America is a very fundamentalist society. It's like Iran in the degree of fanatic religious commitment.

If you're teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are.

In ideal form of social control is an atomised collection of individuals focused on their own narrow concern, lacking the kinds of organisations in which they can gain information, develop and articulate their thoughts, and act constructively to achieve common ends.

I'm pretty much out of popular culture altogether.

There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws.

I think that the real tragedy of Greece - aside of the savagery of European bureaucracy, Brussels bureaucracy and northern banks, which was really savage - is that the Greek crisis didn't have to erupt. It could have been taken care of pretty easily at the very beginning. But it happened and Syriza came into office with a declared commitment to combat it, and in fact as I recall they actually called a referendum, which horrified Europe.

People are dangerous. If they're able to involve themselves in issues that matter, they may change the distribution of power, to the detriment of those who are rich and privileged.