Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at MIT, spoke to Chris Hedges, host of Contact, about his new book Requiem for the American Dream. In it, the intellectual outlined ten ways in which Western elites have managed to concentrate power in their hands over several decades. This creates the appearance of liberalism, but, in fact, ordinary people do not decide anything.
According to Noam Chomsky, in the early 1970s, there was a so-called neoliberal shift in Western countries. This means that decision-making in society has begun to shift from the public to the so-called free market. Neoliberalism began to replace liberalism.
“This is essentially a policy aimed at privatization, reducing the role of government institutions, deregulating, protecting and encouraging the growth of financial institutions. Ideologically, such steps are called strengthening of freedoms, but in reality they are strengthening of tyranny,”Chomsky said.
Decision-making in the state has shifted from the political sphere, over which ordinary citizens have influence, to the corporate sector. And over the years, monopolies and oligopolies, or private tyrannies, as the professor calls them, began to play the main role.
Thus, the lives of workers have deteriorated significantly, and because of free trade agreements, workers around the world are forced to compete with each other. Workers in Europe and America are far behind the Chinese, who are willing to work for a pittance in difficult conditions.
According to Chomsky, this insecurity of workers in the United States was intentional.
“Thus (increased insecurity. - RT) wages are kept at a low level, workers are constantly asking for social assistance, inflation is low,” the professor said, explaining that globally, for the country's economy, this is a positive factor.
The workers were placed in such conditions that they are simply afraid to fight for their rights. Trade unions are being destroyed. This is part of what economists have called the “great calm” that has come about as a result of the success of neoliberal programs. So, before the collapse of the economic system in 2007, real wages were lower than in 1979, when the neoliberal experiment began.
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