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Noam Chomsky
Retired figureUnited StatesBorn 1928

Noam Chomsky

Linguist, Institute Professor emeritus at MIT · Laureate Professor of Linguistics, University of Arizona

A linguist and left-libertarian author who attacks American foreign policy, big business and the press, and who calls himself an anarchist of the libertarian socialist kind.

Compare yourself See the 12 scores
Profile on 12 axes8 of 12 documented
ECONOMYSTATESOCIETYWORLDOwnershipMarketsWelfareAuthoritySecurityStructureMoralityReligionTechnologyCultureTradeForeign
Where they stand

Noam Chomsky, axis by axis

  1. 01Ownership-85
    PublicPrivate
  2. 02Markets-75
    PlannedFree
  3. 03Welfare-75
    SharedSelf-reliant

    His long-term goal is anarchist, but he supports welfare-state programs and rejects the claim that this contradicts anarchism.

  4. 04Authority-90
    DemocraticStrong leader
  5. 05Security-75
    LibertyOrder

    He holds that free speech should have no conditions, which is how he became tangled in the Faurisson affair of 1980.

  6. 06Structure-60
    LocalCentral

    He prefers that workers and communities control production, instead of state bureaucracies.

  7. 07MoralityNo clear record
    ProgressiveTraditional

    His political work is about power, war and the media, not private morals, so morality is left empty. The same goes for religion, technology and culture.

  8. 08ReligionNo clear record
    SecularReligious
  9. 09TechnologyNo clear record
    EmbraceCaution
  10. 10CultureNo clear record
    MulticulturalNational identity
  11. 11Trade+20
    GlobalProtected

    He criticizes NAFTA, the WTO and similar pacts as shields for elite privilege that weaken democracy. He does not call for tariffs as such, which keeps the score mildly protective.

  12. 12Foreign policy-85
    CooperationStrength

4 axes have no clear record, so matching leaves them out.

Who is Noam Chomsky?

Chomsky was born in 1928 and trained as a linguist. From 1955 he taught at MIT, and many people say his generative grammar founded modern linguistics. Opposition to the Vietnam War led him to write the 1967 essay The Responsibility of Intellectuals, and it turned him into a prominent dissident. Dozens of books followed on capitalism, the media and how the U.S. acts abroad. Since 2017 he has had a post at the University of Arizona, but he is on leave, and from 2023 he has made his home in Brazil. Neither a public office nor a party post has ever been his.

Political views

  • In his view, an honest anarchist must reject wage labor and private ownership of the means of production, and so ends up a libertarian socialist.Source: chomsky.info
  • He opposed the war in Vietnam, withheld half of his taxes as a protest and backed people who resisted the draft.Source: en.wikipedia.org
  • With Edward Herman he argued that the American media screen their coverage in ways that suit powerful interests, with no need for formal censorship.Source: en.wikipedia.org
  • He has called the United States one of the world's main sources of terrorism, and he spoke out against invading Iraq in 2003.Source: en.wikipedia.org
  • He calls himself an anti-Zionist and has said Israel's treatment of Palestinians is worse than apartheid.Source: en.wikipedia.org
  • On Russia's 2022 attack on Ukraine, he said it was a grave war crime of the same order as America's invasion of Iraq.Source: en.wikipedia.org
  • He has encouraged voters in swing states to choose the less harmful major candidate, as he did with Joe Biden in 2020.Source: en.wikipedia.org

Legacy

To his admirers Chomsky is among the leading public intellectuals of the age. His attacks on American power, the media and inequality have a global readership, and few scholars in history are cited more for linguistics. Critics reply that he holds the United States and its friends to a stricter test than its foes. They say his early work on Cambodia downplayed Khmer Rouge crimes. His 1980 defense of Robert Faurisson, a Holocaust denier, on free-speech grounds drew wide condemnation.

In their own words

“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.”
The Responsibility of Intellectuals, The New York Review of Books, 1967

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Noam Chomsky: questions

Is Noam Chomsky an anarchist?

That is how he describes himself, within the libertarian socialist tradition. He wants workers and communities to run production, and he rejects private ownership of the means of production.

What is Manufacturing Consent about?

Chomsky and Edward Herman wrote it in 1988. Its claim is that American news outlets shape their coverage to fit powerful interests, even though no official censor is involved.

What is The Responsibility of Intellectuals?

Chomsky wrote this essay in 1967 to oppose the Vietnam War. It says intellectuals must speak truthfully and expose lies, and it made his name as a political dissident.

Sources

Portrait: Noam Chomsky portrait 2015.jpg by Augusto Starita / Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and converted to grayscale by 12axes-test.com.