Noam Chomsky in Secrets, Lies, and Democracy
On Tax Reform:
Payments in tax system should be progressive
In a Canadian-style insurance system, the costs are distributed in the same way that taxes are. If the tax system is progressive-that is, if rich people pay a higher percentage of their incomes in taxes (which all other industrial societies assume,
correctly, to be the only ethical approach)-then the wealthy will also pay more health care costs. But the Clinton program is radically regressive. It’s as if [rich & poor] were both taxed the same amount, which is unheard of in any civilized society.
Source: (X-ref Health) Secrets, Lies, and Democracy, p. 25-26
May 2, 1994
On Corporations:
Corporations are fascist and incompatible with democracy
Q: You view corporations as being incompatible with democracy, and you say that is we apply the concepts that are used in political analysis, corporations are fascist. What do you mean?A: I mean fascism pretty much in the traditional sense, [analogous
to] a system in which the state integrates labor and capital under their control. The ideal is top-down control with the public essentially following orders.
Fascism is a term that doesn’t strictly apply to corporations, but if you look at them, power
goes strictly top-down. Ultimate power resides in the hands of investors, owners, banks, etc. People can disrupt, make suggestions, but the same is true of a slave society. People who aren’t owners and investors have nothing much to say about it.
That’s something of an exaggeration because corporations are subject to some legal requirements and there is some limited degree of public control. But corporations are more totalitarian than most institutions we call totalitarian in the political arena.
Source: Secrets, Lies, and Democracy, by Noam Chomsky, p. 9
May 2, 1994
On Jobs:
Free Trade Agreements move jobs to non-union areas
Under Reagan, the US managed to drive labor costs way below the level of our competitors (except for Britain). That’s produced consequences not only in Mexico & the US but all across the industrial world. For example, one of the effects of the so-called
free trade agreement with Canada was to stimulate a big flow of jobs from Canada to the southeast US, because that’s an essentially non-union area. Wages are lower; fewer benefits; workers can barely organize. So that’s an attack against Canadian workers
Source: Secrets, Lies, and Democracy, by Noam Chomsky, p. 19
May 2, 1994
On Health Care:
Payments in health care system should be progressive
In a Canadian-style insurance system, the costs are distributed in the same way that taxes are. If the tax system is progressive-that is, if rich people pay a higher percentage of their incomes in taxes (which all other industrial societies assume,
correctly, to be the only ethical approach)-then the wealthy will also pay more health care costs. But the Clinton program is radically regressive. It’s as if [rich & poor] were both taxed the same amount, which is unheard of in any civilized society.
Source: Secrets, Lies, and Democracy, by Noam Chomsky, p. 25-26
May 2, 1994
On Crime:
Societal inequality causes crime
Until you ask why there’s an increase in social disintegration, and why more and more resources are being directed toward the wealthy and privileged sectors and away from the general population, you can’t have a concept of why there’s rising crime or how
you should deal with it. Over the past 20 or 30 years, there’s been a considerable increase in inequality. This trend accelerated during the Reagan years. The society has been moving visibly toward a kind of Third World model.The result is an
increasing crime rate, as well as other signs of social disintegration. Most of the crime is poor people attacking each other, but it spills over to more privileged sectors. People are very worried-and quite properly, because the society is becoming very
dangerous. A constructive approach to the problem would require dealing with its fundamental causes, but that’s off the agenda, because we must continue with a social policy that’s aimed at strengthening the welfare state for the rich.
Source: Secrets, Lies, and Democracy, by Noam Chomsky, p. 32
May 2, 1994
On Crime:
Harsher penalties only serve to control the poor more
A constructive approach to the problem [of increasing crime] would require dealing with its fundamental causes, but that’s off the agenda, because we must continue with a social policy that’s aimed at strengthening the welfare state for the rich.
The only kind of responses the government can resort to under those conditions is pandering to the fear of crime with increasing harshness, attacking civil liberties and attempting to control the poor, essentially by force.
[Clinton’s crime bill] greatly increased, by a factor of 5 or 6, federal spending for repression. There’s nothing constructive in it. There are more prisons, more police, heavier sentences, more death sentences, new crimes, three strikes and you’re out.
It’s unclear how much pressure and social decline and deterioration people will accept. One tactic is just drive them into urban slums-concentration camps, in effect-and let them prey on one another.
Source: Secrets, Lies, and Democracy, by Noam Chomsky, p. 32-34
May 2, 1994
On Crime:
Capital punishment is a crime
Q: What are your views on capital punishment?A: It’s a crime. I agree with Amnesty International on that one, and indeed with most of the world. The state should have no right to take people’s lives.
Source: Secrets, Lies, and Democracy, by Noam Chomsky, p. 34
May 2, 1994
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