Noam Chomsky is a rare bird indeed. On the one hand, he is an established intellectual, a member of the respected academic elite; on the other hand, he is a world-famous, radical leftist critic — especially of the U.S. On the one hand, he is a professed anarchist and socialist whose critical views lie far outside the mainstream, having nothing to do with the typically constructive proposals usually offered to business and the state. On the other hand, he insists that his anarchist and “libertarian socialist” views are anything but extreme, but rather merely express the natural desire of all mankind: the desire for freedom. Chomsky regards himself as part of an intellectual tradition that is as humanistic as Europe and as American as apple pie, a tradition that includes intellectual luminaries such as Humboldt, Schelling, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Jefferson, J.J. Rousseau or Michael Bakunin. For Chomsky, regardless of the theoretical and practical disputes between these thinkers, as ardent advocates of freedom they agree on the most important point of all: “‘Man is in his essence a free, searching, self-perfecting being…’ [whose] true end [consists in] the full harmonious development of human potential in its richest diversity.”

In Mesopotamia, irregular militias have managed to become a regional power factor and proclaimed an “Islamic state.” They wage their war in order to consolidate their existence and extend their reach. In the West, the new power, which rules over parts of Syria and Iraq, is perceived exclusively by the bloodthirsty ways they enforce their rule: mass executions of overpowered enemies, soldiers and civilians alike; brutal expulsion of ethnic groups with the wrong beliefs or wrong loyalty; but especially by the demonstrative beheading of people the jihadists consider to be representatives of the West. The Islamic state and its objectives are fully subsumed under these barbaric practices — and because they admit no justification, no good reason for it, politicians and public opinion in the West deny the unwelcome upstart absolutely any political motive and purpose. President Obama grants “neither religion nor state!” to the ravages of these warriors. They are the pure evil that wants nothing more than the destruction of the good: violence for the sake of violence, murder for the sake of murder. The Islamic state is declared to be an enemy of mankind that must be destroyed in order to save civilization. All violence against it is legitimate and the help of all countries is due.

If all the leading authorities assert that they at least are not doing anything racist, and everyone agrees that racism is not right: why then is it so persistent?

Intellectual property is a controversial matter. Many people don’t see why they should pay for text, software, music, or movies when they can be copied without effort or downloaded for free from the Net. And some people discover the ugly, unjust side of property in the ownership of “immaterial” goods, while the ownership of tangible, physical things they consider entirely proper. On the other side, it is not only the majority of artists who insist on the right to their works, from which they also have to be able to live. Politicians for their part find that especially intellectual property gets too little respect. They are willing to listen to the complaints of the media companies, which need a fully enforced copyright for their profits. The German government considers that already quite well realized within the country, but only inadequately put into practice outside it. The world abroad is rife with the “theft of ideas” and “product piracy,” by which not only the profits of multinationals are stolen, but also the “technical edge” of “our” economy in general. For the leading economic powers, it is a challenge to look after the protection of intellectual property abroad where foreign rulers decide how to deal with copyright, patent, and trademark complaints. Intellectual property has consequently become the object of a political struggle in global competition.

In December 2015, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan took the birth of their child, this moment of private happiness, as an occasion to publicly anounce their intention to donate 99 percent of their Facebook assets — just a measly 45 billion — to charity. In a letter to their baby girl, they professed that the birth moved them to reflect on the world in which she will grow up. And of course, the inventor of the platform for self-promotion on the world wide web decided not to keep the letter under wraps until his daughter could read it, but posted it for the whole world to read on Facebook. The Zuckerbergs have big plans: “Like all parents” they want only the best for their child, but unlike the vast majority of parents, this does not mean making sacrifices and saving money so that their child can go to school and have a better life than her parents. Given the enormous private power embodied by their wealth, the Zuckerbergs are more demanding: they wish to lay a whole “better world” at their little daughter’s feet.

In the spring of last year, the professional observers of world affairs reported bad news from the Far East: “China’s new development bank divides the West” (Die Zeit, Hamburg, March 17, 2015); “US isolates itself: China stirs up the world order” (Die Presse, Vienna, March 30, 2015); “The latest in de-dollarization: US forfeits credit” (telebörse.de, March 25, 2015); “The past month will be remembered as that moment when the United States lost its role as guarantor of the global economic system” (Die Zeit, April 15, 2015). The dollar’s dominance at an end, American power losing its allure as guarantor for the global economy, the unity of the West destroyed by China — all because of the founding of a bank. How come?

Lovers of culture generally know that it has been around for a while. It hasn’t gotten any better though. Nowadays, just about everything that is outside the realm of necessity indulges in a rather peculiar use of the freedom that comes into its own in cultural matters.

But first to the exciting question of when the business got started.

The modern world needs oil. The way it does business with it shows how progressively and rationally the world is set up.

The British people voted for Brexit 52% to 48%. In view of this result, there is a sense of disbelief across the rest of Europe. Just how can such a fundamental question of the reason of state for the nation in particular, and for Europe in general, be put to the people to answer? How irresponsible of Prime Minister Cameron not only to gamble with Britain’s future in the EU but possibly risk the future of all Europe, simply because he wanted to have the upper hand against his Europhobic party members. The interested public in Germany and elsewhere may well understand the dual calculation of the British prime minister, namely to put pressure on the EU by threatening a referendum in order to negotiate more beneficial conditions of membership so that he could end the permanent row about EU membership that paralysed his party. But now that Cameron has ‘lost the gamble’, no one will understand any more. After the first spiteful comments – if you ask the people, you shouldn’t be surprised if you eventually fritter away not only your own career but also the future of the nation! – there is now general concern in Europe about how to end the ‘insecurity’ as fast as possible in the upcoming ‘difficult and lengthy negotiations’ with a British government that has decided to leave Europe; to limit the damage caused by losing a key member; and to rebuild a relationship with Britain that is useful for the present state and future progress of the EU. Britain on its part – for all the excitement that the supporters of the exit show about their regained ‘independence’ – has to bear in mind its continued politico-economic ‘dependence’ on the EU, that’s for sure.

Not a week goes by without someone accusing somebody of some human-rights violation. The accusers are politicians, journalists, and speakers from organizations committed to improving moral conduct in the world of states; generally they reside in the free West. The accused are generally politicians somewhere else, foreign governments, and “self-appointed” rulers. The court expected to take up the charge is primarily the international democratic public, i.e., more of an imagined judge, whose penal power consists in defaming the accused. When state powers capable of asserting themselves worldwide act as prosecutor, they not infrequently go ahead and declare themselves to be both judge and executor of their verdicts, which include quite harsh penalties. The club of European sovereigns and the U.N. in New York have additionally set up special courts that take up many an official action for human-rights violations in perfect legal form. The substance of the accusations is the great variety of more or less brutal acts that a ruling power commits against its subjects.

So how to judge such cases?