Ask Prof Wolff: What Happens to the Stock Market After Capitalism?

[@cheri238]

Professor Wolff, what would we do without you? Thank you for your deep intelligence and wisdom on economics mixed with historical facts.

[@cheri238]

Ex

[@jgalt308]

What historical facts would those be?

[@numbersix8919]

@@jgalt308 FO ancap

[@cheri238]

@J GALT Do your soul-searching and facts. STOP PICKING ON ME @J GALT. This is not the first time. Thank you again.

[@jgalt308]

@@cheri238 Not my fault you can't answer the question...maybe you shouldn't have praised Wolff for educating you regarding the historical facts that you now can't seem to remember.

[@NoThatRyan]

".. Tear it into strips and use it in the bathroom for other purposes." Dang, Professor.

[@murraymadness4674]

Thank you for making it clear how stock market rules can and do change, sometimes dramatically. There are so many sheeple in the USA that don't think anything but what is done currently is possible. I've been advocating abolishing the stock market for some time now, it is the only mechanism for making billionaires which are a gross injustice to all people. Business can use bonds to raise capital. People talk about 'efficient markets', but our financial system is grossly wasteful. It is like US health care, where 40% of the cost is just overhead, and some people get rich, like pharma, that do nothing for real people.

[@cheri238]

💯 correct, thank you!!

[@RadicalCaveman]

Unfortunately, capitalism would create billionaires even without a stock market. It's not that essential even for the capitalist system.

[@acdsfjhu]

@@RadicalCaveman what's wrong with billionaires? So if you make Beyond a certain amount you should have your money stolen from you? What's the motivation to create new things if you are not financially compensated for it.?

[@mericanignoranc3551]

You're trying to save Capialism bootlicker, AND BLAMING THE POWERLESS IN AN OLIGARCHY SHOWS YOUR IGNORANCE! Whether the working class (sheeple you call them because you feel superior , you're not , you're one!) have no effect on POLICY. All you're doing blaming the powerless and trying to save a failed economic system . Mericans are embarrassing!

[@numbersix8919]

Quite right you are. The neoliberal meaning of "efficiency" is shunting individual wealth and social goods to corporate profit. A large part is skimming by middlemen, rents, and financial speculation, and the rest is squeezed out by reducing services and quality to customers and remuneration to employees. It all has to come to an end sometime, and when the music stops, whoever can scramble to a seat will be King! What will the stock portfolios of the middle class be worth after a single crash? What will they need to divest themselves of to make it up, and who will buy it at fire sale prices? My belief is that the only thing that might stop this process is international competition, as we once had with the USSR.

[@Marxist2]

I thank you, Prof. Wolff for sharing your knowledge on these important topics.

[@jgalt308]

What "knowledge" do you think he shared?

[@MichaelSharpBLACKDRUMMIKE]

Comparing slavery to the stock market is a great analogy! This is an example of how capitalism and slavery are very closely related.

[@jgalt308]

How does a false comparison equal a great analogy?

[@MichaelSharpBLACKDRUMMIKE]

@@jgalt308Capitalism is SLAVERY!!

[@jgalt308]

@@MichaelSharpBLACKDRUMMIKE How does a false comparison equal a great analogy? How does capitalism equal slavery?

[@MichaelSharpBLACKDRUMMIKE]

@@jgalt308 Are you asking to become informed, or just to waste peoples time?!!

[@jgalt308]

@@MichaelSharpBLACKDRUMMIKE It's your claim, and since slavery is "illegal" that capitalism is slavery needs to be proven. Of course, you also need to define capitalism, and then actually prove you are living in a capitalist system. If you can't do any of that, it would seem that the Professor is wasting your time... but then he has been doing that for his whole life. You might try giving Michael Hudson a shot, or Steve Keen, or Richard Werner who just did an interview with Kim Iverson...which you can find on you tube, and then watch the entirety on rumble...

[@walterbaumgarten5016]

Better be careful Doc, you might wake somebody up. Always a great pleasure, thank you.

[@numbersix8919]

Cappibalism.

[@SolidAir54321]

Yanis Varoufakis has suggested that everyone could own one and only one share of stock in the company they work for. One person, one share, one vote. Shares cannot be sold or traded. Thus the stock market is abolished. It might as well be since it's really just gambling now and has no relevance to the actual economy. At least not the economy of many people.

[@santinoreynolds452]

I read Another Now, it was a great book prosing an alternative economy. I was thinking of Varoufakis' stock idea during this video as well. Cheers! @SolidAir54321

[@jamessmith1785]

Intelligent and logical suggestion from an intelligent and logical finance minister.

[@KennethJLave]

This is really good content. ..It's nice to hear Professor Wolff talk about post-capitalism scenarios.

[@kodiekulp]

I have seen him speak twice flipping around on Tik-Tok. I want to comment more but I feel I should continue to learn more and watch more. I make videos talking about American politicking and I try to laugh at the absurdity so I don't weep for humanity. I'm happy to have found this channel.

[@amitshah1266]

It is hard if not impossible to do away with the Stock Market in todays intertwined modern world. Firstly, because almost everyone is linked directly or indirectly to the stock market. Those you don't own shares directly, they own through their 401k. Secondly, mega companies are multinationals. So, it would create lot of legal intricacies with the workings of another country if suddenly the stock market of a major country is closed down for good. Thirdly, in the absence of Stock Market, the GDP of the country would fall drastically as a significant portion of GDP is related to financial markets. This could lead to massive unemployment which can trigger civil unrests. It could also lead to the loss of dominance of a country on the world stage. Fourthly, politicians themselves are big beneficiaries from the workings of the Corporate world. They just won't allow it to happen. In essence, it would be fair to say that in the global world order and workings of todays modern world- Stock markets are here to stay. Professor Wolff- I love your insightful discussions. Love from India

[@Eibarwoman]

There's a lot of theoretical ways I could go about the gambling palace that we call the stock exchange ranging from 50+1 workers owner worker's co-op reforms with various rules to be listed and everything else ends up worthless to outright banning the stuff. Either way, I plan on making a lot of existing stock worthless in a Marxist approach.

[@joshuagharis9017]

Great question 🤔

[@vivalaleta]

No public businesses, no stock market. That's what I expect.

[@janetbaker7848]

Why on Earth do you think a business can not exist unless it's part of the stock market?

[@vivalaleta]

@@janetbaker7848 Do you think that the stock market always existed? It's only been around a few hundred years. Businesses are private unless they've gone public. We can get the funds from credit unions, duh

[@shushunk00]

they should not get any govt bonds as compensation if their net worth is above 200000$

[@missk1697]

I guess you can invest in coops too

[@dr.zoidberg8666]

Not as a voting shareholder you can't. The whole point of the coop is that every worker has an equal voting share & nobody else does. You could theoretically let people buy non-voting shares, but that still perverts the incentive structure of the cooperative & in the long run is a bad idea imho. It just gives you a capitalist corporate structure with extra steps.

[@apollon4317]

big ups to professor Wolff

[@jessicaumlor7979]

I appreciate it

[@acdsfjhu]

This sounds a little ridiculous. There's tens of millions of everyday working people in the middle-class that own stock and hold their wealth there. Also those who gain wealth through the markets. Abolishing it is not the answer. Educating people about it and making it more transparent and fair should be the goal.

[@numbersix8919]

Yes, we could solve all of our problems by changing our laws and regulations. The problem is that the real capitalists own most of the stock and they will crash the market, impoverishing the middle class, and buy up all the stock for pennies per share, if they smell any move to dislodge their control of the market. (Capital strike.) The truth is that the percentage of shares owned by small investors isn't nearly as large as that of the controlling investors. And investment funds, large as they are, can be made whole as well. Why? Because of the reliability of their new investments. Socialist versions of Medicare and Social Security, plus subsidized housing, full employment and free education, should satisfy most of the original goals of small investors, and a smaller, more stable, and more realistically valued stock market could go back to its original purpose: raising $$ to fund promising enterprises. You might not believe this, but in the 1960s rich people had a stockbroker who talked to them and would sell them stock in hospitals and insurance companies, even though the returns were very small (they were), because they were SAFE investments that served an important SOCIAL good. And all the same people got rich this way, they just weren't as rich as God. And enterprises really were owned by the "Men of the Mind" and their kids were forced to work harder and be better than the kids who weren't so well off because it was their DUTY to society. It didn't work as well for non-white people, but America truly was on the road to greatness.

[@KarlMarxFanClub]

The top 10% of Americans own 90% of the stocks. We don’t have a middle-class. We have the working class and the capitalists class.

[@jamessmith1785]

Votes or no votes for CEO's, there is no difference between share holders and directors elected in the quest for quick profit. Wall St. is so powerful that even during the shut down of non essentials during covid, they were considered essential. We shut it down and we do it in graduations which allow the small holder of lower middle class to receive the fair value of his holdings first, and gradually reduce the returns to the larger holders which follow, returning the lowest percentage last to the largest holders on top of what remains, who happen to own over 80 percent of all shares equating to enormous wealth and holdings (through insider manipulation). We then prevent the institution from any form of revival as with other uncontrolled casino's and we force day traders to go out and .."work for a living".

[@Nevadefeated]

The slave owners were given reparations Mr. Wolff.

[@ruweidashakhshir2143]

What happens to pension funds if you dissolve the stock market?

[@tommyrussell]

This theoretical scenario likely implies that the working class would directly control the federal reserve so they could be compensated in bonds as suggested.

[@Rittley]

As always Prof. Wolff is right but there is a little detail about the stock market here. It was easier to compensate the "losers" in past transitions (or wealth distributions) because that was a really small percentage of the population (the aristocracy). The population was mostly peasantry which cared very little about how exactly the transition took place and what compensation was given to their former masters/lords. If they even knew about it (most were illiterate). Nowadays you got about half of the population invested in securities mostly through retirement accounts (at least in the US). It's one thing to set up the compensation for 1% of the population and a totally different thing to figure it out for 50%. Immediately the majority of these people (educated middle class) will get scared that the government will screw them over in this transition. So good luck trying to convince them otherwise! I'm sensing someone will need to resort to some force... Yes sheer physical force. People won't just trade their 10% yielding index funds for bonds. The stock market tends to get a bad rap but it's not such a bad thing after all. If a security goes up or down 1% it does so for everyone regardless of rich or poor. In this sense it does not discriminate. Real estate does though because it really matters where you buy properties and those that do tend to go up are harder to get to (because of price, your credit score, interest rates, etc.)

[@jgalt308]

What was he right about?

[@numbersix8919]

Most stock is owned by 0.1% of investors, or by big funds. So excepting the few individuals of the ownership class, compensating the rest shouldn't be difficult at all. A handful of people will have to give up their 2nd super-yacht, and maybe decide that super-yachts are a profligate luxury after a while. They might decide to share super-yachts, as we all will be able to do. However, the plutocrats, oligarchs, and remaining nobles may not feel quite as special anymore, vis-a-vis super-yachts!! Because what fun is having something if anybody else can have it? That's not fun, right?

[@davidevans6618]

The wealth or poverty is always the people. What's driving the bus matters.

[@numbersix8919]

Say huh?

[@davidevans6618]

@@numbersix8919 How many. Currencies have not resulted in war ? ZERO. TIME EQUITY BANKS OF OURSELVES TRADERS OF OUR TIME ⌚ NOT TRAITORS OF THE SPECIES 👉💵💰💲, bagging US to it, the great dictator, totalitarian in power capability. Who really wants to find out what else it can do to us ? 🐿️ A currency that USURPS US, makes US the serpents of the currency. The currency STATE. Absolute madness is likely.

[@numbersix8919]

@@davidevans6618 Is that the meaning of "money, the root of all evil?"

[@davidevans6618]

@@numbersix8919 and all good, two sides of the same bondage. It governs everything.

[@numbersix8919]

@@davidevans6618 Duh wha...?

[@renardleblanc5556]

To be fair, if stock ownership stopped being recognized, all those documents would probably become "valuable" historical collectibles. Kind of like civil war/WW1/WW2 medals, or postage stamps from countries that don't exist anymore. You know, sentimental.

[@user-gz4ve8mw9l]

Valuable to you perhaps not to me and ample others. Just a worthless piece of paper which isn't even physical paper usually nowadays.

[@eddiekulp1241]

Rich will not give up there wealth easily , if necessary will form mercenary army to seize control of govt

[@jgalt308]

How can you run a protection racket if you get rid of the people who can afford to pay you for protection?

[@cdoedayn]

Prof. You're the goat

[@drhirise1]

Fascinating is what Mr Spock would say if he was an economics student!

[@pedrocavalcante5822]

Can you explain to me whether there will be a recession in the United States?

[@jgalt308]

No, he can not predict that.

[@vthilton]

Sharing will save the world.

[@whiskeykilmer1866]

Unfortunately, it will never happen. There is no cure for humite selfishness and greed. We humites are doomed to extinction. In the last 50 years humites have wiped out 70% of wild animals on earth, 50% of fish in the oceans, and 90% of the large fish. We are raping and poisoning the earth at an unprecedented rate. Imagine what it will be like in another 50 years when the humite population has more than doubled? The earth is all that lasts.

[@kevinschmidt2210]

@@whiskeykilmer1866 Most people are good and will share. You're thinking of the greedy oligarchy and their minions, who are selfish and greedy.

[@whiskeykilmer1866]

@@kevinschmidt2210 Selfishness and greed is not an exception in humites but rather a common trait that will rise to the surface as we start to circle the drain.

[@kevinschmidt2210]

@@whiskeykilmer1866 No it is not. That is only true for a small minority. The vast majority of people are good and generous, and prove those common traits every day.

[@lexplayer4]

How is this an explanation of anything? He just said one option is to void all shareholder securities, and another option is to compel everyone to sell all shares to the government for government bonds. Zero discussion on why a socialist economy would want to get rid of public stock markets. Please make a follow up video

[@bertjedefloo6108]

Heading towards totalitarianism

[@zeusvalentine3638]

I love how he assumes that Capitalism gets replaced with Socialism. Looking back in history, Socialism gets replaced with more Capitalism unless Socialism is accomplished by force and carried out with Authoritarianism... Socialism as we know it is not the answer because no one likes their shit being taken from them.

[@LongDefiant]

Capitalist jobs take value from workers. How is that any different? At least in communal arrangements you get to have a say in how the surplus is used. Under capitalism you're just a source of profit for those who don't work for a living.

[@drewcoowoohoo]

But stock markets and insurers as we know them today both came out of the betting and odds-making around the shipping industry in renaissance Europe. I think if we pull at those historical threads, we can see that that's also where the roots of capitalism are. You can claim "oh, but a stock market could be anything we want it to be," but the stock market didn't exist until around the time capitalism did, didn't exist where capitalism wasn't practiced, and is fundamentally all about rentiers gambling with one another. I don't think you gave this one a thoughtful enough treatment.

[@TheJohnnyCalifornia]

Just to do a little spitballing on the concept of a socialist stock market (and sorry for the lengthy post), it does seem that a stock market or capital market similar to the one we currently have could be used for distribution of social capital to socialist ventures or enterprises. For the set up, I see socialism as better defined as egalitarian capitalism. I think Karl Marx and Adam Smith are not that far apart, actually, and a central question concerns who controls (or profits from) the surplus produced by the various innovations of a capitalist system - the investors/owners/employers or the actual workers/producers/employees. Obviously, unless I’m mistaken, a socialist system proposes that the actual laborers should have democratic and collective control of the surplus and the distribution of profits. Now, in this more egalitarian system, the production process would still be the same with a division of labor, wages, raw material costs, managers, etc. needed to produce the surplus, but everyone involved with the enterprise would have equal status in the rewards. There would be no class distinction in this economy. In this general system though, I could see some companies or new startups or groups of workers electing to sell stock on a market to other companies or workers in different industries to capitalize a new enterprise or improve or expand current production at an established enterprise. It would probably have to be strictly regulated to avoid creating a new investor class or the many financial interests that create either rent seeking behavior or dangerous financial securities bubbles or “fictional capital” systems. Possibly it would be more of a bond market where the investment is completely paid off after a definite period, or the trade of shares of stock would have to be prevented or limited to avoid speculative markets. However, I don’t think it would necessarily defeat the central egalitarian principles of the socialist economy and it could even be beneficial in the productive distribution of capital.

[@jgalt308]

Except there would be no point for anyone to ever do anything more than what is minimally required or even less.

[@numbersix8919]

It has to do with how corporations, contracts, and investments are regulated. Anything is possible according to democratic principles. Just remember that these private enterprises and their investors will bear proportionate risk in case of failure of the enterprise, and certain types of speculative hedges may be strongly regulated, eg, there coiuld be only state-provided business insurance, with variable premiums according credit ratings.

[@numbersix8919]

@@jgalt308 Capitalism does not equal private enterprise. It's against it.

[@TheJohnnyCalifornia]

@@jgalt308 I’m not entirely certain how you come to that conclusion. In a capitalist system, employees are not directly encouraged to do more than what they are paid to do. The worker can only depend upon wages and has no influence on the decisions of the company or business. Some companies institute incentive plans, bonuses, but for the non-exempt workers, these represent a small share in profits compared to salaried managers, upper management and ownership stock shares or bonuses. Often of course, in highly defined large corporate businesses and manufacturing, the roles allow for no real extra effort on the part of the line worker. There is no concept of bare minimum. The plant or office meets its quotas or faces termination. Threat of unemployment or wage cuts does not seem like a productive form of encouragement we should ethically support. In a more egalitarian and democratic form, while wages may differ in the company, the share of the control of the profit should be equal. So when you get a bonus at the end of the year or vote on the distribution and use of the profit generated, it is equal to everyone else’s whether another line worker or chief executive manager. Also, ideally, a company should seek to increase wages as high as possible and keep profit as low as possible. Therefore, wages increase in line with productivity improvements. All that seems like far stronger incentives to get people to work harder, smarter and to innovate.

[@jgalt308]

@@TheJohnnyCalifornia Right, that's why it's the dominant business model, because it works so well.

[@abescii]

didn’t slave owners receive reparations though

[@isao5257]

In perfect world where people are well paid and have good pensions and social programs like universal healthcare/education, a stock market may not be needed. In the real world we are living (created by the so-called capitalism), a stock market is one of a few ways for people to accumulate a certain level of wealth, so they don't need to work until they die in old age. (~50% of Americans have no investment. Hope Prof. Wolff will cover the retirement crisis again.) Also, no economic system of any ideology would succeed with the government we have that is run by the two very incompetent and deeply corrupted parties.

[@icemike1]

They did compensate the slave owner

[@OPTHolisticServices]

💗🍃

[@johntrojan9653]

ANSWER: You pass "GO" but DO NOT COLLECT $200 😭

[@jason8077]

Ironically, if the capitalism has to be sustained, stock “market”(its not a market anymore) has to be removed

[@numbersix8919]

Wha huh?

[@bertjedefloo6108]

​@@numbersix8919 no, Wuhan

[@numbersix8919]

@@bertjedefloo6108 Yes the US lab in Wuhan. Fool me once...

[@saramuhumphries5197]

👍💐

[@clarestucki5151]

If explanations like these strike you as ridiculous, send Wolff your money anyway, that's the message to be had here.

[@TC-eo5eb]

@YTCensors YTCensors is the guy who would still be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it slips below the surface of the sea.

[@TC-eo5eb]

@YTCensors The word "censor" in your handle speaks volumes about you and the typical left wing. You tout yourself as the KZbin Censor, the supreme authority. When libs like yourself disagree with someone, you try to "censor" them, using techniques like degradation, bullying, shaming, discredit and humiliation. You try to mute them and shut them down. One of the painful signs of years of dumbed down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogan's, anything except reason. It is bad enough that so many people believe things without evidence. What is worse is that some people have no conception of evidence and regard facts as just someone else's opinion. Truth and facts are your Kryptonite. The truth is, socialism in the manner Wolff is promoting is a fallacy that will never work. The "proof" is he has been selling his rhetoric for many decades and not a single former student or a single D@W patron has ever created a successful worker cooperative and that is a fact. Socialism is a system based on equality that has to fail because we are individuals striving to succeed. You are an D@W activist. Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism is counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damage the fabric of society as a whole.

[@davidevans6618]

Towards freedom, yes because we ain't there yet. What would happen if we all earned an equal wage in time banking ? Well, I could go to a three hour concert of the SCORPIONS, as an example for 86.94 second My Time Bank. 5 band members, 3 hr. Show, 2,400 hrs set up and tear down, and 100,000 ticket 2,415 hrs. = 8,694,000 seconds ÷ 100,000 tickets = 86.94 second tickets. Sell a million tickets, 8.694 second for a ticket to a great show. Squirrels don't pay rent and the experts are baffled.They all have their own homes. I'll assume you have a calculator.

[@Guitarpima]

If the stock market were abolished in stock taken away from everyone, is that capital punishment? I am making fun of you because you do not know what capital is. Why do you hate People so much? Do not let my comment dissuade you from listening to Professor wolf. He is very knowledgeable at what he does. He does not understand proper definitions of terms.

[@jgalt308]

How does not knowing what the words mean, or deliberately distorting their meaning, equate to being knowledgeable?

[@chuckleaf8027]

You'll either compensate people for their stocks or not? Your ideas should be torn into strips and used in the bathroom..

[@chuckleaf8027]

@@TheBigGSN5 So you commies just get to decide if somebody keeps their investment? Why shouldn;t I just steal from you then???

[@chuckleaf8027]

@@robyenney951 Commie drama queens...who act like having a job is being a slave.....sure.

[@jmitterii2]

@@YTcensors At least he's listening. Hopefully challenging his own assumptions. I watch Milton Friedman all the time trying to figure that guy's mountains of contradictions out. What parts are true, and what parts are false... and why would he propound falsehoods? Why does he believe what he does? Is it genuine? Is it not genuine? And why would he think his thoughts, that I find contradictory as all get out, obviously false, hence why it's difficult for me to see he's being genuine in his (to me obviously false narratives). I think the point is that stocks when they have no utility, are essentially worthless unless you have a sufficient shares where you can control the company and/or get rewarded with sufficient dividends for holding them. Crypto and pyramid and ponzis and other scams have been a parody on the stock market. Owning a few shares or even few hundred of some company is tantamount (if you actually have the paper certificates) as buying expensive toilet paper. At least you'll get some use out of it. OF course it's the greater fool principle on many stocks hoping some other fool will come along and buy the worthless cud for more than you bought them for. The irony I'm surprised Wolffe didn't mention, is that those non-voting right shares are called preferred shares. The irony you buy something that is preferred. I once thought it was law that preferred shares required some sort of dividend for giving up that right to vote the proxy. But it doesn't. And you're not far up in line in case of chapter 7 bankruptcy from common stock holders who do have voting rights. Essentially all stock preferred and common during Ch 7 become worthless. All proceeds first go to collateral loans, then collateral bonds, then signature bonds. By the time those are all paid out... there is nothing left to pay to either preferred nor common stock holders.

[@kevinschmidt2210]

@@chuckleaf8027 The solution for greedy, wealthy class takers who steal the wealth, health and prosperity from the working class producers is the guillotine. Don't lose your head over it! LOL!

[@chuckleaf8027]

@@kevinschmidt2210 Get back to your machine.. and do not interrupt production output again, or you will be sent for re-education!!!

[@Peacefulnessxxx]

By the way we're slave owners not recompensated for their lost slaves, well at least in Britain and a few other countries.