05 September 2008

Noam Chomsky, Augustine and Sam Walton

Via Jesse Walker, here's Roderick T Long on Chomsky's "Augustinian Anarchism."

Chomsky's position is that the State should be abolished, but not until someone can wrest control of it and use it's powers to first undercut or eliminate the power of corporations. I think this is entirely silly but don't feel like explaining why, in part because Long has done such a good job already. So I'm going to call Chomsky's position the Isildur Error and leave why as an exercise to the (geeky) reader.

One thing Long hits on, which I think is an axiom of a lot of people skeptical or opposed to free markets, is the belief that governments are more responsive to the citizenry than are businesses. Long explains why this is is false, including a good metaphor from David Friedman. I think this idea is very common amongst a certain segment of the ideological spectrum, and I have a theory as to why.

One of the reasons leftists like Chomsky think corporations are unaccountable is because they have very different ideas as to what the results of that accountability should be. If I'm dissatisfied with, say Walmart, I don't do business with them.* From my point of view this makes them perfectly accountable to me — I don't bother them, they don't bother me, life goes on.** If enough people share my beliefs enough to cease trading with Walmart then Walmart begins to suffer, and maybe if I'm angry enough with the employees and/or shareholders, that makes me happy.

But the Chomskyites don't merely want to sever their personal ties with Walmart. At some level they want Walmart to cease to be. They do not want to live in a world in which they must coexist with such supposedly monstrous multinational corporations. They want Walmart driven out of the marketplace the way Nixon was driven out of the White House. Because their own personal, peaceful action of not doing business with a company does not accomplish their goals they think the company must not be responding at all. As fervently as they may desire the end of Walmart or ExxonMobil or Microsoft these companies keep humming along, seemingly oblivious to the animus being directed at them. (Seemingly to the observer who doesn't read the business section, anyway.) When the result you're looking for is complete capitulation almost every change a business can make will look stubborn and unresponsive.

Meanwhile elected officials are constantly preening for the masses, tacking back and forth trying to catch as much support as they can at all times. Even though their actual policies (or the effects of their policies) may never change they appear to be responding constantly to our desires.

I think this same desire to crush the enemy is evident among a large part of the Christian right. They aren't satisfied not having pornography in their homes, they don't want pornography to exist at all. Ditto prostitution, and for some, homosexuality. The same goes for anti-drug crusaders on both the left and right. There are millions of people out there who are not content to not smoke weed themselves, because they don't want me to smoke it either. Similarly there are many who are not satisfied not shopping at Walmart, because they don't want me to shop there either. Until they can somehow stop Walmart and I from doing business together they'll continue to look at Walmart as stifling their desires. And just like almost everyone else born since 1945 does when they can't get what they want on their own, they'll turn to the State and demand that it be given to them.





* Disclaimer: I'm not familiar with how Chomsky feels about Walmart particularly. Frankly, while I respect the theory of universal grammar, I can't bring myself to read hardly any of Chomsky's political writing. (I may not respect universal grammar enough to actually be convinced it's true, but it is a good theory, and it at least started out as an elegant one to boot, so I'll give him some credit.) I'm just using Walmart because it's often held up as a prime exemplar of the destructive forces of capitalism by fellow travelers.

** I am aware that various externalities may complicate the matter somewhat; suffice it to say that I think these complications are largely surmountable and please recognize that I am in no mood to get bogged down in details at this point.

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