Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Challenge Ahead
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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language groups,” Edsall observes. In the US, where the choice is
between two factions of the Property Party, many see no point in voting
at all. The past decade, Edsall concludes, has seen “a growing inability
of the political system to represent, in the highly complex process of
developing economic policy, the interests of the bottom three-fifths of
society.” 44 In general, there is ample reason to accept Walter Dean
Burnham’s conclusion that the class pattern of abstention “seems
inseparably linked to another crucial comparative peculiarity of the
American political system: the total absence of a socialist or laborite
mass party as an organized competitor in the electoral market.” 45 Along
with the increasing weakness of unions and the lack of other politicallyrelevant
popular organizations or political parties structured to permit
popular participation, this contributes to the elimination of issues
relevant to much of the population from the electoral system, and
doubtless accounts in significant measure for their lack of interest in a
game played among elite groups. The class character of abstention adds
another element to the interpretation of the alleged “landslide.”
Polls reveal awareness of the way the political system actually
functions, despite massive propaganda efforts. A Times/CBS poll after
the 1984 election showed that 49% of the public thought the
government was run “by a few big interests looking out for themselves,”
while 40% believed that government is run for the benefit of all the
people, as official doctrine holds. 46 The headline of the article reporting
these figures reads: “Americans in Poll View Government More
Confidently.” There was, indeed, an increase in the low level of
expression of confidence in government. The fact that half the
population holds beliefs that are regularly castigated as “Marxist” or
“left-wing” in mainstream media and scholarship—beliefs that appear
quite accurate, it seems, and relate to questions of fact rather than
ideology in any event—is somewhat more noteworthy, one might think.