Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

by Noam Chomsky

My strong suspicion, though I don’t know how to prove it, is that the reason is that marijuana’s a weed, you can grow it in your backyard, so there’s nobody who would make any money off it if it were legal. Tobacco requires extensive capital inputs and technology, and it can be monopolized, so there are people who can make a ton of money off it. I don’t really see any other difference between the two of them, frankly—except that tobacco’s far more lethal and far more addictive.

Most of what chomsky says, so far in this book, I agree with but this just seems insane in 2019 where Marijuana is an industry that is using extensive capital inputs and technology.

In our society, real power does not happen to lie in the political system, it lies in the private economy: that’s where the decisions are made about what’s produced, how much is produced, what’s consumed, where investment takes place, who has jobs, who controls the resources, and so on and so forth. And as long as that remains the case, changes inside the political system can make some difference—I don’t want to say it’s zero—but the differences are going to be very slight.

Might as well be quoting Tocqueville here.

Israel’s value to the United States depends on the fact that it is threatened with destruction: that makes them completely dependent on the United States for survival, and therefore extremely reliable—because if the rug ever is pulled out from under them in a situation of real conflict, they will get destroyed.

My view for a long time.

Well, our economic system “works,” it just works in the interests of the masters, and I’d like to see one that works in the interests of the general population. And that will only happen when they are the “principal architects” of policy, to borrow Adam Smith’s phrase.

Good.

It’s certainly true—when you go to towns or communities that have alternative radio or other media that involve community participation, the general mood is strikingly different. And the reason is, people there are constantly challenged with a different point of view, and they can participate in the debates, they’re not just passive spectators. That’s the way you learn, that’s the way you discover who you are, and what you really want, it’s how you figure out your own values and gain understanding.

For example, suppose it was discovered tomorrow that the greenhouse effect has been way underestimated, and that the catastrophic effects are actually going to set in 10 years from now, and not 100 years from now or something. Well, given the state of the popular movements we have today, we’d probably have a fascist takeover—with everybody agreeing to it, because that would be the only method for survival that anyone could think of. I’d even agree to it, because there just are no other alternatives around right now.