Recently, Noam Chomsky turned 90, and Current Affairs reminded us of this wonderful section from an interview from 1984, on propaganda and indoctrination:

To use the term “double standard” for our approach is to really abuse the term; it goes beyond anything that you could call a double standard. It’s almost a kind of fanaticism. It’s a reflection of the extreme success of indoctrination in American society. You don’t have any other society where the educated classes, at least, are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a propaganda system.

Let’s talk about that propaganda system. You’ve referred many times to the “state propaganda apparatus.” What role do the media play in promoting and serving state interests?

One should be clear that in referring to the “state propaganda apparatus” here I do not mean that it comes from the state. Our system differs strikingly from, say, the Soviet Union, where the propaganda system literally is directed and controlled by the state. We’re not a society which has a Ministry of Truth which produces doctrine which everyone then must obey at a severe cost if you don’t. Our system works much differently and much more effectively. It’s a privatized system of propaganda, including the media, the journals of opinion and in general including the broad participation of the articulate intelligentsia, the educated part of the population. The more articulate elements of those groups, the ones who have access to the media, including intellectual journals, and who essentially control the educational apparatus, they should properly be referred to as a class of “commissars.” That’s their essential function: to design, propagate and create a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent understanding and analysis of institutional structures and their functions. That’s their essential social role.

I don’t mean to say they’re conscious of it. In fact, they’re not. In a really effective system of indoctrination the commissars are quite unaware of it and believe that they themselves are independent, critical minds. If you investigate the actual productions of the media, the journals of opinion, etc., you find exactly that: a very narrow, very tightly constrained and grotesquely inaccurate account of the world in which we live.

This is quite relevant in Economics, where monetary theorists play the role of “commissars”. The part on being conscious of it is debatable, but I will leave that for another time!

Happy birthday, Noam Chomsky!

I came across this fine Jeremy Corbyn Speech in which he explicitly talks about the ideology of the ruling class which is utterly deflationary to output. It’s from 2010, and shows how clear his understanding of the way the world works, is. It is extremely rare and in my opinion, no politician has come even remotely close to it.

Some excerpts, link below.

I was at the European Social Forum last week and we heard what is happening in Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in France and other places where the government is imposing wage cuts, where thousands tens of thousands are you losing their jobs and the media say well it’s all to do with the psychology of the Greek people, it’s all to do with the manana concept in Spain, it’s all to do with the wine in Portugal.

Utter tosh!

…

The economic medicine that’s being imposed on those countries now is exactly the same economic medicine that’s been imposed on sub-saharan African and Latin American and South Asian countries for decades where they’ve been forced to pay an unpayable debt, where they’ve been forced to privatize public services, where they’d be forced to destroy all the gains they thought they’d made on independence from colonies.

Well that whole philosophy is now coming home to roost.

Are we going to accept this economic orthodoxy that creates poverty creates misery and creates division or are we going to fight back against it? Are we going to stand up for the values of the labor movement for socialism, for peace, for justice, for the needs of education, housing and everything else?

… They, the world’s bankers, International Monetary Fund, European Union, they are utterly United in what they want. Utterly united in deflation, suppressing the economy and creating unemployment. Utterly united in that. We need to be equally united not just across every union in this country, in every community in this country and every social demand in this country but all across Europe and internationally to show that the voice of those campaigning for peace, justice and socialism will not be silenced by these people. We will win through we will defeat them and we will win that decency that we want in this world.

Jeremy Corbyn, Durham Miners Gala, 2010

You can watch the video on YouTube.