From: Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 94 12:21:20 PDT
To: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>
Subject: Re: Decline and Fall
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.87.9406190839.A18112-0100000@crl.crl.com>
Message-ID: <9406191918.AA05854@fnord.lehman.com>
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    Date: Sun, 19 Jun 1994 08:55:39 -0700 (PDT)
    From: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>

    [Chomsky] equates governments with democracy.

This is most certainly *not* true.  If anything, I think that Noam
Chomsky would be far more likely to claim that there has never been a
democratic state, although its also reasonably likely that he'd first
ask about the meaning of the term `democratic state'.

I suspect that the root of Chomsky's concern is that the power of big
money interests should be concerned to be at least as large a source
of concern to individuals as the power of big government.  While many
lump him in with `consiracy theorists', his arguments are almost
universally based on a combination of (a) widely available evidence
(b) the idea that entities tend to act in their own self interest and
(c) something akin to Occam's Razor, i. e. simpler explanations are
more likely to be correct.

			Rick