Noam Chomsky on Economic Inequality

[Stikibits]

“We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
–Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1856-1941)

[doccarter]

This is one reason Noam Chomsky is kept out of mainstream media.

[jp.dlamini]

At work, just press play and listen to Mr Chomsky.
Beats every meditation/mindfulness app.

[pab]

I wish more people focused on people such as Noam. As opposed to sports or regular media BS

[Teddy_Toto]

"The United States is a business run society...". Very true. The US is now no more a country than JP Morgan Chase or McDonalds...When I was younger, I used to believe in Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Now that I'm older and have seen how poorly we treat our veterans, I'm ashamed at my own country. But it's not just our veterans. It's the elderly as well as our children. I live in the Bay Area which is a weird place. There is extreme opulence alongside a large and growing homeless population. And you don't have to go far to see poverty that looks like a 'third world' country. Many of the people in poverty are children.

[badwolf]

The Oxfam report doesn't actually say that 62 people own 50% of wealth, but that 62 people own as much wealth as the bottom 50% of people: an important distinction, but nonetheless an alarming result.

[joshpollack]

i love noam. sometimes he so puts into words what i feel, but cannot express

[scvman]

Noam Chomsky has such a relaxing voice.

[SGC-ty]

It's 2020 now and the life expectancy in the UK has began to drop for the first time in a century.

[sols]

This world is crazy. We have the knowledge. We have the technology. We have the resources... Yet we are dying. we are poisoning the world. we are depressed. we are ugly.

[bulldogmadhav]

Now 26 individuals have 50% of all the wealth

[FelipeFonsecaIchthys]

Very important information here. I really respect professor Noam Chomsky, he's a man not only very wise and precise but also has an adequately moral perspective with clear sincerity on this kind of concerns. He's what I as a conservative biblical christian could call a virtuous pagan (or more precisely a non-believer secular jew who nevertheless has some level of true virtue by the common grace of God).

[dienekes]

10:00 It's interesting to me when Norm was talking about the fact that the people who would normally vote Social Democratic "just don't vote because there is no party to represent them." I think it's been proven over and over again that when the masses don't vote, Republicans win and when the masses DO vote, Democrats win. That's what's so baffling about the DNC: they know they will continue to lose as long as they don't have a democratic socialist platform, but they literally don't care.

I've seen recent interviews with several of the "leading" Democrats and when they say "there's nothing wrong with the Democratic party!" I'm pretty sure that they are just flat out lying. There is no way that Nancy Pelosi can get a report that the Democrats have lost 1000 seats and think everything is okay. No one is that obtuse, especially someone that has been in that position for that long.

The ONLY explanation is that her job focus has shifted from having a strong, successful party that represents the people to raising as much money as possible and splitting it with as few people as possible.

We need to primary and replace ALL the right-wing, sell-out, corporatist Democrats and replace them all with Progressive politicians that will do the job they are hired to do, instead of selling out to the competition.

[shway]

He misspoke. 60 individuals don't hold half the world's wealth, the hold more wealth than the bottom 50%, which is only a small percentage of total world wealth.

[christinepurdy]

Everybody Knows, by Leonard Cohen, matches Chomsky's observations of the United States.

[stephenmurray]

I predict a serious change coming... In my lifetime.

[MohamedMahmoud-eytj]

Idk how chomsky can remember all these details and numbers, I can barely remember my phone number

[rustybyrnes]

Can't have the rich without the poor. Can't have unbelievable concentrated wealth (62 individuals) without enormous amounts of the poor (4, 000, 000, 000+ individuals). If only the poor would organise... imagine a union 4 billion strong.

[SenasDraugas]

I wonder what is a tipping point for such system to collapse? Main cause of Roman Empire collapse could be argued was large inequality which lead to weakening of empire and loss of support of its poor population. In recent times, ww1 could be argued happened because of mass working class movement which created low support for governments and support for changes and then manipulated to support war and nationalism so trouble makers would kill each other in trenches. Recently I recall an article, where USA military officials points out that bad economic environment could increase conscription rates, so higher inequality means bigger profits and larger army for new world economical elite? I guess people back then did not have iphones, TV screens and other distractions which we have today, but only bread and games so tipping point could be much higher.
About Chomsky: I enjoy listening to Chomsky, i just fell that he was more radical in his young days and became more careful with his words later on. There may be reasons...

[billrussell]

In short, what we refer to as economics needs to evolve. Pain both physically and emotionally will and is experienced by many in the traditional temporal transition.