Libertarian Girl

First, how to win a debate with a Chomskyite:

Chomsky supporter criticizes Michelle Malkin.
Chomsky supporter then makes something up about Ron Paul out of the blue.
Point out to Chomsky supporter that Michelle Malkin attempted to fabricate these exact allegations about Ron Paul two years ago.
Chomsky supporter says nothing more about Ron Paul and moves on to how great Chomsky is, saying that his views are both consistent and logical.

So this is my great Noam Chomsky post, wherein I show just some of the inconsistencies and flaws in Noam Chomsky’s political arguments.

The interview my pseudo debater pointed to is one from a few years ago in which Chomsky discusses the “views” of Ron Paul (“views” in quotes because Chomsky often distorts Ron Paul’s actual political views into a caricature/straw man which Chomsky then has a less difficult time debating). Interestingly, Chomsky is an anarchist himself but the views he often knocks down in this interview are more related to anarchism than libertarianism. After describing something which is a cross between our current society and anarchism, Chomsky concludes it “would be a nightmare, in my opinion, on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.”

First up is personal contracts. Ron Paul is for voluntary associations among people, otherwise known as “contracts.” To the idea of voluntary contracts between people, Chomsky replies:

Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.

First of all, it’s a bit disingenuous to argue against a purported worst case scenario, yet treat this as the natural endgame of anything as inauspicious as voluntary contracts. First of all, I would say that “democratic politics” did not get rid of this scenario at all, it just plays out in other countries of the world every day. Secondly, in countries with non-tyrannical governments, there will always be a choice in companies to work for or you can start your own as many poor people have done. Third, contracts enforced by law enforcement is what we have now, so does Chomsky think that we have already “entered a period of private tyranny”? If so, since Ron Paul is against pretty much all the current corporatist and financial system, he’s barking up the wrong tree.

The only reason someone would choose this General Electric job is because there is absolutely no other alternative. That situation certainly wouldn’t exist in a free market, because the enterprising person could start their own business easily. That’s very difficult to do today.

Of course, in the end, Chomsky sums up his views by saying that things in Chomsky World would be “worked out by free communities.” How is that much different than voluntary personal contracts or the libertarianism he tries so hard to set up as a strawman and criticize?

Let’s continue.

Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)?

Yes, corporations certainly aren’t accountable when they bankrupt themselves and we wag our finger and bail them out easier than a poor person gets food stamps, but that wouldn’t exist in a libertarian government. Currently, regulations serve to do the opposite of what Chomsky says they accomplish, accountability: the corporations actually write those regulations (literally write the bills that Congress passes) and of course write them in a way that keeps themselves in business at the expense of any competitor or gives them a monopoly. Notice how Chomsky does not mention this tidbit at all, even though it is directly what keeps those hated cable, electricity, and telecom companies in business.

Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded? like what we’re now using, computers and the internet?

Did the economy collapse when R&D wasn’t publicly funded, or did many of those things he mentions (computers, the Internet) come from the transistor, which came from Bell Labs, the best R&D of all time (and privately funded!) What Chomsky doesn’t mention is that the Internet came from a military project which his anarchist society would not fund, and the project sat there for decades until it was released to private hands, which used it to create the Internet. Same for GPS, only when given over to private entrepreneurs was the public able to use or even glimpse these projects.

Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation?

If roads, schools, public transportation, and environmental regulation (of everyone but itself and large corporations, of course) are so important to Chomsky, why does he advocate for the government to do anything else? If in fact these things are the most basic and essential components of government, why not skim off all that fat and allow the government to concentrate on these and get them right?

Now, we have potholes, 50% graduation rates, virtually no public transportation outside of large cities, and of course, the government is our country’s own largest polluter. Sounds like the government isn’t doing too great on any of these accounts.

Since unlike Chomsky tries to imply, these things would all still exist and probably be better in a libertarian society with actual accountability, his argument is, as usual, groundless.

(Question) He defends workers right to organize (so long as owners have the right to argue against it).

Noam Chomsky: Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you’ve already mentioned.

How are these rights not enforced by “state police power” currently? How is Chomsky going to defend these rights, if it’s not some sort of central committee/groups/maybe even one person (Chomsky himself?) as “The Decider”?

There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.

This is such a supreme generalization that I’m not sure where to begin.

Workers have absolutely no power over owners? Most people in America are employed by a small business. Try running a small business or working at one, and you’ll see quickly that an owner has every reason to keep his/her workers happy, employed, and doing their jobs. If a worker suddenly quits, an owner can be in a bad situation.

Saying that workers cannot “intimidate” owners may be true if one thinks that anyone doing any intimidating would get a worker fired, but I have seen the opposite. Some highly trained and specialized employees are extremely valuable to a business and can lord over (or completely run over or take advantage of) the owner if they choose to do so.

But perhaps Chomsky is only referring to large corporations, which deal more with unions. Chomsky apparently wants to correct what he sees as a power imbalance by allowing workers to join unions. However, many unions require workers to be members and forbid a company from hiring any non-union labor. Chomsky thinks the owner has all the power, but doesn’t his solution (AKA the status quo) just transfer all that power to the unions, still at the expense of the individual worker?

Let me give one pertinent example. My brother has a small carpenter’s business. To get big jobs (government, etc.) he would have to be a part of the local carpenter’s union. Well, just join the union, right? No, the union doesn’t accept new members. You have to “know” someone to become part of the union. Sounds to me like the union doesn’t care about workers in general, but merely protecting its own workers at other people’s expense. (In fact, that’s the very definition of a union!) Yet, it has achieved the power through government means (partly through rhetoric like that of Chomsky’s here) of saying that it is protecting its workers’ and the public’s safety by getting all the large jobs for its members’ choosing, without having to compete with more skilled, non-unionized workers.

And yet, giving workers and owners equal consideration and “putting them on a par” is forbidden by Chomsky, too. You just can’t win with this guy.

So what about foreign policy?

Chomsky, supposedly so against America’s foreign policy, really only wants to impose his preferred form of foreign policy on other nations. Ron Paul’s idea that we should let other countries govern themselves is “morally unacceptable.”

OK, then. Anyone who disagrees with Chomsky is immoral, with no specifics given.

Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally,

If Ron Paul means what literally? Notice how Chomsky gives no quote whatsoever. In fact, he’s literally making all this stuff up.

then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn’t themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens).

When has Ron Paul ever said any of these groups shouldn’t receive Social Security? In fact, he is the only member of Congress who doesn’t raid the Social Security “lockbox” to pay for general accounting, and he is the only politician I’ve heard who has said Social Security and Medicare could be fully funded by simply bringing our troops home and closing our 900 military bases around the world. Notice how Chomsky isn’t even aware of Ron Paul’s position on this issue and is just turning this into a generalized rant.

His claims about SS being “broken” are just false.

Oh, really? Aren’t more people receiving benefits now than are paying in to the system? Where’s the money for this program?

He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based, the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need.

Here we come right down to it. Chomsky wants a “communal” decision, decided by, of course, Chomsky. Allowing a younger worker to not pay into the communal pot is verboten. But, you say, that younger worker is one of those starving workers with three young children who can’t afford to find a place to work other than General Electric and doesn’t even have a union but only an intimidating boss! Too bad, Chomsky says, everyone has to give up thousands of dollars a year to ensure Chomsky’s own Social Security benefits.

Never mind that the money won’t be there when the starving worker reaches SS age; Chomsky doesn’t worry about that, and forget about those charts and graphs. Social Security is not “broken.” It’s immoral to say so.

Also never mind that the situation Chomsky tries to speak of in which our starving worker is taken advantage of by an intimidating boss is actually often the case with an intimidating government, which not only takes money for Social Security and Medicare out of a young worker’s paycheck but income taxes, too. Forcibly. Notice how Chomsky’s sympathy for the workers does not extend to the big hand of government forcing them to hand over 40% of their paycheck.

He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we’re at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).

Funny, when Chomsky reads the First Amendment, he takes it to say what it means. When he reads the Second Amendment, he tries to say it doesn’t really mean what it really means.

And what is this about the Constitution not being enacted in a way that Ron Paul would agree with? Ron Paul bases every political position he takes on the Constitution. Chomsky is against just making stuff up here.

At the end, Chomsky says that he would support Hillary Clinton over Ron Paul (yes, the Iraq War-supporting, Drug War-supporting, current Israel policy-supporting, Patriot Act-voting, bailout-supporting, not-ruling-out-nukes-against-Iran Hillary Clinton.) Now that’s a principled vote!

So who’s the fundamentalist?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 10:59 am and is filed under 2008 presidential election, Ron Paul. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.