Hi, everyone,
I'm Adam Davies, president of the Cambridge
Union and thank you for tuning in to this event
We have Professor Noam Chomsky, who if you're
on this call, you already probably know who he is.
He's a linguist, political activist, writer,
probably one of the world's most prominent
living public intellectuals.
Whether you are a member or, not whoever you
are, thank you so much for tuning in.
Please subscribe to our YouTube page and like
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The way this event is going to work is that
Professor Chomsky is going to give a 10 minute
or so speech about the current global situation,
then I'll do a few minutes of questions.
And then I will ask him some questions that
you all have submitted already.
So without further ado, Professor Chomsky,
the floor is yours. Thank you.
Well I think I'll make a few observations about
current crisis,
the one that is on everyone's mind of course, and understandably, is the pandemic.
One thing to bear in mind, about the pandemic, is that we will recover and perhaps at serious, maybe, tremendous loss.
But we are not going to recover from the melting of the polar ice sheets and other processes underway
that may are predicted to make much of the
world uninhabitable within a couple of generations, maybe 50 years.
That's going to happen if we stay on our present course with much worse to come.
There's lots to say about that and other comparable risks to survival including the very serious, growing threat of terminal nuclear war.
Put that aside here, keep to the endemic.
Come back to it later if you'd like.
There are a few things to keep in mind about
the pandemic.
One is it's very likely to recur, probably
worse than this one exacerbated by the impact
of global warming.
If we don't come to term with the causes and
prepare, it could be much more serious than
this, maybe, horrendous.
The causes are known and it was known 15 years
ago.
Scientists are telling us right now that they
do know how to prepare for the next pandemic
if we decide to do something about it.
It was also known in 2003 after the SARS epidemnic,
another coronavirus epidemic, which
was contained, scientists pointed out
it's going to recur, we better do something about it
But it's not enough to just know somebody
has to do something.
Well who?
Obvious possibility is the huge drug companies.
They're bloated with profit, thanks to the
neoliberal trade programmes which afford them
exorbitant patent rights of the kind that
have never existed before.
These are the highly interventionist, so called
free trade agreement.
So they have plenty of money.
They have all the resources, but they can't
do anything.
They're blocked by capitalist logic, which
says, you have to maximise profit.
If you listen to Milton Friedman, that's the
only thing you're allowed to do.
So they're blocked.
There's no profit in planning for a catastrophe,
a 10 or 15 years from now.
Making a vaccine that if it works will be
used once a year, you don't make any money so they're out.
Well, there's another possibility that the
government could step in.
If extensive resources United States the National
Institute of Health, they do most of the work
anyway, so they could step in.
And similarly in Britain and other countries,
they could step in and do something about it
But that's blocked.
It's blocked by processes that are personified
in two individuals, Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan, who gave formally, intiated,
the neo-liberal plague that the world has
been suffering under for the last 40 years.
You recall Ragean's inagural address where
he said, government is the problem, not the solution
So the government's not allowed to do anything.
translating that into English.
It means that decisions have to be removed
from the public arena where the public has
some sort of influence and moved into the
hands of unaccountable private tyrannies where
the public has no influence at all.
Curiously, that's called libertarianism in
the United States and England.
Put that aside.
Anyway, with the version of savage capitalism
that was introduced around 1980.
The government's can't step in, and that has
an effect.
So, recent discussion of discovery of scientific
paper discussing discussing the vaccines Tez,
the US military played a significant role
in developing more than half of the vaccines
invented last century,
including 18 of 28 vaccines for preventable
diseases, vaccines for flu, measles, rubella,
or is the most famous was a military because
the US system of industrial and educational
policy has to work under the facade of the
military.
Because that's the way you get appropriations
approved by Congress has nothing whatsoever
to do with the military, anymore than the
interstate highway system, the defence highway
system has to do with the military.
So that means the government produced most
of the vaccines, most gave and whatsmore did
the basic research.
The difficult part of the work on the book
was done, picked up and completed by pharmaceutical
corporations, but they're locked by neoliberal
circuitry.
So there's no way to proceed.
We don't have to. It's not a war of nature.
But that's the system we're embedded in.
Well, after that comes the question of the
reaction of individual governments. They vary.
So if you look at the Trump administration's
been in office for four years, it's more than
usually committed to the it's the primary
constituency of primarily the Republican Party,
enormous wealth and corporate power.
That's the prime constituency.
There's a farcical pretence of populism.
But we can put that aside, perfectly obvious
from the legislative agenda.
So from the first moment that Trump came in,
he began to defund the Centre for Disease
Control, and other institutions committed
to public health.
The rich and powerful don't make any money
from those so they can be disbanded.
There were programmes, government programmes
working to try to identify new Corona viruses.
Some of them were working in China, with Chinese
scientists investigating bats which are the
source of many of them.
And Trump cancelled them, all the programmes.
He's continued to cancel more after the pandemic
again.
So the US was uniquely vulnerable.
That's one extreme has the worst record in
the world.
Other countries listened to the information
coming out of China.
By mid January, shortly after pneumonia like
symptoms had been discovered.
The Chinese scientists identified the coronavirus
sequence the genome centre to the entire world
through the World Health Organisation.
Countries that governments that cared about
their populations reacted at once, Asia, Oceania,
and they have the situation pretty much in
control, Europe dithered.
But finally most of them began to do something
varied result.
I don't want to tell you in Britain, which
was the worst in Europe, the United States
was way behind as the worst record.
You can kind of see the logic that lies behind
ultra reactionary neoliberalism.
By looking at Trump's budget.
He produced a budget for the coming year.
Mid February, pandemic is raging, although
he's telling everyone it's just the cold pandemic
is raging. Here comes with the budget.
It calls for cutback in spending in some areas.
Increase in spending in other areas.
Cut further cutbacks for the Centre of Disease
Control and for other health related components
components of the government.
Increased funding in subsidies for the fossil
fuel industries that are working, dedicated
to working to destroy the possibilities for
organised life on Earth.
Well, that's that's the situation.
They're not laws of nature.
There are solutions.
But as long as the public is passive conformance
to the rich and powerful or relentless in
pursuit of their goals are doing it now, they
will prevail.
The end result will be even worse than now.
Those are the choices that people have to
face.
I see I've made my 10 minutes so I'll stop.
Well, thank you very much for those 10 minutes,
Professor Chomsky.
Just picking up on one thing, the beginning
that you said of your speech, you mentioned
other sort of tail risks like nuclear war
or climate change.
Do you think this pandemic will mean that
kind of societies and governments be more
ready to deal with things like this in the
future?
Or do you think we're not gonna learn any
lessons from this?
We see how governments are dealing with them.
Actually, governments vary.
Take take environmental catastrophe. Every
government is doing something about it.
Not enough, but at least something.
The US is actually doing more than anyone
else.
There US is dedicated to destroying the climate.
Repeat, dedicated to destroying the climate.
The Republican Party is the most dangerous
organisation in human history.
It is devoted to maximising fossil fuel use,
opening up new areas for exploitation, eliminating
all regulations that mitigated the threatening
effect incredible consequences.
And it's doing it for very simple reason.
It is serving its main constituency, great
wealth, corporate power.
They think this is fine.
So therefore we reached the destruction.
Let's take nuclear war.
It's interesting that it's very hard to get
anyone to think about it.
During the entire campaign and Britain in
the United States, two campaigns, and not
a word about barely a comment here and there.
It's along with global warming.
It's the major threat to existence.
Anyone who is looked at the record for the
past almost 75 years knows that it's kind
of a miracle that we escaped this long and
miracles don't persist.
So what is the world doing?
Well, Trump administration is tearing to shreds,
the last remnants of the arms control regime.
Europe is sitting there, clucking its tongue
and saying that's not nice, Mr. Trump, but
we're too subservient to you to do anything.
So it goes on.
Can't talk about it.
Nobody's interested.
It's a disaster in the making.
Again, I don't know if you want me to run
through the details.
But as you know, Trump just last August, dismantled
the Reagan Gorbachev INF Treaty which would
significantly reduce the threat of nuclear
war.
And to show that he was serious, he immediately
launched for us the Military to launch missiles
that violated the treaty.
That's telling the Russians, please don't
hesitate to develop weapons to destroy us.
Military industries, ecstatic.
They're getting huge grants to create new
weapons to destroy everything and a little
bit down the road they're salivating at the
new contracts that will come to develop some
hopeless means to defend yourself against
the new weapons.
We're encouraging everyone to destroy.
Next on the chopping block is the open skies
treaty which Eisenhower initiated.
That again has significantly reduced the threat
of war.
Next is the New START treaty that the Russians
have been pleading for negotiations to renew it.
Stew up early next year, Trump administration
said we're not interested.
Okay, that goes, that's the end of the arms
control regime.
Everyone's free to produce as many weapons
as they like.
I should say, I'm talking about Trump, but
Europe's doing nothing.
They could, but they aren't.
The Democratic Party's not that different.
Frankly, they wouldn't do this for but they're
not that crazy.
But that's another thing.
Now again, there are obvious solutions in
these cases, but they're not going to happen.
Unless an energised organised public gets
directly engaged.
Otherwise, those who are relentlessly pursuing
the interests of power and profit will create
the world they want.
Thank you very much for that as well.
So one thing that you discussed pretty extensively
in your introductory remarks was how capitalism
prevents the possibility of creating new vaccines.
Something that has been discussed quite a
lot recently is antivirals so Juliet pharmaceuticals
have an antiviral called random Ramdev severe
which tries to target the Coronavirus.
Do you have much hope and these are private
sector solutions to the disease or
do you think they're distraction?
We have to be a little careful.
First of all, the Roomba Zoo is like everything
else.
It was developed primarily on the basis of
public public initiative.
The tough part, initial research was done
at the NIH.
It's handed over to a corporation who wants
to sell it at an exorbitant price, huge price,
which they are permitted to do by the year.
The World Trade Organisation agreements which
provide them with ridiculous patent rights.
In this particular case, after it seemed to
show some positive results, the government
did step in, and essentially ordered them
to make it available at a reasonable price.
That's worth knowing that since 1980, the
laws on the books in the United States require
the federal government to intervene to ensure
that drugs are available at a reasonable price.
Of course, Reagan wouldn't do it.
And Clinton wouldn't do it.
Successors wouldn't do it.
They're not following US law.
But it's right on the books.
So if they want to, they can do it.
And in this case, they did.
So maybe give the producer or make it available
on reasonable terms, meaning giving the public
back a small proportion of what the public
paid in taxes to have this made available.
That's the way capitalism functions.
Its massive subsidies for the rich, penalties
for the poor government.
It's true all over the economy take what we're
now using computers, internet, satellites,
with public spending.
The lab where I was working at MIT in 1950s,
publicly supported, created the that that's
the kind of place that
and other research labs like it were created
computers, the internet, to the high tech economy generally.
Later it was turned over to private enterprise
for marketing and profit.
This way it works pretty much the whole economy,
but in this case, Big Pharma has, to the extent
that they are allowed to be in control.
The drugs either exist or going to be priced
out of anybody's reach.
Of course, that's what you do if you're a
business.
That's very interesting. Thank you.
Something you touched on there when you mentioned
your work in the 1950s is kind of remarkable
length and consistency of your career.
So you've mentioned the paths you've had kind
of largely consistent political beliefs since
you were quite young.
Is there anything that's kind of you've changed
your mind about recently, either in connection
to Coronavirus or something else?
Anything that kind of something you believe
now you didn't believe a few years ago?
Nothing very profound. Sorry to say that my
basic hasn't changed much since childhood.
Course I've learned a lot more there's much
more to discover.
And I wouldn't have predicted in the 1970s
extreme savagery of the new liberal period.
That was a surprise.
And it's both Democrats and Republicans.
So it takes a I'll talk about the United States
because they know it better.
But the same things happened in England.
In 1980, Reagan comes in.
First act destroyed the labour unions, introduced
scabs, illegal in just about every country.
Thatcher did exactly the same destroy the
labour unions.
That's understandable.
They're the way in which the general public
can advance their own interests in at the
forefront of social welfare programmes, decent
conditions for working people and so on.
So we got to get them out of the way.
That makes sense.
But they did other things which are a little
surprising.
Take Reagan again.
Right now is pretty, you know, there 10s of
trillions of dollars, not small change, which
are robbed from the public by tax havens and
stock buybacks.
Up until 1980, they weren't any. In fact they
were illegal.
And the Treasury Department enforced the law.
So no tax havens, no stock buybacks to enrich
management and rich shareholders and rob the
public.
Reagan eliminated them.
Comes along Clinton made it worse.
The ruin summers, deregulation mania, it just
extended it.
And it goes on through the this Millennium,
profits getting worse.
The fact that the leadership would so utterly
subordinate themselves to concentrated private
wealth and power came as a surprise.
Maybe I was naive.
They had the opportunity, so they used it,
should have understood it.
Now we're in a situation where what you see
is almost indescribable.
To take the United States again, we need vaccines.
Everybody understands that.
How does Trump react?
By firing the chief scientist who's in charge
of vaccine production in the government.
Why? Because he dared to make some critical
comments about the quack medicines that Trump
is advertising in his tweets.
Just recently, a couple of weeks ago.
Now there's a programme government programme
which has been working with Chinese scientists
to Identify Corona viruses.
The Chinese scientists are going deep into
caves to try to locate bats, it's very dangerous
work.
They're getting the main source of Coronavirus,
finding thousands of new ones, US scientists
are working with them.
It's all stored in the Muon Institute of Neurology,
best in the world.
Trump cancelled the programme.
Why? Because he's desperately flailing about
to find some scapegoat to cover up his crimes
against Americans, which are big and one of
them is bash China.
So since this programme is working with China,
we have to kill it to make sure that the threat
of Coronavirus will be much worse.
There's a lot more that isn't amazing to me
is not been discussed.
One of the ways in which Trump is trying to
find some way to cover up his crimes is to
attack the World Health Organisation.
The grounds are derisory to discuss.
But he's defunded it.
And his administration there was made very
clear that they want to destroy the organisation.
That's a possible way to improve his electoral
prospects by saying these horrible and international
people is a sector of the population that
buys them.
What's the effect of the worst humanitarian
crisis in the world is in Yemen.
And people are surviving in Yemen, because
of the help given to them by the World Health
Organisation, physicians and medical services.
So let them die.
Africa, the World Health Organisation is providing
the basic support for defence against the
myriad of diseases.
Coronavirus comes it will be worse.
Let them die.
Okay. It'll improve my electoral prospects.
Do you see a word of discussion about this?
This is concentrated statism.
Since you mentioned my childhood, it does
bring back childhood memories.
They know that in 1936, one of the Franco's
top generals, gave the slogan for Franklin,
down with intelligence up with death.
Okay, that's what we're living with.
Destroy the sciences, do anything possible
to improve your electoral prospects.
Kill as many people as you want.
That's the top government of the world.
There are others not too distant.
There are others naturally working to save
their population in New Zealand and Australia
has pretty much controlled the virus, in Taiwan,
South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong.
But listen to the information coming from
China.
Pretty much out of control.
You take a look at Europe, just mention lessons
there too.
The powerhouse of Europe, of course, is Germany.
Germany did succumb to the neoliberal Think
or Do liberal play, but not entirely, not
to the extent of Britain and the United States.
So Germany kept spare capacity and hospitals
didn't keep to the district business model,
of spare capacity and diagnostics so they
were able to deal with a virus when it came.
They have things pretty much under control.
There's a country right to the south of Germany.
It's name is Italy, has a pretty severe a
pandemic raging in northern Italy.
They're getting help from Germany.
There's something called the European Union.
Does the union mean Germany provides medical
resources for beleaguered Italy?
Not so far as I can discover that fortunately,
Italy can turn across the Atlantic to the
powerhouse there,
Cuba, under US terrorist and economic attack
for 60 years to try to crushing the Cuba
sending doctors to work in northern Italy
and other places in the world where medical
aid is needed.
That's called internationalism.
It's the one example of legitimate internationalism.
You don't find it internally to the Union.
Germany's been trying to block euro bonds,
which might be a way to distribute risk and
support those who are suffering.
But, but there is a country that's doing the
one that's under sharpest attack for 60 years.
And in the world by the reigning super bella,
is there a lesson to learn from them?
We can think of a few things.
So yes, if we look around us, there's a lot
to learn.
There are solutions, there in hand, to global
warming as well.
But somebody's got to do something about it.
Just as someone had to do something about
the pandemic, in 2003.
Someone has to do something about the one
that's coming down the road right now.
The passive conformance being in the corner,
we know what's going to happen.
So you say that we have solutions in hand.
Something that's special happening a lot in
recent weeks in the US and elsewhere has been,
kind of Wildcat strikes at Amazon warehouses
and other businesses.
Do you much hope for this kind of new revival
of organised labour in times of pandemic or
do you think that the crisis is opportunity
to crush unions?
I think that's a very good question.
That the Amazon strike cripple the Amazon
work workplaces are about the worst thing
you can imagine.
Amazon, workers are under extremely tight,
ultra taylorist supervision and control.
If somebody they're racing from one spot in
the warehouse to another, if they make a wrong
turn and don't go on the prescribed path,
they immediately get a notice it's a demerit,
you're in trouble.
You stop for a second to talk to a friend, you're in trouble.
They have horrible working conditions.
Their, first and forced to work without protection.
So the Jeff Beezus can make 10s of millions
of extra dollars.
And they did go on strike before the Coronavirus
about the horrible working conditions.
And they had an effect.
Strikes have an effect.
Visas agreed immediately to pay I think $10
billion into a fund for global warming and
to try to make the company carbon free in
a couple of decades.
Not huge for him.
It's penny change, but it's significant.
Actions have effect, and that's happening
elsewhere to
Go back to the 1930s, let's take the United
States again.
In the 1920s, I was born in 1928, 1920s.
The labour movement had been crushed.
In a very vibrant, significant labour movement
in the late 19th, early 20th century, it had
been crushed mostly by state and corporate
violence.
It was killed off.
Finally by Woodrow Wilson's Red Scare, there
was nothing there.
The Depression hit in 1929.
A couple of years, by 1934, five years, the
labour movement was reviving very significantly,
beginning to carry out militant actions.
CIO was organising, the moving scores sit
down strikes, those are very frightening to business.
A sit down strike is one incident before the
recognition that we don't need two bosses.
We can run this place by ourself, get lost,
it's fragile system based on obedience and consent.
There was a sympathetic administration, Roselle
administration.
So it did lead to quite significant actions.
I could remember this very well.
My family, my extended family, first generation
immigrants, working class, mostly employed
and deeply involved in the rising union movement,
left parties.
Even though circumstances were much more onerous
than they are today, there was a sense of
hopefulness, because we're doing something
we can get out of this slacking today, but
it might come back.
Teacher strikes, worker strikes spreading
often in parts of the country that are most anti-labour.
Things could happen, could change.
Thinking back to the 30s to my childhood,
remember.
What eventuated, there was a huge crisis,
depression, terrible crisis, countries took
different ways out.
One of them was the way I just described.
The United States after too much hesitancy
did move towards significant steps towards
meaningful social democracy.
You can't use the word socialist in the United
States, it's barred, it's a curse word.
But it's essentially what in Europe is called
Social Democratic policies.
There were other countries that reacted differently.
The most important one is Germany.
Let's take a look at what happened.
The Germany in the 1920s was the peak of Western
civilization.
In the sciences, the arts, literature, philosophy,
is regarded as one of the world's leading
democracies, but political science is a model
of democracy.
The Euro was born in 1928.
Germany had an election, the Nazis ran, I
think they got 3% of the vote.
The next pre election was 1932.
The Nazis were the dominant party.
They went on from being the most, the peak
of Western civilization, to the absolute depths
of human history within 10 years.
Now returning, that's one way out.
Another way out is the move to social democracy.
Now, the situation is not identical.
Now, there's plenty of differences.
But there are also similarities.
There are basically two ways out of the current
crises.
One is the one that is being pursued by private
wealth, like corporate power, that is to create
a post pandemic world which is harsher, more
brutal, more cruel form of new liberalism,
to put the climate crisis aside, maybe doing
a few things, but not much, there's not much
profit and working on it, to put aside the
threat of nuclear war, that's one way.
Not identical to the Nazi way out, but that's
in Britain.
The other way out is struggle for people's
rights, for more democracy, more control of
institutions that move towards programmes
that are oriented toward the public profit,
otherwise it was taken by the United States
under Roosevelt, for the countries elsewhere.
Those choices, basically the same choices,
in a simple phrase, oversimplifying but not
too much.
It's what's called class war.
One side in the class war is relentless, they
never stop.
If the other stop, they win.
They don't have, it's a choice.
Wonderful. That's very interesting.
Now I'd like to ask you a few questions that
have been submitted by our members and some
members of the general public.
So one thing that few people are curious about,
so Lauren, Magdalene, and Sam, Trinity, are
curious about was how far do you feel your
political and philosophical writings have
impacted your linguistic work and vice versa?
How much do they read? Yeah.
There's no logical connection.
One can, and many do, dedicate themselves
to one strand, either take no position and
position say totally opposite the mind on
the other, either way, but that's perfectly possible.
There is a kind of deeper connection of an
abstract sort.
Both, in my own case, at least.
Both the linguistic work and the political
activism and work, traced back to a concept
that has deep roots in the Enlightenment,
early modern science, Descartes and others, even
the recognition that the core of human nature,
core part of human nature is kind of an instinct
for freedom, creativity.
And you see it in language, the core of human
language recognised by Galileo and his contemporaries,
by Descartes, by later thinkers and others.
The core of human language is what's been
called it's created as the capacity to produce
new expressions of thought, without limit.
Having nothing to do with virtually nothing
to do with training habit, the brain more
than to do it out of our creative instinct
in ways that are appropriate to situations,
but not determined by them.
The Cartesians put it, you're impel, you're
induced to act in certain ways, but not until
it's for your free choice.
And that's essentially the roots of modern,
authentic libertarian thought, talking about
what's called libertarian today, authentic
libertarian.
For a second discourse on boards, critique
of state action, classical liberalism on to
the later movements which picked up the mantle,
the anarchist movements and so on.
Their core concept is that any form of authority
is has a burden of proof.
Unless it can justify itself, it's illegitimate,
should be overcome. Okay?
Because human dignity and freedom and creativity,
the fundamental object that we want to preserve
and enhance educational systems are the same
and so on.
So there's a kind of commonality, but you
can't draw any deductive conclusions from
commitment to one to the other.
Yeah, so um, picking up on that kind of question
of proof and evidence,
there's a question about this from Emma from
Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
She asks, can the concept of Yuji, universal
grammar, be proven any more concretely than
it has been?
Sorry, can the concept of universal grammar
be proven any more concretely and has been
Well the concept of universal grammar is a
little bit misunderstood outside of the places
where people work on it.
The universal grammar for the last 50 or 60
years has been used in a technical sense.
It borrows from the traditional notion but
modifies it within a different framework.
A universal grammar traditionally meant principles
and properties, you can find it all languages.
It doesn't quite mean that now.
What it refers to is the biological endowment,
genetic endowment, that enables you and me
to do what we're now doing, but is totally
lacking in every other organism.
So humans have a specific faculty of language.
It's part of our biological endowment.
It's a species character.
As far as we know, it's common to the species.
There's no group differences that are known.
A child born in Cambridge, who grows up in
with a Papua New Guinea tribe, know their
language and conversely, you know of no differences.
It's unique to humans.
There's nothing. There is nothing closely
analogous.
Homologous in any of your things, apparently
developed pretty much along with Homosapiens,
a couple hundred thousand years ago.
Universal grammar is just the name for what
whatever that biological endowment is.
Now, there's the research over the last 60
or 70 years, at least the kind that I'm personally
interested in, has been primarily devoted
to trying to determine what this system is.
The early proposals back in the 50s were extremely
complex.
The main goal then was just this new approach
to language to see if we could just account
for the massive new discoveries that were
coming.
It had been thought that almost everything
was known.
Soon as you started working on generative
grammar, it turned out nothing was known.
He had to start almost from scratch.
So lots of new things are being discovered.
He had to see, can I find mechanisms that
will enable me to capture them?
They were way too complex, everybody knew
that.
But the main task over the years has been
to reduce the complexity to show you can get
deeper results with simpler, more general
mechanisms.
Finally reach the point in the 1990s.
When I think we're coming close to something
like genuine explanations, that is principles
of universal grammar,
which are simple enough so that you can give
a plausible evolutionary account of the origin
and that
alone are able to account for many of the
most striking features of learning.
That's universal grammar.
It's not what people usually mean by the term.
Thank you.
So I'm returning to politics at bit.
Holly from Christ college asks, Do you think
that the UK Labour Party has a hope left to
be a vehicle for legitimate change?
Correct me if I'm wrong, you know more about
it than I do, but I've been following as much
as I can.
As far as I understand it, the Corbynite party
expanded very quickly, was on the move to
becoming a membership party for the first
time, long time.
It did very well in 2017, surprising everyone,
biggest victory in Labour's history
Moving on, the party's programmes seem to
remain popular.
When I look at Yougov polls about people's
preferences, it seems that the policies that
the Corbynite party introduced, are still
popular
Facing the disaster in the last election.
So there seems to be a major gap between what
happened to the party and what happened to
how to its principles.
Okay, if we look at what happened to the party,
there are a number of things.
For one thing, it was under enormous attack
from the parliamentary party.
New Labour, you know, the old guard, they
wanted to destroy it.
This was pretty obvious before but after the
revelations of this latest 800 pages of documents,
it's pretty hard to deny.
Same across the media, hatred of the party
went as far as The Guardian.
Then came this assault about anti-semitism,
almost complete fraud.
Yeah, there's some anti semitism in the Labour
Party, less probably than almost anywhere
else in English.
But a huge campaign was launched, based on
outrageous fabrications that are exposed over
and over again.
Very good work on it.
What it was, was marginal.
It was mainly an attack on the party for being
daring to be supportive of Palestinian rights.
Not allowed. Okay.
Now they handle it very badly.
Corbyn is a very decent human being.
He's not a fighter. He couldn't he couldn't
respond. But he just let it pass.
Then came Brexit.
Corbyn just couldn't take a position.
He couldn't say yes, couldn't say no, but
it all deflected at one way or another.
It didn't work for the former Labour constituency.
There's a deeper problem there
Labour had not been organising effectively.
And old constituency, northern, former industrial
areas,
didn't take much for them to switch to somebody
who seemed to be offering them pie in the sky.
Somehow, Brexit will solve all your problems,
not to make them worse, but least they were
saying something.
Well, all of this lead, according to polls,
to extreme dislike of Corbyn personally and
drifting away.
Now can it come back?
Well, if it's true, that the policies still
have support, then a different approach can
lead to a comeback
and lead to an authentic participatory party
that is devoted to the needs and interests
of the general population can happen.
But it's going to take a lot of work and reflection
and self criticism and analysis.
Yes, so one thing that the New Labour Leader,
Kier Starmer, has tried to do in his first
months has been to brand Labour a more Patriotic
Party.
So I think that's in response to kind of some
of the media criticisms during last election
about terrorism and other issues.
Do you think that progressive patriotism is
a productive angle for the left in Britain
or a dead end?
What's patriotism? Is it my country right
or wrong? Or I want to make my country better.
Which kind of patriotism do you want?
Far as I see it, people like Corbyn are the
true patriots.
You don't have to weigh the sign saying I'm
patriotic, here's the Union J.
That's not patriotism.
Any person in the totalitarian state can do
that.
If you are serious, if you seriously care
about your country, you'll criticise what's
wrong, try to improve what's right.
There is an international movement, just beginning
Its first was opening was yesterday, in fact,
which is dedicated to true internationalism
and authentic patriotism.
And they said, that's the progressive international
that was launched officially yesterday.
Of course, there's no mention of it in the
United States.
So many was not as initiated by Bernie Sanders
in the United States,
and by Yanis Varoufakis in Europe, the founder
of the DM 25 movement, the transnational European movement.
which is seeking to salvage what makes sense
in the European Union and overcome the there
are serious flaws probably bringing in the
global south.
Many representatives from Africa and Asia
elsewhere.
It could be, again, this depends on people's
commitment,
but it could be the basis for the move towards
genuine internationalism, mutual aid, progressive, policies,
overcoming the rot of the new liberal period
and moving on, not just to what was, but what
can be much better can happen.
It's only one of two internationals that are
developing.
There's another one.
Take a look at the chaos in Trump's White
House.
It's a little hard to determine any coherent
strategy, but there is one, that's formally
described frequently by Steve Bannon, it's
obvious and what's going on
Construct, reactionary, international, based
in the White House, which will bring together
the world's most reactionary harsh states.
So in the Western Hemisphere, leading candidate
is Brazil, under Jair Bolsonaro who is kind
of a pathetic Trump clone.
So Brazil will be a major party
Iin the Middle East?
I'll see some Egypt, the most brutal dictatorship
in Egypt's history there.
Trump's favourite dictator, as he puts it,
there are natural member of the Gulf family
dictatorships and nice people like MDS, their
members.
Israel's a core member shifted so far to the
right.
You need a telescope to find it has had tacit
links with the Gulf dictatorships for a long time.
They're now coming in the open.
Go further east, Modi's India is a very natural
candidate.
Modi is devoted to destroying Indian secular
democracy instituting the ultra right for
ultra nationalist Hindu, the control, the
crushing Kashmir population would be an obvious member.
Moved to Europe, Orbán's Hungary turning
to a dictatorship, their highly welcome.
If Nigel Farage couldn't win in England, the
perfect member, Boris Johnson, vacillates
too much, Salvini in Italy, obvious members.
So 
put this together under White House direction.
The progressive international is a counter
to the same class wars before, question is
which will prevail.
Now that depends on the world population.
At the level of state, the reactionary international
has all the power.
At the level of people, it's very different.
But as always depends whether the people will
react and the rich and powerful ar nervous,
very nervous.
You may have seen that a year ago, about 150,
top US executives, CEOs of major banks, corporations
and so on, that came together and issued a
manifesto.
The manifesto basically said, yes, we realise
we've been making mistakes.
During those neoliberal years, we've been
profiting enormously and farming, everybody else.
That was a mistake. We're not going to do
that anymore.
We're going to be, to devote ourselves to
stakeholders, workers, communities.
We're really nice guys and trust us.
Now we're on a better path.
But that was interestingly duplicated at the
latest Davos meetings.
Davos, as you know, every year the people
who are called the Masters of the Universe,
get together, in Davos, Switzerland, go skiing,
have parties and tell each other how wonderful they are.
So this last meeting was different. They did
all those things.
But they also the theme of the meeting was
the same as the theme of those executives.
Yes, we made mistakes. We realise it.
We're going to become better.
We're going to work for you put your trust
in us. We're going to take care of you.
Now you peasants out there, put down your
pitchforks and go back home.
We've got everything.
For those who have a little memory, an advantage
to be ninety years old.
You can remember the 1950s when the model
was what's called soulful corporation.
Corporately, the leading intellectuals on
the liberal left were telling us, corporations
have learned that they can't be just out for
themselves.
They're becoming soulful corporations.
Okay, we've seen that 60 years to see just
how soulful they are.
Now they're becoming soulful again.
Why? Because people are beating the doors.
They know there's a problem, so they have
to react at least in words, maybe partially
in action.
So the pressure keeps on and new movements,
develop, active organise.
Things like the climate strike, others like
it.
They can win.
I want to make the last comment about the
Davos meeting, it was very interesting.
The meeting opened with two keynote addresses.
They ought to make the videos available, they
ought to be played in every classroom in the
world, in every meeting in the world.
They're very forceful and revealing.
The first keynote address was, of course, by
the master of the world, Donald Trump.
He had to give the opening address.
The people in Davos don't like him.
His vulgarity, his crudeness, his petty megalomania
undermine the image that they're trying to project.
So it's not the kind of person they would
welcome into their parties, but they gave him
a rousing applause. Stand up applause, lovely.
Why? Because they realise that he understands,
the one thing that matters, policy has to
be directed to pouring money into the right
pockets.
As long as he does that, we don't care that
much about his crazy antics.
Okay, so he gets cheered.
After him comes a 17 year old girl, Greta
Thunberg, quiet, factual, brief comment describing
what's happening, actually, accurately, forcefully
ending up by turning to the audience and saying,
you're betraying us,
you're robbing us of our childhood.
She's right, of course.
She got some mild clothes and little patting
on the head and saying, nice little girl,
go back to school, we'll take care of you.
That should be shown everywhere.
That's a symbol of the modern age, the dramatic
symbolism.
And we should be thinking about those things.
We can be on one side or the other.
If we're passive, we're on the side of the
master, especially in free societies like ours.
Silence equals acquiescence and support.
Yeah, great. Thank you so much.
One last question, I think.
So you said in response to the last question
that Jeremy Corbyn's result in 2017 was a
huge victory for Labour.
But given that didn't actually produce parliamentary
majority, and no Labour government has gotten
the parliamentary majority since 2005,
do you think that the organising work you
say needs to be done in formerly industrial
towns in the Midlands and North of England
can actually happen the next five years or
do you think that, kind of, things got too
bad, you need more time?
Take the example of my childhood again. Sorry
to keep coming back to it.
1929, labour movement was, in the United States,
virtually dead.
1934, it was a raging torrent, which led the
way to the New Deal measures and the revival
of decent decent American society.
Five years, okay, doesn't have to be five
years, can be less, many more ways of backing, organising.
The world is a much, been a lot of regression,
but overall the world is a much more civilised
place than it was.
A lot of battles have been won, can be put
in the background.
They weren't given by gifts, they were won
by struggle, but they're there.
The worlds a much more civilised place than
it was 50 years ago.
Young people often forget this.
They think everything you know, there's no
hope.
Take a look at the United States 50 years
ago, okay.
I was a young man at the time, with a child.
The United States had anti-miscegenation laws
that were so harsh, that the Nazis refused
to adopt them, because they much too harsh.
One drop of blood and you're black.
You have a great great grandmother who was
slave, you're out.
It had, of course, anti sodomy laws.
So did Britain.
Britain, as you may recall, murdered one of
the great mathematicians of the century, a
British war hero who broke the German code,
murder him because he was homosexual.
And that was Britain in the 50s. Okay.
In the United States, there was federal housing,
government supported housing.
But by law, it couldn't include blacks, had
to be pure white.
The liberal senators who voted for that hated
it.
But that was the only way they could get any
housing through the Senate, dominated by Southern Democrats.
And women's rights, non existent. Okay.
Environment, never heard of.
There's been a lot of change in 50 years.
And there can be plenty of change ahead.
But not if you sit there, obedient an acquiescent.
And again, in free societies, acquiescence
equals support, because you can do things,
you choose whether to do it or not.
That's a very hopeful message and this discussion
on so that's really nice.
Thank you so much for coming, everyone.
Please subscribe to our YouTube page and like
us on Facebook, and above all, thank you,
Professor Chomsky, for taking the time to
speak with us today.
Thank you very much.
