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A review by kevin_shepherd
Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power by Noam Chomsky
5.0
THE DEMISE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
“Social mobility . . . is lower here [in the U.S.] than it is in Europe, but the dream persists fostered by propaganda you hear in every political speech. “Vote for me, we’ll get the dream back.” They all reiterate it in similar words. You even hear it from people who are destroying the dream . . . but the dream has to be sustained, otherwise how are you going to get people in the richest, most powerful country in world history, with extraordinary advantages, to face the reality that they see around them?” -Noam Chomsky, 2017
It doesn’t take a PhD in political science to see the similarity between “We’ll get the dream back!” and “Make America great again!” Propaganda doesn’t have to be inconspicuous to be exceedingly effective.
How The Enormously Wealthy Stay That Way in Ten Easy Steps:
STEP ONE: Start by limiting democracy. As James Madison and John Adams so famously put it, the “Minority of the Opulent” must be protected from the “Tyranny of the Majority.” *In their defense, they had rich white property owners and not trillion dollar multinational corporations in mind—plus, they also assumed a level of benevolence and social responsibility that has long since vanished from our political landscape.
STEP TWO: You’ve got to shape ideology. This was set forth in the famous Powell Memorandum (1971) by soon-to-be Associate Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. He wrote, “Business must learn the lesson long ago learned by labor and other self-interest groups. This is the lesson that political power is necessary; that such power must be assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination—without embarrassment and without reluctance . . .”
STEP THREE: You can fast track your plunge into plutocracy by redesigning the economy. This is testified to by the shift of the American economy from long term production (à la 1950s USA) to short term profits (à la 1970s USA).
STEP FOUR: Find a way to shift the burden. The tax percentage on the wealthiest Americans in 2024 is a fraction of what was in the 1950s and 1960s. Who do you suppose has taken up the slack? Obviously not this guy…
“I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit and to the benefit of my company, my investors . . . I mean, honestly, I have brilliantly - I have brilliantly used those laws.” -Donald Trump, 2016, when asked why his return showed that he paid no taxes.
STEP FIVE: Attack solidarity. Solidarity means, essentially, caring about others. Social Security, for example, is representative of solidarity; I pay my social security taxes now so that the widowed grandmother across town can pay her rent and grocery bills. This is good for us as individuals but horrible for corporations who depend on us being dependent on them. *And oh by the way, every time I hear a politician refer to social security as an “entitlement” I want to gouge out his eyes with a dull spoon.
STEP SIX: Regulate the regulators. This one should be self explanatory. If you want regulations that benefit the wealthy, you want the wealthy to have control over what is permissible and what isn’t. For example, banks and bank lobbyists write the laws that govern financial markets and institutions. It’s a proven recipe for disaster and yet, there it is.
STEP SEVEN: Engineer elections. There is no better example than Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that struck down restrictions on campaign expenditures from corporate treasuries. Concentrated wealth is concentrated power.
STEP EIGHT: The wealthy must keep the rest of us in line. To do so organized labor must be demolished. In many sectors this has already been accomplished. Thanks to years of relentless propaganda, anti-union sentiment in 2024 America runs pretty high.
STEP NINE: Manufacture consent. Power is in the hands of the governed (us) and if we, as a nation, ever realize this all repressive and authoritarian institutions will collapse. This is why corporations spend billions every year in public relations (PR) campaigns. Why else would that type of investment be necessary?
STEP TEN: Marginalize the masses. Pretty straightforward, “… [government] policy is uncorrelated with public attitudes and closely correlated with corporate interests.” Roughly seventy percent of the American population has absolutely no influence on policy. In order for the rich to get what they want the rest of the citizens, a large majority, have to be rendered irrelevant. The tool of choice for that is what Chomsky calls “unfocused hate.” They create a straw man and blame that straw man for whatever ails you. Sometimes it’s communists, sometimes it’s undocumented aliens, sometimes it’s liberals, sometimes it’s black people, sometimes it’s brown people, sometimes it’s gay people, sometimes it’s all of the above. You get people to vote against their best interest by convincing them that the straw people are out there destroying their way of life. You stoke the fires of hate and then you herd the pissed-off to the polls. Trump is probably the most obvious example of this tactic—every time he fat shames a woman, or stereotypes an immigrant, or mocks a handicapped person, his approval rating goes up. Why? Because every plank in his platform is built on hate.
__________________________________
My biggest problem with Chomsky is that I take way too many notes. I highlight so much of his books that piecing together anything brief and spoilerless is a goddamn impossibility. So even though I over-simplified his concepts and edited out entire paragraphs, this behemoth of a “review” still turned out to be way longer than I intended. I apologize.
“Social mobility . . . is lower here [in the U.S.] than it is in Europe, but the dream persists fostered by propaganda you hear in every political speech. “Vote for me, we’ll get the dream back.” They all reiterate it in similar words. You even hear it from people who are destroying the dream . . . but the dream has to be sustained, otherwise how are you going to get people in the richest, most powerful country in world history, with extraordinary advantages, to face the reality that they see around them?” -Noam Chomsky, 2017
It doesn’t take a PhD in political science to see the similarity between “We’ll get the dream back!” and “Make America great again!” Propaganda doesn’t have to be inconspicuous to be exceedingly effective.
How The Enormously Wealthy Stay That Way in Ten Easy Steps:
STEP ONE: Start by limiting democracy. As James Madison and John Adams so famously put it, the “Minority of the Opulent” must be protected from the “Tyranny of the Majority.” *In their defense, they had rich white property owners and not trillion dollar multinational corporations in mind—plus, they also assumed a level of benevolence and social responsibility that has long since vanished from our political landscape.
STEP TWO: You’ve got to shape ideology. This was set forth in the famous Powell Memorandum (1971) by soon-to-be Associate Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. He wrote, “Business must learn the lesson long ago learned by labor and other self-interest groups. This is the lesson that political power is necessary; that such power must be assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination—without embarrassment and without reluctance . . .”
STEP THREE: You can fast track your plunge into plutocracy by redesigning the economy. This is testified to by the shift of the American economy from long term production (à la 1950s USA) to short term profits (à la 1970s USA).
STEP FOUR: Find a way to shift the burden. The tax percentage on the wealthiest Americans in 2024 is a fraction of what was in the 1950s and 1960s. Who do you suppose has taken up the slack? Obviously not this guy…
“I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit and to the benefit of my company, my investors . . . I mean, honestly, I have brilliantly - I have brilliantly used those laws.” -Donald Trump, 2016, when asked why his return showed that he paid no taxes.
STEP FIVE: Attack solidarity. Solidarity means, essentially, caring about others. Social Security, for example, is representative of solidarity; I pay my social security taxes now so that the widowed grandmother across town can pay her rent and grocery bills. This is good for us as individuals but horrible for corporations who depend on us being dependent on them. *And oh by the way, every time I hear a politician refer to social security as an “entitlement” I want to gouge out his eyes with a dull spoon.
STEP SIX: Regulate the regulators. This one should be self explanatory. If you want regulations that benefit the wealthy, you want the wealthy to have control over what is permissible and what isn’t. For example, banks and bank lobbyists write the laws that govern financial markets and institutions. It’s a proven recipe for disaster and yet, there it is.
STEP SEVEN: Engineer elections. There is no better example than Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that struck down restrictions on campaign expenditures from corporate treasuries. Concentrated wealth is concentrated power.
STEP EIGHT: The wealthy must keep the rest of us in line. To do so organized labor must be demolished. In many sectors this has already been accomplished. Thanks to years of relentless propaganda, anti-union sentiment in 2024 America runs pretty high.
STEP NINE: Manufacture consent. Power is in the hands of the governed (us) and if we, as a nation, ever realize this all repressive and authoritarian institutions will collapse. This is why corporations spend billions every year in public relations (PR) campaigns. Why else would that type of investment be necessary?
STEP TEN: Marginalize the masses. Pretty straightforward, “… [government] policy is uncorrelated with public attitudes and closely correlated with corporate interests.” Roughly seventy percent of the American population has absolutely no influence on policy. In order for the rich to get what they want the rest of the citizens, a large majority, have to be rendered irrelevant. The tool of choice for that is what Chomsky calls “unfocused hate.” They create a straw man and blame that straw man for whatever ails you. Sometimes it’s communists, sometimes it’s undocumented aliens, sometimes it’s liberals, sometimes it’s black people, sometimes it’s brown people, sometimes it’s gay people, sometimes it’s all of the above. You get people to vote against their best interest by convincing them that the straw people are out there destroying their way of life. You stoke the fires of hate and then you herd the pissed-off to the polls. Trump is probably the most obvious example of this tactic—every time he fat shames a woman, or stereotypes an immigrant, or mocks a handicapped person, his approval rating goes up. Why? Because every plank in his platform is built on hate.
__________________________________
My biggest problem with Chomsky is that I take way too many notes. I highlight so much of his books that piecing together anything brief and spoilerless is a goddamn impossibility. So even though I over-simplified his concepts and edited out entire paragraphs, this behemoth of a “review” still turned out to be way longer than I intended. I apologize.