Noam Chomsky: Go back to the 50s when I got here. I was in a research lab. In fact, right down below this, theres a research lab for electronics. It was 100 percent funded by the Pentagon. What it was doing was creating the modern IT technology culture in a high-tech economy on public funds: the internet, computers, microelectronics. It was all coming out of public funds. Thirty years later, it began to be profitable. Then it was handed over to private enterprise. The first marketable small computer was Apple in 1977. Thats after about 30 years of research and development mainly in the state sector, places like this, of public expense. In a capitalist system, theres a principle that if you invest, especially in a long-term risky investment, if something comes out of it, youre supposed to get the profit. It doesnt happen in our system. The taxpayer paid for it and gets nothing - assumes all of the risk, gets zero. The money goes into the pockets of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who are ripping off decades of work in the public sector Now, go back to your question and comment. Had the people in the 1950s had been asked, Do you want your taxes to go to development of the kind of technology that will allow your grandchildren to have iPads or do you want your taxes to go into a livable society? Health care, education, places where people can have decent lives? And so on. What would people have decided? Well, whatever the answer was, they didnt have an answer because they never had a choice. They were told, You have to pay taxes for the Pentagon because the Russians are coming and the Chinese are coming. And it turns out that they were paying their taxes so that their grandchildren could have an iPod and Steve Jobs could get rich. Well, thats the way the whole society works, but you dont read about that. Go back to The Responsibility of Intellectuals. How often do you read this? Its a glaring, obvious fact. You can find it. There are a couple of people around the fringes who read about it. But its not the kind of thing thats presented to the public. The economics department here - a good department - they dont even write about it. They produce abstract models of free markets, which have very limited relation to the reality right under their nose.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 20:32:41 +0000
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