Chomsky and Globalisation

Text From Back Cover

Noam Chomsky, hailed by some as the ‘Einstein of modern linguistics’, is equally well known to others as an uncompromising political dissident and social critic.

This book examines Chomsky’s libertarian views on global economic hegemony and the new world order. His position is an unusual one. Though global free trade is today widely celebrated as a path to universal prosperity and a solution to the Third World’s economic problems, its advent has seen growth rates actually decline. Chomsky reveals that ‘free trade’ is not free at all – rich powers ignore its rules in order to subsidise their big companies and only indebted Third World countries are obliged to obey. Many plunge further into debt and are forced to watch schools and hospitals close while their economies are restructured to suit Western investment.

Thus, on the ill-balanced scales of global business, the favoured Euroamerican elites must inevitably grow richer, while the rest of the world could revert to the conditions of Blake’s ‘dark Satanic Mills’.

Jeremy Fox used to be a language teacher at UEA in Norwich. He now writes about current affairs and the ways in which global capitalism uses the media to keep us well behaved.