Best products from r/chomsky

We found 26 comments on r/chomsky discussing the most recommended products. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 97 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

Top comments mentioning products on r/chomsky:

u/bleer95 · 2 pointsr/chomsky

>\>So, things that C&H conveniently forgot to mention: North Vietnam invaded Laos (!),

Well, remember that it depends on what you regard as "Laos" at the time. Laos was divided between the royalist government (basically colonial leftovers put in charge of the newly formed Laotian state, even though they were basically all colonial collaborationists) and the Pathet Lao territories. It was effectively in civil war, so there wasn't really a finalized, decided upon Laos. The North Vietnamese were active in Pathet Lao territories, illegal, yes, but only if you didn't recognize any legitimacy to Pathet Lao territories.

>\> and the Communists gained their power as lackeys for these foreign invaders (!)

This isn't true. Yes, the Pathet Lao were allied with the Vietminh during the Indochina War, and got a lot of support from them, but they were a legitimate party active in Laos dedicated to Laos. It's not as if they were just some gang of thugs they hired to fight for them. As time dragged on, it's true the North Vietnamese were playing favorites and increasingly supporting the Pathet Lao with military action, but the Pathet Lao weren't lackeys

>\> Although the Communists did well in the 1958 elections, they absolutely did not have a majority in government at the time,

This is true (though worth noting this is because the 58 elections were only meant to contest newly integrated territories in the north, they were not fully national elections).

>\> Xananikôn was elected constitutionally by the National Assembly, including the Communists.

True in word, but lacking in context. Xananikon was elected to replace Souvana Phouma. However, you have to remember that Phouma was only kicked out (via a vote of no confidence in teh parliament) because the US suspended aid after it found out leftists won the northern regional elections in 58 (and also to a lesser extent in protest over staggering corruption). Xananikon went on to dissolve parliament and arrest most of the Pathet Lao, so Xananikon was at least just as responsible for stonewalling, if not far more.

>\> The Communists refused to stand down their armies and join the national government, and when the government tried to make them, North Vietnam invaded again, with the Communists supporting the foreign invaders.

Well, this is where things get complicated. Firstly, it started with a misunderstanding and the US being quite explicitly against the integration of the Pathet Lao in the the Laotian army. What likely would have been a minor argument about how the Pathet Lao would integrate into the army (which could be worked out) turned into war, but it's not hard to see why the communists may have mistrusted the rest of the government. After all, Xananikon straight up had the communists arrested and parliament disbanded. Not only that, but US Aid, which was directly tied to the economy, was withheld everytime the leftists made ground, it was clear that they were not considered desirable. North Vietnam did send troops in to support the Pathet Lao, but that was again not really a territorial expansion so much as it was supporting a group whom they had historical ties to and it wasn't really an "invasion" in the sense of conquest or annexation, it was in support of the Pathet Lao, who were in a rather precarious position.

>\> It was in this context that the Neutralists launched their coup, and Phoumi’s CIA-backed countercoup was actually in opposition to it. This is a really different story than C&H’s version.

Kong Le wasn't really a neutralist. He was just a pissed off militaryman that ended up aligning with the lefitsts and neutralists.

>\> C&H never lie per se, but they leave out things as significant as a giant foreign invasion happening during the middle of the events they’re describing.

True, but they never mentioned the Thai soldiers who were found supporting Phoumi. Also, describing it as an invasion in the sense of conequest isn't accurate. They just wanted a path to launch their incursions into South Vietnam through. They weren't hoping to expand in Laos or aynthing like that.

​

​

If you want more information, read this book:

https://www.amazon.com/History-Post-War-Southeast-Asia-Independence/dp/0821401602

​

the man who wrote it isn't exactly pro-leftist, but even he basically goes on to say that at best, the US policy towards Laos at the time was directly manipulative with little regard for the Laotian people or its peace.

u/SenseiMike3210 · 1 pointr/chomsky

> I don't see whats so hard about dismissing a large chunk of his work. The world has changed, his model represents an abstract model of 19th century capitalism which is very different to todays capitalism.

See this is what I'm on about. People are so ready to "chuck out" the work of a leading figure in western thought and yet haven't done any of the work required to make that determination. Marx's model isn't an "abstract model of 19th century capitalism". It's actually a concrete analysis of the inner logic of the capitalist mode of production.

>By capitalism I meant 'really existing', what people describe as our current political system.

And by capitalism I mean:

>"Capitalism is a system in which goods and services, down to the most basic necessities of life, are produced for profitable exchange, where even human labour-power is a commodity for sale in the market, and where all economic actors are dependent on the market. This is true not only of workers, who must sell their labour-power for a wage, but also of capitalists, who depend on the market to buy their input, including labour-power, and to sell their output for profit. Capitalism differs from other social forms because producers depend on the market for access to the means of production (unlike, for instance, peasants, who remain in direct, non-market possession of land); while appropriation cannot rely on ‘extra-economic’ powers of appropriation by means of direct coercion - such as the military, political, and judicial powers that enable feudal lords to extract surplus labour from peasants - but must depend on the purely ‘economic’ mechanism of the market. This distinct system of market dependence means that the requirements of competition and profit-maximization are the fundamental rules of life. Because of those rules, capitalism is a system uniquely driven to improve the productivity of labour by technical means. Above all, it is a system in which the bulk of society’s work is done by propertyless laborers who are obliged to sell their labour-power in exchange for a wage in order to gain access to the means of life and of labour itself. In the process of supplying the needs and wants of society, workers are at the same time and inseparably creating profits for those who buy their labour-power. In fact, the production of goods and services is subordinate to the production of capital and capitalist profit. The basic objective of the capitalist system, in other words, is the production and self-expansion of capital." - Ellen Meiskin Wood The Origin of Capitlaism

We live in a society like that. If you want to really understand it, you should read Marx. Marx illuminates what makes a society like that work.

>I respect people like Chomsky and Russell because it takes them 1 page instead of 1200 pages to say how labour is exploited by removing illusions rather than constructing theories. 1200 page manuscripts are not helpful for ordinary people.

Chomsky does not provide a rigorous theory of exploitation. And it takes Chomsky plenty of pages to unpack what he has to say. When he says the US is a terrorist state he goes on for a whole book about why exactly that's the case. As he should.

>As for the shorter work like communist manifesto it is largely rhetoric with spots of analysis.

That's so fucking stupid. He provides a concise analysis of class relations in capitalism, gives a brief history of social relations of production to illustrate the transformation of feudal pre-capitalist society into "modern" industrial capitalism, and briefly talks about the workers movement toward communism.

You should really try to engage with Marx before making sweeping incorrect statement about his work. See when Chomsky criticizes Marx I respect his position because he's done the hard work to engage with it seriously. He's read Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Pannekoek, Luxemburg, etc. According to you yourself, you've not read the Communist Manifesto but dismiss it anyway.

u/SheltererOfCats · 1 pointr/chomsky

And if you just wanna get plain weird this book by Merlin Stone can make you wonder about everything.

Like there was a war and the bad guys won. After they won they made great efforts to erase a previously existing religion and to date (10,000 years) have been very successful at suppressing the past from pretty much everyone.

Like when you hear Syria you should think Inanna, not ISIL. No one talks about the archaeological treasures that get reduced to rubble every time we invade a country with artifacts. The artifacts never make it and all i see in common is that traces of the old religion are being erased, very consistently, and of course no one in media talks about it.

But that's just me.

u/Wandering_who · 3 pointsr/chomsky

Sure:
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/771283.MITI_and_the_Japanese_Miracle [ Chalmers Johnson on Japanese Economic Development]

[2] http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674226005 [Alex Gerschenkron on Economic Development with an emphasis on Eastern Europe]

[3] http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195076036.001.0001/acprof-9780195076035 [Alice Amsden on South Korean Industrial Development]

[4] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2867586-economics-and-world-history [Paul Bairoch on economic development and industrialization in general]

[5] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8913542-23-things-they-don-t-tell-you-about-capitalism?from_search=true&search_version=service [Ha Joon Chang]

[6] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/187808.Kicking_Away_the_Ladder?from_search=true&search_version=service [Ha Joon Chang]

[7] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18008001-an-uncertain-glory?from_search=true&search_version=service [Amartya Sen on techniques of what is now known as human development with a focus on India]

[8] http://prebisch.cepal.org/en/works/economic-development-latin-america-and-its-principal-problems [Economic Development in Latin America]

[9] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53981.The_Great_Transformation?from_search=true&search_version=service [Another very good book on a similar vein]

[10] For the late industrialization in China kindly check this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvkhIBQFW1w

[11] For industrialization in India during the Nehru-Gandhi era check, Vivek Chibber: http://www.amazon.com/Locked-Place-State-Building-Industrialization-India/dp/0691126232

[12] For Economic Development/Industrialization across Asia (and the role of finance in stopping it) check this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ine9PyupCBU

  1. As you'll notice I've differentiated between Human Development and Industrial/Economic Development. When capitalism with an emphasis on manufacturing/industrialization was being adopted as an economic system, it did [as it always does] throw up massive inequalities. In response to these inequalities various movements/protests/political parties [such as socialists,social democrats..] developed across the decades. The modern welfare state [or human development measures in the global north] that we see now was developed either in anticipation of social unrest (as in case of Bismarck's Germany) or in reaction to the protests (such as in United States in 1930s), or by these somewhat social democratic parties (i.e. Social democrats in Sweden, Labour in UK, Kennedy-Johnson Democratic Party in 1960s).

  2. Modern Human development (such as those peddled under the rubric of millenium development goals) however, doesn't ride on the back of industrialization. In this era of late Capitalism, modern human development mostly involves basic social provision and it rides on the back of commodity boom in the home country and cyclical financial inflow from the Global North (as in the case of India). It does help people no doubt but is pretty unsustainable. {eg. Brasil & India have already introduced austerity}.


u/bernie2020v · 1 pointr/chomsky

The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality: Bhaskar Sunkara: Books
https://www.amazon.com/Socialist-Manifesto-Radical-Politics-Inequality/dp/1541617398

[From one of the most prominent voices on the American Left, a galvanizing argument for why we need socialism in the United States today

With the stunning popularity of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Americans are embracing the class politics of socialism. But what, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system in America look like?

In The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision for its future. The editor of Jacobin magazine, Sunkara shows that socialism, though often seen primarily as an economic system, in fact offers the means to fight all forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to healthcare, education, and housing, and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities. A primer on socialism for the 21st century, this is a book for anyone seeking an end to the vast inequities of our age.]

u/solo-ran · 1 pointr/chomsky

I'm not sure about this. As I understand the mortgage-backed securities and credit swaps is that one of the problems prior to 2009 was there were not sufficient treasury notes in circulation to back up short terms loans so mortgage securities were used as second best collateral given the perception that a pool of mortgages, some with government backing, is only marginally less secure than a T note (Blyth). Government debt is in demand, by implication. If there is a demand for securities, a long term "punishment" of a disobedient socialist or even Keynesian government is unlikely. If stocks decide that President Bernie is a problem, for example, bonds, including government bonds, are going to be more attractive. Maybe the billionaires will all buy gold, Midwestern farmland, and cryptocurrency but it's hard to put 100 billion away like that in a hurry. Some government debt is a good place to hide. Plus, a truly outside the box government could pay down a small percentage of the overall debt by printing a small amount of money without causing massive inflation, as there is no evidence that inflation below 10% has any harmful effect on living standards. So, if the Bernie Bros were willing to let inflation tick up a bit to 6% or so, and if the stock market is iffy on socialists, the federal government should be able to borrow as much as they want -- although Bernie would hopefully not have to as AOC put through a maximum wealth law and the money comes in the old fashioned way...

​

https://www.amazon.com/Austerity-History-Dangerous-Mark-Blyth/dp/019982830X

u/aushuff · 1 pointr/chomsky

> Is there anything "disgusting" or "racist" about the video?

I watched a few minutes, but the only thing I found disgusting was the lack of engagement with any serious issues of race inequality in the US.

> I think that intellectual challenge is a good thing.

Maybe read some about issues of race, then? Here is another one.

> Unfortunately, many leftists seem to find intellectual challenge disgusting/bad/racist.

This is way too vague to be meaningful.

u/NoNonSensePlease · 3 pointsr/chomsky

Indeed, although I would have to agree with him on the Kennedy things, there are strong evidences to back it up. James Douglas's book makes a good case using released documents in 2003.

u/sigma6d · 4 pointsr/chomsky

edit: THIS is what I meant to link but the other links are still helpful: “Dan interviews Alex Gourevitch about how 19th century US labor radicals remade the idea of freedom into a principle of working-class social transformation.”

https://www.thedigradio.com/podcast/worker-freedom-with-alex-gourevitch/

From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth: Labor and Republican Liberty in the Nineteenth Century, by Alex Gourevitch

https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Cooperative-Commonwealth-Republican-Nineteenth/dp/1107663652

———————————

The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump, by Corey Robin.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0190692006/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0190692006

I think it’s referenced in Private Government, by Elizabeth Anderson.

https://www.amazon.com/Private-Government-Employers-Lives-about/dp/0691192243/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=private+government&qid=1572968997&sprefix=private+govern&sr=8-3

u/radiohead87 · 3 pointsr/chomsky

I think he's taking a lot of those ideas from the book "Disciplined minds". However, that book is only looking at people who went to graduate school. I remember hearing Chomsky giving positive comments on this book in the past.

u/Dissentologist · 2 pointsr/chomsky

Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems SPOILER

Amazon

Google Books

B&N

If there is anyone who wants to read this and legitimately can't afford it.... reply to this... and I'm sure we can find a way.

The Golden Rule Documentary feat Noam Chomsky


Can you add some info about the book(official title, author) for those just arriving to the party? I was searching Amazon... but I don't know the author and there are a few "The Golden Rule".

u/Stroggoz123 · 3 pointsr/chomsky

I just read this book, it should help you: https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Model-Today-Filtering-Perception/dp/1912656167

media ownership is more concentrated than it was, the new technologies like the internet get 80% of their news from the corporate media, apparently.

conformity among intellectuals is slightly less than what it was, it is now possible to mention the propaganda model in academia without being laughed at.

u/BillMurraysMom · 1 pointr/chomsky

Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-battering System That Shapes Their Lives by Jeff Schmidt
https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-Professionals-Soul-battering/dp/0742516857

An anarchist physicist from UCI who was fired for writing an amazing book about the subservient role of the professional to oppressive hierarchies and institutions. Chomsky signed a letter with a bunch of other intellectuals supporting him. Howard Zinn said he's been "waiting a long time for someone to write this book" and Thomas Frank gave him a shout-out in his book Listen Liberal (also a good one http://listenliberal.com/).

u/IAmNotAPerson6 · 2 pointsr/chomsky

Yeah, it seems like that's the lowest price for an ebook version. And the lowest prices for paperback are roughly the same at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. B&N has free shipping, and I don't know if Amazon Prime makes it cheaper there, so I'd just check both.