Friday, October 26, 2012

Noam Chomsky does Adam Smith

"Who Owns the World?"
Actually, a good answer to this was given years ago by Adam Smith, someone we’re supposed to worship but not read. He was—a little subversive when you read him sometimes. He was referring to the most powerful country in the world in his day and, of course, the country that interested him, namely, England. And he pointed out that in England the principal architects of policy are those who own the country: the merchants and manufacturers in his day. And he said they make sure to design policy so that their own interests are most peculiarly attended to. Their interests are served by policy, however grievous the impact on others, including the people of England.
But he was an old-fashioned conservative with moral principles, so he added the victims of England, the victims of the—what he called the "savage injustice of the Europeans," particularly in India. Well, he had no illusions about the owners, so, to quote him again, "All for ourselves and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." It was true then; it’s true now.
AlterNet
Chomsky: America Acts Like It Owns the World, While Endangering the Planet from Nuclear War and Climate Change
Noam Chomsky | Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The American Govt. is now a lethal danger to its own citizens - premptive strikes; the judicial system neutered. (You get the ticket before you are caught speeding, or just in case.)!

In the 'land of the free' this went down with its citizens with hardly a murmur??????? Where is the free press (guardians of freedom) ....?

Signing away American liberty: 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'.

Far out ....!

Anonymous said...

# Just thinking - if the Aus. Govt. were insane enough to legislate pre-emptive strikes on their own citizens, 'Aunty Jack' (lives on in every aussie breast) would take them out the back and 'rip their bloody arms off'. And they know it!

So, what is that - I don't think its a difference in national character?