Noam Chomsky On Neoliberalism

Radio Open Source has an interview with NC where he is asked among other things what is neoliberalism.

Q. You famously said about neoliberalism that it’s not new, and it’s not liberal. Do you want to define it for people who just landed from Mars?

NC: Well, it’s a kind of a mixture. The rhetoric is free market, individual choice and so on. That’s the rhetoric. The reality is rather different. It’s individualism and market for you but state power for me. So take a look, say, at the actual institutions like the World Trade Organization or NAFTA, what are called the “free trade agreements.” The media calls them “free trade agreements.” They’re not free trade agreements. They’re investor rights agreements. They’re highly protectionist. They provide unprecedented protection backed by state power for major conglomerates like the pharmaceutical industry, media conglomerates, others.

And about social democrats, like the ones in Germany with their Hartz 4 concept.

 Q. Social democracy…

NC: Social, yeah. That’s sometimes called “the golden age of modern capitalism.” That changed in the 70s and with the onset of the neoliberal era that we’ve been living in since. And if you ask yourself what this era is, it’s crucial principle is undermining mechanisms of social solidarity and mutual support and popular engagement in determining policy.

It’s not called that. What it’s called is “freedom,” but “freedom” means a subordination to the decisions of concentrated, unaccountable, private power. That’s what it means. The institutions of governance–or other kinds of association that could allow people to participate in decision making–those are systematically weakened. Margaret Thatcher said it rather nicely in her aphorism about “there is no society, only individuals.”

She was actually unconsciously no doubt paraphrasing Marx, who in his condemnation of the repression in France said, “The repression is turning society into a sack of potatoes, just individuals, an amorphous mass can’t act together.” That was a condemnation; for Thatcher, It’s an ideal, and that’s neoliberalism. 

We destroy or at least undermine the governing mechanisms that might in which people at least in principle can participate to the extent that society’s Democratic. So weaken them, undermine unions, other forms of association, leave a sack of potatoes and meanwhile transfer decisions to unaccountable private power all in the rhetoric of freedom.

Well what does that do? The one barrier to the threat of destruction is an engaged public, an informed engaged public acting together to develop means to confront the threat and respond to it, and that’s systematically weakened consciously. I mean, back to the 1970s we’ve probably talked about this. There was a lot of elite discussion across the spectrum about the danger of too much democracy and the need to have what was called more “moderation” in democracy, for people to become more passive and apathetic and not to disturb things too much, and that’s what the neoliberal programs do. So put it all together and what do you have? A perfect storm. (emphasizes are mine)

Full interview here