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booksforjake's review against another edition
3.0
Amazing, well-articulated thoughts around neoliberalism and the Covid pandemic, with special focus on Trump and the current state of U.S. politics.
After having read some snippets of Chomsky’s work and watching some videos with him featured, I was eager to dive into more of his work. I was not disappointed and found he was able to clearly articulate many of the frustrations I have with late-stage capitalism (what he refers to as “40 years of neoliberal regime”).
The one thing that brought my rating down was the format. Since the book was a compilation of interviews, rather than an intentionally structured narrative, it became a bit tedious and repetitive. Still really glad I picked it up!
After having read some snippets of Chomsky’s work and watching some videos with him featured, I was eager to dive into more of his work. I was not disappointed and found he was able to clearly articulate many of the frustrations I have with late-stage capitalism (what he refers to as “40 years of neoliberal regime”).
The one thing that brought my rating down was the format. Since the book was a compilation of interviews, rather than an intentionally structured narrative, it became a bit tedious and repetitive. Still really glad I picked it up!
thurminator's review against another edition
5.0
From review blog: gbthurman.wixsite.com/bookreview/post/the-precipice-noam-chomsky
It seems rare today to be able to find one individual or source that consistently spews hard, cold facts. The vast majority of media we view is heavily tainted by bias, an idea that has been coming more and more into the limelight. Ironically, however, we as Americans seem to still have a tendency to believe that everyone would agree with us if they would just listen to "our guy", our news channel, or read what we do, without realizing how much bias pervades all of our own intake as well. I have come to respect Noam Chomsky for his dedication to presenting the facts without reservation or desire to push any agenda other than the development and survival of humankind. With no regard to any concept of political "aisle", he condemns the actions of politicians on all sides of every issue with remarkable clarity and well-sited data. This is true in his latest collection of interviews, "The Precipice", a review of the eruption of political tensions, complete control of corporations, and the speed at which our country is headed for deeply uncertain and concerning times. It'll be hard to pick out too many specific quotes to detail the issues I want to discuss, because I dogeared what felt like every other page, and it is just too much to cover here. The main principle I want to discuss is as follows, however:
"One of the great achievements of the doctrinal system has been to divert anger from the corporate sector to the government that implements the programs the corporate sector designs..."
Chomsky has detailed for decades the impressive ability for money to control nearly all of what goes on in politics. Corporations have come to be seen as the pinnacle of what capitalism can be, a demonstration of the efficiency and resiliency that a free market provides. Being able to divert the public's attention away from what these corporations are doing and just how powerful they have become and onto every action the government takes has been performed with incredible success. Conservatives believe "government is the problem", a common phrase Chomsky quotes from Ronald Reagan. These individuals are so busy decrying any power given to the government and so willing to blame anyone different from themselves, that they have turned a blind eye, if not an admiring eye, to massively wealthy corporations that have pervaded every last reach of our lives with shocking speed and efficiency. If the government tried to interfere with our lives and collect the amount of data that a company like Amazon, Google, or Apple does with every user, there would be huge public outcry. But because these companies do it so smoothly and in way that enables so much convenience, we can't be bothered to care.
What is more is that these corporations, in plain sight, influence so much public policy and interfere with our elections and political parties to such a large degree, that they effectively have their hands in all of the decisions that comes out of Washington. Chomsky details this throughout the book, showing how presidents and congresses on both the left and right (if such designations are even remotely accurate anymore) have served the rich over and over again. Trump's promised tax breaks and tariffs on imported goods simply shift more of the burden over to workers and provide benefits to the rich. Obama is guilty of similar policies. When the great recession began in 2008, Obama bailed out GM. Are Trump and Biden's stimulus checks really intended to help you get through the month, or is another motive in place?
When we are caught up in the near worship of a political candidate, we lose sight of the fact that much of what we view as the "political process" in America is completely irrelevant. Money is what matters, and it decides what will and will not happen. Those living in inescapable poverty are shafted time and time again as workers bear the brunt of economic turmoil. Campaign slogans revolving around "Hope" and making our country great seem to serve only as distractions for what reality has become in a post WWII America. Chomsky sites repeatedly that the Democratic Party has shifted so far right that Eisenhower would have approved of many of their policies, and likewise, the Republican party has basically shifted off of the political spectrum. He talks about the infrastructure deal that Eisenhower put in place to build our country's freeway system. Biden's attempt to put forward an infrastructure bill in 2021 is now seen as far left liberal heresy.
These two slogans represented the same thing to people: a desire for their life to be happier. And yet your heart swelled at one, and turned to fire at another, did it not? You might disagree with someone who likes one of these more than the other, but we all still essentially want the same things in life.
So many people in America live in fear and anger, unsure of who to blame, not realizing that the entire economic and political system has been slowly designed and crafted into a weapon to benefit the 1% that lives on top. These feelings are understandable, and the desperation for a candidate that can truly help them makes it clear how someone like Donald Trump could have been elected. He portrayed himself as a man of the people, someone who understands the "struggle" that Americans have been enduring at the hands of "evil government". The fact that he is able to pull off such a front, belonging in full to the elite upper class that is funding and causing these problems and taking control of governmental policy, convincing Americans that he is helping them, while simultaneously stabbing them in the face, is remarkable, as Chomsky points out over and over again. The fact that someone like Bernie Sanders, who literally stems from an actual grassroots movement, can be construed as the communist devil himself, at the same time a candidate like Trump is elected, is remarkable.
Chomsky also gives a great deal of time to the impending doom that is climate change. These corporations have again, with impressive ability and total knowledge of what they are doing, sped us quickly toward destruction, fully realizing the dangers, in an attempt to pocket as much as they can before being forced to turn to less profitable (at first) greener methods. This has been done while creating a war in America between the people on whether or not climate change is even real, something very beneficial to these companies as they eek out every dollar possible. This is not a debate that exists in most of the world, and yet again, it will be those who live in third world countries and poverty that will bear the full brunt of the awful fate climate change brings.
The point I'd like to make, is that literally no corporation, president, or congressman, cares much about you. The only way that we are going to be able to exact change in this country is by speaking up for what is right, defending those who do not have a voice in addition to our own, and staying involved in activism and politics beyond an election every 4 years. America has become home to a population of blind sheep, convinced that everyone else is the problem, wondering why things aren't like they "used to be". Learn to work together, and we will overcome the difficulties that lie at the top of the economic food chain. Remain passive, and your free will is slowly taken from you day by day. If ANYONE is telling you what to believe, you must take a step back and evaluate it for yourself in a rational, truthful, and unbiased way. It's simply too easy to be caught up the emotional flurry that political candidates and commentators bring with them today. Don't allow yourself to be manipulated by anyone. You have a rational, free-thinking brain for a reason.
This has been a smattering of my own thoughts and those collected in "The Precipice". I'd recommend this book to anyone. You will not agree with every claim, (if any, if you are a conservative-minded individual) but much of it is cited or available for research of your own. Hopefully it will at least prompt you to look up some of the claims yourself, to see just how much of it is true. The world has become a difficult place to navigate, and I think that we ought to be careful that we aren't aligning ourselves with groups that go completely against what we believe at their foundation. If you permit yourself to think outside the box that a two-system political party has trapped us in, you might find that there is much more to reality than you realized. Maybe at the end of the day, we all want the same things, and we don't have to hate everyone who has a different idea of how we can arrive there.
It seems rare today to be able to find one individual or source that consistently spews hard, cold facts. The vast majority of media we view is heavily tainted by bias, an idea that has been coming more and more into the limelight. Ironically, however, we as Americans seem to still have a tendency to believe that everyone would agree with us if they would just listen to "our guy", our news channel, or read what we do, without realizing how much bias pervades all of our own intake as well. I have come to respect Noam Chomsky for his dedication to presenting the facts without reservation or desire to push any agenda other than the development and survival of humankind. With no regard to any concept of political "aisle", he condemns the actions of politicians on all sides of every issue with remarkable clarity and well-sited data. This is true in his latest collection of interviews, "The Precipice", a review of the eruption of political tensions, complete control of corporations, and the speed at which our country is headed for deeply uncertain and concerning times. It'll be hard to pick out too many specific quotes to detail the issues I want to discuss, because I dogeared what felt like every other page, and it is just too much to cover here. The main principle I want to discuss is as follows, however:
"One of the great achievements of the doctrinal system has been to divert anger from the corporate sector to the government that implements the programs the corporate sector designs..."
Chomsky has detailed for decades the impressive ability for money to control nearly all of what goes on in politics. Corporations have come to be seen as the pinnacle of what capitalism can be, a demonstration of the efficiency and resiliency that a free market provides. Being able to divert the public's attention away from what these corporations are doing and just how powerful they have become and onto every action the government takes has been performed with incredible success. Conservatives believe "government is the problem", a common phrase Chomsky quotes from Ronald Reagan. These individuals are so busy decrying any power given to the government and so willing to blame anyone different from themselves, that they have turned a blind eye, if not an admiring eye, to massively wealthy corporations that have pervaded every last reach of our lives with shocking speed and efficiency. If the government tried to interfere with our lives and collect the amount of data that a company like Amazon, Google, or Apple does with every user, there would be huge public outcry. But because these companies do it so smoothly and in way that enables so much convenience, we can't be bothered to care.
What is more is that these corporations, in plain sight, influence so much public policy and interfere with our elections and political parties to such a large degree, that they effectively have their hands in all of the decisions that comes out of Washington. Chomsky details this throughout the book, showing how presidents and congresses on both the left and right (if such designations are even remotely accurate anymore) have served the rich over and over again. Trump's promised tax breaks and tariffs on imported goods simply shift more of the burden over to workers and provide benefits to the rich. Obama is guilty of similar policies. When the great recession began in 2008, Obama bailed out GM. Are Trump and Biden's stimulus checks really intended to help you get through the month, or is another motive in place?
When we are caught up in the near worship of a political candidate, we lose sight of the fact that much of what we view as the "political process" in America is completely irrelevant. Money is what matters, and it decides what will and will not happen. Those living in inescapable poverty are shafted time and time again as workers bear the brunt of economic turmoil. Campaign slogans revolving around "Hope" and making our country great seem to serve only as distractions for what reality has become in a post WWII America. Chomsky sites repeatedly that the Democratic Party has shifted so far right that Eisenhower would have approved of many of their policies, and likewise, the Republican party has basically shifted off of the political spectrum. He talks about the infrastructure deal that Eisenhower put in place to build our country's freeway system. Biden's attempt to put forward an infrastructure bill in 2021 is now seen as far left liberal heresy.
These two slogans represented the same thing to people: a desire for their life to be happier. And yet your heart swelled at one, and turned to fire at another, did it not? You might disagree with someone who likes one of these more than the other, but we all still essentially want the same things in life.
So many people in America live in fear and anger, unsure of who to blame, not realizing that the entire economic and political system has been slowly designed and crafted into a weapon to benefit the 1% that lives on top. These feelings are understandable, and the desperation for a candidate that can truly help them makes it clear how someone like Donald Trump could have been elected. He portrayed himself as a man of the people, someone who understands the "struggle" that Americans have been enduring at the hands of "evil government". The fact that he is able to pull off such a front, belonging in full to the elite upper class that is funding and causing these problems and taking control of governmental policy, convincing Americans that he is helping them, while simultaneously stabbing them in the face, is remarkable, as Chomsky points out over and over again. The fact that someone like Bernie Sanders, who literally stems from an actual grassroots movement, can be construed as the communist devil himself, at the same time a candidate like Trump is elected, is remarkable.
Chomsky also gives a great deal of time to the impending doom that is climate change. These corporations have again, with impressive ability and total knowledge of what they are doing, sped us quickly toward destruction, fully realizing the dangers, in an attempt to pocket as much as they can before being forced to turn to less profitable (at first) greener methods. This has been done while creating a war in America between the people on whether or not climate change is even real, something very beneficial to these companies as they eek out every dollar possible. This is not a debate that exists in most of the world, and yet again, it will be those who live in third world countries and poverty that will bear the full brunt of the awful fate climate change brings.
The point I'd like to make, is that literally no corporation, president, or congressman, cares much about you. The only way that we are going to be able to exact change in this country is by speaking up for what is right, defending those who do not have a voice in addition to our own, and staying involved in activism and politics beyond an election every 4 years. America has become home to a population of blind sheep, convinced that everyone else is the problem, wondering why things aren't like they "used to be". Learn to work together, and we will overcome the difficulties that lie at the top of the economic food chain. Remain passive, and your free will is slowly taken from you day by day. If ANYONE is telling you what to believe, you must take a step back and evaluate it for yourself in a rational, truthful, and unbiased way. It's simply too easy to be caught up the emotional flurry that political candidates and commentators bring with them today. Don't allow yourself to be manipulated by anyone. You have a rational, free-thinking brain for a reason.
This has been a smattering of my own thoughts and those collected in "The Precipice". I'd recommend this book to anyone. You will not agree with every claim, (if any, if you are a conservative-minded individual) but much of it is cited or available for research of your own. Hopefully it will at least prompt you to look up some of the claims yourself, to see just how much of it is true. The world has become a difficult place to navigate, and I think that we ought to be careful that we aren't aligning ourselves with groups that go completely against what we believe at their foundation. If you permit yourself to think outside the box that a two-system political party has trapped us in, you might find that there is much more to reality than you realized. Maybe at the end of the day, we all want the same things, and we don't have to hate everyone who has a different idea of how we can arrive there.
thetrickyfox's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.25
Informative and interesting (even if I didn't agree with all of the points made). The main issue with this book is how repetitive it becomes, and that's just a characteristic of this style of book; collating a series of interview responses to a collection of questions on similar themes is bound to lead to repeated facts, figures, and opinions. Definitely recommend trying it out, but more as a skim read than as something to spend months grinding through for completion's sake.
joaofranciscof's review against another edition
informative
reflective
3.0
It is a very (VERY) repetitive and poorly organised book. However, it is always interesting to read Chomsky’s perspective on current affairs, specially USA affairs.
“(…) today, after forty years of the ‘savage capitalism’ unleashed by the neoliberal assault. (…) The effects of the assault are sharp concentration of wealth and power, increasingly in largely predatory financial institutions, stagnation or decline for the majority, deterioration of benefits, astonishing collapse of infrastructure, a form of globalisation designed to pit working people against one another for the benefit of international investors, weakening of institutions to protect worker rights, undermining of functioning democracy, and much else that is all too familiar.”
“(…) today, after forty years of the ‘savage capitalism’ unleashed by the neoliberal assault. (…) The effects of the assault are sharp concentration of wealth and power, increasingly in largely predatory financial institutions, stagnation or decline for the majority, deterioration of benefits, astonishing collapse of infrastructure, a form of globalisation designed to pit working people against one another for the benefit of international investors, weakening of institutions to protect worker rights, undermining of functioning democracy, and much else that is all too familiar.”