Chomsky: "Year 501. Conquest continues". The United States has Europe in its pocket

With Noam Chomski we are talking about the conflict between the United States and Europe and China, what is the fabrication of approval and is it possible for the grassroots civilian movement to effectively defy the ruling world?

Rafał Górski: How would you describe the dynamics of relations between the US and the European Union?

Noam Chomsky: There is simply a serious conflict between the United States and Europe. There is simply a conflict around the planet about whether the developing planet strategy should be unipolar or multipolar. Unipolar means controlled by the United States through NATO, which, of course, is controlled by the United States.

NATO under US force has expanded to the Indo-Pacific region, so it is now a global military system, controlled by the United States, following their orders. Europe has been included in this system.

One of the consequences of Putin's criminal invasion of Ukraine was giving the United States a wonderful gift on a silver platter. He pushed Europe into the pocket of the United States. The United States couldn't want for anything more than this wonderful gift. alternatively of becoming an independent force in planet affairs, what Europe could do is now, at least for now, the vassal of the United States, as the French have said. It's a wonderful gift from Vladimir Putin to Washington.

It is simply a major blow for Europe due to the fact that it is pushing it towards deindustrialisation. The German-based industrial strategy of Europe, which extends from the Netherlands to Poland and Slovakia, and a very successful system, is based very heavy on mineral resources from the east, Russia, and the increasing Chinese market. The U.S. wants to cut it off and subdue it.

Is there anything specific?

For example, the Netherlands has the most advanced lithographic manufacture in the world, which produces very advanced quality essential components for semiconductors, which are the core of advanced technology. The U.S. wants her to break her relation with China. It would be disastrous for the Netherlands. Will he? We do not know yet, but this extends across Europe.

Who gains and who loses in the war in Ukraine?

The top casualties of war are, of course, the Ukrainians, but the remainder of the planet besides suffers. Many parts of the planet experience sharp cuts in food supplies from the Black Sea region. Europe is in reverse, even facing possible deindustrialisation. 1 country gains enormously – the United States.

The profits in major American corporations go up. Energy corporations can now supply liquefied natural gas to Germany at about 10 times the price of Russia. They don't know what to do with their profits. The food strategy of the planet is an oligopoly composed of about 5 corporations. Now, due to the simplification in the supply of grain and fertilizers from the Black Sea region, they are raising their prices. That's part of the origin of inflation in the United States. And again, profits just grow.

Of course, the arms manufacture is delighted. The United States has Europe in its pocket, and American military and strategical analysts indicate openly, I can quote them that for the US, war in Ukraine is simply a perfect opportunity. For a fraction of the U.S. military budget, they are able to seriously weaken the armed forces of their only military opponent. For example, Anthony Cordesman, 1 of the leading strategical analysts, and others, can read this. The United States is fine. I'm not saying that's why they're prolonging the war, but that's the fact. Europe is suffering not as much as, of course, Ukraine or even the remainder of the world, but seriously; will it let itself to continue? That is not necessary.

You can remember that erstwhile the russian Union broke up, Mikhail Gorbachev proposed what he called a common European home from Lisbon to Vladivostok: it was about moving the joint effort of the full Euro-Asian region towards social democracy, without conflict, without military alliances, and besides creating a road to a immense Chinese market. Well, it was a possibility. In fact, this is most likely the reason why the US expanded NATO in an effort to block the initiative.

Macron is the only European leader who inactive calls for something like this. He does not admit openly, but his journey to China fundamentally says that Europe should not submit to the United States, it should make independent policies.

Well, he was bitterly attacked in Europe, but not entirely. The Head of the European Council, Claude Charles Michel, said that most European leaders agree with him. They just can't say it in public due to the fact that they're afraid of the United States. But you can see that what's happening is rather complicated.

Let's go back to the unipolar-multipolar conflict.

The United States wants a unipolar strategy that will dominate, among others, through NATO military alliances, commercial pressures.

Most of the planet is moving towards a multi-polar situation in which we have respective power centers, and 1 of them, of course, is China.

Look at most of the planet – it stays out of conflict in Ukraine: India, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil will keep relations with all parties. The U.S. is trying very hard to get the South into its campaign, which almost completely refuses. He openly calls for a multipolar world. Meanwhile, China simply expands its investments, loans, trade activities, diplomatic activities, sometimes with remarkable success.

Let's look at the mediate East. The U.S. took control of it and managed it since planet War II. The core of the US strategy is Saudi Arabia, the main oil producer, and the second supplier is the United arabian Emirates. The U.S. has controlled them practically since the discovery of oil in the late 1930s. It's a basic U.S. regulation that China is questioning. Saudi Arabia has late joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Chinese-based strategy that spreads the Chinese investment and improvement strategy across Eurasia. Shortly thereafter, the United arabian Emirates, which had previously been part of the Chinese system, joined this group.

Look at what's called the Sea Silk Road. It is simply a Chinese improvement program south of Eurasia, reaching the Red Sea and further into Europe. 1 of the nodes is the United arabian Emirates – a key part of this system. Recently, China has re-agreed an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran over the heads of the United States, breaking the American efforts to isolate Iran. They are approaching Latin American countries, which are now moving on to their system. China is their main trading partner, their origin of investment. The US is trying to usage military and economical resources to environment and control China to effort to halt their development. These are events in the world. They cannot be denied, and they are of large importance. We don't know where they'll lead us.

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Who is part of the power elite that drives all this conflict?

If you look at U.S. abroad policy, it's about as Adam Smith described it 250 years ago. These were early stages of capitalist imperialism. Adam Smith was a sharp observer. I will quote him due to the fact that it is very appropriate today. He said that the masters of the universe, the masters of humanity, are those who possess, control the government and make certain that their own interests are very well satisfied, no substance how serious the consequences are for their own populations or victims of the chaotic injustice of Europeans abroad. He mainly talked about the chaotic injustice of England in India.

Well, that was 250 years ago. good description of what's been going on since then until today. The corporate sector or major policy architects make certain that their own interests are satisfied, regardless of the impact on the population: frequently very harsh and with a large amount of chaotic injustice abroad.

There are interesting nuances.

Short-term corporate interests conflict with the long-term interests of the state and even if we have a corporate system, the same people, erstwhile they are in the State Department and in Exxon Mobil, make different decisions.

An example?

Take Iran, for example. The corporate planet powerfully opposes sanctions against Iran. Europe powerfully opposes this. The planet of business, too. American energy, agribusiness, another major corporations would gladly enter the Iranian market. The government won't let them. The same people who would call for the overthrow of sanctions if they were in the corporate sector are now imposing sanctions in the government sector due to the fact that the government wants to punish Iran for what is called successful disobedience in authoritative terminology. We cannot let successful disobedience to the United States, and Iran has opposed the United States since the overthrow of the chess dictatorship, so it must be defeated.

Another example, please.

Cuba. For 60 years, since Cuba's liberation, the United States has attacked her. John F. Kennedy started a major terrorist war against Cuba, which led to a rocket crisis and almost destroyed the world. They proceed the terrorist war after the crisis: severe sanctions, suffocating Cuba. The full planet is against them. Let us look at the United Nations vote: 184 to 2 – the only ones who support sanctions are the United States and Israel. Europe is against it. The American corporate sector is against it. American corporations would like to enter the Cuban market, especially pharmaceutical. Cuba has an advanced pharmaceutical industry. American energy corporations want to usage energy resources off the coast of Cuba. The American agribusiness would like to flood Cuba with its crops. The government won't let it.

Go back to the '60s. The government has announced that Castro's threat lies in his successful disobedience to U.S. policy – dating back to the 1820 Monroe doctrine – erstwhile the US announced its intention to dominate the Western hemisphere. Cuba opposes him, you can't let that happen. It doesn't substance if American corporations want it.

In fact, China is the case I just mentioned. American corporations do not want to break contact and exit the lucrative Chinese market. The government wants them to do it. As I said, corporations seemingly find a way around it, but as the conflict unfolds, we don't know. These are any of the most important, frequently ignored aspects of how global interests work, but if you go back to Adam Smith, you'll see that he put it beautiful well.

"The Year 501. Conquest continues" is your first published political book in Polish. Explain the title.

501, due to the fact that it was a year after the 500th anniversary of Europe's start of conquest of the world: Vasco da Gama, Portuguese discoveries of Africa, then Latin America. Remember that at the time, and in fact until the 18th century, the richest countries in the planet were China and India. Rich, wealthy countries with advanced technology. The only thing they lacked is the ability to wage war. Europe was the centre of violence.

Black death [a plague in the 14th century – ed.] decimated Europe, most of the planet managed to avoid it. This meant that the survivors in Europe, who rapidly rebuilt, were immune to disease. The combination of European filth, violence, fraud, starting in 1490, in 1492 led to the conquest of the world: Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, both Americas.

This had terrible consequences for the Western hemisphere, which had advanced civilizations. most likely almost 90 percent of their population disappeared. I mentioned that in 1776 Adam Smith powerfully condemned British slavery in India, which stole more advanced Indian technology so England could make and deindustrialize India, transforming it from the richest country in the planet to 1 of the poorest. Vasco da Gama and Portuguese started a terrible black slavery institution, which was again the main origin of the wealth of the US and Europe, the production of inexpensive cotton and tobacco, the foundations of European and American wealth and cultural achievements. “The year 501” spoke about what has happened over the last 500 years and what will happen if we proceed these policies, as we have actually done. That's why it's called Year 501. Sometimes a period called the Vasco da Gama era in planet history.

What has changed and what hasn't changed in global politics over the last 250 years?

The changes have taken place, of course, but any rules remain. Let me explain something first. It was not me who said that European leaders supported Macron's limited efforts towards independence, it was Claude Charles Michel, president of the European Council. I was just quoting him, whether it's actual or not, you gotta ask him.

As for conspiracy theories, I don't consider Adam Smith a conspiracy theorist.

If Exxon Mobil is trying to make a profit, that's their job. It's not a conspiracy, it's an organization case.

If they didn't effort to do that, they'd be out of business, which means they gotta work to destruct the world. announcement that Exxon Mobil scientists were already at the forefront of global warming investigation in the 1970s and warned the board of Exxon Mobil that if we proceed to produce fossil fuels, we would destruct humanity. erstwhile they simply hid it in the drawers and did not make it public, in 1988 James Hansen, a known geophysicist, gave a message in which he broke the barriers and indicated that we were heading for a destructive course. At this point, Exxon Mobil, as 1 of the major corporations, had to do something.

What did they do?

They called their public relations specialists and developed a strategy. They have decided that they will not deny the claims, due to the fact that if they deny it, it will be immediately overturned. They knew the claims were real. They decided that they would simply sow doubts: possibly we didn't examine the sunspots, we didn't look at the cloud cover. erstwhile we hold the decision, we enrich ourselves, we enrich society. Of course, they didn't say they'd make more. And possibly later, erstwhile we're a richer society, we can address the problem. It worked beautifully. most likely helped destruct the world. possibly we're getting closer to erstwhile it's besides late, but can I criticize them for that? No, it's their job. If they had not, their leadership would have been removed, and individual else would have come and done it even worse. These are organization effects. There are no conspiracies, no plans, just a description of the structure of the institution about as Smith himself did. Of course, it's different now. There are financial institutions he didn't know. There have been major changes in the planet order, a lot is happening, but the basic principles remain.

Adam Smith's rules wouldn't surprise any mob Don. If you are the godfather of a mob company, you do not accept what is called successful disobedience. any small shopkeeper doesn't want to pay protection money? Money doesn't substance to you, but you won't let it. You'll send your men with guns to beat him. No conspiracy. That's how power works.

So you're either playing a game or you're out of it. Is there anything you can do about it? Like Snowden? Is that the right approach?

Let's go back to the 1930s, my childhood. Europe sank in fascism. Russia was a totalitarian, violent country. The United States was building a road to social democracy with the fresh Deal, standing at the forefront. It was not a gift, it came from organized community activity. The labour movement was rebuilt, crushed by state power. Industrial unions, militia labour actions, political groups of all kinds were organized. The sympathetic administration led to a fresh order, which was fundamentally the core of modern social democracy. The business planet didn't like it, but it couldn't halt due to the fact that besides much power was in people's hands. all profit in history, and there have been many, has been achieved in the same way: giving women rights, abolishing slavery, opposing aggression, organized public action that violates the power of concentrated power structures.

What Edward Snowden did was very good, very brave. He allowed the American public to see what the government was doing to him.

Are you welcome in democracy? Instead, he was forced to flee. He had to flee to Russia to save himself. Well, that shows how small democracy we have. The government wants to make certain people don't know what they're doing with them. Remember Adam Smith. No substance how serious the impact on society is, there are higher targets.

People like Snowden or a fewer others, Chelsea Manning, do large things, but people gotta do it themselves. You want freedom, you want justice, you'll gotta fight for it against concentrated power, and then you can win. There have been many victories over the years.

The typical of the U.S. home of Representatives, Seth Moulton, said we should make it clear to the Chinese. If you attack Taiwan, we'll destruct your TM, your Taiwanese semiconductors, the TSMC, and evidently the Taiwanese aren't happy with this idea. What do you say?

Well, the comment is evidently absurd, due to the fact that it is besides the main semiconductor manufacture of the USA. And if there was a conflict over Taiwan, everything would be destroyed there. Let's look at the background.

In the 1970s, an agreement was reached between China and the United States, which was called the policy of 1 China. The United States and China agreed that Taiwan is part of China.

In fact, the full planet agreed to it. Even Taiwanese and Taiwanese government. China was given the UN position on the safety Council, which previously belonged to Kuomintang, so it was a determined policy.

Another part of the policy was that neither China nor the United States would interfere with the arrangement by any provocative or forceful means. And this is actually the full politics of 1 China: 3 communications from the 1970s and an agreement. China is inactive clinging to it. Nothing has changed in Chinese politics. U.S. policy has changed. The United States is no longer accepting this arrangement. In fact, the policy clearly stated that high-level diplomatic relations with Taiwan could not continue, that it could make its own path, but that nothing should be done to disrupt the policies of any China with a long-term solution in the future. Nobody says erstwhile what's called strategical ambiguity. We leave it open.

Well, peace has been maintained for 50 years, which is simply a reasonably respectable time period in global affairs. Now it's disrupted. The US systematically undermines the policies of any China, accusing China of supporting it. erstwhile China says Taiwan is part of China, they are accused by the US of threatening Taiwan. In fact, they repeat the politics of any China. You can read comments on this in the Australian press. late John Lander, 1 of the Australian diplomats who negotiated the politics of 1 China in the 1970s, said in the article: let's face it. China adheres to politics. The United States is seeking to undermine it. Australia should not follow the United States on this issue. The United States has increased armaments for Taiwan, interoperability of weapons systems. They send high-ranking Americans to visit Taiwan, president of the home of Representatives and others.

The legislature Committee on abroad Relations adopted the Law on Politics towards Taiwan, which calls for Taiwan to be recognized as an ally of the United States not a associate of NATO, an ally of the United States, alternatively than a part of China, ensuring that Taiwan has the same diplomatic position as any another country, in clear contradiction with the 1970 agreement.

We hear the United States, then you hear comments like this Seth Moulton guy saying that if China attacks, we'll do this and that. China did not endanger to invade. erstwhile the U.S. takes a provocative act, like a visit from the president of the home of Representatives, the third-largest figure in the U.S. government, China is conducting sea maneuvers to show that they can block Taiwan. Taiwan is an island and China could easy block it. In fact, this is not an action against the law. But then there are reports of Chinese aggression and so on.

What do you think of China?

China is not sacred, by no means. Many criticisms can be poured out towards China, but in this respect they were rather consistent, saying that they would follow the policies of 1 China. The U.S. actually abandoned it.

Let's look at the background. It's not just Taiwan. The authoritative U.S. policy, I quote, aims to environment China with a ringing of defender states, heavy armed with a precise weapon provided by the United States to cut China off from the Pacific. South Korea, Japan, Australia, the U.S. Guam dependent territory, are all armed with precise weapons directed towards China. The United States has late increased the amount of weapons. Now, for the first time, they are stationed there permanently B-52 with maneuvering missiles with atomic warheads, the most advanced dense bombers in northern Australia, at a flight distance from China, on Guamie. The U.S. is now trying to incorporate the Philippines into this system. That's 1 part of the issue.

And the another one?

The second is an openly announced economical war to halt China's development. The Secretary of Commerce says that we request to pull Europe into our efforts to halt China from innovation. We gotta block them, completely prevent them from accessing advanced technology that has any American ingredient. And of course the supply chains are so complicated that everything has an American patent or whatever. This is an effort to force South Korea, Europe, Japan to quit their lucrative Chinese marketplace to aid the United States halt China's development. It would be interesting to watch it work.

For American corporations, China is simply a very lucrative market. The corporations do not want to be ruled out by the demands of the US government.

If you are reading the Asian business press, “Asia Times”, which announces that exports from China to India, Mexico and Vietnam have increased rapidly, and exports from these 3 countries to the United States have increased rapidly, you can draw apparent conclusions. American corporations find a way around sanctions, so they can keep their investments, production, profits, imports from China, simply not respecting US sanctions. I imagine Europe, South Korea and Japan are working on akin ways. Nobody cares about sanctions. Stopping China's improvement is simply a U.S. policy.

Blocking China the press praises as a large policy. And that sounds peculiarly ironic due to the fact that China is at the forefront of utilizing renewable energy in electrification, developing a fresh battery technology that can be a real breakthrough. And we hear that we gotta halt it all, and that's at a time erstwhile the US and China gotta work together if we want to avoid destroying the planet in an environmental disaster. What's happening is indescribable.

Is it possible for a grassroots civic movement to argue the authority you talk of?

Well, you never know. It was impossible to foretell in Poland that the Solidarity movement would develop. It started, gained support, grew. The same was actual of the women's movement, the abolitionist movements that actually started African slaves who rose up and protested. All these situations are unpredictable, but they can happen, and they can happen now. And if they don't happen, we're finished.

Where are we now? Humanity is now facing critical problems that have never occurred before in the full past of mankind. We face 2 major crises and a fewer smaller ones.

One major crisis is the threat of atomic war, increasing in Europe, in Asia, around China. If we don't halt this, we're finished. There's no specified thing as a tiny atomic war. all strategical analyst knows that. If 2 major powers engage in a atomic war, they will all be destroyed. A power that will launch the first attack, even if there is no retaliation, will be destroyed by a atomic winter. Once.

And two?

We are moving towards an environmental disaster and we request to work things out. These problems have no boundaries. They are everywhere and we are either working together to overcome these crises, or we will all fall together.

There are only a fewer decades in which we can alleviate the serious environmental crisis. If we don't, the planet will scope critical points and it will be irreversible. Then we'll start moving towards an unimaginable disaster. There have never been specified questions in human history, and we must address them now.

The same applies to another crises, smaller but serious. It's very likely there'll be a fresh pandemic. As global warming increases, habitat degradation increases. There will be a fresh pandemic, possibly much more dangerous than the last and again – without borders. Major powers – the United States, China, Russia and others like India, as well as emerging powers – Indonesia, Brazil will gotta cooperate. If they don't, there's no hope of surviving human society on Earth.

What is the fabrication of approval that you mention in your book ‘Manufacturing Consent’?

"Manufacturing Consent" is not my term. My co-author Edward Herman and I borrowed this word from a leading intellectual in the United States in the 20th century, Walter Lippman.

In the first year of planet War I, Walter Lippman was a associate of the first government propaganda agency. Remember, the United States population was pacifist. People refused to join the European war. Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1916 He had another plans. His surroundings wanted to include the United States in the war, so they had to make a state propaganda agency and many another means to convince the Pacific society to become angry anti-German fanatics. It was hard, but it worked. Within a fewer years, the Symphony Orchestra in Boston could not play Beethoven. You couldn't talk about Frankfurters. You had to eat hot dogs, and the post office censored all correspondence that was not superpatriotic, along with the chief labour leader in the United States, a candidate for the Socialist organization Eugene Debs, who was thrown into prison due to the fact that he raised any questions about the war, the worst repression in American history. We did it. Walter Lippman was impressed. He said we learned how to produce consent.

Like what?

We request to get the public to accept the beliefs we want it to have.

He said the production of consent was a fresh practice in democracy. We can now decision on to organising more effective ways of producing consent and controlling the population. And he had a democratic explanation behind him. It was a leading explanation of liberal democracy.

The concept, which is common, by the way, in the West, is that society in democracy is viewers, not participants. Their task is to appear all fewer years, press the lever to choice 1 of the representatives we choose for them and then return home and deal with their own interests, not their business. We liable people will regulation the country and establish policies in their interests. We will impose the essential illusions, emotional simplifications, so that the rebel stays in line and simply does not disturb us. They're besides stupid and ignorant to make the right decisions. These are all quotes, by the way, I'm not making up those phrases.

We wise men must regulation for them, so we must produce their consent. This is the dominant explanation of liberal democracy.

People wanted democracy. A group of wealthy slave owners sitting in Philadelphia didn't want that. So she designed the Constitution to undermine democracy.

The chief creator of the Constitution, James Madison, made this very clear in the discussions at the Constitutional Convention. He said that society must be organized, and I quote, "to defend the number of the wealthy from the majority, and to do so, we must prevent democracy from working due to the fact that the population will have another ideas." This reaches to England and the first democratic revolution. We shouldn't have illusions about these things. Well, the production of consent is discussed in a book in many ways, but these are not my innovations. I quote the most prominent, respected figures and describe the way policies work.

How do you see the function of universities now and in the future? Will they stay institutions that are important, or will they be pushed to a corner somewhere?

As you most likely know, I like to quote prominent historical figures. So let me mention to the founder of the modern university system, Wilhelm von Humboldt. He is simply a large German humanist, a classical liberal, a large linguist, founder of a modern investigation university. His perfect of the university was to encourage critical thinking. According to his words, education is designed to make the ability to question and create, and any limitation of this is illegal in the political sphere, in the educational sphere. That's how universities started.

Of course, the past of universities goes far back, but I am talking about a modern investigation university. They can choose the Humboldt way or they can choose the way you described. It's a decision and you'll find a mixture of both patterns. In England, for example, about a century ago, a rule called Haldane's rule was adopted, which says that the government must not interfere in investigation and educational activity at universities, designed to give them freedom to prosecute Humboldt's ideals. It has persisted to any extent, but the present conservative government over the past 20 years has been against it. He tried to reverse it so the government could step in and control what was happening at universities. As 1 leading British educational intellectual said, the conservative government attempts to transform first-class universities into third-class commercial enterprises. It's part of neoliberalism.

Is it akin in the United States?

In the United States during the last forty neoliberal years, there have been very sharp attacks on education. The thought is to defund schools, impose business models on schools where you do not want to employment highly paid employees, like staff. You hire assistants who just come, you can throw them out, postgraduate students, you don't gotta pay them anything.

Business models, the basic ideology of Milton Friedman's neoliberalism, their guru, aim to destruct public education.

Public education was 1 of the large gifts of the United States to modern democracy. In the late 19th century, the United States had developed a mass public education at school, university level long before Europe. any of the best universities in the planet are state universities.

Europe followed this lead much later in the neoliberal years of Reagan and Thatcher. The goal was to destruct everything, turn into commercial enterprises, serving the interests of the masters of humanity, the owners of the economy. Well, it's a fight that goes on and on. Graduates of doctoral studies or teachers effort to unite to improve conditions for children, research. That's how you make a leaven.

For example, the corporate sector relies heavy on discipline and universities for its own benefit, which draws almost everything you see, which we now use: computers, the Internet, pharmaceuticals.

Whatever it is, erstwhile it contains immense funding, for example, in the form of state investigation and development, is fed to corporations. They like the payer to pay for basic investigation and improvement than they themselves would pay for it. Then they just get the results. So they trust on science.

Look at my university. I spent most of my life on MIT, the major university of discipline and technology in the world. Walk to MIT. What do you see? large corporate headquarters, major corporations, Novartis, Pfizer, Raytheon, all of them. Why are they focusing on MIT? To usage investigation conducted in laboratories supported by taxpayers at the main university. They want to keep it. On the another hand, extremist right-wingers in the state want to destruct it and turn it into business, so there's a conflict.

Thank you for talking to me.

(Talk of 23 April 2023)

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