Noam Chomsky Quotes

When markets fail, as they often do, collective action becomes imperative.

I want the market to work if it can, and most of the time it will, but not without some pain.

I'm not speaking in favor of killing innovation. I'm speaking in favor of centrist use of the market, which involves necessarily a considerable degree of regulation. Markets by themselves will get themselves inevitably into inequality and into their own destruction. It will happen again and again.

Accountability for the largest financial institutions on Wall Street is the bedrock for a strong economy. Hard-working families and honest businesses cannot survive in a world where the rules don’t keep the marketplace honest.

It appears to me that no one has learned a thing; that Wall Street is still operating as if 2008 never happened.

We like to think that a free market's greatest strength is its self-corrective nature.

Finally, let's keep well in mind the most important lesson of the auto rescue: While government should stay away from the private sector as much as possible, markets do occasionally fail, and when they do government can play a constructive role, as it did in the case of the auto rescue.

Will capitalist economies operate at full employment in the absence of routine intervention? Certainly not. Are deviations from full employment a social problem? Obviously.

Improving oversight of hedge funds and other private funds is vital to their sustainability and to our economy's stability.

The market is a brilliant system for the exchange of goods and services, but it doesn't protect the environment unless it's regulated, it doesn't train your workforce unless it's regulated, and it doesn't give you the long-term investment you want.

Many markets work best with little or no outside interference. But others - especially those subject to big 'externalities' - need a helping hand.

Financial crises require governments.

However, leaving everything to the market is not necessarily good for society.

Only God can fix prices.

It’s not the government’s job to bail out speculators.

Markets don’t always self-correct fast enough. Until they do there is an immense amount of damage that has been done which is why we need government intervention.

We want free markets, but the markets are not going to take care of themselves in all cases.

From time to time, capitalism has a tendency to implode.

Capitalism’s intrinsic dynamism, however, produces insecurity along with benefits and so its advance has always met resistance…. It was only the creation of the modern welfare state in the middle of the 20th century that finally enabled capitalism and democracy to coexist in relative harmony.

Helping Wall Street regain confidence and stability was the last thing an angry public wanted in 2009 after the markets crashed. But without such support, markets can buckle and liquidity can disappear - often for decades, as has been the case in Japan.

I think Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner shared the view that they shouldn't be in the business of bailouts, but you know, you're not in the business of bailouts until you frankly think you need to be.

Since the dawn of civilization, markets have been ubiquitous. Many of us have benefited from their focus and efficiency. Yet two widely held beliefs - that markets are best left unregulated and that markets are inherently benign - are naive and outdated.

The idea that either individuals or organisations are 'too big to fail' or that the tech and start-up sector is somehow different is wrong.

The financial crisis involved significant failures in the functioning, regulation, and supervision of OTC derivatives markets.

I've made it very clear that the government should get out of the business of trying to affect the markets, of trying to pick winners and losers.