Through much of its history, the US did not have high inequality as compared with Europe. Less so, in fact. That began to change in the industrial age, reaching a peak in 1928, after the forceful destruction of the labor movement and crushing of independent thought. Largely as a result of labor mobilization, inequality declined during the Great Depression, a tendency continuing through the great growth period of regulated capitalism in the early postwar decades.
Noam ChomskyNobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.
Noam ChomskyThis crazy ban on the seven states, where we can't accept immigrants, almost every analyst points out the obvious: It just increases the threat of terror. It lays the basis for terror. It's just like the atrocities in Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo. They're the most fabulous recruiting techniques for Al Qaeda and ISIS.
Noam ChomskyIt is ... necessary to whip up the population in support of foreign adventures. Usually the population is pacifist, just like they were during the First World War. The public sees no reason to get involved in foreign adventures, killing, and torture. So you have to whip them up. And to whip them up you have to frighten them.
Noam ChomskyThere has to be spiritual transformation among the masses, who have to be willing to recognize that their oppression is not a law of nature. That's what Latin American bishops were doing when they formed base communities. They were trying to get peasants to recognize that you can take your fate into your own hands. That's what the civil-rights movement did here. That's what the women's movement did.
Noam Chomsky