The obvious one, in a market system, in a really functioning one, whoever's making the decisions doesn't pay attention to what are called externalities, effects on others. I sell you a car, if our eyes are open we'll make a good deal for ourselves but we're not asking how it's going to affect her [over there.] It will, there'll be more congestion, gas prices will go up, there will be environmental effects and that multiplies over the whole population. Well, that's very serious.
Noam ChomskyIn fact, what were called the socialist countries in Eastern Europe were the most anti-socialist systems in the world. Workers had more rights in the United States and England than they had in Russia, and it was somehow still called socialism.
Noam ChomskyThe syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretationand a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.
Noam ChomskyAnyone can be a moral individual, concerned with human rights and problems; but only a college professor, a trained expert, can solve technical problems by 'sophisticated' methods. Ergo, it is only problems of the latter sort that are important or real.
Noam ChomskyI don't see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that's almost inconceivable.
Noam ChomskyI don't feel that there is anything deep in the political culture that prevents "educating the masses." I'm old enough to recall vividly the high level of culture, general and political, among first-generation working people during the Great Depression. Workers' education was lively and effective, union-based - mostly the vigorous rising labor movement, reviving from the ashes of the 1920s. I've often seen independent and impressive initiatives in working-class and poor and deprived communities today.
Noam Chomsky