From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Mon Jan 24 2005 - 06:05:41 GMT
Hi Sam, welcome home...
On 21 Jan 2005 at 14:10, Sam Norton wrote:
Finished reading Understanding Power on my holiday, and I thought I'd
let you have some feedback.
1. He's a very interesting and stimulating read. I'm glad he's around
to provide his perspective, and I shall make sure I read more of him
in future (I have Deterring Democracy and Manufacturing Consent on my
shelves, which are next in line).
msh says:
Glad to hear it. :-)
sam:
2. I think he's particularly good at exhuming otherwise ignored
malefactions by the US Government; I 'm thinking of Central America
in particular, but it does go more widely. So as someone who doesn't
like state power in general, he's good at providing ammunition for
the dispelling of some illusions.
msh asks:
Just curious, are you someone who DOES like state power in general?
And do you recognize that his criticism of state power applies as
well to the UK?
sam:
3. Last unambiguously positive point: I think he's good on media
bias, and with some quibbles (some of which he accepted in UP) I
think his "Propaganda model" is basically right.
msh:
Me too.
sam:
4. I think that he is significantly wrong about capitalism. In
particular I think his analysis is a) incoherent and naïve and b)
parochial to the US.
msh asks:
Funny, incoherent and naïve are not words I would normally associate
with Chomsky. But let's put that aside. Your a and b comments are
confusing. Is his analysis of capitalism incoherent and naïve as it
applies to capitalism in the US? Or is it correct as it applies
parochially to the US, but somehow incoherent and naïve as it applies
to the rest of the world?
sam:
The incoherence/naivete shows itself in his attribution of motives to
businesses. On p391 of my copy he describes the "institutional
necessity" that corporations work under as "to the extent that you
have a competitive system based on private control over resources,
you are forced to maximise short term gain"; on p394, as part of an
analysis of how scientific research is corrupted by business
patronage, he says "big corporations understand that if they want to
keep making profits five years from now, there'd better be some
science funded today". Both of those can't be true.
msh says:
Why not? Five years is not long term. Chomsky's idea of concern
for the long-term is is concern for what kind of world you leave your
kids, and their kids. I don't see how these two brief passages show
his analysis as incoherent or naïve.
sam:
Now he's being colloquial in the book, which makes it more readable,
but this was just one instance of a prevalent confusion in his
perspective, ie that businessmen are rapacious short-term capitalists
- except for when they're rapacious long-term capitalists.
msh says:
The point is, capitalists are rapacious. I guess I will need more
direct quotes to evaluate your position.
sam:
I just find his comments on business processes weak, as compared to
his foreign policy analysis.
msh says:
This particular book, UP, is not meant to provide a complete analysis
of business processes, except insofar as business decisions assist in
the maintenance and expansion of entrenched power.
sam:
b. More specifically I think that his criticisms have most force when
applied to an Anglo-Saxon publicly listed company. I don't think that
they're applicable to European companies/ social models, and they're
definitely not applicable to Asian companies. The cheibatsu/keiretsu
model, for example, is geared around the maintenance or increase of
long term market share. That's very different to the maximisation of
the bottom line.
msh says:
Well, let's avoid the jargon. In fact, let's not even try to analyze
the flavors of Capitalism. Let's drop that label from our
discussion. Let's see if we can come to some agreement about whether
or not some existing profit-driven socio-economic system offers the
highest quality way of organizing an economy. Name the country you
most admire in this regard, and I'll analyze the comparative
economic conditions of the people who live in that country, and we'll
see if we can arrive at some agreement about "what is good and what
is not good" about that economic system.
sam:
5. Part of the underlying disagreement I have with his analysis rests
upon his anthropology. Our friend Platt often makes the point that a
strongly left-wing analysis minimises the role of individual choice,
and in particular, it has the logical consequence of being forced to
argue that most people (are forced to) choose the wrong things -
msh says:
Most people are given little or no choice at all. The mistake that
our friend Platt makes, and now, sadly, I see that you agree with, is
that you view the world from your privileged, pure luck of birth
position and say, "Well, it works for me. I've made the right
choices." What bad choice was made by a starving three-year-old?
What bad choice was made by the 70,000 Iraqis murdered in the recent
USUK invasion and occupation of that country? Are you seriously
suggesting that we live in a world where everyone has a full range of
options regarding what they do in order to survive? That nothing is
brutally forced upon them? Say it ain't so, Sam.
sam:
6. One of the most important disagreements flows from this: I think
that he systematically underestimates the importance of individual
choice and leadership.
msh says:
See above.
sam:
So he says "Nobody does anything on their own", and to the extent
that he is describing the importance of social organisation he is
right. But I think there is a necessary role for spokesmen who can
articulate a vision which inspires the movement as a whole, and that
no amount of organisation can make up for the lack of such a leader.
msh says:
It's the idea that there is ONE indispensable leader that is
simplistic, and is anathema to any anarchist. This idea of "a
leader" appeals to people who have already convinced themselves that
some sort of power hierarchy is necessary to accomplish anything.
You might want to read Orwell's Homage To Catalonia to see how the
Spanish anarchists were able to accomplish great things without
leaders, titles, salutes, and pay grades. At least until they were
destroyed by BOTH the fascists and the communists.
sam:
(I don't think I'm arguing for a Fuhrerprinzip here, just that
"without a vision the people perish").
msh says:
People can have a vision without a hierarchy of power. See above.
sam:
7. Finally, he is admittedly focussed on the US, and to the extent
that "the great majority of state sponsored terrorism" is conducted
by the USG that's fair enough. But it reinforces the parochial point
I made above - I'm not sure how far his wider analysis and social
perspective is translatable across the oceans.
msh says:
It translates quite nicely eastward across the North Atlantic, thank
you very much. The US is currently the top dog when it comes to
state-sponsored terrorism, but this is an accident of wealth and
history. No powerful state, including the UK, is innocent in this
regard.
Best,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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