> One of the major problems for Chomsky, IMO, is that he sees everything in
> geopolitical conflicts that rest on the unsubstantiated idea that China and
> the US are in competition over resources. It's cold war thinking.
Older, I'd say: It's a purely Leninoid lens Chomsky views the world through. Even if Lenin was right in his time, I'm not sure how anyone today can draw a straight line between corporate (economic) interests -- whatever they are -- and state-military actions. Empirically, there are, as Doug has shown, way too many contradictions and counterfactuals; theoretically, it assumes a purely instrumental view of the state, solely as capital's muscle, a mildly scandalous way of thinking from someone who calls himself an anrchist, imho. The China-U.S. relation is pivotal, but not as the competition between two states over resources. It's really hard not to laugh at or hug these assertions, they're so quaint and cute.