...Noam Chomsky: The New York Times
had an article by its economic correspondent in its magazine
section a couple weeks ago about Obama's economic programs.
He talked about Reagan as the model of passionate commitment to
free markets and reduction of the role of the state, and so on …
Where are these people?
Reagan was the
most protectionist president in post-war American
history.
In fact, more protectionist than all others combined.
He virtually
doubled protective barriers. He brought in the
Pentagon to develop the "factory of the future" to teach backward
American management how to catch up on the Japanese lead in
production. SEMATECH ("Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology") was
formed.
If it weren't
for Reagan's protectionism and calling in of state power, we would
not have a steel industry, or an automobile industry, or a
semi-conductor industry or whatever they protected. They
reindustrialized America by protectionism and state
intervention.
All of this is washed away by
propaganda as though it never happened.
It is very interesting to look at a place like MIT, which was
right at the center of these developments. My department -- you're
teaching a course in the Military Industrial Complex -- my
department is an example of it.
I came here in the mid-50's. I don't know the difference between
a radio and a tape recorder, but I was in the electronics lab. I
was perhaps the one person who refused to get clearance on
principle. Not that it made any difference; everything was open
anyway.
The electronics lab, along with the closely connected Lincoln
labs, was just developing the basis of the modern high- tech
economy. In those days, the computer was the size of this set of
offices.
By the time they finally got computers down to the size of a
marketable main frame, some of the directors of the project pulled
out and formed DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), the first main
frame producer.
IBM was in there, at the government's expense, learning how to
move from punch cards to electronic computers. By the early l960's
IBM was capable of producing its own computers, but no one could buy them.
They were too expensive. So they were bought by the National
Security Agency. Bell Labs did develop
transistors.
That is about the only example you can think of a significant
part of the high-tech system which came out of private enterprise.
But that is a joke too! They worked on technology. Their transistor
producer was Western Electric, who could not sell them on the
market; they were too expensive. So the government bought
about 100 percent of advanced transistors.
Finally, of course, all of this gets to the point where you can
market them privately. It was not until the 1980's
after 30 years of development essentially in the state sector that
these things became marketable commodities and Bill Gates could get
rich.
The Internet was the same thing. I was here when they were
starting to work on the Internet. It was not until 1995 that it
was privatized, after 30 years. If you look at the funding at MIT,
in the 1950s and 1960's it was almost entirely
Pentagon.
For a very simple reason, the cutting edge of the economy was
electronics based. A good cover for developing an electronics-based
economy was the Pentagon. You sort of frighten people into thinking
the Russians are coming, so they pay their taxes and their children
and grandchildren have computers.
Through the 70's and 80's funding has been shifting to NIH
(National Institutes of Health). Why? Because the cutting edge of
the economy is becoming biology-based. So, therefore, the state sector is shifting
its priorities to developing biology-based
industries. All of this is going on with accolades
to the Free Market. You don't know whether to laugh or cry...
http://www.alternet.org/rights/101530/chomsky