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Where are the champions of free-market capitalism? Someone needs to remind us all that two great works were published in 1776, both representing game-changing advances in human freedom: The Declaration of Independence, authored by future American president, Thomas Jefferson, and "The Wealth of Nations" by Scottish economist Adam Smith. Both embrace the social wisdom of individual liberty; both extol the importance of personal responsibility.

Noam Chomsky wrote:

I didn’t do any research at all on Smith. I just read him. There’s no research. Just read it. He’s pre-capitalist, a figure of the Enlightenment. What we would call capitalism he despised. People read snippets of Adam Smith, the few phrases they teach in school. Everybody reads the first paragraph of The Wealth of Nations where he talks about how wonderful the division of labor is. But not many people get to the point hundreds of pages later, where he says that division of labor will destroy human beings and turn people into creatures as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to be. And therefore in any civilized society the government is going to have to take some measures to prevent division of labor from proceeding to its limits... It’s the same when you read Jefferson. He lived a half century later, so he saw state capitalism developing, and he despised it, of course. He said it’s going to lead to a form of absolutism worse than the one we defended ourselves against. In fact, if you run through this whole period you see a very clear, sharp critique of what we would later call capitalism and certainly of the twentieth century version of it, which is designed to destroy individual, even entrepreneurial capitalism.

Warin wrote:

Chomsky is a dirty socialist anarchist pig.  Why the smurf would I want to even remotely listen to anything his ignorant self has to say, hmm?

(oh... )

Because he's actually really good in his area of expertise.

everlong554 wrote:

Tallgeese wrote:

Warin wrote:

Chomsky is a dirty socialist anarchist pig.  Why the smurf would I want to even remotely listen to anything his ignorant self has to say, hmm?

(oh... )

Because he's actually really good in his area of expertise.

anti american screeds and propaganda?

Linguistics, man, linguistics.

But does he speak American?

But is he cunning?