Skull wrote:
Once again, you are going down the academic route, but even if the above was the case, what does it matter?
Well essentially it's an academic text and to that extent it has to be engaged in academic terms, or at least to the extent that mere mortals like ourselves can do so.
My point essentially was people pick and choose from Smith to suit their ideology - as of course they do with any other argument or concept - and to that extent Chomsky is doing the same as he accuses others of doing, thus it
does matter.
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Chomsky doesn't dismiss, he reinterprets, based on the further investigation into Smith's work, something he points out, is radically different to what most people want to believe.
Well I think he's right to the extent that Smith is cited primarily by free-marketeers who downplay his other thoughts (which are cited more by people leaning towards the political left) and thus on that we can agree, but if you think Chomsky's dismissal of various concepts as "delusion and fantasy" amounts to
reinterpretation rather than
dismissal then we'll just have to disagree on that.
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No he doesn't, he makes comment, on Smith's view of the division of labour, efficiency and productivity, etc. Then upon further investigation, takes Smith's division of labour argument to its logical conclusion of monstrous human rights abuses, requiring government intervention to stop it happening.
But he crudely calls for governments to end the division of labour, which is just bonkers. What I really think he means is that government should act to mitigate the excesses of the market, division of labour etc, but in the fashion of crude political rhetoric and hyperbole he just dismisses the whole thing altogether.
Surely not even he takes this entirely seriously, beyond of course the purposes of workaday soundbites.
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Chomsky then talks about markets and the lack of real trade and entrepreneurial spirit in command economies.
Well if only he did then his argument might be more compelling, but in actual fact he dismisses "trade" and "entreprenurial spirit" as "delusion and fantasy", which is completely different to the more reasonable way you've portrayed them above.
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There's more than one argument, and if you watch the video, it jumps from academic theories to their practical application in command economies.
Yes, but as I said it's primarily crude polemical rather than anything more - you shouldn't need me to tell you that politicians try to portray things as black and white rather than anything more nuanced and realistic, and Chomsky's video is an exemplar of that.
But that's why - despite his undoubted ability to analyse and critique - he'll always be marginal to the decision making process, despite his huge popularity with those of a radical bent.
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