PDA

View Full Version : Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better?




bchavez
04-23-2010, 06:15 AM
Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better?

YouTube - Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFxYyXGMfZM)

... listen at 6:25.....

Student: "if this system is so bad, why hasn't it been challenged?"

Chomsky: "it has been challenged, and we have had a very violent labor history..."

He quotes George Fitzhugh, who gave the arguments for pro-slavery:

"If I buy a car, and you rent a car, and someone comes a year later to look at the two cars, which car is going to be in better shape? Well, mine, because I own it, so I'm going to take care of it..."

How would you escape this argument trap? Every time I debate the Left, they always bring up slavery in free-market capitalism. =/

V for Voluntary
04-23-2010, 07:08 AM
YouTube - Noam Chomsky: U.S. has never had anything remotely resembling capitalism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC1sHqS9RoI)

silverhandorder
04-23-2010, 07:16 AM
Well why should people commiting violence be rewarded? I mean when he talks about violent labor history he is talking about unions attacking employers and damaging the factories. Government has intervened on the side of the aggressors because they outnumber the victims. Capitalism was challanged and lost.

Naom and his brain dead followers view marketing as the greatest evil ever. They think that Brave New World is our real future and not 1984. I personally do not fear propaganda by corporations because I know how free market works. There will be a market demand for truth and some one will provide it. I fear vesting large power in small governing bodies away from our eyes and ears. Last I checked free market does not spawn tyrants.

nelsonwinters
04-23-2010, 07:22 AM
"If I buy a car, and you rent a car, and someone comes a year later to look at the two cars, which car is going to be in better shape? Well, mine, because I own it, so I'm going to take care of it..."

I'm not sure I understand the argument correctly. From the way I take it though, I would say the better analogy is if my parents give me a car and you rent a car, and someone comes a year later to look at the two cars, which car is going to be in better shape? It's also easy to generalize than look at the details.

It comes down to good stewardship of resources. Under one system, if someone is not being productive with their resources, they lose the resources and someone else can have a go at being productive with them. The other system, there's nothing that keeps the system honest since there's no alternative. Generally speaking, when people are against capitalists, there really against, as Ayn Rand would call them, the looters... not the producers.

iddo
04-23-2010, 07:28 AM
chattel slavery has nothing to do with free-market capitalism, and obviously nothing to do with minarchist libertarianism where everyone is being forced to pay taxes for police that protects you from others committing violence against you, which includes enslaving you.

chomsky didn't bring up slavery as an argument against capitalism, but as an example of elaborate arguments by people who benefit from the status quo system.

the leftist anti-capitalist argument is about wage slavery (i.e. wage labor...), not chattel slavery.

BlackTerrel
04-23-2010, 06:14 PM
I've only listened to Chomsky a couple times when I was forced to and never cared for the guy. He strikes me as really smart... but also as one of these intellectual types who thinks about everything in theory but has very little experience in the real world.

What sounds good in theory, doesn't necessarily work the same way when you introduce it into the real world Noam.

osan
04-24-2010, 08:57 AM
"If I buy a car, and you rent a car, and someone comes a year later to look at the two cars, which car is going to be in better shape? Well, mine, because I own it, so I'm going to take care of it..."

How would you escape this argument trap? Every time I debate the Left, they always bring up slavery in free-market capitalism. =/

First, make them define "free-market capitalism". Chances are about even they will not be able to do so correctly. Whatever you do, the term MUST be settled prior to proceeding any further. This is called "setting up". :)

Next, once the correct definition of the term is accepted by each party to the argument, bid them demonstrate where such capitalism currently exists. If they can come up with even one, either you're not paying proper attention or the definition is not right. Free market capitalism exists nowhere on this planet. What people call free-market capitalism is actually what I call rigged-market capitalism. The two bear very close resemblance to each other upon cursory examination, but scratching below the surfaces reveals fundamental differences.

So-called "free market capitalism" as we know it today is something else and the real thing cannot, therefore, be judged based on the results of what we currently have in place. It is like taking a toad and condemning all dogs as ugly, slimy, and likely to give one warts. The very presumptions of the arguments against actual free market capitalism are wholly erronerous and, in fact, quite preposterous.


That is how you demolish their arguments and then light them ablaze.

tremendoustie
04-24-2010, 12:29 PM
We. Don't. Have. Free. Markets.

We have corporatism.

ClayTrainor
04-24-2010, 12:44 PM
YouTube - Noam Chomsky: U.S. has never had anything remotely resembling capitalism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC1sHqS9RoI)

Now that was interesting... That sounded borderline supportive of capitalism, although I'm well aware that he is not.

I've always liked Chomsky as a person, despite my disagreements. He seems very kind and is pretty good at articulating his reason. I would pay money to see Chomsky and Molyneux have a discussion.

mczerone
04-24-2010, 12:54 PM
By all means Chompskyites are free to move to the middle of nowhere and live in a yurt village in communistic squalor. Just don't force the rest of us to move with you, or to subsidize your sadistic mass suicide.

If, however, he conflates capitalism with redistribustionist corporatism, then I wholeheartedly agree. Leave it to a 'leftist' philosopher to speak ambiguously - the systematic method of philosophy is supposed to be about using definite terms.

Old Ducker
04-24-2010, 01:52 PM
"If I buy a car, and you rent a car, and someone comes a year later to look at the two cars, which car is going to be in better shape? Well, mine, because I own it, so I'm going to take care of it..."

I'm not sure what his point was either, but here he clearly defends private property, if only on utilitarian grounds.

anaconda
04-24-2010, 02:22 PM
If the government would get out of the way and actually let capitalism work...

JeNNiF00F00
04-24-2010, 02:42 PM
We. Don't. Have. Free. Markets.

We have corporatism.

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!

Anyone talking about "free markets" happening in the US right now, has no idea what they are talking about. The markets we have are state run-manipulated markets/Socialist Capitalism/Corporatism. People need to remember this for their arguments. Capitalism is not the problem. The GOVT is.

When people began to understand this shit, possibly more people will start waking up as to what the problem is. Instead they want more of the problem, and people in this movement still confuse the difference between Free Market Capitalism and Corporatism. They are NOT the same. Please understand this!

Epic
04-24-2010, 05:11 PM
Capitalism is just free markets and private property rights.

It's just another name for freedom.

nate895
04-24-2010, 05:29 PM
Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better?

YouTube - Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFxYyXGMfZM)

... listen at 6:25.....

Student: "if this system is so bad, why hasn't it been challenged?"

Chomsky: "it has been challenged, and we have had a very violent labor history..."

He quotes George Fitzhugh, who gave the arguments for pro-slavery:

"If I buy a car, and you rent a car, and someone comes a year later to look at the two cars, which car is going to be in better shape? Well, mine, because I own it, so I'm going to take care of it..."

How would you escape this argument trap? Every time I debate the Left, they always bring up slavery in free-market capitalism. =/

To actually address your question, which only a couple of people seem to have done, you can't compare the labor market to other markets in a direct manner, and a slave market would be a subset of the labor market. The difference in the labor market is that the product is a person, not just an inanimate object or impersonal service, and therefore has free agency. I, as a person, can get another job if my employer treats me like a rental car with a poor rental agreement; a car simply cannot do that. Slaves were/are generally treated poorly not because of a market problem (well-cared for slaves went for much higher prices), but because of human nature's fondness for the abuse of power.