UNDERSTADING POWER is far too comprehensive for me to list all the amazing things Chomsky says that have changed my perspective on life (the chapter notes are so extensive that they are not included in the book but stored on a website [put ".com" behind the books title]), but here is a brief summary of some of the most important points:

1. Noam Chomsky explains that there is no such thing as a free economy. The US has always had extensive state intervention in the economy. (Chomsky reveals that the US became powerful because of taxtiles, which are made of cotton [Chomsky says cotton was in that day what oil is today]. The reason cotton was so profitable is because the indigenous population had been obliterated and slaves had been brought in from Africa. "Imagine a more severe market distortion than that," Chomsky says.)

2. Before the industrial revolution, capital was land. Land is immobile and workers were mobile; workers could move from country to country more freely than they can today. Now, due to technological advances, capital (the companies) is mobile and due to tighter immigration laws the workers are immobile. What this creates is a situation where corporations can easily move their headquarters overseas, pit one national workforce against another, and drive everyones standard of living down.

3. Another example of extensive state intervention in the economy, Chomsky says, is that the US government worked early in the 20th Century to destroy the transportation system, build highways, and create suburbia, thus ensure a viable market for oil (Chomsky notes that only because of great international violence does the price of oil remain within the price range the US wants it to). The result is the pollution we see and devastation of the inner cities.

4. Spectator sports are a great way to build up support for chauvinism and totalitarianism. Chomsky says that sports are supported by the ruling class as a way of conditioning the working and middle classes to form irrational loyalties to corporations and to glorify violence. Politics and culture, Chomsky says, are in the hands of the rich. So all the rest of us have is something like sports or sitcoms. (Chomsky says that the emphasis put on sports reminds him of what goes on in illiterate cultures where people form incredibly intricate kinship systems and creative language use. The author says that this shows that people want to use their minds but often do not have supportive outlets in which to do so.)

5. Chomsky says that if there is one thing power understands it is violence. To that end, he reveals how the most powerful country on earth (yes, thats us; the United States of America) has either directly (via many of our - usually illegal - foreign wars), or indirectly (via our political interference, such as the coup in Chile on September 11, 1972 that brought Pinochet to power) caused the deaths of millions.

6. The United States defies the international trend that as industrialization takes place, religious affiliation declines. In the United States the opposite happens. Religious affiliation in the United States has increased as industrializiation has taken place. Chomsky claims that the United States is one of the most fundamentalist countries in the world, and in this regard we have more in common with the impoverished third world nations and are at the same level as them in terms of religious fundamentalism. Chomsky makes two interesting points on this:

A) This trend toward religious affiliation in the United States most likely is a result of the hopelessness the citizens feel because, contrary to the other industralized nations, we in the United States do not have a powerful labor party. This means that the benefits of industrialization fall largely in the hands of the corporate owners, and only futher marginalize the US population. The US population therefore becomes hopeless and feels powerless. When people feel hopeless and powerless they often turn to religion for comfort.

B) Chomsky says that the level of religious affiliation and fundamentalism in the United States is frightening because in times of crisis - such as war or political unrest - religious fundamentalism can very easily convert itself into fascism.

UNDERSTANDING POWER is all in question/answer format, which makes some otherwise complicated issues seem rather approachable. I highly recommend UNDERSTANDING POWER for anyone interested in looking at the world in a different way and knowing the truth behind what has gone on in this world for the last century. Unlike most news media and politicians whose answers point in many different directions and may even contradict themselves year by year (our enemy this year was our friend last year, etc.), Chomsky is completely consistent. He reveals what has been common knowledge for millennia, and yet the elite have denied for just as long: that powerful people will do anything to hold on to power.