In a speech delivered recently in Germany, Noam Chomsky identifies the shortcomings, as he sees them, of ‘”really existing capitalist democracy”, RECD for short, pronounced “wrecked” by accident’. Now there’s plenty wrong with existing democracies, but the strange thing is that, in discussing what, Chomsky would have us believe that on one question after another public opinion is out of harmony with what those who govern are ready to implement. In fact, he says, really existing capitalist democracies are plutocracies. But wouldn’t it follow, if popular opinion favours something else, that popular opinion is already Chomskian in character? Or at least is generically anti-capitalist, anarcho-socialist, or what have you? And yet political forces of this character trying to win a following such as might give them strong representation in the political assemblies of the aforesaid capitalist democracies don’t seem to be making much headway.
I’d say there’s a discrepancy somewhere in what Chomsky is telling people.