Noam Chomsky joined the faculty of MIT in 1955, and, soon enough established himself as “the father of modern linguistics.” (Watch him debate Michel Foucault in 1971.) During the 60s, he also firmly positioned himself as a leading public intellectual taking aim at American foreign policy and global capitalism, and we regularly saw him engaging with figures like William F. Buckley.
All of these years later, it’s quite fitting that Chomsky, now 82 years old, would pay a visit to Occupy Boston and deliver a talk in the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series. Why has our political system become more responsive to corporations than citizens? How has wealth become increasingly concentrated in the hands of an ever smaller elite — a plutocracy, to put it simply? And why do billionaire hedge fund managers enjoy a lower tax rate than maligned school teachers and pretty much everyone else? Chomsky explains how we got to this point, and what’s to be done about it. Find his talk in three parts: Part 1 (above), Part 2 and Part 3. via Dangerous Minds.
More Occupy Videos:
Willie Nelson, Pete Seeger, and Arlo Guthrie at Occupy Wall Street
Slavoj Zizek Takes the Stage at Occupy Wall Street
Joseph Stiglitz and Lawrence Lessig at Occupy Wall Street
Whenever Chomsky is “introduced” people reminds the talking he had with Michel Foucault.
It is as if this talking legitimated Chomsky as a philosopher or a thinker.
It doesn’t because it is Foucault that leads the talking.
It was not something that important.
Chomsky is the only pundit that some Americans know.
Hi is good but he has flaws in some of his views that are very difficult to forget.
Chomsky is at MIT because of his linguistic work. I forgot to mention that.