"What is the role of the state in an advanced industrial society?" This is the question posed by Noam Chomsky at the beginning of "Government in the Future," a lecture given at the Poetry Center in New York on February 16, 1970. In it, Chomsky clearly and uncompromisingly discusses the social and political changes essential for the development and implementation of a true democracy and examines the role of the state in industrial society.
In the lecture given at the Poetry Center, Noam Chomsky clearly and uncompromisingly discusses the social and political changes essential for the development and implementation of a true democracy and examines the role of the State in industrial society.
Chomsky draws on various thoughts and views on economics and politics and defends "council communism" as "the natural form of revolutionary socialism in an industrial society." The author analyzes the principles and practices of classical liberalism, libertarian socialism, state socialism, and state capitalism as ways of thinking about the directions taken by capitalist governments.
In his incisive conclusion, Chomsky argues: "We have today the technical and material resources to meet man's animal needs. We have not developed the cultural and moral resources—or the democratic forms of social organization—that make possible the humane and rational use of our material wealth and power.
It is conceivable that classical liberal ideas, expressed and developed in their libertarian socialist form, are achievable. But if so, they will only be achieved through a popular revolutionary movement, based on a broad stratum of the population and committed to the elimination of repressive and authoritarian institutions, both state and private. Creating such a movement is a challenge we face and must meet if we are to escape contemporary barbarism.
