Chomsky: the hypocrite

[Mouthwash]

Here's an interesting article by the Hoover Institute on Noam Chomsky, the "closet capitalist."

Highlights, for the reading impaired:

One of the most persistent themes in Noam Chomsky’s work has been class warfare. He has frequently lashed out against the “massive use of tax havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the rich” and criticized the concentration of wealth in “trusts” by the wealthiest 1 percent. The American tax code is rigged with “complicated devices for ensuring that the poor—like 80 percent of the population—pay off the rich.”

But trusts can’t be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of $2,000,000, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he went to Boston’s venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and, with the help of a tax attorney specializing in “income-tax planning,” set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a daughter as trustees. To the Diane Chomsky Irrevocable Trust (named for another daughter) he has assigned the copyright of several of his books, including multiple international editions.

Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income. No reason to let radical politics get in the way of sound estate planning.

When I challenged Chomsky about his trust, he suddenly started to sound very bourgeois: “I don’t apologize for putting aside money for my children and grandchildren,” he wrote in one e-mail. Chomsky offered no explanation for why he condemns others who are equally proud of their provision for their children and who try to protect their assets from Uncle Sam. Although he did say that the tax shelter is okay because he and his family are “trying to help suffering people.”

When I asked Chomsky about his investment portfolio he reverted to a “what else can I do?” defense: “Should I live in a cabin in Montana?” he asked. It was a clever rhetorical dodge. Chomsky was declaring that there is simply no way to avoid getting involved in the stock market short of complete withdrawal from the capitalist system. He certainly knows better. There are many alternative funds these days that allow you to invest your money in “green” or “socially responsible” enterprises. They just don’t yield the maximum available return.

I'm open to criticism, but I would advise that it be more sophisticated than "hurr durr the Hoover Institute is pro-corporation, of course they're going to hate."

 

[Zelig]

I ignore criticisms of Chomsky which don't actually address any of his points.

That is to say, pretty much all of them.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Indeed.

From Chomsky's own mouth:

Cleveland, Miss.: Are you really so much of a stereotypical "say as I do, not as I say" liberal icon that you deride tax shelters and trust funds, all the while setting up one of your own, or is the story that's been a hot topic on the internet the past few days a lie?

Noam Chomsky: A person who issues that charge that someone adheres to the principle "do as I say, not as I do" (the actual charge) has three options: (1) produce an example; (2) withdraw the charge; (3) take the coward's way out and slink away silently. So far, no one has provided even a single example (if you can find one, I'd be glad to know about it and correct the practice). Thzt leaves (2) or (3). The examples you mention obviously won't work unless you can produce a statement of mine saying that others should not do exactly what I do. You'll find no such statement, either in the literature to which you are referring, or elsewhere. I'm omitting the many pure fabrications that accompany these charges.

 

[Mouthwash]

I ignore criticisms of Chomsky which don't actually address any of his points.

That is to say, pretty much all of them.

It's a personal criticism. (But I should mention that the intellectual world has pretty much ignored his work for a reason).

Indeed.

From Chomsky's own mouth:

So... he's basically talking tough? What does this prove?

 

[Zelig]

It's a personal criticism. (But I should mention that the intellectual world has pretty much ignored his work for a reason).

Can't tell if serious.

 

[Mouthwash]

Can't tell if serious.

Didn't you just say so? I'm not referring to Chomsky's popularity on college campuses (which Cheezy apparently thinks does constitute the intellectual world).

 

[Zelig]

Didn't you just say so? I'm not referring to Chomsky's popularity on college campuses (which Cheezy apparently thinks does constitute the intellectual world).

Didn't I just say what?

I have no idea what you're referring to about college campuses, Chomsky is hardly notable on college campuses outside of his fields, and in those fields (ie. linguistics, psychology, philosophy) you can hardly get any less ignored by the intellectual world.

 

[Mouthwash]

Didn't I just say what?

Why, that he hardly ever gets really criticized.

I have no idea what you're referring to about college campuses, Chomsky is hardly notable on college campuses outside of his fields, and in those fields (ie. linguistics, psychology, philosophy) you can hardly get any less ignored by the intellectual world.

Linguistics, psychology, and philosophy aren't what I'm talking about.

 

[Zelig]

He hardly ever gets really criticized.

No, he gets lots of criticism, which is overwhelmed in volume by non-intellectual drivel that does nothing to address any of the points he makes.

Linguistics, psychology, and philosophy aren't what I'm talking about.

You're the one who brought up the intellectual world.

 

[JollyRoger]

Two million is well below the estate tax cut-off, so the trust isn't avoiding estate taxes. A trust of that sort and small size is generally set up to avoid probate and to more smoothly handle the transfer of non-standard assets such as intellectual property rights. It can also be used to get a lower income tax rate, especially if you have assets that generate income in places other than the U.S. What is Hoover going to criticize next - Chomsky taking a mortgage interest deduction?

 

[Mouthwash]

No, he gets lots of criticism

I ignore criticisms of Chomsky which don't actually address any of his points.

That is to say, pretty much all of them.

 

[Traitorfish]

Pretty sure we've gone over this before.


Link to video.

 

[Zelig]

I'm not sure what your point is, my statements aren't at odds.

For an intellectual, Chomsky gets lots of criticism. And then on top of that, he gets another 20x that amount of drivel about irrelevant stuff.

Any randomly chosen criticism is likely going to be from the latter set.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Didn't you just say so? I'm not referring to Chomsky's popularity on college campuses (which Cheezy apparently thinks does constitute the intellectual world).

Well, it certainly doesn't exclusively include far-right think tanks like the Hoover Institute.

Speaking of which, this appears to be far more a case of "hypocritical" sour grapes. I have never heard of this "intellectual" before, who appears to have gotten his nose out of shape that Chomsky is apparently far more popular and financially successful than he is.

And where has Cheezy made any comment in this thread?

Pretty sure we've gone over this before.


Link to video.

Brilliant. Chomsky is likely an iPhone-using coffee drinker as well. I bet the "hypocrite" even uses toilet paper instead of leaves. So his opinions on capitalism and the plight of the working class certainly can't be worth anything.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Obviously, even though you take part in capitalism you still can criticize capitalism. That really goes without saying if you just criticize current manifestations of capitalism (which Chomsky seems to do a lot), but it still applies if you criticize capitalism as such (which Chomsky may or may not do - he isn't that popular over here and I don't know).
However, there is partaking in capitalism, and there is going-out-of-ones-way-to-be-greedy-partaking-in-capitalism. That still does not make ones criticism of capitalism invalid. But it makes you a hypocrite. And Chomsky seems to try to squeeze every last drop of money out of his criticism.

 

[aelf]

It's looks fishy, I give you that. But if what JR said is true, I don't think it's a problem at all, and indeed this would turn out to be a case of a right-wing institution engaging in unsurprising mudslinging against a left-wing figure.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Just because it is being done by a so-called intellectual, instead of Fox News or some other media source owned by Rupert Murdoch, doesn't change the fact that it is what we have come to expect from the far right.

 

[Traitorfish]

This whole thing would make a lot more sense if Chomsky had a record of preaching disinvestment from The System, but I don't think that, beyond specific boycotts, he's ever been associated with that sort of thing. He's always come down pretty firmly on the side of collective action rather than lifestylism, even if he happens to be popular with the Adbusters/"anti-consumerism" sort of crowd.

(Well, was popular. I'm not sure they even really exist any more. The economic crisis had a way of making that sort of individualistic responses to capitalism seem a bit silly.)

 

[ParkCungHee]

That, or made them so mainstream as to be divorced of political content.

 

[Hygro]

What's wrong with ignoring the vast array of criticism that attack his value as a cultural icon without actually attacking his work? I'm with Zelig here, but it's also worth noting I pretty much am not interested in what Chomsky says unless it's pertaining to his field, anyway. And even then, it's not a field I've studied so I think I read only a few articles that even reference him.