As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.
From Noam Chomsky
How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.
I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant, seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.
In the academic world, most of the work that is done is clerical. A lot of the work done by professors is routine.
Markets have built in inefficiencies, serious inefficiencies which are well known.
There are massive efforts on the part of the internet's corporate owners to try to direct it to become a technique of marginalisation and control.
State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.
In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom - along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.
My proposal happens to be very mainstream.
When I look at public opinion, I'm not far out of the mainstream. I'm in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I've ever said.
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