How did Noam Chomsky connect corporate power with U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy?

Noam Chomsky argues that corporate power and U.S. government interests are deeply interlinked, with both domestic politics and foreign policy serving to protect the economic privileges of an elite minority.1

In his view, the United States frequently utilizes military power to secure or consolidate economic control globally. Domestically, because democratic systems require the compliance of citizens, he contends that the powerful employ propaganda to convince the public that this concentration of economic control is in their best interest.1

Chomsky posits that mainstream, corporate-owned media play a critical role in this process. Rather than a formal conspiracy, he suggests that journalists and intellectuals naturally filter information to align with the interests of their corporate employers to achieve professional success. By selecting, skewing, or omitting data—such as the disparate reporting on the Khmer Rouge versus the Indonesian occupation of East Timor—the media limits public debate and justifies state actions that favor established corporate and elite power. Ultimately, he views this as a failure of intellectuals to fulfill their moral responsibility to provide the public with the truth.1