Chomsky excerpts

"When the doctrines of contemporary “neoliberalism” were crafted in early 19th century England, the message to the population was clear and simple: under capitalism, you have no rights, apart from what your labor will bring in the market. A person without independent wealth “has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is,” Malthus proclaimed in highly influential work. It is a “great evil” and violation of “natural liberty” to mislead the poor into believing that they have further rights, David Ricardo held, outraged at this assault against the principles of economic science, which are as immutable as the principles of gravitation, he held, and against the moral principles on which the science rests, no less exalted. The message is simple. You have a free choice: the labor market, the workhouse prison, death, or go somewhere else — as was possible when vast spaces were opening thanks to the extermination and expulsion of indigenous populations.12

The doctrines are being revived, but under radically different conditions. Ricardo’s “science” was founded on the principle that capital is more or less immobile and labor highly mobile. We are enjoined today to worship the consequences of Ricardo’s science, despite the fact that the assumptions on which they are based have been reversed: capital is highly mobile, and labor virtually immobile — libertarian conservatives lead the way in rejecting Adam Smith’s principle that “free circulation of labor” is a cornerstone of free trade, in keeping with their contempt for markets (except for the weak). Other assumptions of the “science” are so radically false that the whole topic is hard to take seriously: among them, the abstraction from severe market distortions resulting from the centrally-managed transactions of the huge corporate structures that dominate the international economy, and the reliance on the “nanny state” that has been such a decisive factor in economic growth and the specific forms it has taken throughout history, and remains so.

The science originated as a weapon of class warfare, has been adapted for similar ends over the years. It is returning to its origins today as the prospects for rollback improve, narrowing substantially the choices for the growing population who lack rights by doctrinal decision — termed “science” or “natural law.”

The surplus population has to be kept in ignorance, but also controlled. The problem is faced directly in the Third World domains that have long been dominated by the West and therefore reflect the guiding values of the masters most clearly: here favored devices include death squads, “social cleansing,” torture, and other techniques of proven effectiveness. At home, more civilized methods are (still) required. The superfluous population is to be cooped up within urban slums that increasingly resemble concentration camps, or if that fails, sent to prisons, the counterpart in a richer society to the death squads we train and support in our domains. Under Reaganite enthusiasts for state power, the number of prisoners in the U.S. almost tripled, leaving our main competitors, South Africa and Russia, well behind — though Russia has just caught up, now that they are mastering the values of their American tutors.13

The bipartisan crime bill should facilitate the process of controlling the unwanted population, with its vast new expenditures for prisons, sharp increase in the death penalty, and much harsher sentencing procedures. Again, this is an acceptable form of state action, serving the social function of population control and providing yet another Keynesian stimulus to the economy: to the construction industry, lawyers, security personnel, and so on. The public subsidy of the “crime industry” is coming to approach the scale of the Pentagon, though it is less favored: its benefits are not so sharply skewed towards the wealthy.''

"In the 1980s, the U.S. and Britain took the lead in the “triumph of conservatism,” accelerating processes already underway. They therefore lead the developed world in impoverishment and degradation, inequality, homelessness, destruction of family values, hunger, and other values of contemporary “conservatism.” A study by the British charitable organization Action for Children, founded in 1869 with the Queen as patron, concludes that “the gap between rich and poor is as wide today as it was in Victorian times,” and in some ways worse. A million and a half families cannot afford to provide their children with “the diet fed to a similar child living in a Bethnal Green Workhouse in 1876,” a “sad reflection on British society.” Britain has proportionately more children living in poverty than any European country apart from Portugal and Ireland, and the proportion is rising faster than any country in Europe, though the U.S. still holds the lead.

Britain has also not yet matched the achievements of the doctrinal system crafted by our highly class conscious business community, with the assistance of those whom the lively 19th century working class press called “the bought priesthood” of respectable intellectuals. The fact that there is “class conflict” and that the rich and powerful mobilize state power to serve their interests, a truism to Adam Smith, remains within popular consciousness. The 1994 Gallup Political and Economic Index gives interesting information about popular attitudes on these matters (I put aside small numbers, 3%-10%, expressing no opinion). The study reports that over four-fifths of the population think “there is a class struggle in this country” and that “too little” is being done “to level up the classes.” Two-thirds “disagree strongly” with the statement “Britain is a classless society.” Nine out of ten feel that the Government does “too little” for “the working class,” four-fifths that it does “too much” for “the well-to-do,” and over 90% that it does “too little” for “people living on small pensions/income.” Half also think it does “too little” for “the middle classes.” Three-fourths “think of Britain as divided into haves and have-nots,” and a third describe themselves as among “the haves.”

Noam Chomsky (Rollback)