Failed States
by Nic Olson
When history is crafted in the service of power, evidence and rationality are irrelevant.
-Noam Chomsky, Failed States, p100
I am in the business of joy. Lowercase j. I am directly employed by Santa himself to greet the masses of joyless souls and bring the rapture of new merchandise to their lives. Running a business as if it were a business makes sense, as long as a service is provided or goods are traded for money. People convinced they they have a right to demand things in the form of a Christmas list because they believe that forced giving is the thoughtful thing to do, are running their lives like a business, taking advantage of situations and people and money. This does not make sense.
In structure, the political counterpart to a corporation is a totalitarian state. There are rewards for loyalists, and quick punishment for those who “cross party leaders.” The antidemocratic thrust has precedents, of course, but is reaching new heights. It should surprise no one familiar with history that it is accompanied by the most august missions and visions of democracy.
-Noam Chomsky, Failed States, p238
Running a government as if it were a business frightens me. It makes humans commodities and necessities marketable. More regard for the dollars earned than the humans living in conditions where it is impossible to earn enough for basic human comforts. The past and the present have been crafted in the service of power. The connection between the system governed by the powerful and wealthy and the consumerism of this season is not coincidental. Someone, or a series of someones, have carefully crafted this holiday season that is loved by so many into a two-month shopping obligation. Our love for one another that is best expressed through fellowship and merriment has been changed so that we feel the only way to express it is through the giving of unnecessary items. And it has only strengthened their position of power. They have taken what we love more than anything and inverted it into another means of profit. Power is a business.
Among the most salient properties of failed states is that they do not protect their citizens from violence—and perhaps even destruction—or that decision makers regard such concerns as lower in priority than the short-term power and wealth of the state’s dominant sectors.
-Noam Chomsky, Failed States, p38
Violence can be demonstrated in many ways. A boot stamping on a human face forever. An army occupying another country to control the energy reserves and elections to stifle the power of a population. Several levels of government building a handsome yet useless multimillion dollar sidewalk ignoring a housing crisis that continually worsens. Poverty is violence.
Our state has used garlands and lights and parades to help us forget that it has indeed failed. And these lights and garlands have trained us to continue to support the failed state through red Santa hats and a marketable ‘Christmas Spirit.’ Either each year the situation becomes more grave than the last, or each year my cynicisms mount even higher than Santa’s pyramid of elf skulls that he compiles at year end, a physical exposition of the slave labour that his capitalist methods require.
We can demonstrate our power by running our lives as the human lives they are, not as the businesses that they are told to be. We can take back the power from the failed state by refusing to participate in the season that characterizes their abuses and violence more than any other time of the year. We can go a year without ‘celebrating’ to show that our Joy (capital J) is founded in something more than a self-serving system that they created for us to mindlessly follow. We can buy nothing and be better, more generous, less selfish people because of it.
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If you get a chance you should read The Rational Optimist. It gives a much more right wing small c conservative view on some of the things you mentioned. To me you are basically saying that businesses are bad because they think of $ first and people second. If 100 years ago we would have evened out the wealth and made everyone equal many of the innovations of today would never have been created. “poor” people for the most part are better off than the 1% of 100 years ago due to innovations created by people and funded by the stock market and corporations. Are some people and corps corrupt? Of course, but as Michael Jackson said “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch”
Thanks for the reply!
I don’t believe that businesses are bad if they are run in a way that doesn’t glorify wealth, and actually provide a service or sell necessary goods. That is not to say that I agree with large scale companies that own most of North America and the world. All businesses are run for profit, but there is an honourable and fair way of going about this.
I mostly have a problem when a government is run as if it were a business. When the funds are deemed more important than the people that vote. Government and business are supposed to be separate and run in completely different ways. But when either glorify wealth, people get left behind.
sort of like how church and state should be separate?
Well said.
I see the failed state everyday and it’s a tragedy how much it’s failed people. It’s really depressing that money has become more important than human lives and that we’ve reached a point where humans are commodities and lives are disposable. It’s also sad that we as a society buy into it all, and continue to let it happen. That doesn’t say much about people in general, but there’s gotta be hope that we’re not all lost, and something can change. At least that’s what I hope…
Noam Chomsky is brilliant. He once again succeeds at dismantling the long held belief that America is the most exceptional country.. a shining beacon of democracy. He does not write as eloquently as other intellectuals his age but he is able to evoke a sense of awe in his style of no nonsense writing. Chomsky explains in “Failed States” that the United States is an imperialistic machine that tries in vain to spread “democracy” throughout the world by means of invasion and war. He bravely discusses the consequences of imperialism and how countries suffer after being dealt a bad hand by the US. I most enjoyed him going into depth about America’s past in regards to its backing of dangerous dictators throughout the world, and how we continue to remove those in power who are a threat to out business interests. Very compelling stuff.I have ready many books by Chomsky. “Failed States is one of his best. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for reading! This is the first long piece of Chomsky’s that I have read. I have read shorter essays and listened to lectures but had a hard time finding a book that was not too topic specific that I could get into. His sarcasm and wit are amazing and his way of presenting facts and ideas is truly inspiring.
I’m excited to read more.