Reddit reviews The Chomsky Reader

>literally the most benevolent nation on earth.

I hate to be the one to tell you, but you've had the wool pulled over your eyes. Facts about our country have been distorted or swept under the rug. Two books you should read immediately are Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and A Chomsky Reader. It'll be depressing and mind-blowing and life-altering.

If you want to see some of the damage that U.S. foreign policy has done, look at the history of South America. Here's a brief smattering from the wiki article on Banana Republics.
No, not the place that sells khakis. The brutal dictatorships that the U.S. installed, armed, & supported in South & Central America in order to maintain the cheap flow of bananas to the U.S. market.

Here's a list of Wars with U.S. involvement. Try to tease out which ones were "benevolent".

Here's a list of countries that the U.S. gives aid to, including military aid. Figure out which money goes to "benevolent" purposes.

I'll step up and post some critiques as per your request. I'm unsure that anyone else here really will-- small movements tend to be overly sensitive to criticism.

This is a book called Wealth and Democracy, a very historical book whose premise is simply "Laissez-faire is a pretense." As much as the idea that capitalism leads the way to corporatism is solely a problem with government gets bandied around here, the author makes a very strong historical argument that the capitalists will simply create the mechanisms for their own control and rent-seeking if none exist.

The Chomsky Reader is another good choice. The idea that replacing the government with less government (or no government, as the people at Mises.org or Murray Rothbard would recommend) is preferable given that government has done bad things, is silly given the history of the interaction of lawless or near-lawless states and very rich people.

Not a book per se, but Bryan Caplan (a very conservative economist, in fact) showing the fallacies in the grape kool-aid that is Austrian economics is a compelling read. Also not a book, E. Feaser's critique of Rothbard as a philosopher really does a good job of clipping the wings off of the premise-pyramid that is Man, Economy, and State before it ever leaves the ground.

I've found this website useful for addressing some of the more esoteric, but no less fundamental, aspects of Libertarian philosophy. Finally, if you can separate advocacy from critique and understand that the critique still applies even if the solution turns out not to work, I would recommend reading Das Kapital. Much of Marx's formal critique of the system of capitalism (the beginnings of public choice theory, the machinations of capitalism) remains unaddressed today.

Political works by Chomsky:

The Responsibility of Intellectuals (1967),
At War With Asia: Essays on Indochina (1969),
Government in the Future (1970),
The Fateful Triangle (1983, 2015),
The Chomsky Reader (1987, 2010),
Manufacturing Consent (1988, 2002),
Year 501: The Conquest Continues (1992, 2015),
Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky (2002),
Hegemony or Survival (2003),
Failed States (2006).

Works on Chomsky:

Noam Chomsky: A personal bibliography, 1951-1986 (1986),
Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent (1998),
Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals ( 1999, 2002, 2016),
The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky (2005, 2017),
The Social and Political Thought of Noam Chomsky (2000, 2002, 2004),
The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower (2007), Noam Chomsky (2015)


Also this, this, this and this.

This compilation looks good. There's also the classic Chomsky Reader which was my introduction.

Chomsky can be a lttle tough to read, especially the later stuff. The earlier books are quite readable, but starting in the mid-80s it get a bit tougher. He's really at his best in spontaneous interviews. Here is a transcript of an early talk he gave, it lays out his personal political philosophy and its roots very clearly.

This book is my own personal favorite, a big collection of transcripts covering just about everything, even some linguistics.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Chomsky-Reader-Noam/dp/0394751736