Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order

Noam Chomky's books are very important, scientifically, politically, economically and morally. The 8 essays in this volume are a proof of the depth of his analyses as well as of his moral integrity. As committed anarchist, his `Goals and Visions' are actually to defend some state institutions (!) against the massive assaults on democracy, human rights and even markets. At the same time, he would open those institutions to more meaningful public participation and ultimately, in a much more free society dismantle them. In (`Democracy and Markets in the New World Order') he unveils clearly the fear and hatred of democracy in elite circles, who (try to) impose nationally and internationally James Madison's policies of `protecting the minority of the opulent against the majority' and for whom `the rights of property have priority on the rights of persons.' One of the means to bring more freedom, justice and a better world is to give better information to the many. In `Writers and Intellectual Responsibility', Chomsky sets the minimum standard for journalism as follows: `It is a moral imperative to find out and tell the truth as best as one can about matters of human significance to an audience that can do something about them.' But, the media are kept from the public domain and handed over to a few huge private corporations (`private tyranny equals freedom'). Journalism is turned into mere servility and cowardice. Journalist are gagged and silenced (e.g. the genocides in East Timor and Indonesia, see `The Great Powers and Human Rights: the Case of East Timor' and `East Timor and World Order') or fundamentally biased (`The Middle East Settlement'). For Chomsky, the moral culpability of those who ignore the crimes that matter by moral standards is greater to the extent that the society is free and open. Economically, he points out that the US has been `the mother country and bastion of modern protectionism', imposing now free trade on the Third World. His scientific work is ground-breaking (`Language and Thought' and `Language and Nature'). He proved that language is a biological process. To question `innate' knowledge is the same as to suppose that the growth of an embryo to a chicken rather than a giraffe is determined by nutritional inputs. Behavior and texts are of no more intrinsic interest than observations of electrical activities of the brain. A computer program that beats a grandmaster in chess is about as interesting as a bulldozer that wins the Olympic weight-lifting competition. The only thing that we can say about language is `that we use it for expressing or clarifying our thoughts, inducing others whose language resembles ours to do likewise. Language doesn't represent the world (Frege) and the content of expressions and of thought is not fixed by properties of the world and society (Putnam). This is a book written by a formidable free mind. A must read for all those interested in the future of mankind.

Noam Chomsky is the most important living intellectual today. That is a fact. Whether speaking on linguistics--he shredded Bloomfieldian linguistics and is the genesis of practically the entire discipline today--or political theory, in which his ideas are equally revolutionary, Chomsky's words simply cannot be ignored. This quality is, perhaps, the reason that so many people who seem to disagree with his ideas continue to buy and read his books. For that which is without value is ignored, but that which is truly dangerous to the current system is attacked relentlessly, i.e., Noam Chomsky. This book is meant to enlighten citizens about the real prospect of power (domination) in so-called democratic societies. And as Mr. Chomsky illustrates in Powers and Prospects, democracy is much different in practice than it's idealized percepts as expressed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, which adorns the hallowed halls of the White House. It's ironic that his critics say that his ideas are irrelevent and trite, while at the same time going through considerable pains in an attempt to discredit them. But, if he is irrelevent why does he have so many critics--enemies would be a more appropriate term. What is more close-minded and intellectually shallow than taking a single line from an individual essay and attempting to use it to refute an entire book. Of course, this vacuous methodology speaks for itself and is about as subtle and insightful as Pliny's Histories. However, for those who still have the ability to think for themselves, Chomsky lays it all out, in a clear and easy to read stlye that just cannot be refuted logically. Read Power and Prospects for yourself and experience one of America's most profound thinkers. And while you may not agree with everything Chomsky says, you cannot come away from this book unmoved.

This is a collection of some of Chomsky's recent essays rather than a single argument (to accuse an essay collection of incoherence etc is therefore wide of the mark). What is valuable here - as elsewhere - in Chomsky is the ability to think outside the received terms in which politics and economics are discussed. MOreover, Chonsky shows conclusively that such received terms are to be understood as ideology rather than knowledge. If you really look at the world and you find its terrible injustices, its inequality and endemic poverty and immiseration pleasing or a matter of indifference then Chomsky will be of no interest to you. (Having said that, it is curious how Chomsky exercises a strange fascination for certainservants of the ruling class, who seem to resent his mastery of several different disciplines, and who get themselves very excited listening to their own garrulous invective.)