Globalization and its Discontents

Noam Chomsky debates with Washington Post readers

Washington Post, May 16, 2000,

Lecturer and author Noam Chomsky will be online Tuesday, May 16 at 1 p.m. to discuss
globalization, free trade and the vote to extend permanent normal trade relations to China.
Chomsky is currently Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history,
contemporary issues, international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. The author of numerous
books, Chomskys most recent works include The Common Good: Profit Over People and The
New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo. Chomsky discussed his views on globalization and
debt relief in the April 24, 2000 issue of The Nation. On Tuesday May 16, Noam Chomsky will
answer washigntonpost.com userss question on these and other issues.
Noam Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received his
undergraduate degree and his PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. Chomsky
joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955 and in 1961 was appointed
full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (now the Department of
Linguistics and Philosophy.) From 1966 to 1976 he held the Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of
Modern Languages and Linguistics. In 1976 he was appointed Institute Professor.
Submit questions for Noam Chomsky.
Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China: 1. Do you believe that the type of statement made last
week by Ford Motor Company regarding corporate social responsibility represents a step toward
voluntary selfpolicing that is a realistic solution under global competition? If not, should efforts
be made toward developing global regulations or toward localization efforts?
Tom Burgess,
Social Studies Teacher, Taipei American School
Noam Chomsky: A corporation is a form of private tyranny. Its directors have a responsibility to
increase profit and market share, not to do good works. If they fail that responsibility, they will
be removed. They have some latitude for public relations purposes, and the talk about corporate
responsibility falls within that territory. But it makes no sense to regard them as benevolent
institutions, freed from their institutional role. It is a public responsibility to enforce decent
behavior.

Morgantown, WV: Are there any salutary aspects of the

much overused word, globalization?
Noam Chomsky: You are right to be skeptical about the term. What is called globalization is a
specific form of international integration, designed and instituted for particular purposes. There
are many possible alternatives. This particular form happens to be geared to the interests of
private power, manufacturing corporations and financial institutions, closely linked to powerful
states. Effects on others are incidental. Sometimes they happen to be beneficial, often not.
Bethesda, MD: What is your view on the explanations given for the US bombing of the Chinese
embassy? Do you think it is affecting the MFN debate?
Noam Chomsky: The explanation given for the bombing of the Embassy was not very convincing,
but could be correct. I doubt that the Embassy was chosen as a target. That would have made
little sense. I also do not think it is a major factor in the MFN debate. It was a major issue in
China of course. Not here.
NYC, NY: Does the transfer of wealth from the US to China (by reducing trade restrictions) really
increase the growth of a Chinese middle class? And will this middle class accumulate enough
wealth to spread the concentration of power in China?
Noam Chomsky: I wouldnt expect the trade deals with China to transfer wealth from the US to
China. Rather, in both countries it will contribute to transfering wealth to privileged sectors and
away from the general populations though as always, they might enjoy some benefits, as an
incidental byproduct. The largest effect will probably within China. Opening Chinas borders to
US imports and allowing a good part of its economy to be taken over by US financial institutions,
and other concomitants of these agreements, are likely to be highly beneficial to elements of
Chinese society that take part in these arrangements, possibly quite harmful to most of the
population who have no voice. They are not represented by their government, surely not ours.
Washington, DC: What exactly does America stand to gain from extending normal trade
relations with China? Is it something that would benefit China more? China already seems to be a
trade powerhouse. How would this trade be affected during a possible armed conflict?
Noam Chomsky: It is misleading to ask what America gains or loses. Or China. Gains and
losses are distributed within the societies. The normal trade relations happen to include
extreme forms of protectionism to benefit US corporations(for example, a patent regime that
would have prevented development in todays rich societies, including the US, had they
submitted to it), but no meaningful protection for the rights of ordinary people, working people
in particular, or Chinese peasants who are likely to suffer gravely. Working people in the US may
lose, investors in the US and financial institutions will surely gain. When one says that China is a
powerhouse, bear in mind that much of that is foreignowned production. The effects on
Chinese society are in fact complex. In armed conflict, all bets are off.
Washington, DC: Why is it that the groups that have organized the resistance to the WTO and

World Bank/IMF have failed to bring blacks and latinos into the movement in significant
numbers.
Mike Fekula
Washington, DC
Noam Chomsky: More generally, poor people are underrepresented. Raceclass correlations in
the US are significant, a fact which partially accounts for the correct observation you make. In
general, more privileged people have more opportunities. That includes opportunities to take
part in public protest and resistance. The costs are, roughly, inversely proportional to privilege,
just as opportunities correlate pretty well with privilege. These are large factors to keep in
mind.
Knoxville, Tenn.: The New York Times has written that the protestors against freetrade are
wrong, including the AFLCIO. Even the proenvironment/Democratic presidential candidate Al
Gore favors MFN status for China. How and why can they be so wrong on the subject?
And while I admire the fact that students are getting involved in protesting something, there is a
seriously antiscience component to the antiglobalization movement. Does this trou[ble you]?
Noam Chomsky: Did the NYT, Gore, etc., say why the protestors are wrong? Or even what their
positions are? For one thing, the issue is not simply free trade. What is called free trade has
highly protectionist elements. What is at issue are investor rights agreements, not free trade.
The protestors, including the AFLCIO, have good reasons to oppose investor rights agreements
that insist on very high protection for property rights (often resulting, in fact, from taxpayer
subsidy), but little or no protection for the rights of fleshandblood people, including rights of
working people both in the US and in other countries. Thats not oppostion to free trade. It
is worth remembering that the press has refused even to permit the official positions of the
labor movement to appear. Thus during the NAFTA debate, the labor movement had a clearly
developed position, not opposed to a NAFTA, but opposed to this particular version. Its analysis
and proposals happened to be rather similar to those of Congresss own research bureau, the
Office of Technology Assessment. But while the labor movement was constantly berated on false
grounds, its actual position was never reported. The observation generalizes.
washington, dc: What are examples or principles of the sort of international trade that you
think should exist?
Noam Chomsky: There can be no general answer to this, except banalities. Trade is not a value
in itself. Its good or bad, depending on its costs and benefits for people including people of
future generations (which is what environmental issues are basically about). Trade can have
welfare benefits, it also carries plenty of costs, many of which are not counted, though they are
severe (pollution, resource waste and depletion, etc.). We should compare the costs and
benefits, case by case, and decide democratically how policies should be set in the light of the
best assessment that can be made about these matters. Note also that what is called trade is

to a large extent not trade in any meaningful sense. A substantial consists of intrafirm transfers
that happens to cross borders, that is, centrally managed interactions in violation of market
principles. The same is true of outsourcing, a way to increase profits but often harming people.
There are also complex strategic alliances among firms. If we try to calculate all these factors,
it would almost surely turn out that the majority of what is called trade is actually in large
part centrally managed. Furthermore, the term trade is extended to cover capital flow, which
is something entirely different and is astronomical, if we take into account speculative flows,
which have been liberalized under the mislabelled free trade regime, and are almost surely
harmful to the economy, just as they serve to undermine democratic choice.
Marlborough, Mass.: (1) How many centuries will it take before the PRC becomes a serious
trading partner of the USA or any other highly industrialized western nation? They may have over
one billion people, but very few of them have any real money and they have a history of
importing a $ value equal to a TINY fraction of what we historically have been importing from
them.
(2)Why should we have permanent normal trade relations with any country? This seems to
imply that we are locked into some kind of relationship from which exiting would be difficult if
the original reasons change over time.
Noam Chomsky: We should bear in mind that a few centuries ago, India and China were the
commercial and manufacturing centers of the world. As recently as the 1860s, England was
concerned that it could not compete with Chinese manufactures one of the reason why it
forced Opium on China. What we look at today is the result of a few centuries of violence and
conquest, which might be reversed and modified surely should be. What China will become is
very hard to say. Little is understood about matters of this complexity.
As for permanent relations, these do not exist. Relations can always change, and always do.
But it makes sense to have some kind of relatively orderly framework for international relations,
including economic relations. The question is what should they be. Should they be designed for
the interests of investors, lenders, manufacturing corporations, investment firms, etc.? Or for
the interests of the general population? The answers are complex, and lead to quite different
conceptions of how relatively stable relations should be established. There is, furthermore, a
very important point that your question brings up. It is now largely conceded that the point of
NAFTA was not to yield the economic benefits that were widely proclaimed (and by now
disproven). Rather, to lock Mexico into the reforms of the 1980s, by arrangements that could
not easily be changed if a more democratic government came about. These reforms were fine
for US investors and rich Mexicans, but a disaster for most of the population. Real wages
declines sharply during the reforms, and have been declining further since NAFTA. These are
some reasons to be skeptical about arrangements that are made to appear permanent.
Paris, France: Dr. Chomsky,
Hernando De Soto of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Lima, Peru has tried to help

people by reforming government bureaucracies. His premise is that enforceable property rights
help the poor since they can use their land or home as capital when they apply for loans.
Without clear titles, they cannot get financing. What do you think of Dr. De Sotos thesis and
how he is trying to put them into practice? Wouldnt Permanent Normal Trade Relations help
bring China more firmly into the mainstream of economic relations and improve the rule of
law in that country?
Noam Chomsky: It depends on what the enforceable property rights are. Under some
circumstances, granting clear title, etc., might be helpful to people. When property rights are
granted to power and privilege, it can be expected to be harmful to most people. Furthermore,
the rights and concerns of sane people go beyond individual ownership. There is also social
property and concerns e.g., the right to a liveable environment, and the concern that the kid
down the street gets a good education. That is, or should be, a large part of a decent human
life, and should be a background to the (sometimes legitimate) concern for individual property
rights. Also to be borne in mind is that collectivist legal entities (corporations) have been
granted rights of persons, and rights that go far beyond, mostly by radical judicial activism. We
should always ask what property rights or any rights these entities should have.
About bring China into the mainstream, depends what mainstream you have in mind. The
mainstream of the specific form of globalization that has been instituted in the past 25 years
has had many harmful effects. Rates of growth of the economy and productivity have slowed,
wages have stagnated or declined for a great many people (in the US, a majority of
nonsupervisory workers), the work load has sharply increased, benefits have declined, social
indicators have deteriorated over a considerable range, and so on with far worse
consequences in the South (the former colonial world), which is why the nonaligned countries
(accounting for 80% of the worlds population), have strongly condemned this form of
globalization, just last April in fact, in major conferences that were scarcely reported in the US.
We should be asking what kind of mainstream we would like to see, for ourselves as well, not
just for the people of China who, remember, have no voice in what is going on.
Washington D.C.: A shift in information results in a shift in the balance of power. Will this
theory apply economically and or militarily to the United States if PNTR is passed?
Noam Chomsky: Im not sure I grasp the question. There are shifts in control over information,
some quite significant. One example is the increasing concentration of media control, quite
startling over the past 20 years (that includes not just press, but what is often called popular
culture generally). There are also serious questions about the future of the internet. Like most
dynamic sectors of the economy, this is largely the product of the vast state sector, meaning
that the public bore the costs and risks for several decades, until it was handed over to private
power, as a huge gift from the public (which was uanaware), just a few years ago. What the
future of this system will be is now a terrain of struggle. When it was under public control, it
was commonly called an information superhighway. Now the catchword is ecommerce.

Something else we should remember is that for centuries, and particularly in the 20th century,
creating artificial wants and stimulating wild and harmful consumerism has been quite
consciously regarded as an effective device of social control. These are very live issues. I suspect
they are not what you had in mind, but that I did not grasp.
Bethesda, MD: Mr. Chomsky, I have been an admirer of your work for a long time. Thanks for
doing this discussion today.
Recently the Washington Post (I think) quoted Chinese human rights activists as saying that MFN
status for China will help promote human rights; the argument is that a policy of engagement
with the country will give us the standing to monitor and call for redress of human rights abuses.
What do you think of this argument?
Noam Chomsky: Id like to believe that, but see very little reason to. Theres a presupposition
that has to be evaluated, not just accepted as a given truth: that US power systems
(government, corporate) have a record of promoting human rights and overcoming human rights
abuses. This is not the place to try to review the record. Ill simply say that there is, I think,
overwhelming evidence that this presupposition is not correct. Not just for the US; for other
great powers as well. The story is not uniform, but is also not attractive. Insofar as there has
been concern for human rights, its the result of substantial popular pressure and struggle.
Theres nothing automatic about it.
washingtonpost.com: If PNTR is passed, will it hurt the labor movements ability to influence
change and successfully lobby congress on future issues? Is this a test of labors current and
future influence on government?
Noam Chomsky: I think one of the main goals of the corporatestate sponsors of these proposals
is to weaken the US labor movement, and popular sovereignty generally. Its a large question,
and I cannot try to deal with it here, but one central aspect of globalization is the transfer of
power to make decisions to the hands of private concentrations of power, and away from
governments, which means away from the public, to the extent that these governments are
democratic. Thats a regular consequence of financial liberalization. Its also a consequence of
allowing corporate power to distribute production. Even the threat of transfer is a powerful
weapon against working people. It increases worker insecurity, something that is supposed to
be good for the economy, according to the reigning ideology. The World Bank has gone so far
as to declare that flexibility of labor markets which, they recognize, means making workers
more insecure must be a central feature of reforms. The misnamed free trade
agreements contribute to this process. In many respects, the weaken the labor movement, and
popular democracy generally.
Lansdowne, PA: In your view, what should our position be in relation to China and MFN?
Noam Chomsky: My own view is that the whole framework is severely flawed. The kind of
international integration that should be pursued should be seriously rethought. It doesnt have

to take the form of globalization geared to the the needs of corporate power. If the system is
modified along the lines that I think should be seriously considered, privileging quite different
rights and concerns, the question of relations to China will take a different form. If we assume
the system as given, with all of its (in my view, very severe) flaws, the questions are much
narrower: what will be the human consequences of fixing permanent relations with China
within this (severly flawed) system. I dont think there is a simple answer to that. The
likelihood, I think, is that the main effects will be for the people of China, who will lose
opportunities for longterm constructive independent development, and will lose potential
control over their economy and society (potential, because they dont have it now, surely). For
the US, corporate power will surely benefit, but working people that is, most people are
likely to be harmed in many ways.
Washington DC: How is it that something so obviously immoral, such as importing good produced
by exploitative labor practices, can be overlooked by our nations leaders? Even by liberals?
Are we too assume that they are corrupt, or is there more to it than that?
Noam Chomsky: Why should one expect leaders of our country or others to be concerned by
exploitative labor practices? A century and a half ago, working people near where Im typing
this, in Eastern Massachusetts, were condemning wage labor as hardly different from slavery,
and calling for those who work in the plants to own them. Makes sense, I think.

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