Economic Update: What's Wrong with Capitalism?

[@marclawson2536]

George Carlin was not a comedian. He was not joking when he told us "you do not have rights, you have owners. They own you".

[@TennesseeJed]

The invisible hand of the market is touching me inappropriately!

[@pipster1891]

The invisible hand slapped me in the face only the other day.

[@peterjol]

haha..good one!!

[@joecool3332]

Steal your face right off your head.

[@TennesseeJed]

@@joecool3332 like I told you, it's what I said! 😜

[@TennesseeJed]

@@robyenney951 only after you got it all mixed in and had a tiny airy sip, so you'll really miss it.

[@marygard4608]

Prof. Wolff is the teacher every kid who wants to learn to think for him/herself needs to hear. I cannot thank Democracy at Work enough for him.

[@jeffheller642]

Prof Wolff is Democracy at Work so I think you have him to thank for it. Indeed a finer teacher of Marxian economics you will not find. Yet as someone whose journey led to doctoral study of classic sociological theory (beginning with Marx), I came away pretty much persuaded as to Marx's critique yet skeptical at best about it ever catching on in the US. And though we have seen some movement in that direction for a decade or so (Occupy, Bernie, the Squad, labor strikes, a host of committed hosts on youtube) I don't see us being any closer to overturning the powers that be. Do you?

[@antimattv]

​@@jeffheller642The workers movement was utterly crushed during the Wilson presidency. Then they rebounded massively in the early 1930s. History is a winding river and people hunger for change. The unionization drives have also been increasing lately. Neoliberalism is just about dead among the general population. Endless wars. People are tired of it.

[@MrMarinus18]

I think the 3 interests would come together well with the government representing the interests of the enviroment and to me "enviroment" also includes the people unaffiliated such as the people who live close to a factory but don't work in it.

[@vigorberg4798]

Professor Of economics, Richard Woolf 's, stresses democracy at the working place. Workers must allowed to join unions that are represented at the board of directors and workers have to protect the environmental consequences of the production & be given the right to sa no to harmful products! 5 works leave for all and paternal leave is part of fair mangement🌻

[@kevinvolk8846]

Prof. Wolff teaches you how to be broke and demand the government steal higher earners income to supplemen your income. Inevitably leaving you depending on the government instead of depending on yourself.

[@michael511128]

Capitalists have figured out that people don’t even need huts, they can live in tents ⛺️.

[@omarjette3859]

@YTCensors In French-speaking countries they are called "Bidonvilles" which means people live in tin shacks made from old oil drums, etc. Don't know about now, but 40-odd years ago there was a shanty town by the waterfront in Fort-de-France, Martinique.

[@omarjette3859]

@YTCensors Yes, I see the connection with Pres. Hoover. Just a little dark humor that Bidenville and Bidonville (actual French term) are so similar. Recall a 1936 movie "My Man Godfrey" - William Powell & Carole Lombard, where Godfrey lived in a shanty town (I think) on the NYC waterfront. It was a sort of comedy.

[@AGirlofYesterday]

Exactly. All this "free market" horse manure has always struck me as a rationalization for pure selfishness by people who don't understand that we're all connected. A society simply cannot function if each person meets only their own needs and fails to consider the needs of others. In that sense, caring about others is actually a form of self-preservation, because the 1% don't benefit if the very foundation of society beneath them and all around them crumbles. It seems so obvious if you think about it for longer than one second.

[@secularnevrosis]

It seems like it's just an excuse for people to behave like a-holes and shift the burden of their actions on others. Most of them have, in my experience, real problems with understanding that what ever they do is depending on someone else. Workers, infrastructure, the society and the customers that let capitalists to have a business have become a "problem" for them. Imho one get the feeling that they think everything would work much better without any of them. And I totally agree about the "free market" bs. Given just a moments thought about it one can see why there have never been a "free market" and why we never would like it to be free. To understand the "Free market" cheering you only need to ask one question: *Who is the market free for?* Obviously the proponents want the market to be free for them in order to exploit others with less effort.

[@zertun2380]

Funny part is that we as species survived because the other branch of evolution chose individualism while we chose socialism if we went with ideas promoted by capitalism humanity of today would not even exist.

[@hollydowns2279]

Our world is nothing more than an ad campaign or a meme, we hear and see ads, and they dictate our very values. Crying Native American selling ecology, shaving legs and underarms, and eating bacon or ham for breakfast. The companies sell inferior products that cause our money to have no value., for examole, my two-year-old new Whirlpool refrigerator at $700 with poorly made seal that cracked in year one! We live in a house with a mortgage are over 60 and make less than $60000 a year! How can anyone have any hope in this absurd, Capitalistic world? The corporations eat competition, thus reducing choices for consumers.

[@zertun2380]

@@hollydowns2279 Truth is all this can be named by a single sentence. A fake delusion of free market imprinted by ghouls. The only time capitalist trully had competition was when USSR still stood you can see based on progress US at that time was making and people living conditions, but the moment USSR disolved everything fell down since competition can not exist within same system that promotes monopolies. I mean its pretty simple what do you think business would chose risky competition or shaking hands and steadily gaining profits? Its obvious.

[@secularnevrosis]

@@hollydowns2279 Yes. Quality and ease of repair or being able to upgrade products are a problem for profit maximization. The "competition" they talk about is something they don't want. Staying at the top by innovation and development is hard work. It's much easier to buy up the competition and kill it.

[@debra7241]

Capitalism is where you define your success by money, and materialism . And when it’s gone which often happens, is when you finally learn who you are, and what your made of.

[@danielniswander7338]

Great evaluation. Thank you for sharing.

[@swampsprite9]

Will humanity just go extinct already.

[@merbst]

​@every5hoursblkfemicide691 I was once a misanthrope too, but then I learned a little, now I am anti-Capitalist.

[@jameszivai1481]

@@merbsthow did you overcome misanthropy?

[@hermenutic]

One of capitalisms problems is that the profit is not returned to the worker and the society that produced the profit. The profit is removed from the system that produced the profit which impoverishes both the workers and society in general. Capitalism had resulted in the opposite of promoting the general welfare.

[@chuckleaf8027]

Actual business profit is only around 7.71 across the board. Labor is usually the biggest expense.. 50 percent in service industry and 20 to 35 in manufacturing. Thing is, without that modest 7.71 percent, labor would get ZERO...

[@SvalbardSleeperDistrict]

@@chuckleaf8027 "Actual business profit is only around 7.71 across the board. Labor is usually the biggest expense.. 50 percent in service industry and 20 to 35 in manufacturing. Thing is, without that modest 7.71 percent, labor would get ZERO..." You just committed a whole set of fallacies in little over two lines there and then sprinkled an ideological assumption on top. Impressive achievement.

[@chuckleaf8027]

@@SvalbardSleeperDistrict Why not tell me what they are?

[@SvalbardSleeperDistrict]

@@chuckleaf8027 "Why not tell me what they are?" Start with the elementary point that you were replying to the point of "profit is not being returned to the worker", and responded by appealing to wages. Profit is not returned to workers exactly because profit is not wages - profit is extracted from worker through surplus value extraction and kept by private owner of the means of production, instead of it going to worker along with the wage, so that they earn the full value of what they produced. Which cannot be done under capitalism. And I hope I don't even need to point out the ideological fallacy of "without CEOs pocketing workers' surplus value as profit workers would get nothing". Good attempt for providing ideological support for the system and hope for crumbs to be thrown to you from the tables of its masters though. Maybe next time I won't catch you doing that and you will get away with it.

[@chuckleaf8027]

@@SvalbardSleeperDistrict Thanks for that. You mean some dead guy calls profit..something else... so it's really not the owners anymore... Ok... Let's see the laborers make the goods without the materials, machines, factory, electricity..the money spent upfront to get the insurance, gotta pay unemployment 2K ior something to start your account once you get your EIN..same thing with State Fund..gotta give them the deposit before you even have a worker start for ONE DAY... Oh that's right. The factory, store. restuarant or whatever just magically appears and the laborers start making the profit!!!!! There's no fallacy in what I said. You're just parroting Marxian gibberish...

[@yukonnoka]

I’m with you Wolff. Keep it up.

[@psychfred]

Capitalism is an addiction

[@swampsprite9]

It's one I've never had so I don't understand it.

[@toneyeye]

It is a poison pill administered with the threat of violence by way of war or coups d'etat against governments that don't want to go along.

[@robthomas3664]

It sounds more like a cancer.

[@alphaomega1351]

Not even. No one likes it and knows it ain't working but are afraid of trying something else. 😶

[@jonbassett9391]

Capitalism is a helluva drug!

[@danielniswander3791]

99.9% of the time Prof. Wolff nails it! This is another one of the many EXCELLENT episodes. Please spread far and wide !

[@steve13565]

Are you old enough to remember living through Nixon's wage/price freeze? I was about 26 at the time. It didn't happen anything like what Richard Wolff describes. I remember making life choices that were influenced by the inflation and interest rates at the time. I remember cancelling a home addition project in the early 1980s because of the high interest rates to borrow money. My wife and I built the addition ourselves over several years at a rate determined by how much cash I could save up. This was long after Nixon had left office. When I was living in Texas at the time the wage/price freeze was introduced, a friend had just opened up a new business. He was careful to call his prices "introductory prices" to avoid being hampered by the price freeze.

[@paulg2450]

Wolff has always said that Nixon’s policies weren’t without problems. He doesn’t get into it here. I think the point he’s trying to make is that what Nixon did at least had the livelihoods of people in mind. Today, policy is routinely pegged to what will most aggrandize corporate power and profits both in the short and long run, an argument I can’t disagree with.

[@fbreports]

Yes. In fact I just started an informative website

[@life42theuniverse]

The reality of finite supply... kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYukanukpZiUjJY

[@MrMarinus18]

But I also feel we have to be very open minded and that many different forms of organisation are possible and can exist side by side.

[@littlestone1541]

As a civilization we absolutely can and should do better than the base profit motive being the fundamental motor of our economic system. In fact we must move beyond the profit motive if we wish to not only survive but reach our full potential as a society and a species.

[@SopaSoupa]

Since the so called Greek crisis i never stopped watching u dear Richard

[@madjidmouas3519]

I've been listening to Pr Wolff for some time now, and I always marvel at the simplicity and depth of his explanations. A shame my teachers back in university times didn't have the open laboratory that US hypercapitaism is to bridge Marx's views to reality. "Practise Das Kapital" should be at least a subtitle for all of his lectures. Thanks angd gratitude, Professor!

[@jgalt308]

The simplicity is a clue that the explanations are WRONG.

[@madjidmouas3519]

@@jgalt308 I'm not very familiar with english language. In french, we use "simplicité" to mean "simple" and we associate it with genius. To make a deep conept easy is a masterfullness probe. We use the adjective "simpliste", to mean "simplistic" which is quite negative. I'm not sure, but if that were what you're pointing at, please correct me. I'd be glad to learn the correct way to express the ideea.

[@jgalt308]

@@madjidmouas3519 Technically your use of the term simplicity when combined with the description of the "depth of explanation" is somewhat contradictory... His conclusion that capitalism is the problem as well as the system is simple, like E=IR, and simplistic...making it wrong. As far as the depth of explanation to support that conclusion...only those things that are convenient to that explanation are used...and are also factually incorrect...wage and price controls did not stop inflation, as the decade of the 70's experienced an inflation rate of 112%, exceeded historically by the 95% inflation of 1860 thru 1865. The difference between them is that from 1865 thru 1897, was completely deflationary. Yet from 1939 thru the present inflation has been constant...and identifying the cause is not particularly difficult...since there is only a single factor that accounts for the interruption of normal cycle of inflation/deflation that has existed throughout recorded history, and it isn't capitalism. If one were to be guided by the empirical concept of "the simplest possible explanation" and the reductionist limit, "and no simpler"...or Occam's Razor in the original: "Plurality should not be assumed without necessity."...Wolff's explanations are simple and wrong...or simplistic. Neither Marx nor Wolff are geniuses in any sense of the word ...the rest is merely the details of why they are not.

[@madjidmouas3519]

@@jgalt308 I sincerely thank for your effort and time. As someone who studied economics and went through the theoretical scholarship development of the discipline as well the facts of history development of world economy, I've to disagree with you for one simple reason: Arificial private property is the trigger of all human tragedies. I call it artificial because there's some private property that I call "natural" and consists in real, healthy needs any human being has. The sacro-saint civilization started with owning people (open slavery) and is at owning people's time (sneaky slavery). It's all slavery. What we've used o call progress is in some way a frenetic race to correct the indesirable effects produced by civilization. Anyway, I praised Pr Wolff's explanations not because it was a wholly structured unattackable presentation, but for his ability to make it easy for non-sepecialits to understand complex concepts. That I couldn't do back in the times I had to...

[@madjidmouas3519]

@YTCensors I've noticed :)

[@cheri238]

Spark plugs also need changing. It is the greed of capitalism that it is the essence of the problem. However, if one doesn't agree, one may say to the wolf that is howling, keep howling. I love wolves in the woods, not in governments of greed. Professor Richard Wolff is one who inspires me to listen and read 📚

[@thetasworld]

It's co-op or bust. Workers must step up since politicians either don't care or are bought...

[@pipster1891]

The harder workers work to make the company more profit, the more the workers are punished with declining wages and conditions.

[@jgalt308]

Only if, like Wolff, you have no clue what inflation is and who is responsible for it? If employers raise prices because they can, why does history not support that claim? Or are you ignorant of that history?

[@drumlessons833]

@@jgalt308 Why so rude? Employers don't raise prices merely because they can. They raise prices to pass increased costs of living/operation onto the consumer in order to maintain their current financial position.

[@jgalt308]

@@drumlessons833 Did you have a preference regarding the use of the term ignorant? Or are the questions rude? According to Wolff "inflation" is caused by employers raising prices because they can. Since you seem to be in disagreement with him...what words would you use to describe his explanation? And what words would you use to describe those who believe his explanation and also claim that they are being educated by him?

[@ExPwner]

Nonsense. Both theory and fact support the tracking of wages with productivity. See the multiple responses to EPI for all of the bots out there.

[@ExPwner]

@YTCensors projection from the lying troll himself.

[@tiamarie1226]

Conscious capitalism ( b company) is like the double speak talked about in the book 1984. There can be no such thing under capitalism the most humanity is shown person to person not from companies

[@billfrenger8955]

Thank you Professor Wolff. People might also read your book "The Sickness Is The System", Michael Hudson's books: "Super Imperialism" and "The Destiny Of Civilization" and Mike Gravel's "Citizen Power, A Mandate For Change".

[@AnonYmous-nu1xs]

Gravel and Hudson provide much needed nuance to this.

[@KBlaze732]

EVERYTHING!!! THE END...

[@jimcarrington6744]

Non-profits like hillsdale university, who brainwash the public into believing that the wealthiest should not pay taxes & the disabled and elderly should remain homeless.

[@sizzla123]

Insightful. Without analysis, no synthesis. ~Friedrich Engels

[@Bisquick]

"Fun" fact: the original notion of "free market" in classical economics with folks like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, et al. (culminating with Marx who merely takes all these concepts to their logical conclusions from a structural macro perspective) was a market free of *_rent_* , a stark opposition to its modern cultural distortion which is essentially a market free *_for_* rent. Speaking of Adam Smith in particular, what is never mentioned regarding his more wholistic analysis (I would imagine this is Prof.Wolff's issue with this narrow/discrete interpretation/distortion people like Milton Friedman had) is his highlighting of a process of industrial capitalism becoming a sort of proto-socialism with capital reinvestment/necessary taxation/redistribution (as opposed to purely profit seeking, as per an M-C-M circuit), the entire consensus of classical economics really, was to eradicate the 'rentier class' through taxation, a land value tax for instance prescribed by Smith, as rent is by definition value extracted _without_ value produced, a contradiction to the justifying logic of "the market" and correctly recognized as a vestige of feudal social relations (hence the term 'landlord'). _"Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title."_ - John Stuart "blockhead" Mill, Principles of Political Economy _"Kelp was never augmented by human industry. The landlord, however, whose estate is bounded by a kelp shore of this kind, demands a rent for it."_ - Adam "father of capitalism" Smith, ch.11 Wealth of Nations Finance capital in particular, or as Marx more accurately termed it 'fictitious capital', is the purest form of rent extraction (and thus the most profitable) and has ensured history flatters their divine right however, and thus we arrive at the cultural distortion of the term used to justify essentially the exact opposite, a market free *_for_* rent extraction/usury. Not a coincidence you get a play about that absolute scumbag Hamilton for instance. At least industrial capital has to produce something, a bug not a feature to London/Wall Street demonic arcons that have uncoincidentally subsumed the vast majority of real estate (Blackstone, etc.) and absorbed command of the military industrial complex to funnel any liquidity from central banks narrowly into military/policing means of enforcing their "full spectrum domination" globally, which also ensures any spillover of technology/R & D stays closely guarded to exclusively serve their increasingly privatized dominion rather than, say, raise the standard of living for the working class they immiserate. Finance capital _is_ the "central planning" bogeyman/the "invisible hand", that is abstracted into a nebulous rule of "nature" which "just so happens" to serve their divine right, mystified and packaged together into what is essentially the divine right of "the market". Anyway, point being, to echo Rosa Luxemburg from 1918 Germany, before of course being executed by the freikorps paramilitary (later becoming the SS, shocker) at the behest of Ebert's ostensibly _social democratic_ SPD party, almost immediately resonating the truth of such a succinct political dichotomy to this day: *_socialism or_* [continued] *_barbarism._*

[@fbreports]

Thank you please continue.....in the year 2000 I had come to surmise that by 2020 the wheels would come off. Yet 25 year Olds hold the belief , think positive, and that's insane.

[@jeremyprovence4942]

Just because there is a invisible hand doesn't make it a good force, we have to contend with both good and evil. We have seen the fruit of Capitalism, it's time to believe what it is, a system that makes rich people richer at the expense of all else not just people but all of creation. There is another hand that we must start listening to, one that values the collective good for all. Thank you Prof Wolff for your thoughtful insights.

[@jgalt308]

Well if capitalism is the problem, what accounts for the history preceding it? The other 197,000 years that preceded the last 250 or less?

[@jeremyprovence4942]

@@jgalt308 Doesn't matter, we are in the present. Our choices are now.

[@jgalt308]

@@jeremyprovence4942 "The lesson of history is, we have learned NOTHING from history." Thank you for confirming that.

[@jeremyprovence4942]

@@jgalt308 We have learned that capitalism hurts people and the planet. We can do better. Seems to me that you like to make circular arguments.

[@jgalt308]

@@jeremyprovence4942 I'm sorry but you have no evidence that supports what you claimed to have learned. You have a word that you can not define, supported by a lot of other words you don't have any precise meaning for...and centuries of history of which you know nothing and don't want to know. And one can not argue with someone who has no argument. Let me know when you have one and the evidence to support it!

[@Hoppensagen]

Well technicially what we have is not capitalism because capitalism doesn't work and collapses which is what happened with south America in the 1980's and America in the 1920's. What we have right now is state capitalism which is basically just public funded companies owned privately. We fund pharma for example by developing all the drugs at the NIH and then giving it to pharma to commercialize and profit off of. Capitalism largely doesn't work because it is so greedy that it doesn't prepare for hard times. This model with hospitals for example with hospitals makes it so that they are always at or near capacity. This makes the most money after all, you cannot have empty beds in preparation for emergencies, that won't make the board members happy. So come covid, there was a shortage of everything from beds to all sorts of medical supplies. The new deal by roosevelt was a great step in the right direction and largely something I coud live with today, it created the very prosperous 50's and 60's. Then Carter's vision, and Reagans follow through created 45 years of consolidation which is why we have monopolies today, and very little worker power. Neoliberalism at its finest.

[@asfasdfadf9820]

Savage video, pump this directly into my veins, I loge it!

[@parabellum4622]

Absolutely true, all of these are literally not able to be debated upon; and the fact that people who argue against any of this, argue with red herrings (not answering the question, instead introducing a scenario where what they're defending favors their point of view).

[@seankelly3300]

One ASPECT of the ever growing disparity between the rich and everyone else can be pin pointed to one event. When Reagan decided to stop minimum wage increases with the cost of living. This is when overall wages began to stagnate. Without an increase in minimum wage, the corporate leaders have no reason to increase overall salaries. They can always point to the fact that you are doing better than minimum wage workers. One thing I would like to point out about this at the very least, to say minimum wage jobs are just starter jobs for high school kids. That is, on it's face, a ridicules statement. Do high school kids pay less than everyone else? Of course not.

[@secularnevrosis]

In Sweden we do not have a minimum wage by law. Because then employers can the say that they are just following the law. All wages are set by negotiations between unions/employees and the employers.

[@ivandafoe5451]

It really started in the early '70s.

[@mmb811]

A much shorter answer would be "What is right about Capitalism" Great videos Prof.Wolff, keep up the great work!

[@molessijanmarina7938]

Once upon the time, there was a country which lived this economic model Dr Wolf suggested as solution. This country went down in blood and tears 30 years ago, a "new" leaders are still having something to steal. I guess this economic model did work, if it was able to produce that kind of wealth, but people did not understand that they did not have only rights, but also responsibility. But then again, that is the same problem we are facing in capitalism, lack of awareness about one's responsibility to the world

[@SteveSmith-mw5zk]

Thanks professor Wolff for sharing the message with such powerful emotional nuance, keeping it fresh by coming at the problem from so many different angles exposing the culprit( Capitalism) again and again, because the capitalists count on us going to sleep so they can operate and your waking those who are listening

[@patrickmccormack4318]

Richard Wolf, have you ever been a Capitalist? During one one year in the late 70s, as a young boy, my family and I lived in a poorly insulated cabin. More a shack than a cabin, the property was near Plymouth Wisconsin, in-and-around the Kettle Marine. Everywhere in those hills were luxury and high-end homes. The well-to-do, rich, and elite surrounded us. We didn't have running water, heat came from an oversized wood stove, no phone, and a ratty line for electricity. Dad didn't do what he should have done to put us in a better place. Mom was too possessed by her "man", my Dad, to do what she should have done. No "neighbor" seemed interested in knowing what was going on. In the cabin were five children, on the brink of starvation and freezing. Neighborly love was where? Who took time to care, to love? During that winter, I learned to despise the well-to-do, the rich, and elites. Of course, I lost respect for my parents. Every day I'd hand carry our family's shit/piss... to a hole in the ground... a little trek most embarrassing to walk because our school bus was close enough for the driver and kids to see what I was doing. There's more to this narrative, but I leave it for another day. For all this time, I didn't blame an economic system. I don't blame the well-to-do, the rich, elites, Mom or Dad. The lesson I learned: The condition of man is what it is. As I make my way through life, as of today, I have determined there's no getting around it, Might Is Right. And for that reason, society creates its monsters, heroes, fathers, mothers, future, and fate. The only saving feature of existence is The Way. Subtle it is... requires many moons to learn. New Earth Army - 2nd Battalion "With pen on paper, we travel." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One Slip - Pink Floyd Roll The Bones - RUSH Doubleback - ZZTop Back In Time - Huey Lewis & The News Reach Out - Cheap Trick Don't Let Another Captain Captain Your Boat - Abney Park Word Of Mouth - Shakey Graves Cows/New Dress/My Crew - Firefly soundtrack 18 Lord, Mr. Ford - Jerry Reed Why Aye Man - Mark Knopfler Fools Gold - Stone Roses Tales of The Future - Vangelis Runaway Train - Ian Cussick Catch A Train - Ghost and The Darkness soundtrack A Bid For Freedom (Something Of Value) - The Wind and The Lion soundtrack Take Me Home - Phil Collins Faithfully - Journey Texas - Chris Rea The Ballad Of Marshall McLuhan - The Vestibules From Chaos to Harmony - Ian Brown More Than A Feeling - Boston ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Life is too short to not be cool." - Grandpa "Violence is the quest for identity." - Marshall McLuhan "Memories have huge staying power, but like dreams, they thrive in the dark, surviving for decades in the deep waters of our minds like shipwrecks on the sea bed.." - J. G. Ballard "The way it is, is the way it is. We gotta deal with what’s in front of us." - Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity

[@mrsjayrez2627]

Anti trust, windfall taxes, the elected lawmakers working for the people who vote, not the billionaires who donate is where we start. We need to vote on issues and policies and the people we elect need to do what we elected them to do. We all want similar things, on a issue by issue basis. Our elected officials ignore all of it and keep making it easier on the rich to keep shaving away at our livelihoods. Our youth see us working too hard for nothing and we think the youth are lazy….. they aren’t, not really. They just don’t want to be exploited like us. I don’t want to continue being exploited. It starts with us paying attention to what the lawmakers vote for and against. We can’t even get a decent minimum wage passed. They are not working for the masses. Just the top ten %

[@adamturner8634]

The increase in prices and cost of living has pushed me to my end I'm moving back in with my grandparents cause they're not charging me rent my rent went from 375 to 450 and in the summer it's going to 650 but my job is refusing to increase pay so I'm calling it quits

[@stevenholmes4584]

Who owns rental property ? The wealthy or those trying to attain wealth. It's just another cash generator, another blow for the less well off. It should be a top priority of all governments to ensure enough affordable housing. Great if you have multiple properties to let eh.

[@adamturner8634]

@@stevenholmes4584 yeah it should be a priority, but they love to push the outdated notion of if you want a house just work harder well, we do work then they say get a better job, so we do i know people who make 100,000 a year it makes no difference cause the more money you make the more they tax then state taxes then loans and the interest rate all piles up after they pay all the bills and debt you walk away with no money living on a credit card pay check to paycheck

[@robertseaborne5758]

Thanks again Prof for another valuable political lesson. My thoughts these days are that we cannot do away with capital and therefor capitalists; however we can better manage the subsequent and almost inevitable emergence of 'capitalism', which almost by definition is the tendency to emphasise exploitation of labor and the accumulation of privately owned profit. Better managing capitalism might simply mean subordinating capital and capitalists to the service of socialism ie; giving a higher priority to meeting the social and cultural needs of the people than to the making of profit. Eg; China.

[@ExPwner]

Exploitation of labor is a fantasy concocted by Marxists living in the 19th century

[@mindy6466]

Narcissism becomes normal under capitalism

[@cheponis]

Capitalism is state-sponsored narcissism.

[@jackmeehof2440]

Thanks Professor Wolf. Always enjoy your videos. 👍

[@T_Dot94]

The intro music gott me thinking Prof Wolff is gonna spit at us with some class conscious rap.

[@n33wom]

Best in-joke i heard was it would it be his "entrance song" for wrestling. Lol, it really fits.

[@VernonNickersonSCHOOLCOACH]

Capitalism and the DENIAL OF DEATH…INTERESTING AND PRESCIENT ARGUMENT.❤

[@davidalvarez7262]

It's the philosophy of a cancer cell.

[@suwalsunil]

Grateful for this episode as always. From🇳🇵

[@craigwilson1144]

Excellent presentation Prof. Wolf and you couldn't have selected a more informed guest than Chris Hedged to discuss the polarization in our society and the rise of autocratic governments and fascism. It all comes down to the class war being waged on the working class by the ruling elites over the last forty tears.

[@treefrog3349]

Profit isn't the problem. Profit SHARING is. "A rising tide lifts all boats". Except in America.

[@MarinoBaccarini]

Until cooperatives are "perceived" as a way to level people's aspirations, the ego, namely the complete identification with the thinking mind which drives the largest part of humanity, will push people to seek other forms of "separation" with the aim of perceiving themselves "different, better, superior" to any other. The solution does not come from changing the system first, but from the inner change of people who will no longer be slaves to the idea that to be happy one must possess more, be more, feel more. No home will be safer by rearranging furniture, painting exterior walls, or reinforcing the structure here and there. Only by reinforcing the foundations will the house be truly safer. Make some minor changes to the house and the next hurricane will smash it down. It took several thousand years to introduce concepts such as authority, superior power, social status, separation of powers and opportunities based on caste, etc. into the DNA of humanity. Even the Arts and Literature have been used to convey these concepts and make them accepted. Just think for a moment of all the paintings of the past where the images of power (kings, queens, high prelates) served to remind the people who represented "the power" at that moment. Propaganda has always used all means of mass diffusion to make the masses accept social conditions. In the past, it was the Arts, today digital communication systems.

[@cosmicmusicreynolds3266]

yes there must need to be an education in this chnge now. on mass

[@secularnevrosis]

The problem is a system that enforce the behaviour. Even worse when it's global. The phrases: 'Realize your self, be all that you can, work hard and get it all' Being poor is a personal problem and not a systemic one. It's wrong with you and not the system. Look out for No1 and the world will look after you (Invisible hand argument?) Ofc this is just bs as you as a person have little or no control over your situation. Break the system and people will see that there are other ways of doing things. People are quite good at adapting to new things when they can see that it's a real option. Then it's a matter of time. Jeremy Corbyn had a good idea on how to do this. And that is why they brought the world down on him, that's how scared they got.

[@williamdevonshire356]

inflation is a result of bad government, not capitalism. the answer to bad government isnt more government imo

[@DMukherjee]

Very good job done.... Capitalism one most important problem is it becomes crony compitition turns into compitition about theft...am I correct...?? Also war is a must for survival of Capitalism. Of course the list about what is wrong about Capitalism is long one.

[@hilaryporter7841]

Wonderful explanation of the 3 stakeholder categories. Which other animal on earth has allowed itself to be subjugated by a dynastic minority of mostly inherited resources from the sweat of the many. None, only humans. We are many and they are few and the grasslands of our country belong to us all. We all deserve to enjoy our time on the plains of plenty. 'Unfettered' capitalism has had its self destructive day. Working co-ops as part of the mix would be an excellent start, more effective local governance would also kick start a fairer democracy. There is a global sickness in unfettered capitalism and whatever form of governance countries pursue, they have to address the fundamental truth that unfettered capitalism is sick and eventually destroys even itself.

[@503matelo]

I work at a member-owned (customers) Coop gas and propane station. I'm retired from teaching. With the Coop I have defined benefits pension, extended health benefits and dental, sick leave, profit sharing. When the profits go back to the member owners and the staff, capitalism can work better. Not perfectly, but a heck of a lot better.

[@GhostOnTheHalfShell]

The greatest intrinsic force of inequality is the charging of interest (the original meaning of usury). A friegeld system would remove this intrinsic force. It would eliminate access to this engine of destruction from those driven by avarice

[@alexhidel3732]

I cannot believe the cost of food in some places, like Price Chopper, of all places. No prices being chopped there 🪓 just your purse 👛 🪓

[@janetbaker7848]

And the really horrible part about the whole thing is that they are doing this on purpose! They do not have to raise these prices the way they're doing they're refusing to manufacture more Goods that's why the prices are so high! And our company's in this country decided to do that to us! They decided to charge higher prices instead of just making more product. How is that going to be good for the economy?

[@alexhidel3732]

@@janetbaker7848 the capitalist are pure evil, rotten to the core people greedy as can be

[@treefrog3349]

Unfettered, unregulated Capitalism has foolishly abandoned the idea of the Common Good. Once our national moral conscious is gone, would it matter what economic structure prevails? I ask that question naively yet sincerely. I believe our ONLY hope is elevate and revere the simple, yet universal concept of the Common Good. It would benefit individuals and add to the cohesion of the entire enterprise. Currently way too much money and power lies in the hands of a privileged FEW.

[@antediluvianatheist5262]

Never had it. Had to be forced into that.

[@steve13565]

Is Richard Wolff getting too old? We both lived through the inflation of the 1970s. I don't remember that inflation stopped with Nixon's wage and price freeze. I remember that inflation continued through the Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter administrations. Inflation didn't end until interest rates were near 20% and Ronald Reagan created a deep economic depression. If you can't remember what happened in your lifetime and only 40 years ago, then how are we going to trust you to know how to fix today's problems?

[@jgalt308]

If anyone actually fact-checked Wolff regarding any of his claims, they wouldn't bother with him at all. ( and very few do. )

[@drugli.official]

This man repeated points of Russian propaganda in the first minutes. Immediately zero trust.

[@steve13565]

@@drugli.official I don't care if Russians say it or the USA says it. I only care about whether it is true or not.

[@kevinschmidt2210]

Depressing, but true. Now it's time to stop talking about it and time to start building a people run socialist parallel economy. Then we can transition away from the present oligarchy run economy.

[@aubreystone1058]

Ty once again for the break down..

[@merovingian688]

This focus just on profit leads to corruption

[@thorstenroberts4726]

Pursuing one's own interest is fine, until you run into interfaces with others, the environment, resources, etc... which is almost always!

[@co7013]

Mr. Wolff, thanks again. Your video's, the work of Yanis Varoufakis, and more and more KZbin content, help me to keep my feet on the ground and see how the Marxist theory still is the basis for a realistic interpretation of much that is going on in our world.

[@xanbex8324]

Love this Man!

[@davidpallotta1012]

I love your show, and I understand why workers go on strike, but doesn't that mean that the workers don't have any income until they reach an agreement with the employer?

[@jonbassett9391]

Would be nice if more corporations and companies invested in profit sharing to benefit everyone.

[@scruffymainer4540]

Update the corporate charter.

[@ruweidashakhshir2143]

Are there any videos on worker coops that explain it in more detail?

[@ivandafoe5451]

Go to his other websites shown at the top.

[@rs-film4575]

One thing you must try, look at Scandinavian countries, I come from Norway and we have had a lot of socialism, the same applies to Sweden and Denmark, we have free education and free hospitals, use us as examples. There is a big difference between our socialism and Stalin/Mao's socialism and it seems that the USA does not quite see that difference. 😅✌

[@DidierWierdsma6335]

Why don't you go back to Norway? It's a much better country than the Divided States of America hell Europe in general is so much better than the Divided States of America. Other than that a great comment👍 And greetings from the Netherlands🇳🇱

[@rs-film4575]

@@DidierWierdsma6335 i live in Norway allways have, and i can tell that socialism has workt fine in this contry, of course, Norway is a country with a low population and here it has worked well, but USA have a much larger population and maybe that is the reason why they have to use a different system.

[@cavegirl3712]

From what I understand yanis who is also a socialist communist advocates for raising interest rates as a solution and his response to the the added hardships by the people was ….well tough. I was very surprised i love watching him he’s very smart however that pill didn’t go down very well with me. Clearly within those who are socialist communism leaning there doesn’t seem to be cohesive answers within.we have a lot of complex problems way above my head.i guess Yanis is an economist and all numbers and there is no place for a heart and soul within the science. At what point does love thy neighbor become the over arching principle by those who make decisions.? I won’t hold my breath.

[@kurtaikido2889]

It’s almost like he is trying to bring down the system… Wait

[@antediluvianatheist5262]

He's not. He's a Liberal. All of his solutions are within the system that will never allow his solutions.

[@darioleonfernandez6932]

Ud es ejemplo de constancia para mejora de sus semejantes. Dios lo ayude.

[@douglas_drew]

But for such corrections, everyone must vote, not allow themselves to be misled, not allow anyone to mislead, and not allow insurrection.

[@alanhaggar5676]

What could possibly go wrong with ever increasing demand for ever diminishing resources?!! ...Greed is at the very core of capitalism

[@toneyeye]

Prof Wolf, can you bring some numbers into this converstaion regarding the volume of trade in oil and gas between Russia and Asia in response to the Russia sanctions?

[@williamdevonshire356]

people are rewarded based on the value they are contributing, via supply and demand and wage negotiation, basic economics

[@IanCunningham92]

What do you think of the analogy between competition in markets to evolution in nature? One of the most common arguments I hear from supports of Capitalism is that it might be unfair and unequal, but it delivers progress and improvements to quality of life because of competition.

[@寂び侘び-b6s]

This is, as usual, a propagandistic half-truth. Economic competition delivers progress and improvements in quality of life *to its winners.* To those who own the markets, not to those who operate the machines that make the products the owners sell. Under capitalism, it is shareholders who get to privatize and share the common wealth among themselves. The rest of us are left in the gutter.

[@secularnevrosis]

@@寂び侘び-b6s Yes. One only have to look at the "Free market" argument and ask: "Free for who?" The ones with all the money ofc. They want to be in control and free to use that power to exploit the rest of us with out regulations.

[@ivandafoe5451]

This a bogus argument called "Social Darwinism" that misinterprets what Darwin meant when he posited the term "Survival of the fittest." He meant the term "fittest" as being...life that fits best into its environment will survive in the end...NOT the biggest nor the strongest.

[@secularnevrosis]

You can turn the same argument against free markets and capitalism. It causes conflicts. It's detremental to the enviroment that sustains us. It's wasteful and inefficient with our resources. It makes us work harder even though the advancements in technology should give us more time. We produce for the sake of production and profits. Quality and longevity is bad for profits. Resources go to the people with the money and not to they are most needed. Etc etc. It's detached from the needs of humans. It's no longer fit to provide for the survival of our species. So it's time for it to go extinct! Lets evolve our system.

[@andypex2000]

Great teaching 👍

[@arts.3544]

I agree with you with a single remark: Co-ops are for educated people only . All the best.

[@josephcrespo8193]

Richard Wolff is today's Karl Marx, an American. What a gift !

[@imbalancedstatus8824]

The sad thing is that many of the poor still believe in the capitalist system. They have this hope they will be beneficiary one day..like buying the lottery ticket.

[@allenmorgan4309]

For me capitalism is what allowed me to be self employed for all my adult life. I never had a big company I was just a home improvement guy that worked on n my own using my personal skills to make a living for myself without being hindered by the government. That is the back bone of a capitalist society and it does work.

[@georgefurman4371]

Actually work , the worker in action is what makes capitalism run as a system. As a machine producing. Not the system working for you. The system allows for individual enrichment up to the point where that individual needs to use the work of others with an advantage in order to function as a capitalist. The system don't work for everybody . it works for a few. It is the nature and way of the system of capitalism. The nature of your work as an individual is producing to the individual capacity level. But it is also a weak competitor within capitalism if it is a single individual. Capitalism does not work for society benefit. It serves the few capitalizing others work or don't work as capitalism.

[@jeffnewman8261]

Spot on

[@andiyazi_sana]

This is validating and makes me sound less crazy. Anywho, anyone know where I can find a South African version of this?

[@Gigika313]

What’s not, everything is wrong with this system, can we talk about solutions now?

[@adams6412]

@UCqKxuuAa0h-oIO2tEAakuxA

[@cheri238]

@@adams6412 quack, quack says the duck to the monkey 🐒

[@TennesseeJed]

WASF

[@adams6412]

@@cheri238 geez

[@denodan]

Cooperative societies were villages and how mankind used to live before evolving cities.

[@cesarcalderonvalles]

Excellent video thank you proff!

[@peterchen952]

Thank you Prof. Wolff and you always get to the truth. Russia stay sustainable from this sanction bc of India, China and many countries in Europe and Asia. As India FM said not all Europe problems are our problems bc we have to think of the survival on each country. I think the world are tired of all the wars created by NATO in Europe and the Middle East.

[@byronchurch]

Yes ! And somehow we need to give back 33 1/3 to our shared environment !

[@davesiegal3592]

"They" also give the largest campaign contributions. Without campaign finance reform, ain't nuthin gonna happen.

[@rubensdesateles108]

The working class doesn’t need the hundred richest people in the world. The best for us working class is to achieve the smallest number of poor people ever in the world.

[@veganbadass]

Truth drops by Professor Wolff BOOM!

[@Sa1991mo]

Profit focus under any circumstances will cause workers to go burned up, which will drop their effectivness and production.

[@rmhosamani]

Interesting n informative 👍

[@camillesemaan7325]

Wage/Price Freeze sounds like something worth trying

[@mudpiemudpie785]

Because wages have been so suppressed in this country, the only freeze on wages should applied to those at the top, not for those making our disgustingly low minimum wage. Otherwise, I agree with a wage/price freeze.

[@Crazywaffle5150]

Not really durring this time. Wages should not be froze for regular workers.

[@jgalt308]

Yeah, that worked so well in the 70's that what cost $4.67 in 1970, cost $9.93 in 1980 which is an inflation rate of 112% in ten years.

[@roysmith8071]

14:48 I like M Friedman, but I took it as a self governed kind of mentality. He just didn't seem to have any lines to cross. Full libertarianism. Watched him on Donahue

[@georgefurman4371]

Wake up. The wealthy servants only have lies and pragmatic experiments of death and poverty in store for the confused and those defeated or bought corrupt politicians serving those wealthy paying Friedman and others to lie.

[@p.a.andrews7772]

I wonder if this is one of the reasons they're not using hydrogen much are other alternative energies that don't go with capitalism possibly?

[@zeusvalentine3638]

Great Stuff! Now do one on "what's wrong with Socialism" After that one, we can get together and figure out a new system that has the best aspects of both systems and none of the negatives.

[@stealth-350]

The discussion of this issue claims to be a full-fledged video. But in a nutshell, I would put it this way. Firstly, at the moment there is no complete economic model of socialism, which should be the basis of this system. And secondly, the plan driven economy, which is usually associated with socialism, implies manual management and strongly depends on the range of goods and production volumes. The more different goods there are in your economy, the more difficult it is to make a good plan. Because of this, such an economy scales very poorly. The market driven economy deals with this much better. But there are also advantages. A plan driven economy can be oriented towards meeting social needs. That is, to create what people need, not what makes a profit. The market driven economy is always only about profit, regardless of what people need.

[@antediluvianatheist5262]

The main problem with socialism, is that capitalists keep trying to kill you.

[@patriziacasagrande3833]

Mr Wolf, Is describing the corporations responsibility to the communities in which they exist and in which they profit from the resources available. This is not exactly new. Prior to 1980's all universities with business or management coarse taught this corporate ideology. The corruption has a responsibility to the communities in with they exist. From the 1800's untill 1980's many cities and small communities grew by way of these wealthy corporations family owned who lived in the community where they existed. Therefore they vestiges in their communities, workers pay, housing. infrastructure churches YMCA''s parks recreation etc. You can still see many of these small Villages that were built on this idea. Today many are deteriorating and dying as those corporations bought into the milton Friedman BS and the original families sold off the businesses to foreign entities or outside investors who do not live or work in those communities. Their role as to milton Friedman is to suck all the wealth out of the community and then liquidate selling it off and or closing leaving the community to dry up. You can also see that in progress as you drive across the mid west. . It is a simple old question of your responsibility to the community in which you live and work and to your neighbors.

[@blogintonblakley2708]

Market systems are based on greed. Greed destroys the communities that tolerate it. This is not a problem that is confined to capitalism... All markets systems suffer from the effects of institutionalizing greed.

[@chuckleaf8027]

How is greed institutionalized?

[@blogintonblakley2708]

@@chuckleaf8027 Profit is one way.

[@chuckleaf8027]

@@blogintonblakley2708 Here we go again...says the Gipper!!!! What do you mean by institution then? It's usually government agencies...

[@chuckleaf8027]

@@blogintonblakley2708 You just mean society then?

[@blogintonblakley2708]

@@chuckleaf8027 Banks are institutions based on greed. The government is an institution based on greed. The law is an institution based on greed. In fact every institution of our society has some element of accepted greed within it. This is a feature of civilization itself. Not just one or the other market system. No other culture that we know of except civilization tolerates greed in it's leaders. And civilization keeps falling apart as greedy people gain control of the levers of it's institutions and begin setting policy to further enrich themselves instead of maintaining the interests of the society itself.

[@swingAE86]

Everything. Next question

[@camilomiranda9844]

Gracias

[@shellb1633]

Thank you once again.

[@treefrog3349]

The government DOES understand the basic concept of the Common Good. After all, it is very eager to ensure that its military is well fed, equipped, trained, educated, housed and clothed. They realize that the cohesion and effectiveness of its "defense" forces depend upon it. Why do they ignore those same requirements in the general population? THAT is the question that no-one seems to ask. It is the huge hypocritical "elephant in the room" (Capitol Building).

[@micixduda]

you should cut out educated. switch it with indoctrinated

[@winstonsolipsist1741]

I thought the "invisible hand" was the market?

[@ivandafoe5451]

Smith used the term (only 3 times) as a joke about markets...most people didn't get the joke...they have been led to believe he was serious. Look it up.

[@JT.Pilgrim]

Do you have anyone in Canada I can connect with? I’m down for this and i have organizing experience as Provincial District Council of a trade union. I’d like to carry this on up north. 🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦

[@JT.Pilgrim]

Im currently a homeless activist living a mendicant way.

[@alanOHALAN]

I hope Pro.Wolff has good students.

[@quakers200]

Wages were generally higher when unions were strong but Republicans convinces many that unions were the problem. Come to find out that appears to be wrong, like the idea that corporate earning not taxed would be spent on rebuilding the economy, instead just the opposite is occuring. Thank Reagan for both of those missteps plus increasing the debt 180% and increasing the size of government.

[@aubreystone1058]

Greed is side product.. comes with the territory...it's in the pudding.. can't dismiss the word GREED ...