Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain. Excess is legitimate, even praise-worthy on the grounds that the private vices yield public benefits in the classic formulation. It's long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principal will destroy itself in time. It will only persist with whatever injustice and suffering it entails as long as it is possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited-that the world is an infinite resource and the world is an infinite garbage can.

At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible. Either the general population will take control of it's own destiny and will concern itself with community interests guided by values of solitary and sympathy and concern for others or alternatively there will be no destiny for anyone to control. As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the communities as a whole, and by now that means the global communities.

The question is rather should privileged elite dominate mass communication and use this power as they tell us they must, mainly to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and to deceive the stupid majority, and remove them from the public arena. The question in brief is weather democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival.
-Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky