Chomsky: We're facing another massive and colossal failure of neoliberal capitalism

For the philosopher and linguist Noam Chosky, the first great lesson of the current pandemic is that we are facing "another massive and colossal failure of the neoliberal version of capitalism", which in the case of the United States is aggravated by the nature of the "sociopathic buffoons who manage the government" led by Donald Trump. From his home in Tucson, Arizona, and far from his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), from where he changed the field of linguistics forever, Chomsky reviews in an interview with Efe the consequences of a virus that makes it clear that governments are being "the problem and not the solution".

What positive lessons can we learn from the pandemic?

The first lesson is that we are facing another massive and colossal failure of the neoliberal version of capitalism. If we don't learn that, the next time something like this happens it's going to be worse. This is obvious after what happened after the SARS epidemic in 2003. Scientists knew there would be other pandemics coming, probably of the coronavirus variety. It would have been possible to prepare at that point and deal with it as we do with the flu. But it hasn't been done.

The pharmaceutical companies had resources and are superrich, but they don't do it because the markets say there is no profit in preparing for a catastrophe around the corner. And then comes the neoliberal hammer. Governments can't do anything. They are being the problem and not the solution.

The United States is a catastrophe because of the game they're playing in Washington. They know how to blame everyone except themselves, even though they are responsible. We are now the epicenter, in a country that is so dysfunctional that it cannot even provide information about the infection to the World Health Organization (WHO).

What do you think about the management of the Trump Administration?

The way this has developed is surreal. By February the pandemic was already causing damage, everyone in the United States recognized it. Just in February, Trump presents a budget that is worth looking at. Cuts at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and other health-related places. He made cuts in the midst of a pandemic and increased funding for the fossil energy industries, military spending, the famous wall...

All this tells you something about the nature of the sociopathic buffoons who run the government and that the country is suffering. Now they're desperately looking for someone to blame. They blame China, the WHO... and what they've done to the WHO is really criminal. Stop funding it? What does that mean? The WHO works all over the world, mainly in poor countries, on issues of diarrhea, motherhood... So, what are they saying? "Okay, let's kill a lot of people in the south because maybe that will help us with our electoral perspectives." That's a world of sociopaths.

Trump began by denying the crisis, even saying it was a Democratic hoax... Can this be the first time Trump has been beaten by the facts?

Trump is probably the most confident man who ever existed. He is capable of holding a poster that says "I love you, I am your savior, trust me because I work day and night for you" and with the other hand stabbing you in the back. This is how he relates to his voters, who love him no matter what he does. And he gets help from a media phenomenon made up of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart... who are the only media that Republicans watch.

If Trump says one day "it's just a flu, forget about it," they'll say yes, it's a flu and it should be forgotten. If the next day he says it's a terrible pandemic and that he was the first one to notice it, they'll shout it in unison and say he's the best person ever.

At the same time, he watches Fox News himself in the mornings and decides what he's supposed to say. It's an amazing phenomenon. Rupert Murdoch, Limbaugh and the sociopaths in the White House are leading the country to destruction.

Can this pandemic change the way we relate to nature?

That depends on the young people. It depends on how the world's population reacts. This could lead us to highly authoritarian and repressive states that expand the neoliberal handbook even more than now. Remember: the capitalist class doesn't give in. They are asking for more funding for fossil fuels, they are destroying regulations that offer some protection... In the midst of the pandemic in the U.S., regulations that restricted the emission of mercury and other pollutants have been removed... That means killing more American children, destroying the environment. They don't stop. And if there's no counterforce, it's the world we'll have left.

How does the map of power look in geopolitical terms after the pandemic?

What is happening internationally is quite shocking. There is this thing they call the European Union. We hear the word "union". Okay, look at Germany, which is managing the crisis very well... In Italy the crisis is severe... Are they getting help from Germany? Fortunately, they are receiving help, but from a "superpower" like Cuba, which is sending doctors. Or China, which is sending material and aid. But they don't receive assistance from the rich countries of the European Union. That says something...

The only country that has demonstrated genuine internationalism has been Cuba, which has always been under economic strangulation by the United States and by some miracle has survived to continue showing the world what internationalism is. But you can't say this in the US because what you have to do is blame them for human rights violations. In fact, the worst violations of human rights take place in the southeast of Cuba, in a place called Guantánamo which the United States took at gunpoint and refuses to give back.

An educated and obedient person is supposed to blame China, invoke the "yellow danger" and say that the Chinese are coming to destroy us, we are wonderful.

There is a call for progressive internationalism with the coalition started by Bernie Sanders in the United States or Varoufakis in Europe. They bring progressive elements to counter the reactionary movement that has been forged from the White House (...) by the hand of brutal states in the Middle East, Israel (...) or with people like Orban or Salvini, whose enjoyment in life is to make sure that people who desperately flee Africa drown in the Mediterranean.

You put all that international "reactionism" on one side and the question is... will it be countered? And I only see hope in what Bernie Sanders has built.

Who has lost...

It's commonly said that Sanders' campaign was a failure. But that's a total mistake. It was a huge success. Sanders has managed to change the scope of discussion and politics and very important things that couldn't be mentioned a couple of years ago are now at the center of discussion, like the Green New Deal, which is essential for survival.

He hasn't been financed by the rich, he hasn't had media support... The party machine has had to manipulate to prevent him from winning the nomination. Just as in the UK the right wing of the Labour Party has destroyed Corbyn, who was democratizing the party in a way they couldn't support.

They were even prepared to lose the election. We've seen a lot of that in America, but the movement remains. It is popular. It's growing, they're new... There are comparable movements in Europe, they can really make a difference.

What do you think will happen with the globalization as we know it?

There is nothing wrong with globalization. It's good to go to Spain for a trip, for example. The question is what form of globalization. The one that has developed has been under neoliberalism. It' s the one they have designed. It has enriched the richest people and there is an enormous power in the hands of corporations and monopolies. It has also led to a very fragile form of economy, based on a business model of efficiency, doing things at the lowest possible cost. That reasoning causes hospitals to not have certain things because they are not efficient, for example.

Now the fragile system built is collapsing because it cannot deal with something that has gone wrong. When you design a fragile system and centralize manufacturing and production only in a place like China... Look at Apple. It makes huge profits, few of which stay in China or Taiwan. Most of its business goes to where they've probably put an office of the size of my studio, in Ireland, to pay little tax in a tax heaven.

How can they hide money in tax heavens? Is that part of the natural law? No. In fact, in the United States, until Reagan, it was illegal. So was stock trading. (...) Were they necessary? Reagan legalized it.

Everything has been designed, they are decisions... that have consequences that we have seen over the years and one of the reasons why you find what has been misnamed "populism". A lot of people were angry, resentful and hated the government in a justified way. That was fertile ground for demagogues who could say: I am your savior and immigrants this and that.

Do you think that, after the pandemic, the United States will be closer to a free and universal health care?

It's very interesting to see that discussion. Sanders' programs, for example, universal health care, free university fees... They criticize him on the whole spectrum -ideologically-. The most interesting criticisms come from the left. The more liberal columnists of the New York Times, CNN and all of them... They say they're good ideas, but not for Americans.

Universal health care is everywhere. All over Europe in one form or another. In poor countries like Brazil, Mexico... What about free university education? Everywhere... Finland, Germany, Mexico... everywhere. So, what the critics on the left are saying is that America is a society so backward that it can't catch up with the rest of the world. And it tells you a lot about nature and culture and society.