Chomsky and Pollin: Just Transition Can Stop Earth From Becoming Uninhabitable

Climate change is “making our planet uninhabitable,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in late March. Indeed, the threats of the impending climate crisis have become very tangible, and the world’s top scientists are warning that the Earth is likely to pass a dangerous temperature threshold very soon unless we act now. Nonetheless, the gap between what is happening to the planet and what is needed in terms of climate action is growing rather than decreasing because, as Noam Chomsky points out in the joint interview with Robert Pollin that follows, “this is how the system works,” unless collective action forces those in power to change course. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly evident that a just transition is pivotal to transformative climate action for workers, communities, and all regions of the world. Pollin shows what a just transition entails and why it is so important.

Noam Chomsky is institute professor emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and laureate professor of linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. One of the world’s most cited scholars and a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, Chomsky has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S. foreign policy, and world affairs. His latest books are Illegitimate Authority: Facing the Challenges of Our Time (with C. J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books, 2023); The Secrets of Words (with Andrew Moro; MIT Press, 2022); The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power (with Vijay Prashad; The New Press, 2022); and The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Social Change (with C. J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books, 2021). Robert Pollin is distinguished professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. One of the world’s leading progressive economists, Pollin has published scores of books and academic articles on jobs and macroeconomics, labor markets, wages and poverty, and environmental and energy economics. He was selected by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the 100 “Leading Global Thinkers for 2013.” Chomsky and Pollin are coauthors of Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with C. J. Polychroniou: Verso 2020) and are now working together on a new book on the climate emergency.

C. J. Polychroniou: Noam, it has been clear for decades that human activities are having a huge impact on the physical environment in many critical ways, and that we are the cause of global warming, with the burning of fossil fuels accounting for nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It is true, of course, that some concrete actions have been taken over the past three decades or so to stop environmental degradation and reduce carbon emissions, but the gap between what is happening to the planet, which includes a sharp decline in biodiversity, and what is needed in terms of environmental and climate action seems to be growing rather than decreasing. Indeed, one could even argue that our handling of the climate crisis is flawed as evidenced by the growing emphasis on carbon capture technologies rather than doing away with fossil fuels. Another revealing example of governments constantly advancing highly incomplete courses of action with regard to climate change is the adoption of a historic new law from governments across the European Union today toward deforestation. European governments have agreed to ban the import of goods linked to deforestation, but the new deforestation law does not oblige European banks or investors to stop funding deforestation. So, if it is the link between policy making and economic interests that prevents us from implementing fully comprehensive strategies to stop environmental destruction and prevent global warming from becoming worse, what ways are there out of this conundrum?

Noam Chomsky: Two years ago, John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy on climate, reported that he’d been “told by scientists that 50% of the reductions we have to make (to get to near zero emissions) by 2050 or 2045 are going to come from technologies we don’t yet have.”

While intended to strike a note of optimism, this forecast was perhaps a little less than reassuring.

A few months later, as U.S. representative at the COP27 Glasgow international conference on climate, Kerry was still more optimistic. He reported exuberantly that now the market is on our side, as asset managers pledge tens of trillions of dollars to overcoming the impending catastrophe.

A qualification was noted by political economist Adam Tooze: The pledge holds as long as the investments are profitable and “de-risked” by guarantees from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The “technologies we don’t yet have” remain technologies we don’t yet have or can realistically envision. Some progress has been reported, but it is very far from what would be required to deal with the impending crisis.

The present danger is that what must be done to eliminate fossil fuel use is being set aside on the pretext that some remote technological breakthrough will ride to the rescue. Meanwhile we can continue to burn up the Earth and pour even more cash into the bulging profits of the fossil fuel industry, now so overflowing that they don’t know what to do with their incredible riches.

The industry of course welcomes the pretext. It might even spare some cash for carbon capture — maybe as much as a rounding error for their accountants — as long as the usual qualification holds: funded by the friendly taxpayer and de-risked. Meanwhile more federal lands are opened up for fossil fuel production, more gifts are provided to them like the 300-mile long Mountain Valley Pipeline – Manchin’s condition for not tanking the global economy — and other such amenities.

In the background of the euphoria about asset managers and technological miracles lies the Stimson Doctrine, enunciated by Secretary of War Henry Stimson 80 years ago as he was overseeing the huge mobilization for war: “If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won’t work.”

That’s how the system works — as long as we let it.

In the early stages of the war, business was reluctant to accept the bargain. Most hated the reformist New Deal and did not want to cooperate with a government not entirely devoted to their interests. But when the spigot was opened, such reservations disappeared. The government poured huge resources into war production. Keeping to the Stimson Doctrine, policies were structured to ensure great profits for business contractors. That laid the basis for what was much later criticized as the military-industrial complex but might more accurately be described as the not-so-hidden system of U.S. industrial policy, the device by which the public funds the emerging high-tech economy: A highly inefficient system, as elaborated by Seymour Melman and others, but an easy way to gain congressional approval for what approved rhetoric calls a marvelous system of free enterprise that helps the munificent “job creators” labor day and night for the benefit of all.

Eisenhower apparently at first wanted to use the term “military-industrial-congressional complex.” That would have been appropriate. Why does Congress go along? One major reason is provided by political economist Thomas Ferguson’s well-confirmed “investment theory of politics.” In a current updating, once again corroborating the theory, he summarizes the crucial conclusion simply:

The dominating fact about American politics is its money-driven character. In our world, both major political parties are first of all bank accounts, which have to be filled for anything to happen. Voters can drive politics, but not easily. Unless they are prepared to invest very substantial time and effort into making the system work or organizations that they control will – such as unions or genuine grassroots political organizations – only political appeals that can be financed go live in the system, unless (of course) as helpful diversions.

That insight into “our world” also offers advice as to ways out of the conundrum. And also, ways to confront the reigning Stimson Doctrine, which is a virtual epitaph for the human species in the context of the awesome and imminent threat of heating the earth beyond the level of recovery.

It is suicidal to look away from the gap between what is happening to the planet, which includes a sharp decline in biodiversity, and what is needed in terms of environmental and climate action seems to be growing rather than decreasing. When we do look, we find a mixed picture.

One critical case is the Amazon Forest. Its central role in global ecology is well understood. It is self-sustaining, but if damaged can shift rapidly to irreversible decline, with catastrophic effects for the region, and the entire world.

During Bolsonaro’s term in Brazil, agribusiness, mining and logging enterprises were unleashed in an assault on the forest and the Indigenous societies that have long lived there in harmony with nature. To take just one measure, “Deforestation across Brazil soared between 2019 and 2022 under the then president, Jair Bolsonaro, with cattle ranching being the number one cause.” More than 800 million trees were destroyed for beef export. The main researchers, the Indigenous peoples expert Bruno Pereira and his journalist collaborator Dom Phillips, were murdered while conducting their work in the Amazon.

Brazilian scientists report that some sectors of the forest have already passed the tipping point, transitioning to savannah, permanent destruction.

Lula’s election in 2022 offered hope to limit, perhaps end, the destruction. As minister of the environment, he appointed Marina Silva, a courageous and dedicated environmentalist, with a truly impressive record. But “the masters of mankind” who own the economy (in Adam Smith’s phrase) never rest. Their congressional supporters are chipping away at Silva’s jurisdiction.

Those who hope to save the world are not resting either. Brazilian ecologists are seeking ways to support Indigenous communities that have been the guardians of the forest, and to extend their reach.

The struggle continues.

It continues on other fronts as well. Some good news from China is summarized in the Washington Post. Reviewing many studies, the Post reports that China is far in the lead globally in “churn[ing] out batteries, solar panels and other key ingredients of the energy transition” as China has “moved aggressively on renewables,” leaving the U.S. far behind — very far behind in per capita terms, the relevant figure. China is “likely on track to meet its goals of peaking its emissions before 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2060. It installed a record amount of solar power capacity last year — and this year alone is set to install more than the entire existing solar capacity of the United States.”

I’ve been mispresenting the article, however. The Post does not come to praise China, but to condemn it. Its praise is for the U.S., which, from its lofty perch on transitioning to renewable energy is seeking ways “to pressure China to help avert climate catastrophe” — the headline of the article. The article warns ominously that China is responsible for more than double U.S. emissions; or to translate from Newspeak, China is far behind the U.S. in per capita emissions, again the relevant figure.

The article discusses the means under consideration to induce China to join us in our noble pursuit of saving the climate, omitting, however, the most important of these: “Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Tuesday that the U.S. will rally allies in order to mount pressure on the world’s second-largest economy. ‘If we really want to slow down China’s rate of innovation, we need to work with Europe,’ Raimondo said.”

We have to make sure to contain China’s innovations in producing the advanced technology that might save the world. The prime method, openly announced and highly praised, is to deny China access to the computer chips that are necessary for advanced technology.

At the same time, Raimondo warned China that the U.S. “‘won’t tolerate’ China’s effective ban on purchases of [Idaho corporation] Micron Technology memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such ‘economic coercion’.”

More insight into the famed “rules-based international order” and its subtle design, as the world burns.

Polychroniou: India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous country, and its population is certain to continue to grow in the decades ahead. Do we have to reduce global population to save the planet?

Chomsky: The global population should be reduced, perhaps considerably. Fortunately, there is a method to achieve this result, one that is furthermore humane and should be undertaken irrespective of the goal of saving the planet: education of women. That’s been shown to lead to sharp population reduction in both rich countries and poor.

Education of women should be supplemented by other humane methods, such as those prescribed in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was initiated by the U.S., but that was in a different era, when New Deal social democracy still had not been undermined by the bitter business assault that finally reached its goals with Reagan. By then, the socioeconomic provisions of the declaration, including the ones just quoted, were ridiculed as “a letter to Santa Claus” (Reagan’s UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick). Kirkpatrick was echoed by Paula Dobriansky, the official in charge of human rights and humanitarian affairs in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Dobriansky sought to dispel “the myth [that] ‘economic and social rights’ [of the declaration] constitute human rights.” These myths are “little more than an empty vessel into which vague hopes and inchoate expectations can be poured.” They are “preposterous” and even a “dangerous incitement,” in the words of Bush ambassador Morris Abram when he was casting the sole vote against the UN Right to Development, which closely paraphrased the socioeconomic provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

By then dismissal of the letter to Santa Claus had become largely bipartisan, though the GOP has maintained the lead in savagery, as we can see right now in the farcical doings in Congress.

There is a lot more to say about this, but for another time.

Polychroniou: Bob, a “just transition” is seen as essential for advancing ambitious climate change policies. Why is a “just transition” so crucial for effective climate action, and how exactly does it affect average citizens?

Robert Pollin: The term “just transition” has been used in various ways. I will first use it to refer to measures to support workers and communities that are presently dependent on the fossil fuel industry for their incomes and well-being. I will then consider below a second use of the term, considering the ways in which high-income economies need to support the Green New Deal programs advanced by low-income economies.

With respect to the first issue of supporting workers and communities that are now dependent on the fossil fuel industry, the broader context is very important. As we have discussed many times before, investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy to build a global zero-emissions energy infrastructure will be a major engine of overall job creation. That is, overall, saving the planet is very good for jobs. This is, of course, the opposite of the fulminations we hear from likes of Donald Trump, but also much more widely across the political spectrum. The vaguely respectable version of this position is that phasing out fossil fuel consumption might well be beneficial on environmental grounds, but it still going to be a job killer. And everyone other than rich coastal elites care more about jobs than the environment.

Here is how this position can actually resonate. While the clean energy transition is indeed a major engine of job creation overall, it is still also true that phasing out the fossil fuel industry will inevitably mean losses for workers and communities that now depend on the fossil fuel industry. In the absence of generous just transition policies, these workers and communities will indeed be facing layoffs, falling incomes and declining public sector budgets to support schools, health clinics and public safety. Should we be surprised that, without hard commitments to generous just transition policies, a good share of these workers and communities will vehemently oppose the fossil fuel industry phase out?

A viable just transition program for these workers and communities needs to build from the framework first advanced by Tony Mazzocchi, the late great labor movement and environmental leader. Mazzocchi was the person who came up with the term “just transition” in the first place. In considering the phasing out of nuclear plants and related facilities, Mazzocchi wrote in 1993: “Paying people to make the transition from one kind of economy to another is not welfare. Those who work with toxic materials on a daily basis … in order to provide the world with the energy and the materials it needs deserve a helping hand to make a new start in life.”

Starting from this Mazzocchi perspective, we still need to establish what specifically would constitute a generous set of just transition policies. For the workers, I would argue that, as a first principle, the aim of such policies should be simply, to truly protect them against major losses in their living standards. To accomplish this, the critical components of a just transition policy should include three types of guarantees for the workers: 1) a guaranteed new job; 2) a guaranteed level of pay with their new job that is at least comparable to their previous fossil fuel industry job; and 3) a guarantee that their pensions will remain intact regardless of whether their employers’ business operations are phased out. Just transition policies should also support displaced workers in the areas of job search, retraining and relocation. These forms of support are important but should be understood as supplementary. This is because, in themselves, they are not capable of protecting workers against major losses in their living standards resulting from the fossil fuel industry phase out.

Among major high-income economies, just transition policies for workers have recently been enacted within the European Union, Germany and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. Such initiatives are still mainly at the proposal stages in the U.S., Japan, Canada. But even in the cases of Germany, the U.K. and the European Union, these policies remain mostly limited to the areas of job search, retraining and relocation support. In other words, in none of these cases have policies been enacted that provide workers with the guarantees they need.

The most substantive commitments to just transition policies have been advanced by the European Union, within the framework of the European Green Deal. Thus, Frans Timmermans, executive vice president of the European Commission, has stated that that “We must show solidarity with the most affected regions in Europe, such as coal mining regions, and others, to make sure the Green Deal gets everyone’s full support and has a chance to become a reality.”

In that spirit, the European Commission established a Just Transition Fund in January 2020 to advance beyond broad principles into meaningful concrete policy commitments. Nevertheless, to date, the scope of these programs and the level of funding provided are not close to adequate to achieve the goals set out by Vice President Timmerman, of “making sure the Green Deal gets everyone’s full support.” In particular, the categories of support for displaced workers under the Just Transition Fund are limited to skill development, retraining and job search assistance. The fund does not include any provision for the most critical areas of support for workers who will be facing displacement — that is, the guarantees with respect to reemployment, wage levels and pensions.

To obtain a sense of what a much more robust just transition program would look like, I have developed, with coworkers, illustrative programs for eight different U.S. states, for the U.S. economy overall, and, most recently, for South Korea. For now, it might be useful to focus on the case of West Virginia, since it is one of the most fossil fuel dependent state economies in the U.S. As such, West Virginia provides a highly challenging environment in which to mount a generous just transition program.

It is critical that the just transition policies for West Virginia would be one component of an overall Green New Deal program for the state. Under the overall program, fossil fuel production will fall by 50 percent as of 2030 and clean energy investments will make up the difference in the state’s overall energy supply. We estimate that the clean energy investments in West Virginia will generate an average of about 25,000 jobs throughout the state through 2030.

What about the job losses from the state’s fossil fuel industry phase out? There are presently roughly 40,000 people employed in West Virginia’s fossil fuel industry and ancillary sectors, comprising about 5 percent of the overall West Virginia labor force. But it is critical to recognize that all 40,000 workers are not going to lose their jobs right away. Rather, about 20,000 jobs will be phased out by 2030 as fossil fuel production is cut by 50 percent. This averages to a bit more than 2,000 job losses per year. However, we also estimate that about 600 of the workers holding these jobs will voluntarily retire every year. This means that the number of workers who will face job displacement every year is in the range of 1,400, or 0.2 percent of the state’s labor force. This is while the state is also generating about 25,000 new jobs through its clean energy transformation.

In short, there will be an abundance of new job opportunities for the 1,400 workers facing displacement every year. We estimate that to guarantee these workers comparable pay levels and intact pensions, along with retraining, job search and relocation support, as needed, will cost about $42,000 per worker per year. This totals to an average of about $143 million per year. This is equal to about 0.2 percent of West Virginia’s overall level of economic activity (GDP). In short, generous just transition policies for all displaced fossil fuel workers will definitely not create major cost burdens, even in such a heavily fossil fuel dependent state as West Virginia.

For the other seven U.S. states that we have examined, the costs of comparable just transition programs range between 0.001 and 0.02 percent of the state’s GDP. For the U.S. economy overall, the just transition program’s costs would total to about 0.015 percent of GDP — i.e. one-tenth to one-twentieth of what the West Virginia program would cost relative to the overall economy’s size. In short, providing workers with robust just transition support amounts to barely a blip within the U.S. economy. It is almost certainly the case that similarly robust just transition programs in other high-income economies would generate comparable results.

Now let’s consider communities’ transitions. In fact, communities that are now dependent on the fossil fuel industry will face formidable challenges adjusting to the decline of the industry. At the same time, it is critical that, as I described for the case of West Virginia, the decline of the fossil fuel industry will be occurring in conjunction with the rapid expansion of the clean energy economy. This will provide a basic supportive foundation for advancing effective community transition policies.

One important example has been the integration of clean renewable energy sources — primarily wind and solar power — into Alaska’s long-standing and extensive energy microgrid infrastructure. A microgrid is a localized power grid. Since the 1960s, these grids have been heavily reliant on diesel generators. But since 2005, renewable energy has become an increasingly significant alternative to diesel fuel. As of 2015, the Alaska Center for Energy and Power described this development as follows:

Over the past decade, investment in renewable energy generation has increased dramatically to meet a desire for energy independence and reduce the cost of delivered power. Today, more than 70 of Alaska’s microgrids, which represent approximately 12 percent of renewably powered microgrids in the world, incorporate grid-scale renewable generation, including small hydro, wind, geothermal, solar and biomass.

Another important development, primarily thus far in Australia, Germany and the U.S. is with creating pumped storage hydropower sites in now defunct coal mines. A Wall Street Journal article from late 2022 reports as follows:

Mining operations that contributed to greenhouse-gas emissions could soon help to cut them. Around the world, companies are seeking to repurpose old mines as renewable-energy generators using a century-old technology known as pumped-storage hydropower. The technology, already part of the energy mix in many countries, works like a giant battery, with water and gravity as the energy source. Water is pumped uphill to a reservoir when energy supply is plentiful. It is released and flows downhill through turbines generating hydroelectric power when electricity demand is high or there are shortages of other types of power. Finally, the water is captured to be pumped uphill again in a repeated cycle. Surface and underground mines hold potential as reservoirs for the water, and could be developed with a lower environmental impact and upfront costs than building such plants from scratch, experts say.

More broadly, there is no shortage of opportunities for revitalizing fossil fuel dependent communities through developing innovative clean energy projects in these very communities. To its credit, the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act — which is primarily about financing clean energy investment projects in the U.S. — is providing large-scale funding for such projects. Naturally, the congressional Republicans tried to kill such funding through the farcical and now mercifully concluded debt ceiling debate. Fortunately, they failed.

Polychroniou: If moving away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy is the only way forward for the survival of the planet, climate action must be ultimately coordinated on a global level. What does global just transition entail, and what sort of new relationships of power need to be created since the world remains divided by huge differences between rich countries and poor countries?

Pollin: Let’s first be clear that there is no such thing as a viable climate stabilization program that applies only to rich countries. All countries, at all levels of development, need to drive their emissions to zero by 2050. It is true that, at present, China, the U.S. and the European Union together account for 52 percent of all global CO2 emissions. But that also means that if, miraculously, emissions in China, the U.S. and the European Union were all to fall to zero tomorrow, we would still be only a bit more than halfway to driving global emissions to zero. Moreover, if large, fast-growing developing economies like India and Indonesia continue to power their growth through a fossil fuel-dominant energy infrastructure, we will not cut global emissions at all by 2050 relative to today, even if emissions in China, the U.S. and the European Union were to indeed fall to zero. The point is that every place does matter if we really are going to hit the target of zero emissions by no later than 2050.

Thus, recognizing that a Green New Deal program has to be global in scope, the worker-and-community just transitions that I have described above for high-income economies applies equally, if not more so, for low-income economies. For starters, the clean energy investment transition programs will be a major engine of job creation in low-income economies just as it is for high-income economies. For example, research that I have done with coworkers finds that creating a clean energy economy in places like India, Indonesia and South Africa will generate between two-to-three times more jobs for a given spending level than maintaining these economies’ existing fossil fuel-dominant energy infrastructure. At the same time, phasing out fossil fuels in these economies will still also entail losses for fossil fuel industry dependent workers and communities. These workers and communities will require just transition support comparable to what we have described above for the U.S. and other high-income economies.

We still need to ask the question: who pays for the Green New Deal in low-income countries? As a baseline matter of planetary survival, we can start by recognizing that somebody has to pay. How then should we establish fair and workable standards as to who should pay, how much they should pay and via what financing channels?

Two initial points are critical. First, starting with the early phases of industrial development under capitalism, what are now the globe’s high-income countries, including the U.S., western Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia, are primarily responsible for loading up the atmosphere with greenhouse gas emissions and causing climate change. They therefore should be primarily responsible for financing the global Green New Deal. And second, moving from this historical perspective to the present, high-income people in all countries and regions have massively larger carbon footprints today than everyone else. As documented in a 2020 Oxfam study, the average carbon footprint of people in the richest 1 percent of the global population, for example, is 35 times greater than the average emissions level for the overall global population.

Thus, by any minimal standard of fairness, high-income countries and high-income people, no matter where they live, need to cover most of the upfront costs of a global clean energy transformation. At the same time, let’s also remember that these upfront costs are investments. They will pay for themselves over time, and then some, by delivering high efficiency and abundant renewable energy at average prices that are already lower today than fossil fuels and nuclear, and falling.

But it is still necessary to mobilize investment funds into low-income economies right now at both a speed and scale that are unprecedented. We are already seeing that, despite various pronouncements and pledges, private capitalists are not about to accomplish this on their own. As Noam described above, private capitalists are rather waiting for their clean energy investment prospects in developing economies to become “de-risked” by public entities. That means, to summarize Noam, that the private investors get big subsidies from public entities to undertake investments, but then pocket all the profits when the investments pay off. The public entities handing out the subsidies can include their own rich country governments, the governments of the low-income countries where they might invest, or international public investment institutions like the World Bank or International Monetary Fund.

It is also the case that the rich country governments have not been fulfilling the pledges they made initially in 2009 to provide $100 billion in annual climate-related support for poor countries. Between 2015-2020, 35 high-income countries reported providing an overall average of $36 billion per year, only one-third of the $100 billion annual pledge. Moreover, even this low-end figure overstates the actual level of climate finance rich countries are providing, given that countries can claim virtually anything as constituting “climate finance.” Thus, according to a Reuters story from June 1, 2023:

Italy helped a retailer open chocolate and gelato stores across Asia. The United States offered a loan for a coastal hotel expansion in Haiti. Belgium backed the film La Tierra Roja, a love story set in the Argentine rainforest. And Japan is financing a new coal plant in Bangladesh and an airport expansion in Egypt….

Although a coal plant, a hotel, chocolate stores, a movie and an airport expansion don’t seem like efforts to combat global warming, nothing prevented the governments that funded them from reporting them as such to the United Nations and counting them toward their giving total.

It’s obvious that a serious system of monitoring is one necessary step toward moving significant financial resources into legitimate climate projects in developing economies. But in addition, it will also be critical that public investment banks in low-income countries serve as primary conduits in moving specific investment projects forward in their economies. The public investment banks should be managing the financing of clean energy projects in both the public and private sectors, along with mixed public/private projects. We cannot know what the best mix should be between public and private ownership with any specific project in any given low-income country (or for that matter, any high-income country). There is no point in being dogmatic and pretending otherwise. But, in all situations, we need to operate under the recognition that it is not reasonable to allow private firms to profit at rates that they have gotten away with under 40 years of neoliberalism. If private firms are happy to accept large public subsidies to support their clean energy investments, they then also need to be willing to accept limits on their profitability. Such regulatory principles are, for example, routine in the private U.S. electric utility sector. Similar standards can be easily established in all regions of the globe.

Current US policies toward China are outrageous: Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky Interviewed by Global Times

June 6, 2023. Global Times.

Editor’s Note:

At 94 years old, Noam Chomsky (Chomsky) is as vocal as ever. As a renowned American linguist and public intellectual, he constantly appears on the media talking about US foreign policy with his strong objection to war. In a recent interview with Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen, Chomsky shed light on US problems, China-US relations and the war in Ukraine.

GT: You are a linguist, but you have been involved in politics since youth. From Vietnam War to the current crisis in Russia and Ukraine, you are constantly making comments on the political situation and criticizing US foreign policy and the legitimacy of political authority in the US. This makes you a controversial figure in the US. What makes you so vocal?

Chomsky: It goes back to childhood. I wrote the first article in 1939, it was about the fall of Spain to Francisco Franco, and the spread of fascism over Europe. So why would I be critical of crimes? It’s our responsibility, and is an elementary moral principle. We honor and respect people who criticize and condemn the crimes of their own state, not people who join in criticizing somebody else where it doesn’t make any difference. It’s an elementary principle that we focus our attention on what can make a difference. 

GT: What are American strengths now?

Chomsky: There are many strengths. The US for one thing has been an unusually free society. That’s one of the things that makes it easier to analyze and sometimes criticize American foreign policy than other countries.

The US once had the indigenous population who was slaughtered and expelled. It has empty territory, rich resources, a homogeneous population. The advantages are based on horrendous crimes. One is virtual extermination of the rich, indigenous cultures and societies. The other is the most hideous system of slavery that ever existed in human history, which is the basis for a lot of the country’s wealth. 

In 1945, the US took over the mantle of world dominance from Britain. Britain likewise had centuries of horrifying, horrendous crimes as it built the empire. As the US took over, it was going to do the same thing. That’s what it means to be a hegemonic power. In 1947, the war department, which had existed since colonial times, was changed to the defense department. You didn’t have to read Orwell to know that means from now on, or it isn’t going to be any defense, just aggression. That’s what it means to adopt the mantle of world leadership. 

GT: And what problems does the US encounter now?

Chomsky: The security the US has is astonishing. It controls the hemisphere and both oceans. But there are internal problems, the country is tearing itself to shreds and social order is collapsing. The statistics are shocking. Just take the last 40 years which have been devastating for the society ever since Reagan. There’s one major study from the Rand Corporation, a quasi governmental resource corporation that mostly works for the Pentagon. They did a study on what they call the transfer of wealth from the lower 90 percent of income level to the top 1 percent over the 40 years since Reagan, roughly $50 trillion, it’s not small change.

It went along with destruction of the social order, collapsing of the limited benefit and welfare systems. Even if you look at things like incarceration rates, you go back to the 1970s, the United States was pretty much Europe. Now, it’s 5 to 10 times. 

That’s the effect of the last 40 years of what’s called neoliberalism. But it doesn’t have much to do with what’s the definition of neoliberalism. When you look up neoliberalism in the dictionary or an economics book, they’ll say it’s a commitment to free markets and small government. Policy is nothing like that. Government radically intervenes in markets, constant bailout of financial crashes, subsidies to major industries. Government continues to grow. Neoliberalism is just plain class war, has almost nothing to do with its dictionary definition.

The effects of that are severe, not just in the US. It’s all over Europe and much of the world which had somewhat similar policies, a lot of anger, resentment, distrust of institutions. For good reasons, they don’t do anything for it. And it has led to very dangerous consequences. It’s a hurdle terrain for demagogues of the Donald Trump variety who can come in and say, I’ll be your savior while he stabs you in the back. It’s not a new phenomenon and takes me back to childhood in fact, unfortunately.

GT: What went wrong in the US’ understanding of China?

Chomsky: Nothing. They understand it very well. There was actually an article recently in Australia, by Paul Keating, former prime minister and well-known international relations specialist. The article was about Australia. He says, why does Australia find China a threat? And he went through the various reasons. He finally ended up by saying the threat of China is that it exists. For the US, that’s even more of a threat. It exists, doesn’t follow orders and goes in its own path. There are plenty of crimes that you can mention, but that’s not what bothers anyone. The US tolerates and supports much greater crimes.

You can bring up the crimes for doctoral reasons, but that’s not the reason. The reason is, as Paul Keating said, it’s there, follows its own path. It’s not like Europe. The US imposes sanctions on some countries. Europe doesn’t like them, but they obey. China doesn’t obey, and that’s not tolerable. If you’re running the world, everybody has to obey.

The current policies towards China are outrageous. Secretary of Commerce, one of the sort of doves in the administration, Gina Raimondo once said that we have to enlist Europe in our campaign to make sure that China doesn’t innovate. What kind of idiocy is that? We know China is way ahead of the rest of the world in renewable energy. So do we want to stop its innovation that creates the kinds of advanced technology which might save the world? It’s beyond shocking, and there’s no secret about it. This is publicly declared that it’s committed to prevent China from economically developing. That’s the opposite of what has to be done if we want to survive. China and the US have to cooperate, otherwise both will be destroyed.

GT: In an article on The Australian last year titled “A war with China or Russia means nice knowing you, goodbye civilisation,” you wrote that a war against both Russia and China was “beyond insanity.” Why did you say so? Why is the US engaged in such an insane move?

Chomsky: As I said, insanity. You can’t have a war with either of them and expect to survive. You can’t have wars between major powers. Even the country that carried out a first strike would itself be destroyed, even there was no retaliation, just by nuclear winter it’s unthinkable. They must work together. This is the 2018 strategic policy, which was expanded under Biden. It’s beyond insanity. However, if you look at history, states have not been interested in security, you can show that over and over. They’re interested in power and the power of the dominant sectors within them. This goes back, as far as you look. They constantly sacrifice security. If you mean security of the population, that’s not a high priority. It’s unfortunately all too easy to demonstrate this.

So right now, their policy is aimed at maintaining US primacy and global order, the primacy of US-based multinationals. In fact, there is an interesting case right now, where usually the US government follows the policies advocated by the major corporate centers who have an overwhelming role in the government. But there are exceptions. And this is one of them. The US economic powers are not in favor of the confrontation. And in fact, some very interesting studies have come out in the Asian press about what’s happening. Asia Times recently had a detailed economic analysis of trade flows between China, Vietnam, Mexico, and the US. It turns out that trade between the US and China has declined, but exports from China to the countries I mentioned have sharply increased and exports from them to the US have increased, which strongly suggests that US corporations have just found a way to make an end run around the trade sanctions, which they don’t like. They don’t want to lose the lucrative Chinese market.

It’s not the only case. There are a number of interesting cases where state power and corporate power conflict. State is looking at longer-range interests. Corporations are looking at short-term profit. They sometimes conflict. There are others. They tell you a lot about how policy is actually carried out. They’re not studied very much. It’s not the kind of topic that specialists like to look at, but it’s important ones. 

If you look at what’s happening in the world, the China-based investment and development and diplomacy programs are expanding. It’s causing a lot of concern in high US diplomatic circles. Most recently in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has been in the pocket of the US ever since the country was founded. It’s now become a dialogue partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The United Arab Emirates, the second largest producer, too. The Iran-Saudi agreement was brokered by China as a major tag on US policy. These developments are part of a changing world order.

GT: As you predict, how will the Russia-Ukraine crisis end? Will it end in a way that the US and NATO desire?

Chomsky: Let’s just look at the options and predict. Either there will be a diplomatic settlement, or there won’t be. If there’s no diplomatic settlement, two possibilities. Either they’ll be a stalemate in which they grind each other down, one side or the other will capitulate. Which side is going to capitulate? It’s not going to be Russia. Russia has ultimate weapons if it’s ever under threat, it can always escalate without limit. Is Ukraine going to capitulate? No, as long as the US carries out the war. The US also has ultimate weapons. So the only answer that is not horrific is a diplomatic settlement. 

The US at the moment doesn’t want that. It claims that we have to continue the war to weaken Russia as they put Ukraine in a better negotiating position. But why should Ukraine be in a better negotiating position as the war goes on? Even if it were, does it make any difference? If Russia were to face defeat, it can escalate without limits.

The only one hope, I think, is the Chinese program that was proposed a couple of weeks ago and was dismissed by the US, but it shouldn’t have been. That doesn’t answer everything by any means, but it’s based on the principle, the integrity of every territory must be preserved, including Ukraine, as Chinese officials emphasized. That’s a strong principle. It seems to me a starting point, not the end. 

Diplomacy is going to be very difficult. The longer the war goes on, the harder it gets. There were diplomatic possibilities in February 2022, right before the invasion, something on the order of the Minsk agreements, which are not just local agreements, they were supported by the UN Security Council unanimously. So that’s a high level international support. Basic outline was Ukraine would not join NATO, but have a neutral status like Austria during the Cold War. It would have some sort of federal structure may be like Switzerland or Belgium in which the eastern Russia-oriented regions with a degree of autonomy. 

That was a possible solution up until the outbreak of the war. Actually, the one statesman in the world who was pressing for it was Emmanuel Macron. Of course he’s vilified for it, but he was doing the right thing.

GT: What do you think of the concept of the China-proposed human community with a shared future?

Chomsky: That’s exactly what we must do. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Mikhail Gorbachev proposed what he called a common European home from Lisbon to Vladivostok with no military alliances, no victors and defeated, common efforts to create a kind of social democratic future that would lead this Eurasian common home to be in close relations with China to its east.

There are repeated points in history where there are ways to move towards what you just described there. Our interests block them. Populations should be pressing for them and can make progress in that direction. Furthermore, they have to do it, or we’re all going to be destroyed. There are no boundaries to environmental destruction. There are no boundaries to likely pandemics, no boundaries to nuclear war. So there must be accommodation.

New developments at Opensource.com admin Tue, 06/06/2023 - 13:30

4 Comments

These comments are closed.

Combater a pobreza e a exclusão social enquanto contribui para a capacitação profissional dos detentos. Esses são alguns dos objetivos de um projeto de hortas verticais recém-inaugurado no estabelecimento prisional de Torres Novas, no Centro de Portugal. Leia mais (06/05/2023 - 12h02)

Join WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy in the 57th episode of the WordPress Briefing as she discusses the Contributor Mentorship Program to help increase the success of new contributors over time.

💾

Edward Chancellor considers why central bankers have lost the plot with inflation.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/we-need-to-talk-about-inflation-stephen-d-king-book-review-edward-chancellor/

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

💾

Pense em 10 fotos que te marcaram nos últimos 10 anos no cenário político brasileiro. Provavelmente algumas delas foram clicadas pela convidada do Pauta Pública 74: a fotojornalista Gabriela Biló, que hoje trabalha na Folha de S. Paulo. Há mais de 10 anos fotografando presidentes e momentos emblemáticos do país, Biló tem muita história para contar. Nesse episódio ela fala sobre os bastidores do fotojornalismo em Brasília, sobre a importância de estar no lugar certo na hora certa, sobre o machismo que ainda ronda a profissão e sobre seu novo livro, lançado pela editora Fósforo. “A Verdade Vos Libertará” traz fotos desde as jornadas de junho de 2013 à invasão em Brasília em janeiro de 2023, formando um mosaico dessa década intensa.Não esqueça de seguir e curtir o Pauta Pública nas plataformas de áudio.



Saiba que você pode ser aliado da Agência Pública e colaborar com esse trabalho. Saiba mais em apoie.apublica.org ou faça um pix de qualquer valor para contato@apublica.org.
Contamos com seu apoio!

💾

This week, Norma Clarke unpicks the complicated business of family legacy in Polly Toynbee’s memoir; and Nicholas Clee immerses himself in Paul Murray’s multi-generational saga of Irish small-town life.

'An Uneasy Inheritance: My Family and Other Radicals’ by Polly Toynbee

’The Bee Sting’ by Paul Murray

Produced by Charlotte Pardy

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

💾

This week’s episode was recorded live at the Hay Festival, where David was joined on stage by David Miliband and Helen Thompson to discuss the past, present and future of American power. What explains American global dominance? Can it be justified? How will it be replaced? They discuss the fall-out of the Ukraine war, the threat posed by China, the challenge of climate change and the possibility of a second Trump presidency and ask – is the American century over?

David Miliband writes about the consequences of the Ukraine war in Foreign Affairs.

Hear more from Helen Thompson on the These Times podcast from UnHerd. 

Follow Past Present Future on Twitter @PPFIdeas

Sign up to LRB Close Readings:

Directly in Apple: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.supportingcast.fm

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

💾

Chomsky: Europe May Face Decline, Deindustrialization by Staying in ‘US-Dominated System’

Noam Chomsky Interviewed by Sputnik 

May 31, 2023. Sputnik. 

Europe will experience a likely decline and deindustrialization if it chooses to stay within the system dominated by the United States, renowned US academic and philosopher Noam Chomsky told Sputnik.

“Europe has a major decision to make: Will it stay within the US-dominated system, facing likely decline and even, some predict, deindustrialization?” Chomsky said. “Or will it accommodate in some fashion to its natural economic partner to the East, rich in mineral resources that Europe needs and a gateway to the lucrative China market?”

Chomsky noted that these questions have arisen in one form or another since World War II.

When asked whether he thinks we are on the threshold of a new world order and if the Ukrainian conflict can be a catalyst for major changes, Chomsky said: “There is much controversy about the shape of the emerging world system.”

Chomsky explained the basic alternatives are a multipolar United Nations-based system or a unipolar “rules-based” system, where the United States sets the rules and as the record reveals, disregards them when it chooses to.

“There are many uncertainties as to how these tensions will be resolved,” he said.

Earlier in May, US investor Jim Rogers told Sputnik that political unions like the European Union have never survived in history and this bloc is already experiencing problems.

The renowned US academic and philosopher further told Sputnik that he is hopeful Europe will be inclined toward the vision of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ‘From Lisbon to Vladivostok’ before it gets worse.

“I also think there is considerable merit in Gorbachev’s proposal for a ‘common European home’ from Lisbon to Vladivostok with no military alliances and common efforts to move toward a social democratic future,” Chomsky said.

The United States chose to pursue the Atlanticist option, based on NATO, which has recently been expanded to the Indo-Pacific region in a Washington-led effort to enlist Europe in its confrontation with China, Chomsky said.

None of the actions taken by the successors of former US President George H.W. Bush in violation of the agreements between him and then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on NATO should have taken place, Chomsky said.

Chomsky noted that Bush and Gorbachev agreed that Germany should be unified and join NATO, but the military alliance should not extend “one inch to the East” of Germany.

However, Chomsky said Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton, violated the agreement, overriding the strong objections of high-level US diplomats and a wide range of political analysts, who warned that actions to expand NATO were reckless and provocative.

“His successors went further, also abrogating major arms control agreements that had significantly reduced the threat of war. None of these actions should have taken place, in my opinion,” Chomsky said.

💾

O governo de Portugal lançou um concurso, aberto a pesquisadores do mundo inteiro, para conceder dez bolsas de doutorado para apoiar a reconstrução do Museu Nacional, destruído em um incêndio de grandes proporções em setembro de 2018. Leia mais (05/30/2023 - 21h39)

Na década de 1990, depois de uma longa campanha por alimentos mais saudáveis nos EUA, o McDonald’s tomou uma decisão radical. Mudou a receita secreta das batatas fritas mais famosas do mundo. Por causa disso, muita gente não sabe o gosto das batatinhas originais que, segundo quem experimentou, eram infinitamente melhores.

Neste episódio, além de contar essa história, além de investigar as mais diversas possibilidades de batata frita, a gente tenta reproduzir a receita original com ajuda de um chef de alta gastronomia.

Mergulhe mais fundo

Episódio do podcast Revisionist History que inspirou nosso programa (em inglês).

Entrevistados do episódio

Maurício Lopes Filho

Professor do curso de gastronomia da Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie.

Nicolas Barbé

Chef de cozinha.

Ficha técnica do episódio

Pesquisa e reportagem: Ana Carolina Maciel e Matheus Marcolino.

Narração adicional: Priscila Pastre.

Mixagem de som: Vitor Coroa.

Trilha sonora tema: Paulo Gama.

Design das capas dos aplicativos e do site: Cláudia Furnari.

Direção, roteiro e edição: Tomás Chiaverini.

💾

O Toda Terça Festival, projeto de shows itinerantes do grupo teatral Zózima Trupe, encerra sua oitava edição nesta terça-feira (30), às 19h, com um show gratuito de Davi Sabbag, ex-integrante da Banda Uó. A apresentação acontece no interior de um onibus apelidado de "omnibus para todes", que passeia pela região central de São Paulo. Trajeto que começa na plataforma 0 (zero) do Terminal Urbano Parque Dom Pedro Segundo. Leia mais (05/30/2023 - 12h43)

Joe Moran explores the weird world of fandom.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/fans-michael-bond-book-review-joe-moran/

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

💾

Moradores de Lisboa que tenham uma assinatura mensal para a utilização de transportes públicos terão direito a aproveitar gratuitamente a rede de bicicletas compartilhadas da cidade. Leia mais (05/29/2023 - 23h59)

Noam Chomsky on Why This Is the Most Dangerous Point in Human History

Noam Chomsky Interviewed by C. J. Polychroniou

May 27, 2023. Common Dreams. 

We live in a world facing existential threats while extreme inequality is tearing our societies apart and democracy is in sharp decline. The U.S., meanwhile, is bent on maintaining global hegemony when international collaboration is urgently needed to address the planet’s numerous challenges.

In the interview that follows, Noam Chomsky, our greatest public intellectual alive, examines and analyses the state of the world with his usual brilliant insights, while explaining in the process why we are at the most dangerous point in human history and why nationalism, racism, and extremism are rearing their ugly heads all over the world today.

C. J. Polychroniou: Noam, you have said on numerous occasions that the world is at the most dangerous point in human history. Why do you think so? Are nuclear weapons more dangerous today than they were in the past? Is the surge in right-wing authoritarianism in recent years more dangerous than the rise and subsequent spread of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s? Or is it because of the climate crisis, which you have indeed said represents the biggest threat the world has ever faced. Can you explain in comparative terms why you think that the world is today significantly more dangerous than it used to be?

Noam Chomsky: The climate crisis is unique in human history and is getting more severe year by year. If major steps are not taken within the next few decades, the world is likely to reach a point of no return, facing decline to indescribable catastrophe. Nothing is certain, but this seems a far too plausible assessment.

Weapons systems steadily become more dangerous and more ominous. We have been surviving under a sword of Damocles since the bombing of Hiroshima. A few years later, 70 years ago, the U.S., then Russia, tested thermonuclear weapons, revealing that human intelligence had “advanced” to the capacity to destroy everything.

Operative questions have to do with the sociopolitical and cultural conditions that constrain their use. These came ominously close to breaking down in the 1962 missile crisis, described by Arthur Schlesinger as the most dangerous moment in world history, with reason, though we may soon reach that unspeakable moment again in Europe and Asia. The MAD system (mutually assured destruction) enabled a form of security, lunatic but perhaps the best short of the kind of social and cultural transformation that is still unfortunately only an aspiration.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the MAD system of security was undermined by President Bill Clinton’s aggressive triumphalism and the Bush II-Trump project of dismantling the laboriously constructed arms control regime. There’s an important recent study of these topics by Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne, as part of the background to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They review how Clinton initiated a new era of international affairs in which the “United States became a revolutionary force in world politics” by abandoning the “old diplomacy” and instituting its preferred revolutionary concept of global order.

The “old diplomacy” sought to maintain global order by “an understanding of an adversary’s interests and motives and an ability to make judicious compromises.” The new triumphant unilateralism sets as “a legitimate goal [for the U.S.] the alteration or eradication of those arrangements [internal to other countries] if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values.”

The word “professed” is crucial. It is commonly expunged from consciousness here, not elsewhere.

In the background lies the Clinton doctrine that the U.S. must be prepared to resort to force, multilaterally if we can, unilaterally if we must, to ensure vital interests and “uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources.”

The accompanying military doctrine has led to creation of a far more advanced nuclear weapons system that can only be understood as “a preemptive counterforce capability against Russia and China” (Rand Corporation)—a first-strike capacity, enhanced by Bush’s dismantling of the treaty that barred emplacement of anti-ballistic missile systems near an adversary’s borders. These systems are portrayed as defensive, but they are understood on all sides to be first-strike weapons.

These steps have significantly weakened the old system of mutual deterrence, leaving in its place greatly enhanced dangers.

How new these developments were, one might debate, but Schwarz and Layne make a strong case that this triumphant unilateralism and open contempt for the defeated enemy has been a significant factor in bringing major war to Europe with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the potential to escalate to terminal war.

No less ominous are developments in Asia. With strong bipartisan and media support, Washington is confronting China on both military and economic fronts. With Europe safely in its pocket thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. has been able to expand NATO to the Indo-Pacific region, thus enlisting Europe in its campaign to prevent China from developing—a program considered not just legitimate but highly praiseworthy. One of the administration doves, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, expressed the consensus lucidly: “If we really want to slow down China’s rate of innovation, we need to work with Europe.” It’s particularly important to keep China from developing sustainable energy, where it is far in the lead and should reach energy self-sufficiency by 2060 according to Goldman Sachs analysts. China is even threatening to make new breakthroughs in batteries that might help save the world from climate catastrophe.

Plainly a threat that must be contained, along with China’s insistence on the One-China policy for Taiwan that the U.S. also adopted 50 years ago and that has kept the peace for 50 years, but that Washington is now rescinding.There’s much more to add that reinforces this picture, matters we have discussed elsewhere.

It’s hard to say the words in this increasingly odd culture, but it’s close to truism that unless the U.S. and China find ways to accommodate, as great powers with conflicting interests often did in the past, we are all lost.

Historical analogies have their limits of course, but there are two pertinent ones that have repeatedly been adduced in this connection: The Concert of Europe established in 1815 and the Versailles treaty of 1919. The former is a prime example of the “Old Diplomacy.” The defeated aggressor (France) was incorporated into the new system of international order as an equal partner. That led to a century of relative peace. The Versailles treaty is a paradigm example of the “revolutionary” concept of global order instituted by the triumphalism of the ‘90s and its aftermath. Defeated Germany was not incorporated into the postwar international order but was severely punished and humiliated. We know where that led.

Currently, two concepts of world order are counterposed: the U.N. system and the “rules-based” system, correlating closely with multipolarity and unipolarity, the latter meaning U.S. dominance.

The U.S. and its allies (or “vassals” or “subimperial states” as they are sometimes called) reject the U.N. system and demand adherence to the rules-based system.The rest of the world generally supports the U.N. system and multipolarity.

The U.N. system is based on the U.N. Charter, the foundation of modern international law and the “supreme law of the land” in the U.S. under the U.S. Constitution, which elected officials are bound to obey. It has a serious defect: It rules out U.S. foreign policy. Its core principle bans “the threat or use of force” in international affairs, except in narrow circumstances unrelated to U.S. actions. It would be hard to find a U.S. postwar president who has not violated the U.S. Constitution, a topic of little interest, the record shows.

What is the preferred rules-based system? The answer depends on who sets the rules and determines when they should be obeyed. The answer is not obscure: the hegemonic power, which took the mantle of global dominance from Britain after World War II, greatly extending its scope.

One core foundation stone of the U.S.-dominated rules-based system is the World Trade Organization (WTO). We can ask, then, how the U.S. honors it.

As global hegemon, the U.S. is alone in capacity to impose sanctions. These are third-party sanctions that others must obey, or else. And they do obey, even when they strongly oppose the sanctions. One example is the U.S. sanctions designed to strangle Cuba. These are opposed by the whole world as we see from regular U.N. votes. But they are obeyed.

When Clinton instituted sanctions that were even more savage than before, the European Union called on the WTO to determine their legality. The U.S. angrily withdrew from the proceedings, rendering them null and void. There was a reason, explained by Clinton’s Commerce Secretary Stuart Eizenstat: “Mr. Eizenstat argued that Europe is challenging ‘three decades of American Cuba policy that goes back to the Kennedy Administration,’ and is aimed entirely at forcing a change of government in Havana.”

In short, Europe and the WTO have no competence to influence the long-standing U.S. campaign of terror and economic strangulation aimed at forcefully overthrowing the government of Cuba, so they should get lost. The sanctions prevail, and Europe must obey them—and does. A clear illustration of the nature of the rules-based order.

There are many others. Thus, the World Court ruled that U.S. freezing of Iranian assets is illegal. It scarcely caused a ripple.

That is understandable. Under the rules-based system, the global enforcer has no more reason to accede to International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgments than to decisions of the WTO. That much was established years ago. In 1986, the U.S. withdrew from ICJ jurisdiction when it condemned the U.S. for its terrorist war against Nicaragua and ordered it to pay reparations. The U.S. responded by escalating the war.

To mention another illustration of the rules-based system, the U.S. alone withdrew from the proceedings of the Tribunal considering Yugoslavia’s charges against NATO. It argued correctly that Yugoslavia had mentioned genocide, and the U.S. is self-exempted from the international treaty banning genocide.

It’s easy to continue. It’s also easy to understand why the U.S. rejects the U.N.-based system, which bans its foreign policy, and prefers a system in which it sets the rules and is free to rescind them when it wishes. There’s no need to discuss why the U.S. prefers a unipolar rather than multipolar order.

All of these considerations arise critically in consideration of global conflicts and threats to survival.

CJP: All societies have seen dramatic economic transformations over the past 50 years, with China leading the pack as it emerged in the course of just a few decades from an agrarian society into an industrial powerhouse, lifting in the process hundreds of millions out of poverty. But this is not to say that life is necessarily an improvement over the past. In the U.S., for instance, the quality of life has declined over the past decade and so has life satisfaction in the European Union. Are we at a stage where we are witnessing the decline of the West and the rise of the East? In either case, while many people seem to think that the rise of the far-right in Europe and the United States is related to perceptions about the decline of the West, the rise of the far-right is a global phenomenon, ranging from India and Brazil to Israel, Pakistan, and the Philippines. In fact, the alt-right has even found a comfortable home on China’s internet. So, what’s going on? Why are nationalism, racism, and extremism making such a huge comeback on the world stage at large?

NC: There is an interplay of many factors, some specific to particular societies, for example, the dismantling of secular democracy in India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pursues his project of establishing a harsh racist Hindu ethnocracy. That’s specific to India, though not without analogues elsewhere.

There are some factors that have fairly broad scope, and common consequences. One is the radical increase in inequality in much of the world as a consequence of the neoliberal policies emanating from the U.S. and U.K. and spreading beyond in various ways.

The facts are clear enough, particularly well-studied for the U.S. The Rand Corporation study we’ve discussed before estimated almost $50 trillion in wealth transferred from workers and the middle class—the lower 90% of income—to the top 1% during the neoliberal years. More information is provided in the work of Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, summarized lucidly by political economist Robert Brenner.

The basic conclusion is that through “the postwar boom, we actually had decreasing inequality and very limited income going to the top income brackets. For the whole period from the 1940s to the end of the 1970s, the top 1% of earners received 9-10% of total income, no more. But in the short period since 1980, their share, that is the share of the top 1%, has gone up to 25%, while the bottom 80% have made virtually no gains.”

That has many consequences. One is reduction of productive investment and shift to a rentier economy, in some ways a reversion from capitalist investment for production to feudal-style production of wealth, not capital—“fictitious capital,” as Marx called it.

Another consequence is breakdown of the social order. In their incisive work The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett show a close correlation between inequality and a range of social disorders. One country is off the chart: very high inequality but even greater social disorder than expected by the correlation. That’s the country that led the way in the neoliberal assault—formally defined as commitment to small government and the market, in practice radically different, more accurately described as dedicated class war making use of whatever mechanisms are available.

Wilkinson-Pickett’s revealing work has been carried forward since, recently in an important study by Steven Bezruchka. It seems well confirmed that inequality is a prime factor in breakdown of social order.

There have been similar effects in the U.K. under harsh austerity policies, extending elsewhere in many ways. Commonly, the hardest hit are the weak. Latin America suffered two lost decades under destructive structural adjustment policies. In Yugoslavia and Rwanda such policies in the ‘80s sharply exacerbated social tensions, contributing to the horrors that followed.

It’s sometimes argued the neoliberal policies were a grand success, pointing to the fastest reduction in global poverty in history—but failing to add that these remarkable achievements were in China and other countries that firmly rejected the prescribed neoliberal principles.

Furthermore, it wasn’t the “Washington consensus” that induced U.S. investors to shift production to countries with much cheaper labor and limited labor rights or environmental constraints, thereby deindustrializing America with well-known consequences for working people.

It is not that these were the only options. Studies by the labor movement and by Congress’s own research bureau (OTA, since disbanded) offered feasible alternatives that could have benefited working people globally. But they were dismissed.

All of this forms part of the background for the ominous phenomena you describe. The neoliberal assault is a prominent factor in the breakdown of the social order that leaves great numbers of people angry, disillusioned, frightened, and contemptuous of institutions that they see are not working in their interests.

One crucial element of the neoliberal assault has been to deprive the targets of means of defense. President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opened the neoliberal era with attacks on unions, the main line of defense of working people against class war. They also opened the door to corporate attacks on labor, often illegal, but that doesn’t matter when the state they largely control looks the other way.

A primary defense against class war is an educated, informed public. Public education has come under harsh attack during the neoliberal years: sharp defunding, business models that favor cheap and easily disposable labor (adjuncts, graduate students) instead of faculty, teaching-to-test models that undermine critical thinking and inquiry, and much else. Best to have a population that is passive, obedient, and atomized, even if they are angry and resentful, and thus easy prey for demagogues skilled in tapping ugly currents that run not too far below the surface in every society.

CJP: We have heard on countless occasions from both political pundits and influential academics that democracy is in decline. Indeed, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) claimed in early 2022 that just only 6.4% of the world’s population enjoys “full democracy,” though it is anything but clear how the sister company of the conservative weekly magazine The Economist understands the actual meaning and context of the term “full democracy.” Be that as it may, I think we can all agree that there are several key indicators pointing to a dysfunction of democracy in the 21st century. But isn’t it also the case that a perception of a crisis of democracy has existed almost as long as modern democracy itself? Moreover, isn’t it also the case that general talk about a crisis of democracy applies exclusively to the concept of liberal democracy, which is anything but authentic democracy? I am interested in your thoughts on these topics.

NC: What exactly is a crisis of democracy? The term is familiar. It was, for example, the title of the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, liberal internationalist scholars from Europe, Japan, and the U.S. It stands alongside the Powell Memorandum as one of the harbingers of the neoliberal assault that was gathering steam in the Carter administration (mostly trilateralists) and took off with Reagan and Thatcher. The Powell memorandum, addressing the business world, was the tough side; the Trilateral Commission report was the soft liberal side.

The Powell memorandum, authored by Justice Lewis Powell, pulled no punches. It called on the business world to use its power to beat back what it perceived as a major attack on the business world—meaning that instead of the corporate sector freely running almost everything, there were some limited efforts to restrict its power. The streak of paranoia and wild exaggerations are not without interest, but the message was clear: Launch harsh class war and put an end to the “time of troubles,” a standard term for the activism of the 1960s, which greatly civilized society.

Like Powell, the Trilateralists were concerned by the “time of troubles.” The crisis of democracy was that ‘60s activism was bringing about too much democracy. All sorts of groups were calling for greater rights: the young, the old, women, workers, farmers, sometimes called “special interests.” A particular concern was the failure of the institutions responsible “for the indoctrination of the young:” schools and universities. That’s why we see young people carrying out their disruptive activities. These popular efforts imposed an impossible burden on the state, which could not respond to these special interests: a crisis of democracy.

The solution was evident: “more moderation in democracy.” In other words, a return to passivity and obedience so that democracy can flourish. That concept of democracy has deep roots, going back to the Founding Fathers and Britain before them, revived in major works on democratic theory by 20th century thinkers, among them Walter Lippmann, the most prominent public intellectual; Edward Bernays, a guru of the huge public relations industry; Harold Lasswell, one of the founders of modern political science; and Reinhold Niebuhr, known as the theologian of the liberal establishment.

All were good Wilson-FDR-JFK liberals. All agreed with the Founders that democracy was a danger to be avoided. The people of the country have a role in a properly functioning democracy: to push a lever every few years to select someone offered to them by the “responsible men.” They are to be “spectators, not participants,” kept in line with “necessary illusions” and “emotionally potent oversimplifications,” what Lippmann called the “manufacture of consent,” a primary art of democracy.

Satisfying these conditions would constitute “full democracy,” as the concept is understood within liberal democratic theory. Others may have different views, but they are part of the problem, not the solution, to paraphrase Reagan.

Returning to the concerns about decline of democracy, even full democracy in this sense is in decline in its traditional centers. In Europe, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s racist “illiberal democracy” in Hungary troubles the European Union, along with Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party and others that share its deeply authoritarian tendencies.

Recently Orban hosted a conference of far-right movements in Europe, some with neo-fascist origins. The U.S. National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC), a core element of today’s GOP, was a star participant. Donald Trump gave a major address. Tucker Carlson contributed an adoring documentary.

Shortly after, the NCPAC had a conference in Dallas, Texas, where the keynote speaker was Orban, lauded as a leading spokesman of authoritarian white Christian nationalism.

These are no laughing matters. At both the state and the national level, today’s Republican party in the U.S., which has abandoned its past role as an authentic parliamentary party, is seeking ways to gain permanent political control as a minority organization, committed to Orban-style illiberal democracy. Its leader, Trump, has made no secret of his plans to replace the nonpartisan civil service that is a foundation of any modern democracy with appointed loyalists, to prevent teaching of American history in any minimally serious fashion, and in general to end vestiges of more than limited formal democracy.

In the most powerful state of human history, with a long, mixed, sometimes progressive democratic tradition, these are not minor matters.

CJP: Countries in the periphery of the global system seem to be trying to break away from Washington’s influence and are increasingly calling for a new world order. For instance, even Saudi Arabia is following Iran to join China and Russia’s security bloc. What are the implications of this realignment in global relations, and how likely is it that Washington will use tactics to halt this process from going much further?

NC: In March, Saudi Arabia joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It was followed shortly after by the second Middle East petroleum heavyweight, the United Arab Emirates, which had already become a hub for China’s Maritime Silk Road, running from Kolkata in Eastern India through the Red Sea and on to Europe. These developments followed China’s brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, previously bitter enemies, and thus impeding U.S. efforts to isolate and overthrow the regime. Washington professes not to be concerned, but that is hard to credit.

Since the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia in 1938, and the recognition soon of its extraordinary scale, controlling Saudi Arabia has been a high priority for the U.S. Its drift towards independence—and even worse, towards the expanding China-based economic sphere—must be eliciting deep concern in policy-making circles. It’s another long step towards a multipolar order that is anathema to the U.S.

So far, the U.S. had not devised effective tactics to counter these strong tendencies in world affairs, which have many sources—including the self-destruction of U.S. society and political life.

CJP: Organized business interests have had decisive influence on U.S. foreign policy over the last two centuries. However, there are arguments made today that there is a loosening of business hegemony over U.S. foreign policy, and China is offered as the evidence that Washington is not listening to business anymore. But isn’t it the case that the capitalist state, while always working on behalf of the general interests of the business establishment, also possesses a certain degree of independence and that other factors enter into the equation when it comes to the implementation of foreign policy and the management of foreign affairs? It seems to me that U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba, for example, is evidence of the relative autonomy of the state from the economic interests of the capitalist classes.

NC: It may be a caricature to describe the capitalist state as the executive committee of the ruling class, but it’s a caricature of something that exists, and has existed for a long time. We may recall again Adam Smith’s description of the early days of capitalist imperialism, when the “masters of mankind” who owned the economy of England were the “principal architects” of state policy and ensured that their own interests were properly served no matter how grievous the effects on others. Others included the people of England, but much more so the victims of the “savage injustice” of the masters, particularly in India in the early days of England’s destruction of what was then along with China the richest society on earth, while stealing its more advanced technology.

Some principles of global order have a long life.

There should be no need to review again how closely U.S. foreign policy has conformed to Smith’s maxim, to the present. One guiding doctrine is that the U.S. will not tolerate what State Department officials called “the philosophy of the new nationalism,” which embraces “policies designed to bring about a broader distribution of wealth and to raise the standard of living of the masses” along with the pernicious idea “that the first beneficiaries of the development of a country’s resources should be the people of that country.” They are not. The first beneficiaries are the investor class, primarily from the U.S.

This stern lesson was taught to backward Latin Americans at a hemispheric conference called by the U.S. in 1945, which established an Economic Charter for the Americas that stamped out these heresies. They were not confined to Latin America. Eighty years ago, it seemed that at last the world would finally emerge from the misery of the Great Depression and fascist horrors. A wave of radical democracy spread throughout much of the world, with hopes for a more just and humane global order. The earliest imperatives for the U.S. and its British junior partner were to block these aspirations and to restore the traditional order, including fascist collaborators, first in Greece (with enormous violence) and Italy, then throughout western Europe, extending as well to Asia. Russia played a similar role in its own lesser domains. These are among the first chapters of postwar history.

While Smith’s masters of mankind quite generally ensure that state policy serves their immediate interests, there are exceptions, which give a good deal of insight into policy formation. We’ve just discussed one: Cuba. It’s not just the world that objects strenuously to the sanctions policy to which it must conform. The same is true of powerful sectors among the masters, including energy, agribusiness, and particularly pharmaceuticals, eager to link up with Cuba’s advanced industry. But the executive committee prohibits it. Their parochial interests are overridden by the long-term interest of preventing “successful defiance” of U.S. policies tracing back to the Monroe Doctrine, as the State Department explained 60 years ago.

Any Mafia Don would understand.

The very same individual might make different choices as CEO of a corporation and in the State Department, with the same interests in mind but a different perspective on how to further them.

Another case is Iran, in this case going back to 1953, when the parliamentary government sought to gain control of its immense petroleum resources, making the mistake of believing “that the first beneficiaries of the development of a country’s resources should be the people of that country.” Britain, the longtime overlord of Iran, no longer had the capacity to reverse this deviation from good order, so called on the real muscle overseas. The U.S. overthrew the government, installing the Shah’s dictatorship, the first steps in U.S. torture of the people of Iran that has continued without a break to the present, carrying forward Britain’s legacy.

But there was a problem. As part of the deal, Washington demanded that U.S. corporations take over 40% of the British concession, but they were unwilling, for short-term parochial reasons. To do so would prejudice their relations with Saudi Arabia, where exploitation of the country’s resources was cheaper and more profitable. The Eisenhower administration threatened the companies with anti-trust suits, and they complied. Not a great burden to be sure, but one the companies didn’t want.

The conflict between Washington and U.S. corporations persists to the present. As in the case of Cuba, both Europe and U.S. corporations strongly oppose the harsh U.S. sanctions on Iran, but are forced to comply, cutting them out of the lucrative Iranian market. Again, the state interest in punishing Iran for successful defiance overrides the parochial interests of short-term profit.

Contemporary China is a much larger case. Neither European nor U.S. corporations are happy about Washington’s commitment “to slow down China’s rate of innovation” while they lose access to the rich China market. It seems that U.S. corporations may have found a way around the restrictions on trade. An analysis by the Asian business press found “a strong predictive relationship between these countries’ [Vietnam, Mexico, India] imports from China and their exports to the United States,” suggesting that trade with China has simply been re-directed.

The same study reports that “China’s share of international trade is rising steadily. Its export volume… rose 25% since 2018 while the industrial nations’ export volume stagnated.”

It remains to be seen how European, Japanese, and South Korean industries will react to the directive to abandon a primary market in order to satisfy the U.S. goal of preventing China’s development. It would be a bitter blow, far worse than losing access to Iran or of course Cuba.

CJP: More than a couple of centuries ago, Immanuel Kant presented his theory of perpetual peace as the only rational way for states to co-exist with one another. Yet, perpetual peace remains a mirage, an unattainable ideal. Could it be that a world political order away from the nation-state as the primary unit is a necessary prerequisite for perpetual peace to be realized?

NC: Kant argued that reason would bring about perpetual peace in a benign global political order. Another great philosopher, Bertrand Russell, saw things rather differently when asked about the prospects for world peace:

“After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it has generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, I believe is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.”

I don’t presume to enter those ranks. I’d like to think that humans have the capacity to do much better than what Russell forecast, even if not to achieve Kant’s ideal.

Dizem que as primeiras torcidas organizadas no futebol surgiram no Brasil, onde se registrou pela primeira vez uso da expressão lá por 1939.

Isso foi bem antes da popularização do termo "ultra", que esta semana voltou -- infelizmente -- aos #trendytopics, devido ao incidente racista com o brasileiro Vini Jr, jogador do Real Madrid, no último domingo (22).

A palavra nasceu na Itália pós-Mussolini dos anos 1960-70 e se espalhou rapidamente pelo mundo para designar tanto os torcedores fanáticos quanto seus grupos, muitos dos quais, ao longo da história, foram/estão associados a valores fascistas, conservadores e/ou violentos (sendo que o "e/ou" é um sopro besta de atenuação vocabular).

Ainda hoje, tanto no imaginário popular quanto na mídia, o termo "ultra" é comumente associado a radicalismo, hooliganismo, porrada, violência.

Ao mesmo tempo, porém, é cada vez mais empregado em referência a grupos antifascistas. Leia mais (05/27/2023 - 13h30)

Interview with Noam Chomsky on the State of the World

Noam Chomsky Interviewed by C. J. Polychroniou

May 26, 2023. Global Policy.

We live in a world facing existential threats while extreme inequality is tearing our societies apart and democracy is in sharp decline. The U.S., meanwhile, is bent on maintaining global hegemony when international collaboration is urgently needed to address the planet’s numerous challenges. In the interview that follows, Noam Chomsky explains why we are at the most dangerous point in human history and why nationalism, racism, and extremism are rearing their ugly heads all over the world today.

Chomsky is institute professor emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and laureate professor of linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. One of the world’s most-cited scholars and a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, Chomsky has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S. foreign policy, and world affairs.  His latest books are Illegitimate Authority: Facing the Challenges of Our Time (with C. J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books); The Secrets of Words (with Andrew Moro; MIT Press, 2020); The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power (with Vijay Prashad; The New Press, 2022); and The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Social Change (with C. J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books, 2021).

C. J. Polychroniou: Noam, you have said on numerous occasions that the world is at the most dangerous point in human history. Why do you think so? Are nuclear weapons more dangerous today than they were in the past? Is the surge in right-wing authoritarianism in recent years more dangerous than the rise and subsequent spread of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s? Or is it because of the climate crisis, which you have indeed said that it represents the biggest threat the world has ever faced. Can you explain in comparative terms why you think that the world is today significantly more dangerous than it used to be?

Noam Chomsky: The climate crisis is unique in human history and is getting more severe year by year.  If major steps are not taken within the next few decades, the world is likely to reach a point of no return, facing decline to indescribable catastrophe.  Nothing is certain, but this seems a far too plausible assessment.

Weapons systems steadily become more dangerous and more ominous. We have been surviving under a sword of Damocles since the bombing of Hiroshima.  A few years later, 70 years ago, the U.S., then Russia, tested thermonuclear weapons, revealing that human intelligence had “advanced” to the capacity to destroy everything.

Operative questions have to do with the sociopolitical and cultural conditions that constrain their use.  These came ominously close to breaking down in the 1962 missile crisis, described by Arthur Schlesinger as the most dangerous moment in world history, with reason, though we may soon reach that unspeakable moment again in Europe and Asia.  The MAD system (mutually assured destruction) enabled a form of security, lunatic but perhaps the best short of the kind of social and cultural transformation that is still unfortunately only an aspiration.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the MAD system of security was undermined by Clinton’s aggressive triumphalism and the Bush II-Trump project of dismantling the laboriously constructed arms control regime.  There’s an important recent study of these topics by Benjamin Schwartz and Christopher Layne, as part of the background to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They review how Clinton initiated a new era of international affairs in which the “United States became a revolutionary force in world politics” by abandoning the “old diplomacy” and instituting its preferred revolutionary concept of global order.

The “old diplomacy” sought to maintain global order by “an understanding of an adversary’s interests and motives and an ability to make judicious compromises.” The new triumphant unilateralism sets as “a legitimate goal [for the US] the alteration or eradication of those arrangements [internal to other countries] if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values.”

The word “professed” is crucial.  It is commonly expunged from consciousness here, not elsewhere.

In the background lies the Clinton doctrine that the U.S. must be prepared to resort to force, multilaterally if we can, unilaterally if we must, to ensure vital interests and “uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources.”

The accompanying military doctrine has led to creation of a far more advanced nuclear weapons system that can only be understood as “a preemptive counterforce capability against Russia and China” (Rand Corporation) – a first-strike capacity, enhanced by Bush’s dismantling of the treaty that barred emplacement of ABM systems near an adversary’s borders.  These systems are portrayed as defensive, but they are understood on all sides to be first-strike weapons.

These steps have significantly weakened the old system of mutual deterrence, leaving in its place greatly enhanced dangers.

How new these developments were, one might debate, but Schwartz and Layne make a strong case that this triumphant unilateralism and open contempt for the defeated enemy has been a significant factor in bringing major war to Europe with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the potential to escalate to terminal war.

No less ominous are developments in Asia.  With strong bipartisan and media support, Washington is confronting China on both military and economic fronts.  With Europe safely in its pocket thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. has been able to expand NATO to the Indo-Pacific region, thus enlisting Europe in its campaign to prevent China from developing – a program considered not just legitimate but highly praiseworthy.  One of the administration doves, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, expressed the consensus lucidly: “If we really want to slow down China’s rate of innovation, we need to work with Europe.”

It’s particularly important to keep China from developing sustainable energy, where it is far in the lead and should reach energy self-sufficiency by 2060 according to Goldman Sachs analysts.  China is even threatening to make new breakthroughs in batteries that might help save the world from climate catastrophe.

Plainly a threat that must be contained, along with China’s insistence on the One-China policy for Taiwan that the U.S. also adopted 50 years ago and that has kept the peace for 50 years, but that Washington is now rescinding.  There’s much more to add that reinforces this picture, matters we have discussed elsewhere.

It’s hard to say the words in this increasingly odd culture, but it’s close to truism that unless the U.S. and China find ways to accommodate, as great powers with conflicting interests often did in the past, we are all lost.

Historical analogies have their limits of course, but there are two pertinent ones that have repeatedly been adduced in this connection: The Concert of Europe established in 1815 and the Versailles treaty of 1919.  The former is a prime example of the “Old Diplomacy.” The defeated aggressor (France) was incorporated into the new system of international order as an equal partner.  That led to a century of relative peace.  The Versailles treaty is a paradigm example of the “revolutionary” concept of global order instituted by the triumphalism of the ‘90s and its aftermath.  Defeated Germany was not incorporated into the postwar international order but was severely punished and humiliated.  We know where that led.

Currently, two concepts of world order are counterposed: the UN system and the “rules-based” system, correlating closely with multipolarity and unipolarity, the latter meaning U.S. dominance.

The U.S. and its allies (or “vassals” or “subimperial states” as they are sometimes called) reject the UN system and demand adherence to the rules-based system.  The rest of the world generally supports the UN system and multipolarity.

The UN system is based on the UN Charter, the foundation of modern international law and the “supreme law of the land” in the U.S. under the U.S. Constitution, which elected officials are bound to obey.  It has a serious defect: it rules out U.S. foreign policy.  Its core principle bans “the threat or use of force” in international affairs, except in narrow circumstances unrelated to U.S. actions.  It would be hard to find a U.S. postwar president who has not violated the U.S. Constitution, a topic of little interest, the record shows.

What is the preferred rules-based system?  The answer depends on who sets the rules and determines when they should be obeyed.  The answer is not obscure: the hegemonic power, which took the mantle of global dominance from Britain after World War II, greatly extending its scope.

One core foundation stone of the U.S.-dominated rules-based system is the World Trade Organization.  We can ask, then, how the U.S. honors it.

As global hegemon, the U.S. is alone in capacity to impose sanctions.  These are third-party sanctions that others must obey, or else.  And they do obey, even when they strongly oppose the sanctions.  One example is the U.S. sanctions designed to strangle Cuba.  These are opposed by the whole world as we see from regular UN votes.  But they are obeyed.

When Clinton instituted sanctions that were even more savage than before, the European Union called on the WTO to determine their legality.  The U.S. angrily withdrew from the proceedings, rendering them null and void.  There was a reason, explained by Clinton’s Commerce Secretary Stuart Eizenstat: “Mr. Eizenstat argued that Europe is challenging ‘three decades of American Cuba policy that goes back to the Kennedy Administration,’ and is aimed entirely at forcing a change of government in Havana.”

In short, Europe and the WTO have no competence to influence the long-standing U.S. campaign of terror and economic strangulation aimed at forcefully overthrowing the government of Cuba, so they should get lost.  The sanctions prevail, and Europe must obey them – and does.  A clear illustration of the nature of the rules-based order.

There are many others.  Thus, the World Court ruled that U.S. freezing of Iranian assets is illegal. It scarcely caused a ripple.

That is understandable.  Under the rules-based system, the global enforcer has no more reason to accede to ICJ judgments than to decisions of the WTO.  That much was established years ago.  In 1986, the U.S. withdrew from ICJ jurisdiction when it condemned the U.S. for its terrorist war against Nicaragua and ordered it to pay reparations.  The U.S. responded by escalating the war.

To mention another illustration of the rules-based system, the U.S. alone withdrew from the proceedings of the Tribunal considering Yugoslavia’s charges against NATO.  It argued correctly that Yugoslavia had mentioned genocide, and the U.S. is self-exempted from the international treaty banning genocide.

It’s easy to continue.  It’s also easy to understand why the U.S. rejects the UN-based system, which bans its foreign policy, and prefers a system in which it sets the rules and is free to rescind them when it wishes.  There’s no need to discuss why the U.S. prefers a unipolar rather than multipolar order.

All of these considerations arise critically in consideration of global conflicts and threats to survival.

CJP: All societies have seen dramatic economic transformations over the past 50 years, with China leading the pack as it emerged in just the course of just a few decades from an agrarian society into an industrial powerhouse, lifting in the process hundreds of millions out of poverty. But this is not to say that life is necessarily an improvement over the past. In the U.S., for instance, the quality of life has declined over the past decade and so has life satisfaction in the European Union. Are we at a stage where we are witnessing the decline of the West and the rise of the East? In either case, while many people seem to think that the rise of the far-right in Europe and the United States is related to perceptions about the decline of the West, the rise of the far-right is a global phenomenon, ranging from India and Brazil to Israel, Pakistan and the Philippines. In fact, the alt-right has even found a comfortable home on China’s internet. So, what’s going on? Why are nationalism, racism and extremism making such a huge comeback on the world stage at large?

NC: There is an interplay of many factors, some specific to particular societies, for example, the dismantling of secular democracy in India as Prime Minister Modi pursues his project of establishing a harsh racist Hindu ethnocracy.  That’s specific to India, though not without analogues elsewhere.

There are some factors that have fairly broad scope, and common consequences.  One is the radical increase in inequality in much of the world as a consequence of the neoliberal policies emanating from the U.S. and UK and spreading beyond in various ways.

The facts are clear enough, particularly well-studied for the U.S.  The Rand corporation study we’ve discussed before estimated almost $50 trillion in wealth transferred from workers and the middle class – the lower 90% of income – to the top 1% during the neoliberal years.  More information is provided in the work of Thomas Piketty and Emanuel Saez, summarized lucidly by political economist Robert Brenner.

The basic conclusion is that through “the postwar boom, we actually had decreasing inequality and very limited income going to the top income brackets. For the whole period from the 1940s to the end of the 1970s, the top 1% of earners received 9-10% of total income, no more. But in the short period since 1980, their share, that is the share of the top 1%, has gone up to 25%, while the bottom 80% have made virtually no gains.”

That has many consequences.  One is reduction of productive investment and shift to a rentier economy, in some ways a reversion from capitalist investment for production to feudal-style production of wealth, not capital – “fictitious capital,” as Marx called it.

Another consequence is breakdown of the social order.  In their incisive work The Spirit Level,   Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett show a close correlation between inequality and a range of social disorders.  One country is off the chart: very high inequality but even greater social disorder than expected by the correlation.  That’s the country that led the way in the neoliberal assault – formally defined as commitment to small government and the market, in practice radically different, more accurately described as dedicated class war making use of whatever mechanisms are available.

Wilkinson-Pickett’s revealing work has been carried forward since, recently in an important study by Steven Bezruchka. It seems well confirmed that inequality is a prime factor in breakdown of social order.

There have been similar effects in the UK under harsh austerity policies, extending elsewhere in many ways.  Commonly, the hardest hit are the weak.  Latin America suffered two lost decades under destructive structural adjustment policies.  In Yugoslavia and Rwanda such policies in the ‘80s sharply exacerbated social tensions, contributing to the horrors that followed.

It’s sometimes argued the neoliberal policies were a grand success, pointing to the fastest reduction in global poverty in history — but failing to add that these remarkable achievements were in China and other countries that firmly rejected the prescribed neoliberal principles.

Furthermore, it wasn’t the “Washington consensus” that induced U.S. investors to shift production to countries with much cheaper labor and limited labor rights or environmental constraints, thereby deindustrializing America with well-known consequences for working people.

It is not that these were the only options.  Studies by the labor movement and by Congress’s own research bureau (OTA, since disbanded) offered feasible alternatives that could have benefited working people globally.  But they were dismissed.

All of this forms part of the background for the ominous phenomena you describe.  The neoliberal assault is a prominent factor in the breakdown of the social order that leaves great numbers of people angry, disillusioned, frightened, contemptuous of institutions that they see are not working in their interests.

One crucial element of the neoliberal assault has been to deprive the targets of means of defense.  Reagan and Thatcher opened the neoliberal era with attacks on unions, the main line of defense of working people against class war.  They also opened the door to corporate attacks on labor, often illegal, but that doesn’t matter when the state they largely control looks the other way.

A primary defense against class war is an educated, informed public.  Public education has come under harsh attack during the neoliberal years: sharp defunding, business models that favor cheap and easily disposable labor (adjuncts, graduate students) instead of faculty, teaching-to-test models that undermine critical thinking and inquiry, and much else.  Best to have a population that is passive, obedient and atomized, even if they are angry and resentful, and thus easy prey for demagogues skilled in tapping ugly currents that run not too far below the surface in every society.

CJP: We have heard on countless occasions from both political pundits and influential academics that democracy is in decline. Indeed, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) claimed in early 2022 that just only 6.4% of the world’s population enjoys “full democracy,” though it is anything but clear how the sister company of the conservative weekly magazine The Economist understands the actual meaning and context of the term “full democracy.” Be that as it may, I think we can all agree that there are several key indicators pointing to a dysfunction of democracy in the 21st century. But isn’t it also the case that a perception of a crisis of democracy has existed almost as long as modern democracy itself? Moreover, isn’t it also the case that general talk about a crisis of democracy applies exclusively to the concept of liberal democracy, which is anything but authentic democracy? I am interested in your thoughts on these topics.

NC: What exactly is a crisis of democracy?  The term is familiar.  It was, for example, the title of the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, liberal internationalist scholars from Europe, Japan, and the U.S.  It stands alongside the Powell Memorandum as one of the harbingers of the neoliberal assault that was gathering steam in the Carter administration (mostly trilateralists) and took off with Reagan and Thatcher.  The Powell memorandum, addressing the business world, was the tough side; the Trilateral Commission report was the soft liberal side.

The Powell memorandum, authored by Justice Lewis Powell, pulled no punches. It called on the business world to use its power to beat back what it perceived as a major attack on the business world – meaning that instead of the corporate sector freely running almost everything, there were some limited efforts to restrict its power.  The streak of paranoia and wild exaggerations are not without interest, but the message was clear: Launch harsh class war and put an end to the “time of troubles,” a standard term for the activism of the 1960s, which greatly civilized society.

Like Powell, the Trilateralists were concerned by the “time of troubles.” The crisis of democracy was that ‘60s activism was bringing about too much democracy.  All sorts of groups were calling for greater rights: the young, the old, women, workers, farmers,…, sometimes called “special interests.” A particular concern was the failure of the institutions responsible “for the indoctrination of the young”: schools and universities.  That’s why we see young people carrying out their disruptive activities.  These popular efforts imposed an impossible burden on the state, which could not respond to these special interests: a crisis of democracy.

The solution was evident: “more moderation in democracy.” In other words, a return to passivity and obedience so that democracy can flourish.  That concept of democracy has deep roots, going back to the Founding Fathers and Britain before them, revived in major work on democratic theory by 20th century thinkers, among them Walter Lippmann, the most prominent public intellectual; Edward Bernays, a guru of the huge public relations industry; Harold Lasswell, one of the founders of modern political science; Reinhold Niebuhr, known as the theologian of the liberal establishment.

All were good Wilson-FDR-JFK liberals.  All agreed with the Founders that democracy was a danger to be avoided.  The people of the country have a role in a properly functioning democracy: to push a lever every few years to select someone offered to them by the “responsible men.” They are to be “spectators, not participants,” kept in line with “necessary illusions” and “emotionally potent oversimplifications,” what Lippmann called “manufacture of consent,” a primary art of democracy.

Satisfying these conditions would constitute “full democracy,” as the concept is understood within liberal democratic theory.  Others may have different views, but they are part of the problem, not the solution, to paraphrase Reagan.

Returning the concerns about decline of democracy, even full democracy in this sense is in decline in its traditional centers.  In Europe, Orban’s racist “illiberal democracy” in Hungary troubles the European Union, along with Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party and others that share its deeply authoritarian tendencies.

Recently Orban hosted a conference of far-right movements in Europe, some with neo-fascist origins.  The U.S. National Conservative Political Action Caucus, a core element of today’s GOP, was a star participant.  Donald Trump gave a major address.  Tucker Carlson contributed an adoring documentary.

Shortly after, the NCPAC had a conference in Dallas Texas, where the keynote speaker was Victor Orban, lauded as a leading spokesman of authoritarian white Christian nationalism.

These are no laughing matters.  At both the state and the national level, today’s Republican party in the U.S., which has abandoned its past role as an authentic parliamentary party, is seeking ways to gain permanent political control as a minority organization, committed to Orban-style illiberal democracy.  Its leader, Donald Trump, has made no secret of his plans to replace the nonpartisan civil service that is a foundation of any modern democracy with appointed loyalists, to prevent teaching of American history in any minimally serious fashion, and in general to end vestiges of more than limited formal democracy.

In the most powerful state of human history, with a long, mixed, sometimes progressive democratic tradition, these are not minor matters.

CJP: Countries in the periphery of the global system seem to be trying to break away from Washington’s influence and are increasingly calling for a new world order. For instance, even Saudi Arabia is following Iran to join China and Russia’s security bloc. What are the implications of this realignment in global relations, and how likely is it that Washington will use tactics to halt this process from going much further?

NC: In March, Saudi Arabia joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.  It was followed shortly after by the second Middle East petroleum heavyweight, the United Arab Emirates, which had already become a hub for China’s Maritime Silk Road, running from Kolkata in Eastern India through the Red Sea and on to Europe.  These developments followed China’s brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, previously bitter enemies, and thus impeding U.S. efforts to isolate and overthrow the regime.  Washington professes not to be concerned, but that is hard to credit.

Since the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia in 1938, and the recognition soon of its extraordinary scale, controlling Saudi Arabia has been a high priority for the U.S.  Its drift towards independence — and even worse, towards the expanding China-based economic sphere — must be eliciting deep concern in policy-making circles.  It’s another long step towards a multipolar order that that is anathema to the U.S.

So far, the U.S. had not devised effective tactics to counter these strong tendencies in world affairs, which have many sources – including the self-destruction of U.S. society and political life.

CJP: Organized business interests have had decisive influence on U.S. foreign policy over the last two centuries. However, there are arguments made today that there is a loosening of business hegemony over U.S. foreign policy, and China is offered as the evidence that Washington is not listening to business anymore. But isn’t it the case that the capitalist state, while always working on behalf of the general interests of the business establishment, also possesses a certain degree of independence and that other factors enter into the equation when it comes to the implementation of foreign policy and the management of foreign affairs? It seems to me that U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba, for example, is evidence of the relative autonomy of the state from the economic interests of the capitalist classes.

NC: It may be a caricature to describe the capitalist state as the executive committee of the ruling class, but it’s a caricature of something that exists, and has existed for a long time.  We may recall again Adam Smith’s description of the early days of capitalist imperialism, when the “masters of mankind” who owned the economy of England were the “principal architects” of state policy and ensured that their own interests were properly served no matter how grievous the effects on others.  Others included the people of England, but much more so the victims of the “savage injustice” of the masters, particularly in India in the early days of England’s destruction of what was then along with China the richest society on earth, while stealing its more advanced technology.

Some principles of global order have a long life.

There should be no need to review again how closely U.S. foreign policy has conformed to Smith’s maxim, to the present.  One guiding doctrine is that the U.S. will not tolerate what State Department officials called “the philosophy of the new nationalism,” which embraces “policies designed to bring about a broader distribution of wealth and to raise the standard of living of the masses” along with the pernicious idea “that the first beneficiaries of the development of a country’s resources should be the people of that country.” They are not.  The first beneficiaries are the investor class, primarily from the U.S.

This stern lesson was taught to backward Latin Americans at a hemispheric conference called by the U.S. in 1945, which established an Economic Charter for the Americas that stamped out these heresies.  They were not confined to Latin America. 80 years ago, it seemed that at last the world would finally emerge from the misery of the Great Depression and fascist horrors.   A wave of radical democracy spread throughout much of the world, with hopes for a more just and humane global order.  The earliest imperatives for the U.S. and its British junior partner were to block these aspirations and to restore the traditional order, including fascist collaborators, first in Greece (with enormous violence) and Italy, then throughout western Europe, extending as well to Asia.  Russia played as similar role in its own lesser domains.  These are among the first chapters of postwar history.

While Smith’s masters of mankind quite generally ensure that state policy serves their immediate interests, there are exceptions, which give a good deal of insight into policy formation.  We’ve just discussed one: Cuba.  It’s not just the world that objects strenuously to the sanctions policy to which it must conform.  The same is true of powerful sectors among the masters, including energy, agribusiness, and particularly pharmaceuticals, eager to link up with Cuba’s advanced industry.  But the executive committee prohibits it.  Their parochial interests are overridden by the long-term interest of preventing “successful defiance” of U.S. policies tracing back to the Monroe doctrine, as the State Department explained 60 years ago.

Any Mafia Don would understand.

The very same individual might make different choices as CEO of a corporation and in the State Department, with the same interests in mind but a different perspective on how to further them.

Another case is Iran, in this case going back to 1953, when the parliamentary government sought to gain control of its immense petroleum resources, making the mistake of believing “that the first beneficiaries of the development of a country’s resources should be the people of that country.” Britain, the longtime overlord of Iran, no longer had the capacity to reverse this deviation from good order, so called on the real muscle overseas.  The U.S. overthrew the government, installing the Shah’s dictatorship, the first steps in U.S. torture of the people of Iran that has continued without a break to the present, carrying forward Britain’s legacy.

But there was a problem.  As part of the deal, Washington demanded that U.S. corporations take over 40% of the British concession, but they were unwilling, for short-term parochial reasons.  To do so would prejudice their relations with Saudi Arabia, where exploitation of the country’s resources was cheaper and more profitable.  The Eisenhower administration threatened the companies with anti-trust suits, and they complied.  Not a great burden to be sure, but one the companies didn’t want.

The conflict between Washington and U.S. corporations persists to the present.  As in the case of Cuba, both Europe and U.S. corporations strongly oppose the harsh U.S. sanctions on Iran, but are forced to comply, cutting them out of the lucrative Iranian market.  Again, the state interest in punishing Iran for successful defiance overrides the parochial interests of short-term profit.

Contemporary China is a much larger case.  Neither European nor U.S. corporations are happy about Washington’s commitment “to slow down China’s rate of innovation” while they lose access to the rich China market.  It seems that U.S. corporations may have found a way around the restrictions on trade.  An analysis by the Asian business press found “a strong predictive relationship between these countries’ [Vietnam, Mexico, India] imports from China and their exports to the United States,” suggesting that trade with China has simply been re-directed.

The same study reports that “China’s share of international trade is rising steadily. Its export volume…rose 25% since 2018 while the industrial nations’ export volume stagnated.”

It remains to be seen how European, Japanese, and South Korean industries will react to the directive to abandon a primary market in order to satisfy the U.S. goal of preventing China’s development.  It would be a bitter blow, far worse than losing access to Iran or of course Cuba.

CJP: More than a couple of centuries ago, Immanuel Kant presented his theory of perpetual peace as the only rational way for states to co-exist with one another. Yet, perpetual peace remains a mirage, an unattainable ideal. Could it be that a world political order away from the nation-state as the primary unit is a necessary prerequisite for perpetual peace to be realized?

NC: Kant argued that reason would bring about perpetual peace in a benign global political order.  Another great philosopher, Bertrand Russell, saw things rather differently when asked about the prospects for world peace:

“After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it has generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers.  This, however, I believe is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.”

I don’t presume to enter those ranks. I’d like to think that humans have the capacity to do much better than what Russell forecast, even if not to achieve Kant’s ideal.