
Quotes 1990s, 1990–1994, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, 1992
Noam Chomsky, letter dated June 13, 1983. Published in: " The reasons for my concern: Response to Celia Jakubowicz http://www.chomsky.info/letters/19830613.htm," in C. P. Otero (ed.), Language and Politics, Black Rose, 1988, pp. 369-72.
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s
Quotes 1990s, 1990–1994, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, 1992
“States are violent to the extent that they're powerful”
Quotes 1990s, 1990-1994, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, 1992
Context: States are violent institutions. The government of any country, including ours, represents some sort of domestic power structure, and it's usually violent. States are violent to the extent that they're powerful, that's roughly accurate.
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
Source: Beyond the Welfare State (1958), p. 38
Context: Generally speaking, the less privileged groups in democratic society, as they become aware of their interests and their political power, will be found to press for more and more state intervention in practically all fields. Their interest clearly lies in having individual contracts subordinated as much as possible to general norms, laid down in laws, regulations, administrative dispositions, and semi-voluntary agreements between apparently private, but in reality, quasi-public organizations [e. g., wage agreements between Swedish unions and employers' confederations, and their counterparts in other countries].
My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)
Context: Who sold white Quaker children into slavery? Protestants. Who cut out the tongues of Quakers? Who burned and destroyed men and women and children charged with impossible crimes? Protestants. The Protestants have persecuted exactly to the extent of their power. The Catholics have done the same.
“States have two kinds of power: latent power and military power.”
Source: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), Chapter 3, Wealth and Power, p. 55
: The Foundations of Liberal Policy § 10. The Argument of Fascism https://mises.org/liberal/ch1sec10.asp,Ch.1
Liberalism (1927)
Context: Now it cannot be denied that the only way one can offer effective resistance to violent assaults is by violence. Against the weapons of the Bolsheviks, weapons must be used in reprisal, and it would be a mistake to display weakness before murderers. No liberal has ever called this into question. What distinguishes liberal from Fascist political tactics is not a difference of opinion in regard to the necessity of using armed force to resist armed attackers, but a difference in the fundamental estimation of the role of violence in a struggle for power. The great danger threatening domestic policy from the side of Fascism lies in its complete faith in the decisive power of violence. In order to assure success, one must be imbued with the will to victory and always proceed violently. This is its highest principle. What happens, however, when one's opponent, similarly animated by the will to be victorious, acts just as violently? The result must be a battle, a civil war. The ultimate victor to emerge from such conflicts will be the faction strongest in number. In the long run, a minority — even if it is composed of the most capable and energetic — cannot succeed in resisting the majority. The decisive question, therefore, always remains: How does one obtain a majority for one's own party? This, however, is a purely intellectual matter. It is a victory that can be won only with the weapons of the intellect, never by force. The suppression of all opposition by sheer violence is a most unsuitable way to win adherents to one's cause. Resort to naked force — that is, without justification in terms of intellectual arguments accepted by public opinion — merely gains new friends for those whom one is thereby trying to combat. In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails.
“It's narrow sectors of domestic power that the administration is serving”
Talk titled "Why Iraq?" at Harvard University, November 4, 2002 http://www.iop.harvard.edu/events_forum_archive_2002.html.
Quotes 2000s, 2002
Context: [Q: isn't there a certain calculus that someone who is sitting in the shoes of a Condoleezza Rice can make, that they're responsible for the best outcome for American citizens, and there's an upside of going into Iraq which is we get one of the greatest material possessions in world's history, and there're downsides which are: we upset the international community, and maybe there's more terrorism. Couldn't you envision a calculus where they say, sure, that's the reason, and it's a good reason, let's do it. What's the flaw in the calculus? ] Oh, I think that's exactly their calculus. But then we ought to just be honest and say, "Look, we're a bunch of Nazis." So fine, let's just drop all the discussion, we save a lot of trees, we can throw out the newspapers and most of the scholarly literature, and just come out, state it straight, and tell the truth: we'll do whatever we want because we think we're going to gain by it. And incidentally, it's not American citizens who'll gain. They don't gain by this. It's narrow sectors of domestic power that the administration is serving with quite unusual dedication...
Source: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), Chapter III, POWER AND LIBERTY A THEORY OF POLITICS, p. 59.