/lit/ - Literature

Oh wow. It's on.

>>3414293

You can mail him, you know. I mailed him and ended up having a 15-mail correspondence with him.

ITT: thinkers that /lit/ and /sci/ should be able to agree on.

Noam is one of my favourite people in the world, and one of my favourite authors. His books are usually extremely concise and fact-filled, everything is cited and quoted and it's serious work, although you'll be surprised how many sarcastic comments he manages to add which gives it some comic relief, so to speak. For the most part he's dead serious so even the slightest deviation from it by him once you've read enough is really noticeable and more fun than it would otherwise be.

As for what you should start with... shit, man, there's so much to pick from. Just pick something that interests you in politics and it's almost guaranteed he's written about it either in article/essay form or an entire book either about it or touching on it.

>>2820714
>Capitalism
>Free

Do you even live in this world?

You got some nice taste there, my friend.

>>2678620
Okay, we are saying similar things, but arriving at them from different angles. I'll let Mussolini define fascism: "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." But as I noted in my first post, in classical fascism, the state control domestic, monetary and economic policy to its own ends. And you agree as well: "Fascism the the ideology in which the state is put first." Saying that in fascism, "Corporations are allowed act independently towards their own ends so long as it doesn't harm the state" is half right; the other half is that the state can demand service from corporations when the time comes.

BUT in what Sheldin Wolin calls "inverted totalitarianism", the state and corporations merge together, but the corporations dictate domestic, economic and monetary policy (and to a lesser degree foreign policy).

You say that, "At worst, we're a plutocracy," but that doesn't preclude the plutocracy tactically merging state and corporate power to their own ends (i.e. fascism), though of course in this configuration, corporations are in the driver's seat (i.e. inverted totalitarianism).

And your statement, "But since we allow citizenry to do shitty things at the cost of the state, and we let it occur for the sake of personal freedom," is misleading. Yes, some people can act with impunity, while the freedom of others is taken away. This is to say, the powerful can systematically defraud and steal the wealth of the nation, while normal people can't even exercise their 1st Amendment right to protest and assemble without being beaten by the police. The guiding principle isn't "freedom" by the Golden Rule: he who has the gold makes the rules.

Also, Chomsky is THE BAWS.

>>2660336

>sure

cthulhu fhtagn ia ph'nglui mglw'nafh

A little unnerving, though not unexpected. We live in an age where people have been taught that there is nothing so honorable as loving one's oppressor.

This much

>>2375777
Oh, well it gave me a chance to rant somewhere outside of /pol/.