Who takes charge of the future? Noam Chomsky has two conflicting responses

“Humanity is kidnapped. She is being attacked by a big brutal assailant. And the identity of this aggressor is very clear, it is humanity itself or, more precisely, it is the dominant institutions that humanity has developed over the centuries and that, in fact, are dedicated to the destruction of humanity itself. .

Those were the first words of the American linguist, philosopher and political scientist Noam Chomsky during his participation in the final day of the First Spring Colloquium “Humanity Threatened: Who Takes Charge of the Future?”, organized by the National Autonomous University of Mexico ( UNAM) and that, throughout the week that culminates, has had among its speakers different personalities from all avenues of thought and social struggle to give their opinion on the future of our society in a context that forces us to rethink the relationship between societies and with the world that hosts us.

This last day was entitled “Politics, government and democracy in the 21st century” and was coordinated by the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences (FCPyS) of the highest house of studies, with the participation of the Spanish economist and political scientist Josep Colomer, the English political scientist Pippa Norris, the Mexican researcher Judit Bokser Misses-Liwerant, the Mexican academic José Woldenberg and the journalist Raúl Trejo Delarbre.

In a virtual conference, Chomsky added that the doomsday clock, this kind of regressive marker established in 1947 by the international scientific community to indicate humanity’s proximity to an irreversible catastrophe, is closer to midnight than ever. ; that is, closer to the least desired scenario.

“We have to reflect on how we got to this devastating moment in the history of humanity and how we can break with this kidnapping. Hence the question that titles this meeting arises, who is in charge of the future? This can be answered in several ways. One is that the future is in the power of the overlords of humanity, those in charge of the economy and the chief architects of governments, who use their power to ensure that their own interests are well served regardless of the effects of their actions. decisions on the populations of their countries and, worse still, regardless of what the effects are on the victims of their savage acts of injustice. This is one possible answer to the question.”

The above, Chomsky explained, is a paraphrase of the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, who in 1776 established the idea in his book “The Wealth of Nations.”

“Today, the multinational corporations, the financial institutions, persist as the main architects of policies and ensure their own interests, because they remain addicted to owning as much as possible and are the custodians of the future. In this scenario, we are lost.”

There are already impacts of the environmental crisis

On the climatic effects of human predation, the emeritus professor at MIT and noted as one of the most relevant contemporary thinkers, pointed out that there are already regions where conditions are inhospitable as a direct consequence.

“South Asia is becoming uninhabitable. People in India are trying to survive temperatures reaching 50 degrees Celsius, in a country where less than 10% of the population has access to air conditioning compared to a vast majority submerged in a sea of ​​misery (…) it is expected that the sea ​​level in the eastern Mediterranean will rise between two and two and a half meters towards the end of the century. This is only the beginning of the catastrophes that the masters of humanity can lead us to if they continue to push us to the edge of the precipice.

However, Chomsky reversed: “and it is not that they are people with pure evil, but that the institutional structures of the capitalist system facilitate this behavior. Let’s put ourselves in this position: the president of the council of JP Morgan Chase (the largest bank in the United States and one of the largest financial companies in the world) knows perfectly well to whom it lends money, to Exxon Mobil and other fuel companies that kill any chance of generating decent power for their grandchildren, but what’s going on in his (JP Morgan Chase manager’s) mind is that if he doesn’t lend money to fossil fuel companies, someone else will more in place. The problem, then, is institutional, not individual”.

For all this, the philosopher reiterated: “we have to be realistic about it, this is a plausible answer to the question of who is in charge of the future. And it’s not an attractive answer, but it’s not the only possible answer either.

hope for the future

The second answer to the question of who is in charge of our future, postulated the thinker towards the second half of his presentation, “is an informed public that refuses to accept the imposition of the lords, one that does not want to accept the social pact that is imposed on capitalist institutions without restrictions. That is the hope for the future and we don’t have much time.”

Chomsky, author of books such as “The Guardians of Liberty” (1990) and “Who Rules the Future?” (1970), noted that much is said about the economic decline of the United States relative to China and other countries, “but these estimates are based on GDP growth, which is not a particular measure within neoliberal globalization. The most telling measure is how much of the world’s wealth is owned by the companies that are based in each country. By this measure, the economic power of the United States is staggering: US-based corporations own approximately half of the world’s wealth.”

Finally, he specified: “the economic fight of the United States against Cuba is something that has been strongly condemned in all important world forums, even the OAS Judicial Commission, which is usually very obedient to US pressure, has declared it illegal. It has even been requested that the World Trade Organization declared the embargo against Cuba illegal (…) the (US) administration declared that the WTO has no interference or competence in what it calls a matter of US security. When the United States is forced to change its rules and its laws, they always look for a way to avoid it (…) so they can realize who rules the world”.

ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.mx