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Citation: Monthly Review April 1999, v.50, 11, 40(8)
Author: McChesney, Robert W.
Title: Noam Chomsky and the struggle against
neoliberalism.(author) by Robert W. McChesney
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COPYRIGHT 1999 Monthly Review
Neoliberalism is the defining political economic paradigm of our time - it
refers to the policies and processes whereby a relative handful of private
interests are permitted to control as much as possible of social life in order
to maximize their personal profit. Associated initially with Reagan and
Thatcher, neoliberalism has for the past two decades been the dominant global
political economic trend adopted by political parties of the center, much of
the traditional left, and the right. These parties and the policies they enact
represent the immediate interests of extremely wealthy investors and less than
one thousand large corporations.
Aside from some academics and members of the business community, the term
neoliberalism is largely unknown and unused by the public at large, especially
in the United States. There, to the contrary, neoliberal initiatives are
characterized as free market policies that encourage private enterprise and
consumer choice, reward personal responsibility and entrepreneurial
initiative, and undermine the dead hand of the incompetent, bureaucratic, and
parasitic government, which can never do good (even when well intentioned,
which it rarely is). A generation of corporate-financed public relations
efforts has given these terms and ideas a near-sacred aura. As a result, these
phrases and the claims they imply rarely require empirical defense, and are
invoked to rationalize anything from lowering taxes on the wealthy and
scrapping environmental regulations to dismantling public education and social
welfare programs. Indeed, any activity that might interfere with corporate
domination of society is automatically suspect because it would impede the
workings of the free market, which is advanced as the only rational, fair, and
democratic allocator of goods and services. At their most eloquent, proponents
of neoliberalism sound as if they are doing poor people, the environment, and
everybody else a tremendous service as they enact policies on behalf of the
wealthy few.
The economic consequences of these policies have been the same just about
everywhere, and exactly what one would expect: a massive increase in social
and economic inequality, a marked increase in severe deprivation for the
poorest nations and peoples of the world, a disastrous global environment, an
unstable global economy, and an unprecedented bonanza for the wealthy.
Confronted with these facts, defenders of the neoliberal order claim that the
spoils of the good life will invariably spread to the broad mass of the
population - as long as the neoliberal policies that exacerbated these
problems are not interfered with by anyone!
In the end, proponents of neoliberalism cannot and do not offer an empirical
defense for the world they are making. To the contrary, they offer - no,
demand - a religious faith in the infallibility of the unregulated market,
drawing upon nineteenth century theories that have little connection to the
actual world. The ultimate trump card for the defenders of neoliberalism,
however, is that there is no alternative. Communist societies, social
democracies, and even modest social welfare states like the United States have
all failed, the neoliberals proclaim, and their citizens have accepted
neoliberalism as the only feasible course. It may well be imperfect, but it is
the only economic system possible.
Earlier in the twentieth century some critics called fascism "capitalism
with the gloves off," meaning that fascism was pure capitalism without
democratic rights and organizations. In fact, we know that fascism is vastly
more complex than that. Neoliberalism, on the other hand, is indeed
"capitalism with the gloves off." It represents an era in which business
forces are stronger and more aggressive, and face less organized opposition
than ever before. In this political climate they attempt to codify their
political power and enact their vision on every possible front. As a result,
business is increasingly difficult to challenge, and civil society (nonmarket,
noncommercial, and democratic forces) barely exists at all.
It is precisely in its oppression of nonmarket forces that we see how
neoliberalism operates - not only as an economic system, but as a political
and cultural system as well. Here the differences with fascism, with its
contempt for formal democracy and highly mobilized social movements based upon
racism and nationalism, are striking. Neoliberalism works best when there is
formal electoral democracy, but when the population is diverted from the
information, access, and public forums necessary for meaningful participation
in decision-making. As neoliberal guru Milton Friedman put it in Capitalism
and Freedom, because profitmaking is the essence of democracy, any government
that pursues antimarket policies is being antidemocratic, no matter how much
informed popular support they might enjoy. Therefore it is best to restrict
governments to the job of protecting private property and enforcing contracts,
and to limit political debate to minor issues. (The real matters of resource
production and distribution and social organization should be determined by
market forces.)
Equipped with this perverse understanding of democracy, neoliberals like
Friedman had no qualms over the military overthrow of Chile's democratically
elected Allende government in 1973, because Allende was interfering with
business control of Chilean society. After fifteen years of often brutal and
savage dictatorship - all in the name of the democratic free market - formal
democracy was restored in 1989 with a constitution that made it vastly more
difficult (if not impossible) for the citizenry to challenge the
business-military domination of Chilean society. That is neoliberal democracy
in a nutshell: trivial debate over minor issues by parties that basically
pursue the same pro-business policies regardless of formal differences and
campaign debate. Democracy is permissible as long as the control of business
is off-limits to popular deliberation or change; i.e., so long as it isn't
democracy.
Neoliberal democracy therefore has an important and necessary byproduct - a
depoliticized citizenry marked by apathy and cynicism. If electoral democracy
affects little of social life, it is irrational to devote much attention to
it; in the United States, the spawning ground of neoliberal democracy, voter
turnout in the 1998 congressional elections was a record low, with just
one-third of eligible voters going to the polls. Although occasionally
generating concern from those established parties like the U.S. Democratic
Party that tend to attract the votes of the dispossessed, low voter turnout
tends to be accepted and encouraged by the powers that be as a very good thing
since nonvoters are, not surprisingly, disproportionately found among the poor
and working class. Policies that quickly could increase voter interest and
participation rates are stymied before ever getting into the public arena. In
the United States, for example, the two main business-dominated parties, with
the support of the corporate community, have refused to reform laws - some of
which they put on the boos - making it virtually impossible to create new
political parties (that might appeal to non-business interests) and let them
be effective. Although there is marked and frequently observed dissatisfaction
with the Republicans and Democrats, electoral politics is one area where
notions of competition and free choice have little meaning. In some respects,
the caliber of debate and choice in neoliberal elections tends to be closer to
that of the one-party communist state than that of a genuine democracy.
But this barely indicates neoliberalism's pernicious implications for a
civic-centered political culture. On one hand, the social inequality generated
by neoliberal policies undermines any effort to realize the legal equality
necessary to make democracy credible. Large corporations have resources to
influence media and overwhelm the political process, and do so accordingly. In
U.S. electoral politics, for just one example, the richest one-quarter of one
percent of Americans make 80 percent of all individual political contributions
and corporations outspend labor by a margin of ten to one. Under neoliberalism
this all makes sense; elections then reflect market principles, with
contributions being equated with investments. As a result, it reinforces the
irrelevance of electoral politics to most people and assures the maintenance
of unquestioned corporate rule.
On the other hand, to be effective, democracy requires that people feel a
connection to their fellow citizens, and that this connection manifests itself
though a variety of nonmarket organizations and institutions. A vibrant
political culture needs community groups, libraries, public schools,
neighborhood organizations, cooperatives, public meeting places, voluntary
associations, and trade unions to provide ways for citizens to meet,
communicate, and interact with their fellow citizens. Neoliberal democracy,
with its notion of the market uber alles, takes dead aim at this sector.
Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it
produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged
individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless.
In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine
participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet,
and will be for the foreseeable future. It is fitting that Noam Chomsky is the
leading intellectual figure in the world today in the battle for democracy and
against neoliberalism. In the 1960s, Chomsky was a prominent U.S. critic of
the Vietnam war and, more broadly, became perhaps the most trenchant analyst
of the ways U.S. foreign policy undermines democracy, quashes human rights,
and promotes the interests of the wealthy few. In the 1970s, Chomsky (along
with his co-author Edward S. Herman) began researching the ways the U.S. news
media serve elite interests and undermine the capacity of the citizenry to
actually rule their lives in a democratic fashion. Their 1988 book,
Manufacturing Consent, remains the starting point for any serious inquiry into
news media performance.
Throughout these years Chomsky, who could be characterized as an anarchist
or, perhaps more accurately, a libertarian socialist, was a vocal, principled,
and consistent democratic opponent and critic of Communist and Leninist
political states and parties. He educated countless people, including myself,
that democracy was a non-negotiable cornerstone of any postcapitalist society
worth living in or fighting for. At the same time, he has demonstrated the
absurdity of equating capitalism with democracy, or thinking that capitalist
societies, even under the best of circumstances, will ever open access to
information or decision-making beyond the most narrow and controlled
possibilities. I doubt any author, aside from perhaps George Orwell, has
approached Chomsky in systematically skewering the hypocrisy of rulers and
ideologues in both Communist and capitalist societies as they claim that
theirs is the only form of true democracy available to humanity.
In the 1990s, all these strands of Chomsky's political work - from
anti-imperialism and critical media analysis to writings on democracy and the
labor movement - have come together, culminating in work like Profit Over
People, about democracy and the neoliberal threat. Chomsky has done much to
reinvigorate an understanding of the social requirements for democracy,
drawing upon the ancient Greeks as well as the leading thinkers of democratic
revolutions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As he makes clear, it
is impossible to be a proponent of participatory democracy and at the same
time a champion of capitalism or any other class-divided society. In assessing
the real historical struggles for democracy, Chomsky also reveals that
neoliberalism is hardly a new thing; it is merely the current version of the
battle for the wealthy few to circumscribe the political rights and civic
powers of the many.
Chomsky may also be the leading critic of the mythology of the natural
"free" market, that cheery hymn that is pounded into our heads about how the
economy is competitive, rational, efficient, and fair. As Chomsky points out,
markets are almost never competitive. Most of the economy is dominated by
massive corporations with tremendous control over their markets and which
therefore face precious little competition of the sort described in economics
textbooks and politicians' speeches. Moreover, corporations themselves are
effectively totalitarian organizations, operating along nondemocratic lines.
That our economy is centered around such institutions severely compromises our
ability to have a democratic society.
The mythology of the free market also submits that governments are
inefficient institutions that should be limited, so as not to hurt the magic
of the natural laissez faire market. In fact, as Chomsky emphasizes,
governments are central to the modern capitalist system. They lavishly
subsidize corporations and work to advance corporate interests on numerous
fronts. The same corporations that exult in neoliberal ideology are in fact
often hypocritical: they want and expect governments to funnel tax dollars to
them, and to protect their markets from competition for them, but they want to
be assured that governments will not tax them or work supportively on behalf
of non-business interests, especially the poor and working class. Governments
are bigger than ever, but under neoliberalism they have far less pretense to
addressing non-corporate interests.
Nowhere is the centrality of governments and policymaking more apparent than
in the emergence of the global market economy. What is presented by
pro-business ideologues as the natural expansion of free markets across
borders is, in fact, quite the opposite. Globalization is the result of
powerful governments, especially that of the United States, pushing trade
deals and other accords down the throats of the world's people to make it
easier for corporations and the wealthy to dominate the economies of nations
around the world without having obligations to the peoples of those nations.
Nowhere is the process more apparent than in the creation of the World Trade
Organization in the early 1990s and, now, in the secret deliberations on
behalf of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI).
Indeed, it is the inability to have honest and candid discussions and
debates about neoliberalism in the United States and elsewhere that is one of
its most striking features. Chomsky's critique of the neoliberal order is
effectively off-limits to mainstream analysis despite its empirical strength
and because of its commitment to democratic values. Here, Chomsky's analysis
of the doctrinal system in capitalist democracies is useful. The corporate
news media, the PR industry, the academic ideologues, and the intellectual
culture writ large play the central role of providing the "necessary
illusions" to make this unpalatable situation appear rational, benevolent, and
necessary (if not necessarily desirable). As Chomsky hastens to point out,
this is no formal conspiracy by powerful interests; it doesn't have to be.
Through a variety of institutional mechanisms, signals are sent to
intellectuals, pundits, and journalists, pushing toward seeing the status quo
as the best of all possible worlds, and away from challenging those who
benefit from that status quo. Chomsky's work is a direct call for democratic
activists to remake our media system so it can be opened up to anticorporate,
antineoliberal perspectives and inquiry. It is also a challenge to all
intellectuals, or at least those who express a commitment to democracy, to
take a long, hard look in the mirror and to ask themselves in whose interests,
and for what values, do they do their work.
Chomsky's description of the neoliberal/corporate hold over our economy,
polity, journalism, and culture is so powerful and overwhelming that for some
readers it can produce a sense of resignation. In our demoralized political
times, a few may go a step further and conclude that we are enmeshed in this
regressive system because, alas, humanity is simply incapable of creating a
more humane, egalitarian, and democratic social order.
In fact, Chomsky's greatest contribution may well be his insistence upon the
fundamental democratic inclinations of the world's peoples, and the
revolutionary potential implicit in those impulses. The best evidence of this
possibility is the extent to which corporate forces go to prevent genuine
political democracy from being established. The world's rulers understand
implicitly that theirs is a system established to suit the needs of the few,
not the many, and that the many therefore cannot ever be permitted to question
and alter corporate rule. Even in the hobbled democracies that do exist, the
corporate community works incessantly to see that important issues like the
MAI are never publicly debated. And the business community spends a fortune
bankrolling a PR apparatus to convince Americans that this is the best of all
possible worlds. The time to worry about the possibility of social change for
the better, by this logic, will be when the corporate community abandons PR
and buying elections, permits a representative media, and is comfortable
establishing a genuinely egalitarian participatory democracy because it no
longer fears the power of the many. But there is no reason to think that day
will ever come.
Neoliberalism's loudest message is that there is no alternative to the
status quo, and that humanity has reached its highest level. Chomsky points
out that there have been several other periods designated as the "end of
history" in the past. In the 1920s and 1950s, for example, U.S. elites claimed
that the system was working and that mass quiescence reflected widespread
satisfaction with the status quo. Events shortly thereafter highlighted the
silliness of those beliefs. I suspect that as soon as democratic forces record
a few tangible victories the blood will return to their veins, and talk of no
possible hope for change will go the same route as all previous elite
fantasies about their glorious rule being enshrined for a millennium.
The notion that no superior alternative to the status quo exists is more
farfetched today than ever, in this era when there are mind-boggling
technologies for bettering the human condition. It is true that it remains
unclear how we might establish a viable, free, and humane post-capitalist
order; the very notion has a utopian air about it. But every advance in
history, from ending slavery and establishing democracy to ending formal
colonialism, has at some point had to conquer the notion that it was
impossible to do because it had never been done before. As Chomsky points out,
organized political activism is responsible for the degree of democracy we
have today, for universal adult suffrage, for women's rights, for trade
unions, for civil rights, for the freedoms we do enjoy. Even if the notion of
a post-capitalist society seems unattainable, we know that human political
activity can make the world we live in vastly more humane. As we get to that
point, perhaps we will again be able to think in terms of building a political
economy based on principles of cooperation, equality, self-government, and
individual freedom.
Until then, the struggle for social change is not a hypothetical issue. The
current neoliberal order has generated massive political and economic crises
from east Asia to eastern Europe and Latin America. The quality of life in the
developed nations of Europe, Japan, and North America is fragile and the
societies are in considerable turmoil. Tremendous upheaval is in the cards for
the coming years and decades. There is considerable doubt about the outcome of
that upheaval, however, and little reason to think it will lead automatically
to a democratic and humane resolution. That will be determined by how we, the
people, organize, respond, and act. As Chomsky says, if you act like there is
no possibility of change for the better, you guarantee that there will be no
change for the better. The choice is ours, the choice is yours.
Robert W. McChesney teaches communication at the University of Illinois. His
newest book is Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious
Times (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999). This article
first appeared as the introduction to Noam Chomsky's Profit Over People (New
York: Seven Stories Press, 1999).
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