Mr Chomsky that impotence of voters, that
angry impotence as you talk about, presumably
you’d say that is what is responsible for
the rise of Donald Trump, is it?
It’s pretty clear what is responsible for
the rise of the support for Trump and there’s
general agreement about it. If you take a
simple look at economic statistics, the primary
support for Trump is coming from mostly white
working class poor people who’ve been cast
by the wayside during the neo-liberal period.
They’ve lived through a generation of stagnation
or decline. Real male wages are about what
they were in the 1960s. There has also been
a decline in functioning democracy, the overwhelming
evidence reveals that even their own elected
representatives barely reflect their interest
and concerns. A contempt for institutions,
especially congress has just increased, skyrocketed
it’s down single digits often. These are
people who, meanwhile there has of course
been wealth created, it’s gone into very
few hands, mostly into a fraction of the top
1%. So there’s enormous opulence.
Yes indeed and how dangerous do you think
this all is in terms of Donald Trump for example.
I mean he has been toning down some of his
most extreme pronouncements recently. He may,
if he ever got anywhere near power, he could
be held in check by congressman. How dangerous
do you think he is to America?
Well the greatest danger that he and indeed
every republican candidate poses is barely
mentioned. It’s kind of reminiscent of Sherlock
Holmes’ dog that did not bark. The greatest
danger is – there are two huge dangers that
the human species faces. We’re now in a
situation where we have to decide whether
the species survives in any decent form. One
is the rising danger of nuclear war, which
is quite serious. The other is environmental
catastrophe. Now on these issues Donald Trump
and the other republican candidates are basically
uniform. On the threat of nuclear war.
And do you believe that Hilary Clinton, the
democratic frontrunner, would champion those
issues in a way that would satisfy you?
Not in any way that would satisfy me, but
at least she recognises that climate change
is going on and that we have to do something
about. Every single republican candidate denies
that it’s happening, with the soul exception
of Kasich who says sure it’s happening but
we shouldn’t do anything about it and that’s
having an impact. The Paris negotiations last
December were aiming at a treaty, they couldn’t
reach it for a simple reason; the republican
congress would not accept it. So it’s a
voluntary agreement which means even the weak
standards that we’re proposed will be barely,
maybe it undermines the likelihood that even
they will be met. Every Republican candidate,
including Trump wants to eliminate the environmental
protection agency, Richard Nixon’s legacy,
to cut back regulation to restart the press
of business quickly as possible. On militarism,
every one of them wants to raise the huge
military budget, already over half of discretionary
spending leading right now. It’s one factor
leading to confrontations which could be extremely
hazardous and this again is not being discussed.
And briefly, I’d suggest one thing that
you might agree with Donald Trump on would
be about the EU. He talks about the UK may
leave the EU, you’ve railed against European
Union bureaucracy. Could you agree with him
on that?
No I don’t. In fact I actually have no real
strong opinion on Brexit but my concern about
it would be that it would weaken the European
Union but it would also probably leave Britain
even more, don’t want to use too strong
a word, subordinate to US power than it is
today. Which I don’t think would be a good
thing for the world or Britain.
What in a nutshell is the answer to “Who
rules the world now?”
As I try to discuss in the book, there is
no simple answer. We usually think of states
when that question is raised and with regard
to states there’s no doubt that the United
States, despite its decline for many many
years, is still overwhelmingly more powerful
than any state or group of states. But that’s
only one factor. States have internal structures.
An internal distribution of power. In the
United States power is overwhelmingly and
increasingly, in recent years, in the hands
of a very narrow sector of corporate wealth,
private wealth and power. And they have counterparts
elsewhere who agree with them, who interact
with them largely and that’s another dimension
in who rules the world. And there’s also
the public. The public can have, sometimes
does have, enormous power. We can go back
to David Hume, first major modern work on
political philosophy. Foundations on the theory
of government pointed out that force is on
the side of the governed, those who are governed
have the force if they are willing to and
eager to and recognise the possibility to
exercise it. Sometimes they do. That’s a
major force in who rules the world.
But when it comes to state power, you don’t
buy the idea of China as the next superpower,
the imminent superpower?
China? I mean China plays a very important
role in the world undoubtedly. If you take
a look at say per capita income, it’s far
behind the United States and other developed
states. It has enormous internal problems,
demographic, ecological, resources and so
on. It’s undoubtedly going to play an important,
in military terms it’s not even a fraction
of the United States and Western powers. So
yes, economically it’s significant but bear
in mind that a good deal of Chinese production
is actually far unknown. Apple, world’s
major corporation happens to produce in China,
largely, but that’s US production which
happens to use Chinese facilities, labour
and other facilities. So China is a growing,
developing power, in some domains in fact
it’s gone quite far even in the high technology
industry. So for example in production of
solar panels, China’s in the lead, not just
in mass production but also in innovation
and high tech development. All of this is
significant but it is by no means of power
on the scale of the United States. In fact
take a look at the confrontations between
China and the United States now. There are
serious confrontations. Are they in the Caribbean?
Are they off the coast if California? No,
they’re in waters around China where China
and others have territorial claims. That’s
symbolic reflection of the nature of state
power.
Well you describe, scathing about the United
States, no one will be surprised to hear that.
You described it as a leading terrorist state.
I’m just interested how you’d describe
Russia.
How I describe Russia? Authoritarian, brutal,
harsh. Carrying out ugly actions in its own
region. The United States on the other hand
carries out such actions all over the world.
In fact again, look at the – there are serious
confrontations between Russia and the United
States and once again are they on the Mexican
border? The Canadian border? No, they’re
on the Russian border. In fact right at the
point of the traditional invasion route through
which Russia has been virtually destroyed
several times in the past century, also earlier
history. Again, that’s no apologetics for
what Putin may be doing but it should lead
us to understand, have a rational perspective
on the relationship between these forces in
the world. As for the U.S. being the leading
terrorist state I should say that’s hardly
just my opinion. So for example I noted when
I was introduced, the person who introduced
me said that I regard the United States as
the gravest threat to world peace. That’s
not exactly, it a little misrepresents the
situation. There are international polls run
by the leading U.S. polling agency, Gallop,
its international affiliates Gallop/WIN and
one of the questions they ask is “which
country is the greatest threat to world peace?”
and the United States is first by a huge margin.
Far behind in second place is Pakistan, that’s
undoubtedly inflated by the Indian vote and
others have slight mention, so that’s global
opinion. And I should mention that this was
not even reported in the United States, happen
to be reported by the BBC but wasn’t reported
in the United States. As for being a terrorist
state, President Obama’s global assassination
campaign, draw an assassination campaign,
is extreme terrorist war. I mean if Iran,
let’s say was carrying out a campaign to
assassinate people around the world who would
thought might be planning to harm Iran, we
would regard it as terrorism. For example,
if they were bombing the editorial offices
of the New York Times and The Washington Post
which publish [ ] by prominent figures saying
that we should bomb Iran right now, not wait.
So obviously they want to harm Iran. Suppose
Iran was assassinating them and anybody who
happened to be standing around, all over would
we regard that as terrorism? I think we would.
Let me put a few questions to you from people
online. People are sending in questions off
our Facebook. First Gary says what are the
dangers of T Tip?
Putin? The dangers are-
No, Sorry. What are the dangers or T TIP?
The Transatlantic Trade Partnership? TTIP?
Oh, TTIP? They’re pretty extreme. In fact
Greenpeace, a couple of days ago, released
280 pages of internal documents on this so-called
trade agreement and they spell out details
of what all of us should know. The so-called
free trade agreements are not free trade agreements.
In fact to a large extent they’re not even
trade agreements. These are investor right
agreements. There’s a reason why they’re
kept secret from the public and as soon as
you look them you see why. Notice I say secret
from the public, not secret. They’re not
kept secret, they’re not secret to the corporate
lawyers and lobbyists who are writing the
detailed regulations. Of course in the interests
of their constituents, doesn’t happen to
be the public of the world or their own countries.
So these are highly protectionist for the
benefit of private power, so-called intellectual
property rights, effectively raise tariffs.
They’re called patents but which have an
enormous impact on economies. Great, wonderful
for pharmaceutical and media court conglomerates
and others. Investors, corporations are given
the right to sue governments, something you
and I can’t do but a corporation can, to
sue governments for harming their future,
potentially future profits. You can figure
out what that means and such cases already
in the courts – they’re not in the courts
they go to private trade adjudication groups
made up largely of corporate representatives.
They’re already going on with NAFTA and
we can expect more of them. There are provisions
that undermine efforts at regulation including
incidentally, regulation of environmental
dangers and rather strikingly the phrase “Climate
Change” does not appear in these 280 pages,
which are illustrative of the whole structure.
So they have almost no, I should say that
these agreements, so-called Pacific and Atlantic
have virtually no effect on tariffs. Tariffs
are already quite low among the major trading
partners. When you read the propaganda about
it, it says “oh yeah sure, Vietnam is going
to have to lower its tariffs.” Yeah, almost
no effect on trade. The major trading partners
already have agreements that have reduced
the terrorists very substantially. There are
few exceptions, not many. So these are basically
– we should disabuse our self of the illusion
that these are free trade agreements, anything
but. And to a large extent not even trade
agreements. We have the experience of others
like NAFTA, many years of experience. So take
say NAFTA, it has all of the aspects that
I just described but even more. Consider even
what is called trade. Interactions across
the US-Mexico border, they’ve increased
substantially since NAFTA. So economists will
tell you trade is greatly increased but have
a look at them. So for example, suppose that
General Motors produces parts in Indiana,
sends them to Mexico for assembly and sells
the car in Los Angeles. That’s call trade
in both directions, but it’s not. Its interactions
internal to a command economy. It’s as if
during the days of the Soviet Union, parts
were made, say in Leningrad, sent to Warsaw
for assembly and sold in Moscow. We wouldn’t
call that trade. That’s interactions internal
to a command economy.
Well Noam Chomsky, Thank you very much for
being so generous with your time and for staying
on to have that live online discussion. Thank
you.
