Chomsky and Robinson: 'National Interest' Is a Euphemism

By Thomas Neuburger

I’d like to promote a comment made recently to an earlier God’s Spies post on Palantir’s founder. My thanks to commenter Usamnesia at Substack for bringing this to our attention. Apropos Trump, Usamnesia writes (formatting mine):

Well, actually the current entertainer in chief is just another receptionist in the empires front lobby. I think the excerpt by Robinson and Chomsky that follows is appropriate: The Myth of American Idealism by Noam Chomsky and Nathan J. Robinson. [For the quote, see below.]

Three notes before we begin:

1. The quote that Usamnesia offers us is part of a longer published excerpt from Chomsky and Robinson’s book. That can be found in the March 25, 2025 edition of The Boston Review. It begins thus:

Every ruling power tells itself stories to justify its rule. Nobody is the villain in their own history. Professed good intentions and humane principles are a constant. Even Heinrich Himmler, in describing the extermination of the Jews, claimed that the Nazis only “carried out this most difficult task for the love of our people” and thereby “suffered no defect within us, in our soul, or in our character.”

No one is the villain in their own story. Words to remember. Few men or nations, like Shakespeare’s Richard III, set out to be bad. Even the murderous Israel thinks itself good.

2. The “voice” is certainly Chomsky, his logic and cadences, his turn of phrase. This is not to discredit Robinson’s contribution, but to be glad to have more of his co-author’s work. (The book was written in 2023, before October 7 and Chomsky’s stroke. More about that process here.)

3. One quote from the longer excerpt is appropriate here: In its own understanding, “the United States does not act on the basis of the perceived self-interest of dominant groups in society. Only other states do that.”

This is the heart of America’s self-delusion, that its acts are the people’s acts. That’s never true. As the authors explain below, only elites control foreign policy, and only to benefit themselves.

With that, here’s Usamnesia’s offered quote. Bolded emphasis mine. Enjoy.

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From The Myth of American Idealism, by Chomsky and Robinson

Needless to say, because even oppressive, criminal, and genocidal governments cloak their atrocities in the language of virtue, none of this rhetoric should be taken seriously. There is no reason to expect Americans to be uniquely immune to self- delusion. If those who commit evil and those who do good always both profess to be doing good, national stories are worthless as tests of truth.

Sensible people pay scant attention to declarations of noble intent by leaders, because they are a universal. What matters is the historical record.

The received wisdom is that the United States is committed to promoting democracy and human rights (sometimes called “Wilsonian idealism” or “American exceptionalism”). But the facts are consistent with the following theory instead: The United States is very much like other powerful states. It pursues the strategic and economic interests of dominant sectors of the domestic population. In practice, this means that the United States has typically acted with almost complete disre­gard for moral principle and the rule of law, except insofar as comply­ing with principle and law serves the interests of American elites. There is little evidence of authentic humanitarian concern among leading statesmen, and when it does exist, it is acted upon only to the extent that doing so does not go against domestic elites’ interests. American for­eign policy is almost never made in accordance with the stated ideals, and in fact is far more consistent with what Adam Smith called “the vile maxim of the masters of mankind” in “every age of the world,” namely: “All for ourselves and nothing for other people.”

We might also call this the Mafia Doctrine. Its logic is straightforward and completely rational. The Godfather’s word is law. Those who defy the Godfather will be punished. The Godfather may be generous from time to time, but he does not tolerate disagreement. If some small storekeeper fails to pay protection money, the Godfather sends his goons, not just to collect the money, which he wouldn’t even notice, but to beat him to a pulp so that others do not get the idea that disobedience is permissible. But Godfathers, too, are known to convince themselves that they are kindly and benevolent.

The term “national interest” is itself a euphemism, for what is usually meant is the interest of a small sector of wealthy domestic elites. The American working class, whose members die in the country’s wars, do not have their “interest” served in any way by the wars that kill them. Nor are their interests served by the government spending money on weapons that could be used to repair school buildings. Indeed, when American actions abroad are exposed to the judgment of public opinion, they often prove deeply unpopular with the “nation” whose “interests” they are supposedly serving. A sophisticated propaganda system must keep the public in the dark, for if the truth were known, it would become immediately apparent that the public has a very different view of its “interests” than U.S. elites have.

We should also remember this the next time we hear talk about what “the Russians” or “Iran” have done. Totalitarians wish us to think that a country speaks with one voice, that it has a “national interest.” While it is the convention to refer to actions by the state as if they were actions by the country as a whole, and is unavoidable in discussions of policy, the formulation is ultimately misleading. The thousands of heroic antiwar protesters thrown in prison by Vladimir Putin have just as much claim to represent Russia as their ruler does. This is why it is an error to treat this book as arguing that “the United States is terrorist and destructive,” if the “United States” is understood to refer to some kind of collectivist of all Americans. Many in the United States have taken to the streets, and risked their lives and livelihoods, to oppose the acts of their government— when they have been permitted to learn about them, that is.