Noam Chomsky Quotes About Decisions

• In our society, real power does not happen to lie in the political system, it lies in the private economy: that’s where the decisions are made about what’s produced, how much is produced, what’s consumed, where investment takes place, who has jobs, who controls the resources, and so on and so forth. And as long as that remains the case, changes inside the political system can make some difference-I don’t want to say it’s zero-but the differences are going to be very slight.

  Noam Chomsky

  Zero, Jobs, Lying

  "Understanding Power". Book by Noam Chomsky, 2002.

• The general public are not even aware of major decisions that will determine their fate, hence are in no position to influence them

  Noam Chomsky

  Fate, Decision, Influence

• The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

  Noam Chomsky

  Kings, Military, Party

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order”, p.125, Seven Stories Press

• All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

  Noam Chomsky

  Inspirational, Media, People

• Democracy, in the United States rhetoric refers to a system of governance in which elite elements based in the business community control the state by virtue of their dominance of the private society, while the population observes quietly. So understood, democracy is a system of elite decision and public ratification, as in the United States itself. Correspondingly, popular involvement in the formation of public policy is considered a serious threat. It is not a step towards democracy; rather it constitutes a 'crisis of democracy' that must be overcome.

  Noam Chomsky

  Money, Community, Decision

  Noam Chomsky (1990). “On Power and Ideology”, p.6, Black Rose Books Ltd.

• Student debt is structured to be a burden for life. The indebted cannot declare bankruptcy, unlike Donald Trump. Current student debt is estimated to be over $1.45 trillion. There are ample resources for that simply from waste, including the bloated military and the enormous concentrated private wealth that has accumulated in the financial and general corporate sector under neoliberal policies. There is no economic reason why free education cannot flourish from schools through colleges and university. The barriers are not economic but rather political decisions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, School, College

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• But, that’s the whole point of corporatization - to try to remove the public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental decisions that determine how the world is going to be run - which includes production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign policy, everything - are not in the hands of the public, but rather in the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny unaccountable to the public.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Fate, Hands

  "On Microsoft and Corporate Control of the Internet". Interview with Anna Couey, chomsky.info. May 6, 1998.

• In any institution-factory, university, health center, or whatever-there are a variety of interests that ought to be represented in decision-making: the work force itself, the community in which it is located, users of its products or services, institutions that compete for the same resources. These interests should be directly represented in democratic structures that displace and eliminate private ownership of the means of production or resources, an anachronism with no legitimacy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Community, Decision

• As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

  Noam Chomsky

  Loss, Choices, Decision

  Television interview, 30 Mar. 1978, in Listener 6 Apr. 1978

• There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past.

  Noam Chomsky

  Believe, Acceptance, Past

• The obvious one, in a market system, in a really functioning one, whoever's making the decisions doesn't pay attention to what are called externalities, effects on others. I sell you a car, if our eyes are open we'll make a good deal for ourselves but we're not asking how it's going to affect her [over there.] It will, there'll be more congestion, gas prices will go up, there will be environmental effects and that multiplies over the whole population. Well, that's very serious.

  Noam Chomsky

  Eye, Car, Decision

  "Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide". Interview with Laura Flanders / GRITtv, www.alternet.org. May 4, 2012.

• Go back to the Bible, the Old Testament. I mean there were people who we would call intelectuals, there, they were called prophets, but they were basically intelectuals: they were people who were doing critical, geopolitical analysis, talking about the decisions of the king were going to lead to destruction; condemning inmorality, calling for justice for widows and orphans. What we would call dissident intelectuals. Were they nicely treated? No, they were driven into the desert, they were imprisoned, they were denounced. They were intelectuals who conformed.

  Noam Chomsky

  Kings, Mean, Talking

  Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

• It makes sense for societies to make education compulsory for children. Children are vulnerable. They can't make decisions. But the decisions can't all be left in the hands of the parents. They can be irresponsible too.

  Noam Chomsky

  Children, Hands, Decision

  "Noam Chomsky: Drug Cartels and the Growing Border War". Interview with Luis Fernando Cárdenas, chomsky.info. August 15, 2011.

• Balochistan, and to some extent Sindh too, has a general feeling that they are not part of the decision-making process in Pakistan and are ruled by a Punjabi dictatorship. There is a lot of exploitation of the rich resources [in Balochistan] which the locals are not gaining from. As long as this goes on, it is going to keep providing grounds for serious uprisings and insurgencies.

  Noam Chomsky

  Uprising, Long, Decision

  Source: www.dawn.com

• Well, they really didn't have to worry, because the way power politics works, the World Court can't do anything. Look, there's one country in the world at the moment which has refused to accept World Court decision-that's the United States. Is anybody going to do anything about it?

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Worry, Decision

  "Chomsky on Haiti". Interview with Keane Bhatt, www.counterpunch.org. March 9, 2010.

• It seems self-evident that we should want people to be free, to be able to play an active part in making decisions about matters of concern to them, to the largest possible extent.

  Noam Chomsky

  Self, Play, People

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

• Take a look at the Supreme Court decision that just authorized an effort by U.S. claimants against Iran for terrorist acts. What are the terrorist acts? The terrorist acts are bombings of U.S. military installations in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, which Iran is claimed to have something to do with. Well suppose they did. That's not terrorism. I mean if we have a military base in Lebanon that while we're shelling Lebanese naval ships, the Navy is shelling Lebanese installations and somebody attacks [that's not terrorism].

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Mean, Iran

  "Anti-Intellectualism, Terrorism, and Elections in Contemporary Education: a Discussion with Noam Chomsky". Interview with Dan Falcone, www.counterpunch.org. June 3, 2016.

• Radical activists can't ignore the fact that we live in this world, like it or not, and have to make difficult decisions about which paths are the best - or sometimes, the least harmful. There are no abstract formulas. Have to think through each case on its own.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Decision, World

  Source: thefifthcolumnnews.com

• Technology can also be used so that private individuals will have access to the way centralized decisions are being made.

  Noam Chomsky

  Technology, Decision, Way

  Interview with Jegan Vincent de Paul, chomsky.info. August 15, 2012.

• Over the years, there's been case after case when there were very narrow decisions that had to be made about whether to launch nuclear weapons in serious cases. What is this guy [Donald Trump] going to do if his vaunted negotiating skills fail, if somebody doesn't do what he says? Is he going to say, "Okay we'll nuke them? We're done?"

  Noam Chomsky

  Skills, Years, Guy

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• From the late 1940s, into and through the '50s, there developed a complex interaction between federal government, state and local government, real-estate interests, commercial interests and court decisions, which had the effect of undermining the mass transit system across the country.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, Real, Government

• Wikileaks is a democratizing force. Its giving individuals access to decisions and thinking by their representatives and in a democracy that ought to be reflexive.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Giving, Decision

  Interview with Jegan Vincent de Paul, chomsky.info. August 15, 2012.

• If you and I go into a store to rob it, and I say "shoot," that's not protected. Like all judicial decisions and legislation, this leaves plenty of gray areas, including many of great significance that are rarely discussed: advocacy of imminent war crimes, such as aggression, for example. I think we would all agree that such speech should be protected, despite the often horrific consequences, but it's worth noting that that stretches the doctrine to its limits.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Thinking, Decision

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• As international support for Obama's decision to attack Syria has collapsed, along with the credibility of government claims, the administration has fallen back on a standard pretext for war crimes when all else fails: the credibility of the threats of the self-designated policeman of the world.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Government, Self

• There are questions as to whether it should even exist. Who should corporations be responsive to, the management of a corporation? Theoretically they are responsive to the shareholders, but I why not to the so - called stakeholders, the work force and the community? Nothing in economic theory opposes that. Those are social and political decisions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Community, Decision, Political

  Interview with Jegan Vincent de Paul, chomsky.info. August 15, 2012.

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