the 1995 review conference on the NPT.

    International support is so overwhelming that Obama formally agreed. It is a
fine idea, Washington informed the conference, but not now. Furthermore, the
U.S. made clear that Israel must be exempted: no proposal can call for Israel's
nuclear program to be placed under the auspices of the International Atomic
Energy Agency or for the release of information about "Israeli nuclear
facilities and activities." So much for this method of dealing with the Iranian
nuclear threat.

    Privatizing the Planet

    While Grand Area doctrine still prevails, the capacity to implement it has
declined. The peak of U.S. power was after World War II, when it had literally
half the world's wealth. But that naturally declined, as other industrial
economies recovered from the devastation of the war and decolonization took its
agonizing course. By the early 1970s, the U.S. share of global wealth had
declined to about 25%, and the industrial world had become tripolar: North
America, Europe, and East Asia (then Japan-based).

    There was also a sharp change in the U.S. economy in the 1970s, towards
financialization and export of production. A variety of factors converged to
create a vicious cycle of radical concentration of wealth, primarily in the top
fraction of 1% of the population -- mostly CEOs, hedge-fund managers, and the
like. That leads to the concentration of political power, hence state policies
to increase economic concentration: fiscal policies, rules of corporate
governance, deregulation, and much more. Meanwhile the costs of electoral
campaigns skyrocketed, driving the parties into the pockets of concentrated
capital, increasingly financial: the Republicans reflexively, the Democrats --
by now what used to be moderate Republicans -- not far behind.

    Elections have become a charade, run by the public relations industry. After
his 2008 victory, Obama won an award from the industry for the best marketing
campaign of the year. Executives were euphoric. In the business press they
explained that they had been marketing candidates like other commodities since
Ronald Reagan, but 2008 was their greatest achievement and would change the
style in corporate boardrooms. The 2012 election is expected to cost $2 billion,
mostly in corporate funding. Small wonder that Obama is selecting business
leaders for top positions. The public is angry and frustrated, but as long as
the Muasher principle prevails, that doesn't matter.

    While wealth and power have narrowly concentrated, for most of the
population real incomes have stagnated and people have been getting by with
increased work hours, debt, and asset inflation, regularly destroyed by the
financial crises that began as the regulatory apparatus was dismantled starting
in the 1980s.

    None of this is problematic for the very wealthy, who benefit from a
government insurance policy called "too big to fail." The banks and investment
firms can make risky transactions, with rich rewards, and when the system
inevitably crashes, they can run to the nanny state for a taxpayer bailout,
clutching their copies of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.

    That has been the regular process since the Reagan years, each crisis more
extreme than the last -- for the public population, that is. Right now, real
unemployment is at Depression levels for much of the population, while Goldman
Sachs, one of the main architects of the current crisis, is richer than ever. It
has just quietly announced $17.5 billion in compensation for last year, with CEO
Lloyd Blankfein receiving a $12.6 million bonus while his base salary more than
triples.

    It wouldn't do to focus attention on such facts as these. Accordingly,
propaganda must seek to blame others, in the past few months, public sector
workers, their fat salaries, exorbitant pensions, and so on: all fantasy, on the
model of Reaganite imagery of black mothers being driven in their limousines to
pick up welfare checks -- and other models that need not be mentioned. We all
must tighten our belts; almost all, that is.

    Teachers are a particularly good target, as part of the deliberate effort to
destroy the public education system from kindergarten through the universities
by privatization -- again, good for the wealthy, but a disaster for the
population, as well as the long-term health of the economy, but that is one of
the externalities that is put to the side insofar as market principles prevail.

    Another fine target, always, is immigrants. That has been true throughout
U.S. history, even more so at times of economic crisis, exacerbated now by a
sense that our country is being taken away from us: the white population will
soon become a minority. One can understand the anger of aggrieved individuals,
but the cruelty of the policy is shocking.

    Who are the immigrants targeted? In Eastern Massachusetts, where I live,
many are Mayans fleeing genocide in the Guatemalan highlands carried out by
Reagan's favorite killers. Others are Mexican victims of Clinton's NAFTA, one of
those rare government agreements that managed to harm working people in all
three of the participating countries. As NAFTA was rammed through Congress over
popular objection in 1994, Clinton also initiated the militarization of the
U.S.-Mexican border, previously fairly open. It was understood that Mexican
campesinos cannot compete with highly subsidized U.S. agribusiness, and that
Mexican businesses would not survive competition with U.S. multinationals, which
must be granted "national treatment" under the mislabeled free trade agreements,
a privilege granted only to corporate persons, not those of flesh and blood. Not
surprisingly, these measures led to a flood of desperate refugees, and to rising
anti-immigrant hysteria by the victims of state-corporate policies at home.

    Much the same appears to be happening in Europe, where racism is probably
more rampant than in the U.S. One can only watch with wonder as Italy complains
about the flow of refugees from Libya, the scene of the first post-World War I
genocide, in the now-liberated East, at the hands of Italy's Fascist government.
Or when France, still today the main protector of the brutal dictatorships in
its former colonies, manages to overlook its hideous atrocities in Africa, while
French President Nicolas Sarkozy warns grimly of the "flood of immigrants" and
Marine Le Pen objects that he is doing nothing to prevent it. I need not mention
Belgium, which may win the prize for what Adam Smith called "the savage
injustice of the Europeans."

    The rise of neo-fascist parties in much of Europe would be a frightening
phenomenon even if we were not to recall what happened on the continent in the
recent past. Just imagine the reaction if Jews were being expelled from France
to misery and oppression, and then witness the non-reaction when that is
happening to Roma, also victims of the Holocaust and Europe's most brutalized
population.

    In Hungary, the neo-fascist party Jobbik gained 17% of the vote in national
elections, perhaps unsurprising when three-quarters of the population feels that
they are worse off than under Communist rule. We might be relieved that in
Austria the ultra-right Jörg Haider won only 10% of the vote in 2008 -- were it
not for the fact that the new Freedom Party, outflanking him from the far right,
won more than 17%. It is chilling to recall that, in 1928, the Nazis won less
than 3% of the vote in Germany.

    In England the British National Party and the English Defence League, on the
ultra-racist right, are major forces. (What is happening in Holland you know all
too well.) In Germany, Thilo Sarrazin's lament that immigrants are destroying
the country was a runaway best-seller, while Chancellor Angela Merkel, though
condemning the book, declared that multiculturalism had "utterly failed": the
Turks imported to do the dirty work in Germany are failing to become blond and
blue-eyed, true Aryans.

    Those with a sense of irony may recall that Benjamin Franklin, one of the
leading figures of the Enlightenment, warned that the newly liberated colonies
should be wary of allowing Germans to immigrate, because they were too swarthy;
Swedes as well. Into the twentieth century, ludicrous myths of Anglo-Saxon
purity were common in the U.S., including among presidents and other leading
figures. Racism in the literary culture has been a rank obscenity; far worse in
practice, needless to say. It is much easier to eradicate polio than this
horrifying plague, which regularly becomes more virulent in times of economic
distress.

    I do not want to end without mentioning another externality that is
dismissed in market systems: the fate of the species. Systemic risk in the
financial system can be remedied by the taxpayer, but no one will come to the
rescue if the environment is destroyed. That it must be destroyed is close to an
institutional imperative. Business leaders who are conducting propaganda
campaigns to convince the population that anthropogenic global warming is a
liberal hoax understand full well how grave is the threat, but they must
maximize short-term profit and market share. If they don't, someone else will.

    This vicious cycle could well turn out to be lethal. To see how grave the
danger is, simply have a look at the new Congress in the U.S., propelled into
power by business funding and propaganda. Almost all are climate deniers. They
have already begun to cut funding for measures that might mitigate environmental
catastrophe. Worse, some are true believers; for example, the new head of a
subcommittee on the environment who explained that global warming cannot be a
problem because God promised Noah that there will not be another flood.

    If such things were happening in some small and remote country, we might
laugh. Not when they are happening in the richest and most powerful country in
the world. And before we laugh, we might also bear in mind that the current
economic crisis is traceable in no small measure to the fanatic faith in such
dogmas as the efficient market hypothesis, and in general to what Nobel laureate
Joseph Stiglitz, 15 years ago, called the "religion" that markets know best --
which prevented the central bank and the economics profession from taking notice
of an $8 trillion housing bubble that had no basis at all in economic
fundamentals, and that devastated the economy when it burst.

    All of this, and much more, can proceed as long as the Muashar doctrine
prevails. As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they
please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.

    Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor emeritus in the MIT Department of
Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of numerous best-selling political
works. His latest books are a new edition of Power and Terror, The Essential
Chomsky (edited by Anthony Arnove), a collection of his writings on politics and
on language from the 1950s to the present, Gaza in Crisis, with Ilan Pappé, and
Hopes and Prospects, also available as an audiobook. This piece is adapted from
a talk given in Amsterdam in March.

    Copyright 2011 Noam Chomsky

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175382/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_who_owns_the_world/