Noam Chomsky Quotes About Democracy

• The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - 'indoctrination,' we might say - exercised through the mass media.

  Noam Chomsky

  Media, Democracy, United States

  Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault (2006). “The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature”, The New Press

• You can’t have meaningful political democracy without functioning economic democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Meaningful, Political, Democracy

• Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are, in principle, under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist, that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level. [...] Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I am opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Community, Political

  "One Man’s View". Interview, chomsky.info. May, 1973.

• The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that “the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Democracies Have, Australia Day

  Noam Chomsky (1997). “World Orders, Old and New”, p.89, Pluto Press

• Because they don't teach the truth about the world, schools have to rely on beating students over the head with propaganda about democracy. If schools were, in reality, democratic, there would be no need to bombard students with platitudes about democracy. They would simply act and behave democratically, and we know this does not happen. The more there is a need to talk about the ideals of democracy, the less democratic the system usually is.

  Noam Chomsky

  School, Reality, Democracy

  Noam Chomsky (2004). “Chomsky on Mis-Education”, p.16, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

• Even Stalin proclaimed his love for democracy. We do not learn about the nature of systems of power by listening to their rhetoric.

  Noam Chomsky

  Listening, Democracy, His Love

  "Kurds within the Arab spring and the Middle East Crisis". Interview with Haidar Nasih, chomsky.info. December 30, 2012.

• 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

• Under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control.

  Noam Chomsky

  Democracy, Principles, Definitions

  Noam Chomsky (2004). “Language and Politics”, p.138, AK Press

• Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless. In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future.

  Noam Chomsky

  Shopping, Community, Enemy

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order”, p.8, Seven Stories Press

• Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state...

  Noam Chomsky

  Media, Political, Democracy

  "On Propaganda". WBAI Interview, chomsky.info. January 1992.

• In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.

  Noam Chomsky

  Freedom, Hero, Democracies Have

• Anarcho-syndic alism took for granted that working people ought to control their own work, its conditions, the enterprises in which they work, along with communities, so they should be associated with one another in free associations, and democracy of that kind should be the foundational elements of a more general free society.

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Community, Democracy

• As long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if even meaningful.

  Noam Chomsky

  Meaningful, Long, Democracy

  "The Relevance of Anarcho-syndicalism". Interviewed with Peter Jay, chomsky.info. July 25, 1976.

• The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Design, Democracy, Principles

  Noam Chomsky (2010). “Hopes and Prospects”, p.89, Penguin UK

• There was a free election in Palestine, but it came out the wrong way. So instantly, the United States and Israel with Europe tagging along, moved to punish the Palestinian people, and punish them harshly, because they voted the wrong way in a free election. That's accepted here in the West as perfectly normal. That illustrates the deep hatred and contempt for democracy among western elites, so deep-seated they can't even perceive it when it's in front of their eyes. You punish people severely if they vote the wrong way in a free election.

  Noam Chomsky

  Eye, Israel, Europe

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• Bolivia is a striking example. The mostly white, Europeanized elite, which is a minority, happens to be sitting on most of the hydrocarbon reserves. For the first time Bolivia is becoming democratic. So it's therefore bitterly hated by the West, which despises democracy, because it's much too dangerous.

  Noam Chomsky

  White, Democracy, Example

• In a democracy the day when you pay your taxes, April 15, would be a day of celebration, because you're getting together to provide resources for the programs you decided on.

  Noam Chomsky

  Democracy, Together, Would Be

  Source: www.iww.org

• The Bolshevik revolution was a counter-revolution. Its first moves were to destroy and eliminate every socialist tendency that had developed in the pre-revolutionary period. Their goal was as they said; it wasn't a big secret. They regarded the Soviet Union as sort a backwater. They were orthodox Marxists, expecting a revolution in Germany. They moved toward what they themselves called "state capitalism," then they moved on to Stalinism. They called it democracy and called it socialism. The one claim was as ludicrous as the other.

  Noam Chomsky

  Moving, Goal, Secret

• The best defense against democracy is to distract people.

  Noam Chomsky

  People, Democracy, Defense

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “How the World Works”, p.241, Soft Skull Press

• 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.

• Citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for meaningful democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Meaningful, Self, Intellectual

  Noam Chomsky (1989). “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies”, p.8, Pluto Press

• Julian Assange shouldn't be the subject of a grand jury hearing, he should be given a medal. He's contributing to democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Democracy, Hearing, Should

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

• The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies.

  Noam Chomsky

  Government, Democracy, Corporations

• I think a decent society should protect rights to private property within limits, but not concentrations of private power that infringe on the freedom and rights of others, including exploitation of labor, and that convert any democratic forms into what have been called sometimes "hierarchical democracies," like ours, in which some have vastly greater influence over public policy than others. Spelling all of this out is a complex matter that raises many issue and problems that are impossible to address here.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Democracy, Impossible

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

• Putting it in plain terms, the general public must be reduced to its traditional apathy and obedience, and driven from the arena of political debate and action, if democracy is to survive.

  Noam Chomsky

  Political, Democracy, Apathy

  Noam Chomsky (1989). “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies”, p.3, Pluto Press

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