28 March 2021 - Written by Hamideh Iraj

In March 2021, Professor Noam Chomsky participated in an interview conducted by the new school. He talked about the association between labour and employers and how the post-industrial revolution economic system failed to honour human dignity and turned a human being into a machine. On the other hand, the labour consented to serve the master and sometimes even glorified this association despite losing her freedom and being dependent on an external force.

He also mentioned the precarious gig economy and how the majority of the working-class are living from paycheck to paycheck with no reserves and no security. The purchasing power of people has declined since the 1980s because of the neo-liberal policies that made the money-making machine more efficient through different mechanisms such as preventing unionisation. He also alluded to known feasible solutions such as cooperatives that work based on solidarity and mutual aid leading to the cooperative commonwealth in order to revive the freedom and independence of human beings. The success of these efforts depends on whether “an engaged public can break the feathers of submission and passive conformity” to make a better future.

The full interview is available here:

https://archive.org/details/platform-co-ops-now-with-noam-chomsky