“It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren, and they don't have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren's interests is being irrational, because what you're supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy.”

— Noam Chomsky

Interview by Yifat Susskind, August 2001 http://www.madre.org/articles/chomsky-0801.html.
Quotes 2000s, 2001
Context: Take the Kyoto Protocol. Destruction of the environment is not only rational; it's exactly what you're taught to do in college. If you take an economics or a political science course, you're taught that humans are supposed to be rational wealth accumulators, each acting as an individual to maximize his own wealth in the market. The market is regarded as democratic because everybody has a vote. Of course, some have more votes than others because your votes depend on the number of dollars you have, but everybody participates and therefore it's called democratic. Well, suppose that we believe what we are taught. It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren, and they don't have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren's interests is being irrational, because what you're supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy. If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who …" by Noam Chomsky?

Noam Chomsky 334

american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

Related quotes

“Meat can no longer be protected as a personal choice. If your meat is going to destroy my health and our environment, you ought to have to pay for it.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

On taxing meat-eaters, as quoted in "Interview: Maneka Gandhi" http://www.thescavenger.net/social-justice-2/people/59-social-justice/people/81-interview-maneka-gandhi.html, The Scavenger (21 November 2009)
2001-2010

“Research can be undertaken in any kind of environment, as long as you have the interest. I believe that true education means fostering the ability to be interested in something.”

Sumio Iijima (1939) Japanese nanotechnologist

About myself, To the younger generation http://www.nec.co.jp/rd/en/innovative/cnt/myself.html, in Innovative Engine, column for NEC researchers, Sep.25, 2007 (4th edition)

“I am a working man as much as you. My father was as poor as any man in this crowd. He was of your own body, entirely. He boasts not—nor do I—of birth, nor of great family distinctions. What he has made, he has made by his own industry and successful commerce. What I have comes from him, and from my own exertions. I have no interest in the extravagance of government; I have no interest in seeking appointments under any government; I have no interest in pandering to the views of any government; I have nothing to gain by being the tool of any party. I come before you as the friend of my own class and order; as one of the people; as one who would, on all occasions, be the firm defender of your rights, and the asserter of all those privileges to which you are justly entitled. It is on these grounds that I offer myself to your notice; it is on these grounds that I solicit your suffrages.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech during the general election of 1843, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 113.
1840s

“In any art there are a lot of technical things that you can get to like. Building is just skilled labor, I suppose. It's a lot of work. I don't mind other people building them, but the way things go together and are made is interesting to me; I like that a lot. I pay a lot of attention to how things are done and the whole activity of building something is interesting.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

1960s, "Oral history interview with Donald Judd," 1965

“So long as you do no harm to another, change your opinion once in a while. Contradict yourself without being embarrassed. This is your right. It doesn't matter what others think -because that's what they will think, in any case.”

Paulo Coelho Maktub

Source: Maktub

“The harm that you do to others is the harm that you do to yourself and you cannot think then that you can cause wars in other parts of the world and destroy people and drone them without this having a terrible impact on your own soul and your own consciousness.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Poet, Author Alice Walker Meets the Inner Journey with Global Activism in "The Cushion in the Road" http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/28/poet_author_alice_walker_meets_the (May 28, 2013).

“We got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Press conference http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071017.html (17 October 2007).
2000s, 2007

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

1990s, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (1992)

“Nearly everyone interested in common stocks wants to be told by someone else what he thinks the market is going to do. The demand being there, it must be supplied.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing (1949), Chapter III, The Investor and His Advisers, p. 48

“You must take proactive action now to ensure you have the right leadership that will bring the right environment so that when your kids get bigger they have a better working environment in Kenya.”

Peter Kenneth (1965) politician

Addressing parents at Loreto Convent high school in Mombasa in June 2012. allAfrica.com: Kenya: Kenneth Accuses State of Neglecting Sports, Brian, Otieno, allafrica.com, 2012 [26 June 2012 http://allafrica.com/stories/201206270168.html,, 16 July 2012]

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Noam Chomsky 334

Related quotes

Related topics