Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal. Jeane Kirkpatrick
Labour Unions are the leading force for democratization and progress. Noam Chomsky
One of the most effective democratising forces has always been the labour movement – labour unions – the history on that is completely clear. In countries that have a strong labour movement, there is also a very strong tendency or correlation with a real-live functioning social contract that includes not only rights for working people but for people who need help and protection, for the defenceless, for children, for women, for families, for people who need assistance generally and for the general public. And there’s also a culture that goes along with it – a culture of solidarity and sympathy and mutual aid and support ... Here as elsewhere unions have been a leading force, probably the leading force, for democracy and human rights. Noam Chomsky, Class War: The Attack on Working People, 1998
The question is whether privileged elites should dominate mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must, namely to impose necessary illusions to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and remove them from the public arena. The question in brief is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence democracy and freedom are more than values to treasure; they may be essential to survival. Noam Chomsky
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
In a democracy, in a functioning democracy, what would be happening is that popular organizations, unions, political groupings, others would be developing their programs, putting them forth, insisting that their representatives implement those programs. Noam Chomsky
Well the title [Manufacturing Consent] is actually borrowed from a book by Walter Lippmann, written back around 1921, in which he described what he called The Manufacturing of Consent as a revolution in the practice of democracy. What it amounts to is a technique of control, and he said this was useful and necessary because the common interests – the general concerns of all people – elude the public; the public just isn’t up to dealing with them, and they have to be the domain of what he called a specialised class ...
There’s a version of this expressed by the highly respected moralist and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr [viz Moral Man and Immoral Society], who was very influential on contemporary policy makers. His view was that rationality belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason but faith. And this naive faith requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent over simplification which are provided by the myth-maker to keep a person on course. Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent
At the rhetorical level, the yearning for democracy has indeed been a persistent theme, coexisting easily with the regular resort to violence and subversion to undermine democracy.
Given the conventions of ideological warfare, it is quite possible to describe even the most brutal regimes as ‘democracies’, as long as they serve the goals of the policymakers. ibid.
One of the most interesting reactions to come out of 1968 was in the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, which believed there was a ‘crisis of democracy’ from too much participation of the masses. Noam Chomsky
The third consequence is the extreme elite hostility to democracy. The reason is plain: a functioning democracy will be responsive to appeals from the masses of the population, and likely to succumb to excessive nationalism. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy p58
Democratic forms can be tolerated, even admired, if only for propaganda purposes. But this stance can be adopted only when the distribution of effective power ensures that meaningful participation of the ‘popular classes’ had been barred. When they organize and threaten the control of the political system by the business-landowner elite and the military, strong measures must be taken, with tactical variations depending on the ranking of the target population on the scale of importance. At the lowest rank, in the Third World, virtually no holds are barred. ibid.
The democratic ideal, at home and abroad, is simple and straightforward: You are free to do what you want, as long as it is what we want you to do. ibid.
Such ideas have ample resonance until today, including Locke’s stern doctrine that common people should be denied the right even to discuss public affairs. This doctrine remains a basic principle of modern democratic states, now implemented by a variety of means to protect the operations of the state from public scrutiny: classification of documents on the largely fraudulent pretext of national security, clandestine operations, and other measures to bar the rascal multitude from the political arena. ibid.
After the American revolution, rebellious and independent farmers had to be taught by force that the ideals expressed in the pamphlets of 1776 were not to be taken seriously. The common people were not to be represented by countrymen like themselves, that know the people’s sores, but by gentry, merchants, lawyers, and others who hold or serve private power. Jefferson and Madison believed that power should be in the hands of the ‘natural aristocracy’. ibid.
The repression launched by the Wilson Administration successfully undermined democratic politics, unions, freedom of the press, and independent thought, in the interests of corporate power and the state authorities who represented its interests, all with approval of the media and elites generally, all in self-defence against the ‘ignorant and mentally deficient’ majority. Much the same story was re-enacted after World War II, again under the pretext of a Soviet threat, in reality to restore submission to the rulers. ibid.
When political life and independent thought revived in the 1960s, the problem arose again, and the reaction was the same. The Trilateral Commission, bringing together liberal elites from Europe, Japan, and the United States, warned of an impending ‘crisis of democracy’ as segments of the public sought to enter the political arena. The ‘excess of democracy’ was posing a threat to the unhampered rule of privileged elites - what is called ‘democracy’ in political theology. ibid.
The influential political scientist Harold Lasswell explained in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences that when elites lack the requisite force to compel obedience, social managers must turn to ‘a whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda’. He added the conventional justification: we must recognize the ‘ignorance and stupidity [of] ... the masses’ and not succumb to ‘democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests’. They are not, and we must control them, for their own good. The same principle guides the business community. ibid.
Once popular organizations are dispersed or crushed and decision-making power is firmly in the hands of owners and managers, democratic forms are quite acceptable, even preferable as a device of legitimization of elite rule in a business-run ‘democracy’. ibid.
Democracy requires free access to information and ideas and opinion. Noam Chomsky, lecture Manufacturing Consent, 1992, Youtube
The United States actually has a dedicated and persistent commitment to undermine and deter democracy. (Democracy & US Empire) Noam Chomsky, lecture Deterring Democracy, 1992, Youtube 2.09.17
November 1989: Elections in Honduras which had been under US control at that time for ten years … There were two candidates: one of them represented large landowners, the other represented big industrialists; they had identical programmes; there was a campaign but it was just insults … The effective rulers were the military under US control. ibid.
Nicaragua had in fact elections in 1984 but those elections were not an ‘inspiring example of democracy’; the reason is they couldn’t be ‘controlled’. ibid.
‘The latest in a happy series of democratic surprises as democracy bursts forth in Nicaragua: the method was to wreck the economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy war until the exhausted natives overthrow the unwanted government themselves at a cost to us that is minimal leaving the victim with wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations and ruined farms and thus providing the US candidate with a winning issue ending the impoverishment of the people of Nicaragua’. ibid. Time magazine
If a country is democratic … it’s going to reflect popular interests but those are inconsistent with US interests. ibid.
‘US aid tends to flow to the most egregious violators of human rights in the hemisphere.’ ibid. Lars Schoultz
The American population is probably the most frightened population in the world. ibid.
Not in the sense in which the general population can participate in determining policy. ibid.
The primary task of an elected representative from the first moment of taking office is to begin to try to raise money for the next campaign with corporate lobbyists working together with his staff for fair legislation for him to sign with predictable consequences; all of this is part of a general assault on democracy. Noam Chomsky, lecture Vortrag October 2016, ‘What Principles and Values Rule the World?’, Youtube 48.24
Strategies of the power structure against the people: 1) Reduced democracy … People if they had the chance would never accept the programs that are being imposed … Passivity and obedience … 2) Shape Ideology; 3) Redesign the Economy; 4) Shift the Burden; 5) Attack Solidarity; 6) Run the Regulators; 7) Engineering Elections; 8) Keep the Rabble in Line; 9) Manufacture Consent; 10) Marginalise the Population. Noam Chomsky, interview Ralph Nader 2017
The perils of democracy: Madison asked them to consider what would happen in England if elections were open to all classes of people – the population would then use its voting rights to distribute land more equitably. To ward off such injustice, he recommended arrangements to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority … Aristotle and Madison posed essentially the same problem but drew opposite conclusions: Madison’s solution was to restrict democracy while Aristotle’s was to reduce inequality. Noam Chomsky, Failed States audio