Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: The Geopolitics of Capitalism (2/2)

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[S1 E10] The Geopolitics of Capitalism - Part 2 of 2
Prof. Harvey continues his discussion of the geographical movement of capital over time and how it has shaped power relations.
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[@democracyatwrk]

Support Anti-Capitalist Chronicles on Patreon! Your support helps us compensate the workers that put an episode together: www.patreon.com/davidharveyacc

[@akkinapallidurgacharyuluak5791]

Now we sport COMUNIJAM thank you co

[@jeffheller642]

You don't need to be a full-blown Marxian to appreciate how culture -- which we tend to think of as autonomous -- follows commerce. Thank you David Harvey (and R. Wolff) for these wonderful capsule economic histories.

[@bernardheathaway9146]

I really enjoy this series. Thank you for making it!

[@rocketsurgeon5758]

It's nice to see someone else with the same eclectic range of tastes and myself; high-level economic philosophy and Naruto.

[@noheroespublishing1907]

Man, I wish Democracy at Work would have on Professor Grover Furr to talk about his research on the Stalin period of the Soviet Union. It really is great to see David Harvey and Richard Wolff on the same channel; keep up the good work!

[@SKuLLxKruSHeR]

Freedom is like the morning. There are those who wait for it asleep, and there are others that stay awake and walk through the night to reach it.

Freedom is like piss. There are those who wake up soaked in freedom, and there are others who just piss it all away.

[@ToxicTerrance]

@ lol

[@ParadoxRoyal]

Freedom is like art. It's completely subjective/relative.

[@ParadoxRoyal]

@Mass Extinction That's probably the most non-useful philosophy ever. What in the world can we do with that?

[@rossellmanuel584]

The nice standard of living in the US will always depend on the crappy standard of living in the Third World

[@christianp.9074]

I was waiting for this time to get the popcorn!

[@OldEarthWisdom]

Finally, someone is talking about the Belt and Road plan. Thanks!!!!

[@CarlRoberts-s7s]

Opieon.people.are trapped.in.a.body the.you.is.inside.of.you.is.free..so.what.freedom.does.the.people.of.the.u.s.a.want.again.human.right.gay.freedom.😂😂😂😂

[@allonesame6467]

If capital can be accumulated, it can be shared. Don't fritter it away on war. Give to the poor and so it can recirculate.

[@yanyannyaany]

guess we'll have to wait to 2049 to know if the workers of the world had been uniting all along or being suckered into an empire

[@kentabruxis]

The CCP needs to first create an entire middle-class consisting of *all* 1.4 billion people. As long as they have control of the money flow, they could easily convince the financier class (aka billionaire class) to emigrate, since they don't contribute to commodity production (especially innovation). From there, socialization of commodity production at a domestic level could be easily implemented. Surplus or production overcapacity could be sold abroad to foreign markets (Belt and Road). I dunno, but China's development looks very intriguing from an outsiders' view.

[@yabyum108]

Excellent talk. Thanks

[@lexort4204]

If middle-class society is decaying, if we have got into a blind alley from which we cannot emerge without attacking past institutions with torch and hatchet, it is precisely because we have given too much to counting. It is because we have let ourselves be influenced into giving only to receive. It is because we have aimed at turning society into a commercial company based on debit and credit. -Pyotr Kropotkin

[@siritrenier1319]

You liked the book

[@michaelcre8]

It seems like cheap labor from globalization prevented America from developing automation more when we should have starting around 50 years ago. Japan has done much better with automation, but it looks like their economy has succumbed to excessively free trade too.

[@秋分-d8i]

I should pick up my Marxism books from high school~

[@brunoqueiroz2759]

david harvey made me do the same thing.

[@Kid_Ikaris]

Much here to learn for the Neoliberal as much as the Marxist-leninist.

[@Insightts]

Thank you Prof. David Harvey.

[@gerder5450]

A most fascinating lecture.

[@lexort4204]

That we are utopians is well known. So utopian are we that we go the length of believing that the revolution can and ought to assure shelter, food and clothes to all - an idea extremely displeasing to middle-class citizens, whatever their party colour, for they are quite alive to the fact that it is not easy to keep the upper hand of a people whose hunger is satisfied. -Pyotr Kropotkin

[@itzenormous]

Exactly! The suffering of the mass of people is seen as a necessity by those who sit at the top. But also, no one ever delves into the symbiosis between wealth and poverty. Wealth creates poverty, and poverty's existence and perpetuation is necessary for the continued existence of mass wealth.

[@lexort4204]

The means of production being the collective work of humanity, the product should be the collective property of the race. Individual appropriation is neither just nor serviceable. All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth. All things are for all. Here is an immense stock of tools and implements; here are all those iron slaves which we call machines, which saw and plane, spin and weave for us, unmaking and remaking, working up raw matter to produce the marvels of our time. But nobody has the right to seize a single one of these machines and say, "This is mine; if you want to use it you must pay me a tax on each of your products," any more than the feudal lord of medieval times had the right to say to the peasant, "This hill, this meadow belong to me, and you must pay me a tax on every sheaf of corn you reap, on every rick you build." All is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of work, they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being. No more of such vague formulas as "The Right to work," or "To each the whole result of his labour." What we proclaim is The Right to Well-Being: Well-Being for All! -Pyotr Kropotkin

[@clarestucki5151]

Lexort 420 Pyotr Kropotkin was probably one of those who "woked to the measure of his ambition, not the measure of his strength.

[@lexort4204]

@@clarestucki5151 And yet once more you assert your ignorance 😂

[@dulariparmar3091]

This is crazy.

[@lutherdean6922]

first....wat up!!!!!!

[@AndrewSmithDev]

very interesting

[@puti2147]

Thank U Sir. I truly respect your explanations on the movement of trade & commerce and the Geopolitical transformation of the World. No specific Region can claim of their benefits being stolen but have themselves to blame on account of their own economic circumstances.

[@秋分-d8i]

Hello, Chairman @Xi, Prof. Harvey knows too much, we need to do sth~

[@秋分-d8i]

By the way Prof, we also heard about Greater Europe, ask Germany and Russia for more information~

[@秋分-d8i]

And actually now, the very moment, the US is doing sth in middle Asia. Your country is still strong, we do not expect to win this turn~

[@markuspfeifer8473]

This idea that capital is all about expansion is based on suuuch a lazy argument that I don’t even know how to respond to this. There’s a lot of stuff that Marxism gets right (even in this video), but this one is a major flaw (along with the idea that surplus causes deficit and not the other way round [as it is in the real world]).

[@KznnyL]

Lazy arguement? Here is a simple thing to ask yourself... What happens to the CEO of almsot any Capitalist organization whom has no profits and/or whose profits stay flat year after year? What happens to the government of any Democratic Capitalist economy if GDP growth is zero year after year? They are replaced in each case for failure to achieve growth. You know this is true.

[@markuspfeifer8473]

Kenneth Leak nope. If this is true fully depends on the social and cultural circumstances. If stagnation is the norm, no one will be replaced because they don’t achieve growth. Capitalism just happened to achieve growth for some centuries now, but if and when we hit the point where this can no longer continue (e.g. because the environment is totally exhausted or because the contradictions of capitalism have become so strong that growth is no longer feasible), then capitalism will just continue to exist, but then in a stagnant form. The idea that capitalism will end when the environment is exhausted or the contradictions get too strong (and one of these things will eventually happen, it is just the question which one will come sooner) is an illusion - and a dangerous one, as it makes us think of the transition to some new system as an automatism - a „historic necessity“ - so that we can take a hands-off approach. Given the state of the anticapitalist discourse, I consider the following chain of events the most likely scenario: in the late 21st century, the environmental and social crises are so obvious that even the capitalist elites cannot deny them any longer. So, the few (by that time stagnant) monopolies will take action, abolish the last remnants of the states and pull all levers to make a transition to a green economy happen; they’ll also make sure that everyone gets at least some minimal standard of living, which they easily can by now, as they control everything. These will be actual improvements and the tycoons will call this „socialism“ - and many many socialists around the world will actually cheer. But in reality, this new system is just capitalism in its most natural and mature state: a stagnant sovjet-like hyper monopoly system where the elites and average Joe/Jane play a zero sum game. But nobody will even have the intellectual capacity to criticize it anymore, because it is stagnant and hence cannot be capitalism and hence is necessarily the postcapitalist utopia that Marx promised by claiming that capitalism will be the last class system.

[@markuspfeifer8473]

Oh, and the evidence for my claim that people will not have the intellectual capacity to criticize such a horrible nightmarish hyper monopoly: we have already been there! How many leftists saw the Soviet Union as a paradise (with some minor problems) during the Cold War? -Far too many! To me, this is a clear sign that just because you’re on the left that doesn’t mean that you are any less vulnerable to false consciousness than those morons who believe Fox News propaganda. We have to be veeery careful with our ideas and theories and what we consider facts and we really need to analyze things thoroughly instead of being satisfied with conclusions that superficially „make sense“.

[@lisakeitel3957]

@@markuspfeifer8473 but all that was described by Marx, except for the results. Socialist and comunisth do manage capital, that's not going to disappear. It will be social controlled. That's communism. Capitalism cannot live without growing. You talk about the last great monopolies, because in your idea they were the last that could accumulate, but fail to realize that the change they do, in your idea, is to change capitalism for totalitarianism, were there are no free markets, that comes with the definition of capitalism. And, thay cannot survive that way either. You bet on a fictional fall of human intellect, but truly, they will be humans as the last 6000 years at least.

[@markuspfeifer8473]

Lisa Keitel I‘d argue if only a bunch of monopolies are left but the main form of labor is still the employer-employee relation, that would *still* be capitalism, while free markets are just the early historic form of capitalism. Making free markets part of the definition of capitalism is simply a bad analytical choice, because capitalism is a historic system of production and exploitation, while the market is a system of distribution. Looking backward, we would for instance all agree that both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome were part of the same era despite being radically different. If you made living in small city states part of your definition of what it means to live in a slavery-based society, you couldn’t properly understand Rome. Intellectual decline, by the way, is also not unprecedented. In fact, you can read most of the history from 800 B.C. to 1700 A.D. as people constantly getting more oblivious to the world around them. First, they thought that rome was a kind of emancipation from the constant barbarism of fighting city states. Then they thought that Christianity would somehow liberate them from slavery. Then, they kept waiting for this liberation through god for an entire millennium and finally, they thought that better ships that allowed them to travel the world and genocide natives would somehow restore ancient greatness. Only since 1700 or 1800, people actually made *some* progress and actually overcame a system of oppression and replaced it by something that can be argued to be better rather than worse. This era ended in the 70s and since then, we are back to normal and we are only getting more and more stupid again.

[@clarestucki5151]

Capital is ceated when somebody elects to forego consumption and saves part of his earnings.

[@itzenormous]

No, that's called savings, in the form of money. Apparently you don't understand what capital is, and how it is accumulated. George Washington accumulated an abundance of marketable capital during the French and Indian Wars. He surveyed the vast tracts of land out on the frontier, and titled those lands to himself. After the War for Independence was over, he sold those tracts of land and became, at the time, the wealthiest man in America. There was no work involved, nor any earnings. Just graft and theft.

[@clarestucki5151]

@@itzenormous Savings and capital are the same thing. Cash savings can obviously be converted to most any other form of capital, demonstrating that they are really the same thing.

[@adrielmixon3253]

its created when you dont pay employees nearly the value of their labor

[@alexer52]

@@clarestucki5151 *Wait. . .* You mean capital as in financing (like in accounting, financing and banking where capital is basically the investment of the owner or owners of a business into its operation) or capital as in economics (like man-made goods, e.g. machines, factory plants, etc.)? Sorry, but there is a surprising difference, since economics tends to focus on the idea of production and value whereas financing and accounting focuses greater on savings, dividends and investments... Honestly, I wish there was some sort of universal legal terminology for it all. So, asking to be clear.

[@clarestucki5151]

@@adrielmixon3253 Employees who feel they are not receiving the "value of their labor" have the obligation to offer their time and talent to other employers,, or to go into businesw for themselves. If that doesn't improve their situation, then that proves they were NOT underpaid.

[@clarestucki5151]

This guy suffers from the misconception that a so-called "favorable trade balance" is beneficial to the exporter, and that an "unfavorable balance of trade" (importing more than you export) is automatically detrimental to the importer. Absolutely false!

[@itzenormous]

Certainly it's beneficial to the Ruling Classes within those countries. Nothing that Global Capital does is perceived as detrimental to its interests. A surplus of capital is exported to those regions of the world where it can harvest the exploitation of surplus labor, and then import the goods back to the nation of origin. Your statement, presumes that the import of products is beneficial to the nation importing … but WHO within that nation benefits? That's the question. And your position, undoubtedly, is held by those that own capital, and those consumers who wish to consume cheaper products. But where do the mass of people fall within this framework? If wages and income diminish to the point where no one can afford to buy the cheap goods, then the house of cards will crumble. Sound or look familiar?

[@father9716]

Trade imbalance works for a while if you have economic and military power over the places you import from, but nothing like this can last forever. At some point the weakness of the position will be realized for what it is. Trade imbalance for a weaker nation than the USA is a recipe for disaster. Your trade partner will start demanding parts of your nation and infrastructure be handed over in payment. In the case of the USA part of the price has been corporate secrets being handed over to the Chinese government and their corporate machine. There will be more power grabs in the future.

[@alexalbuquerquerodriguesal108]

Importing more than exporting means that you have less international currency for exchange per period, zero international currency means no international trade (take a look at Balance of Payments, there are absolutely vital things like services which counts for shipping, without you literally can't transport anything offshore since you can't pay the for the shipping). This is pretty much the largest problem to any non diversified economy (like South Korea, Argentina, Japan, Bolivia, Indonesia, Taiwan, etc) where your production requires imports and It was the biggest problem for absolutely every country in Latin America during Its respective industrializations (long story short: countries ran out of dollars to import basic production inputs since they were importing a lot of productive capital [Harvey likes to make the separation between money and capital, but by definition money is capital, It's working capital and as such have an important role in the production to allow onerosity without increase of debt] and they needed to make international debt with private banks to finance deficits). Not only that but an an unfavorable balance of trade is compensated by exchange rate depreciation, which means you end up making the imports more expensive (this was another big problem in the emerging economies but also in the form of inflation, making so that policies to combat rapant inflation goes through temporary fixed exchange rate [temporary because It's completely unsustainable long term, exchange currency runs out eventually]). All this falls down to: the only way that import more than export is good for a national economy is if you can finance this deficit indefinitely through government debt bonds (lots of people get this wrong: this isn't money printing, you can't buy anything with debt bonds and It isn't used for accounting anywhere on the planet, money is an entirely social construct and virtually anything can be money as long as It's used as money), where dollars goes into the economy through government bonds purchase and bonds goes out, and this money can be used to finance the deficit. As long as the bonds have enough trust on the capacity of rolling, they will be brought, which is only true to the US (they print US dollars, in last resort they can just do that) and Europe (with the Euro being a close substitute to the US dollar), for any other economy It would never be trusted that their monetary authorities would be able to sustain too much international debt. Your statement is true only the rulling economies, the rest of the world needs to export more than they import.