Blog 5: Visiting Artist Jesse Drew

Marx’s and Chomsky’s ideas both follow a similar pattern that states that the power of the world is held in the hands of the few, and the general populous is unaware or uncaring of this. Marx was writing to call the workers of the world to arms against what he thought was a horrible monstrosity of capitalism and free trade. Chomsky similarly criticizes how mass media shapes the way people think in order to force them to behave in certain ways. Both individuals are speaking about the same problem: apathy. Without enough people caring, giants such as Disney or AOL-Time Warner are left to run free and do what they wish without any opposition. That is the cost of a society in which true free trade exists. The strong dominate and the weak die. The only way to get ahead o is to find a niche and exploit it. This means doing what the large corporations do, such as distortion of information and monopoly. Unlike Marx, I do not think Chomsky was implying that communism is the better system, and that we should switch over, but rather people should understand why the world is working the way it is and change it slowly to fix the problems. If more people, who were educated and could make rational decisions about big business, voted to fix these sort of problems, the world would be a better place and still allow capitalistic societies to flourish.