On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures

by Noam Chomsky

The first principle of U.S. foreign policy, then, is to ensure a favorable global environment for U.S.-based industry, commerce, agribusiness and finance. In the Third World, its primary concern is the defense of the Fifth Freedom from various enemies, primarily indigenous. What is called “national security policy” is oriented to the same ends. In the fourth lecture, I will turn to the question of just what national security policy is. For the moment, let me just say what it is not: its primary concern is not the security of the United Stares or its allies, except in the sense of securing the Fifth Freedom. A second and related central principle is that an ideological system must be constructed to ensure that the population remains passive, ignorant and apathetic, and that none of these matters are understood among the educated, articulate and politically active classes in the United States or, indeed, in the world in general. Recall that in the operative sense of the term “democracy,” these minority elements are to dominate the “democratic process”—the political system, the media, the educational system—as indeed they do, serving the interests of those who own and manage U.S. society and privileged groups more generally. A threat to this system of elite domination is a threat to “democracy,” which must be overcome, by force if necessary.