Everything You’re Told About Modern Capitalism is Wrong | Aaron Bastani Meets Ruchir Sharma

[@dazecm]

Pulling back the curtain on what is basically turning out to be socialism for the rich and austerity for the poor.

[@MrKleinable]

The current system?

[@michaelrch]

This is soooo old though. Literally MLK said in 1968 "This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor." This guy is not only not saying anything new, he is reaching for all the wrong solutions. He cannot even use a good definition of capitalism...

[@johnmoorefilm]

🎯

[@fuckbankers]

Old news

[@TheControlBlue]

Do you guys just repeat that mantra for everything? "Well I don't like it, so I guess it's Socialism for the rich, and Austerity for the poor" So cheap.

[@susanmercurio1060]

What happened in the last 10 or 20 years is that the biggest companies have gotten bigger than the government and they can buy the legislation that they want, to protect their profits.

[@bradleyp3655]

Political lobbying by corporation and the wealthy should be deemed illegal by all counties.

[@susanmercurio1060]

@bradleyp3655 I think you mean countries. And yes, Congress never should have passed Citizens United. It shows the stranglehold on our government that it was ever passed in the first place.

[@rrluthi1]

There's still more of us than them, so direct action can work.

[@susanmercurio1060]

@@rrluthi1 please read From Dictatorship to Democracy by Dr Gene Sharp

[@intelligenceofacertainkind]

It's 'got' not 'gotten'. Out of here with your Americanisms!

[@michaelrch]

“This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, 1968 Government giving hand outs to the rich is NOT new...

[@frankshailes3205]

Often "handing out" companies worth billions by selling at a massive undervaluation. Royal Mail was practically stolen from us.

[@Colston3]

When he started talking about housing and the reason why it went off the rails, no mention of artificial scarcity, nothing about private equity.

[@CHIEF_420]

🧂🧂

[@LaSerpentDEden]

well no shit, hes the chair of rockefeller groups of investments. Theyre buying up a SHITON of land worldwide

[@jim23mac]

or immigration - the recipe for the last 30 years has been to use migration to keep wages low so GDP grows and GDP/capita stagnates and the gap in tax revenue/capita is paid for with borrowing. In 2023 the net figure was 780k which represents 340k houses/flats at the standard occupancy rate of 2.3 persons/house. It is unsustainable and the changes we now need to make the transition are so radical neither Labour nor Conservatives can even contemplate them

[@eleghari]

Did you expect a Morgan Stanley/Rockefeller CM guy to do anything different? 🤭

[@GaryParris]

Exactly! this is basic and he is gaslighting people on it!

[@tomb020780]

22:00 - oh dear. I was interested right up until the point where he blamed unaffordable housing on over-regulation and not enough houses being built. Can someone at Novara drop him a link to Gary's KZbin channel, please? EDIT: while I stand by my observation (and mildly witty retort *mustache twirl*) I'm seeing a deluge of childish, "Novara =capitalist apologist now! I'm cancelling my donation! Not left enough, Waa Waa! " in these comments. The point is the discussion. That's what Novara is for. Why not help the left loose less by dropping this whingey, left shibboleth rhetoric and critique the arguments presented.

[@andrebittar8666]

Also at 23:18 he says governments can't keep running deficits to address the polycrisis we're facing. Someone send him The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton (or a link to Ash's interview with her on Novara). His example of France is incorrect (or disingenuous?) as it is in the eurozone and does not issue its own currency. Countries with monetary sovereignty do not have the same constraints. In fact, from this point onwards he just spouts utter rubbish. He'd do well to watch Gary's channel. Another terrible judgement call from Aaron.

[@totonow6955]

Thank you. I won't waste my time.

[@luisdavidllense2293]

He also lost me when he pedestalled crypto nonsense.

[@timjkoala7556]

Yea, that was complete bullshit

[@tomb020780]

@@luisdavidllense2293 yeah that was disappointing as well.

[@BonaNitooo]

The first two hundred years of capitalism were also based on slavery and the complete immiseration of industrial workers. Welfare, and state taking on more and more stuff more broadly, happened because left to its own devices, capitalism was undermining its productive base (letting its workers die in poverty). The way this guy talks, its as though the state just decided to expand. As with all his other examples, the state has expanded (both in terms of security and welfare) to keep the capitalism ship afloat.

[@intelligenceofacertainkind]

Forgot to say the impact of two world wars was enormous. It forced greater involvement by the state and rapid technological development. I found it remarkable how this was never mentioned in this discussion. It's as though the guest thinks conscripting millions of people, millions dead and injured, towns and cities bombed to pieces, wartime demands for resources - had negligible effect on state involvement. The state was forced to become more interventionist by war. It didn't do it out of the goodness of its own heart.

[@kennethmarshall306]

And massive monopoly. The United States realise that with his anti-trust was.

[@CHIEF_420]

🧂

[@valmal-g3x]

There was a question that hinted at it, "universal suffrage", but that was dodged

[@fellowworkero7]

I came here to say this too. It is crazy to call any part of the US government in the first 200 years democratic.

[@kennethmarshall306]

If this guy wrote the best economics book of the year the bar must be pretty low.

[@user-fd7gy9zh8x]

What do you mean?

[@adityamohan8514]

For some reason he is being promoted everywhere

[@shama6394]

@@user-fd7gy9zh8x well for a start he's bollocking on about socialism of the rich as though it's something he just came up with rather than robbed from left-wing tropes that have been around for longer than he's been alive. That's before you get on to his slate of solutions, which quite blatantly involve just stripping back the State as far as it can be, framed as getting rid of protections for big tech but meaning everything and everyone. The "get rid of red tape to encourage growth" stuff is straightforward neoliberalism. Bastani rather shamefully doesn't push him on it because he prefers a chummy tone.

[@jccouture13]

The dude isn't saying anything new, is changing definitions of capitalism to suit the narrative that "we don't have true capitalism" because of government regulations and bailouts. Instead of the reality we've known for over a hundred years now. This was the inevitable end point for an economic system that values consolidating assets and power to a smaller and smaller group of Capitalists. @@user-fd7gy9zh8x

[@snc8537]

Um Arh, Arh , um, arrh - Bastani asked how do you fit in all that you do? writers have a type of rhythm . Naomi Klein : shows emotions, may pause, laugh , smile . .. This is a runaway train lots of platitudes

[@jesusbf8169]

24:00 Japan must be a communist country then: As of March 2023, the Japanese government debt is estimated to be approximately 9.2 trillion US dollars (1.30 quadrillion yen), or 263% of GDP,[1] and is one of the highest among developed nations (from Wikipedia). Sorry, but I don't find Sharma's discourse to be interesting. Too simplistic. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that he is too dependent on economic myths or dogmas in his analysis (like ur-capitalism was pure and good, and now it is gone wrong -but I don't think any historian would agree that the conditions and the way the markets worked in the 200 last years is consistent or uniform, across time and space).

[@mcgilcol]

He's also clueless about the history of the electoral franchise in America as demonstrated by his claim that unfettered capitalism existed alongside universal suffrage in the US -- that's just ahistorical nonsense and Aaron ought to have called him on it

[@ironhammer4095]

Don't forget, nearly all of Japan's Debt is Domestic Debt not Foreign Debt. That makes a big difference. Most countries with High Debt have a large Foreign Debt.

[@michaelrch]

@@mcgilcolyou can be certain that whenever a right wing guest makes a dumb point, Aaron will be there to,... watch it sail by and move onto something else. These interviews are getting so tedious now...

[@Trials_By_Errors]

Japan have USA to invest. Where will the biggest economy of our world will invest ????

[@colincampbell4261]

​​@@ironhammer4095yip - Japans debt is like saving with the government, paid back in Yen. An internal investment by its citizens.

[@dovic86]

this guy sounds like your average Wall Street libertarian to me. he's trying to peddle the left-wing argument about governments unconditionally supporting banks and big corporation to advocate for the general shrinking of state intervention. his point about house building being held back by regulation is both so classic and so suspect.

[@macmillant]

Yeah, zero push back on that was disappointing. My country (Australia) has a 'housing and rental crisis' at the same time there are a over 1000000 empty homes because housing is the no. 1 vehicle for investment. It's not regulation on building that is 80% of the issue.

[@DzorDzi83]

​@@macmillantSame in Slovenia, his analysis misses the point

[@butterfish-g9f]

Then he goes on to claiming crypto is a viable alternative, or gold backed currency which was abandoned for a reason.

[@dovic86]

honestly, everything came full circle when he explained that, in order to keep up with current events in the world, he reads the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Guardian and Vanity Fair. I have better source of information than this guy, and I'm not an expert.

[@poindextertunes]

glad i came to the comments first. gunna skip this one

[@LovePeaceNappiness]

I think Novara needs to take a more contratrian stance at times. You don't need to be friends so much with the people you interview. Please ctitique your interviewee's ideas a bit more. Nice to get more right wing views. But without serious critique and debate, we might as well listen to Joe Rogan 🤷🏾. (Or perhaps I'm wrong - and Novara basically gave this man enough speaking time to show the lack of depth behind his ideas 🤷🏾)

[@shama6394]

The trouble is guys like this are professional obfuscators, so if you know what you're looking for his flaws are quite obvious, but if you don't he sounds very plausible. Bastani's doing the right more favours than the left with this one. That he thinks this hardline Back To Basics Capitalism merchant wrote the best book of the year is ... interesting.

[@kevinthurlow5593]

I think that, as Georg Christoph Lichtenberg suggested, the limit of a book’s value is determined by its readers - and, similarly, Novara’s audience are good enough to pick up on the key strengths and weaknesses of someone’s arguments. Some of the comments on here certainly indicate as much. So, I think your final parenthetical comment is spot on…but it’d be a great idea to have a follow up to these interviews, where (once the dust has settled and people have digested/commented) Aaron/Novara were to present a left-wing, critical analysis that follows on from the main talking points that emerged. Kind of like the MSM: ‘what the papers say’ segments, but rather: ‘what the comments section has said’ with perhaps their view on the perceived validity of any common issues, perhaps with further reading suggestions, pro or contra. For me, that would be more interesting than a ‘heat of the moment’ crossing of ideological swords.

[@MutantNinjaDonut]

Aaron Bastani is always like this in interviews. Shame we can’t get Ash Sarkar doing interviews with people like this.

[@alancornes8916]

He has the same understanding of economics as Robert Peston which isn’t a good thing. He’s basically a neoliberal with some understanding of microeconomics.

[@rogerhigman7568]

No offence, but I watched the first 21 minutes of this interview and didn't hear a single thing from Ruchir Sharma that I hadn't heard previously from numerous free market acolytes in the 1980s.

[@kennethmarshall306]

Spot on

[@GaryParris]

absolutely! what is Aaron on? best book of the year!

[@t_b_c]

Yeah, I'm giving up around the same market because all I've heard is a rich guy whine about regulation and undermine his credibility in the process.

[@jakcasey2048]

He literally suggests in this video that the FED should have a mandate to stop asset price inflation. You've let your bias get in the way.

[@rogerhigman7568]

@@jakcasey2048 Possibly. As I said, I only made it through the first 21 minutes. Perhaps he should have said it sooner!

[@Vintagelios-nk2km]

Lot of insights here about the broken capitalism we have, but do not agree with his conclusions. Privatize everything? You can't be serious. Here in the US that's what the plutocrats are already implementing, and the inequality keeps widening, while the working class is being pushed into virtual serfdom. The country is being hollowed out by corporations. Your solution is more power to corporations? We need to take on the unlimited power of corporations, regulate and tax them accordingly, nationalize energy, healthcare, and other public works, and restore workers' rights across the board. When a manchild like Musk can accrue a personal wealth of hundreds of billions, and buy any political office he wants, it's not that he's dealing with too much regulation, but that he gets to write the legislation, while working people do not get any real representation in this fake democracy.

[@21jamieh]

Oh dear. Capitalism apologist platformed..... We dont need to hear more about "how capitalism went wrong", we should be hearing about how capitalism at its root is oppression. If youre going to platform capitalists at least push back and challenge his points.

[@TheControlBlue]

A lot more people have been oppressed, and are still oppressed, under socialist oppression.

[@scallamander4899]

I know, for me, it’s like saying there are good and bad forms of imperialism!

[@arsenystarostin662]

What's the point of hearing another "capitalism is oppression" take? 99% of this channel's viewers agree on that already. Not to defend this particular guy, his ideas are not very novel either.

[@samdegoeij6576]

Aaron is trying to hammer down how much it's a bug not a feature.

[@ananthan8951]

If you are living in an economic environment he has studied, what's the problem in hearing him out?

[@KatieScarlett2353]

You touch on the financial crisis of 2008, without even mentioning what led to it! DEregulation of stock exchange and banking, along with computerisation, allows gambling banksters/hedge funders free rein. And home owners - particularly in US - paid the price... not the corporate financial institutions.

[@Ray25689]

"if you think everyone else is wrong, you're propably just wrong yourself" - hits the nail on the head for this one

[@cherimoya-000]

Capitalism isn’t about “competition,” as your guest says. It’s about the division of society into workers and owners.

[@stratadox3766]

You misspelled corporatism. Guest is correct.

[@cherimoya-000]

@stratadox3766 Competition is a feature of markets. Markets are not unique to capitalism. Rookie mistake.

[@Someone-d6r]

What we say about capitalism refers to Adam Smith version of free market which have "free entry" to cut down monopoly. Unlike corporatism which mimics through big governments that gets used to create monopolist

[@ramnathbhat]

So the first 200 years of capitalism went great and the first crisis of capitalism happened only in 1929? Wow Ruchir, that's an incredible claim!

[@churchilkamkb]

Media has brainwashed you into thinking every major even happening once a decade is a crisis. Crisis is a huge term. Not of the so called crisis were actually crisis

[@peterpaddler]

It's a shame that Aaron didn't interview Stephanie Kelton. He's definitely not an MMT supporter

[@musiqtee]

It’s strange how Mr. Sharma points to the right consequences - but still blames «governments»…? The whole schism of liberalism WAS that governments ended social-democratic practices. Four decades of governments «opting out» has left governance moot - across political lines, countries or the amount of deficits. He seems to overlook how money creation shifted after 1971, for central banks as well as the private banking and asset market. Indeed, housing is the primary (often single) point of people’s interaction with finance. Government spending has changed from investments towards «paying bills» - a practice that cannot work, as capital is steadily created _outside_ it. I.e. as debt. Ownership of debt is very influential to power - an imaginary heap of «money» isn’t. Remember that any deficit balances with bonds owned by _some_ entity. When and if those bond owners are private entities, and NOT governments - how can any democratic vote _mean_ anything in context? We now see that currencies regress back to asset backing, rather than pure debt. This will also be a regression towards increased state competition and geopolitical tensions. Also an indication in how trust erodes in debt holding and value of currencies. If central bank money creation loses out, so does value of ordinary paid work. Assets win, and asymmetries grow even more. No government can «spend» devalued money - and have little agency without capital conversion. A government with armed forces and a vault of gold as their single «ownerships», sounds very alienating…

[@michaelrch]

This unchallenged apologia for unregulated capitalism is the straw that broken the camel's back. That's my monthly donation cancelled. I can get this drivel in a million other places. I am not paying for it. If you want to do left journalism and education again one day, I will be pleased to come back.

[@fghhgdgdggskkk]

oh, so you were just here for the ego stroking and the pleasant echo? The narcissism of your passive aggressive "cancel culture" threat is childish. How do you even donate from your pocket money?

[@michaelrch]

@ on the contrary. I was here for a challenging interview where the guest's bs was challenged by a knowledgeable host. Instead Aaron just nodded along with pretty much everything the guest said. Even when anyone on the left would know that his arguments were shot through with giant errors. The interview thereby amounted to pro capitalist propaganda.

[@tomb020780]

@@michaelrch I might be inclined to be a little charitable towards Aaron as the bloke was clearly not well and doing an interview via Zoom is not the same for him as having someone in the room. I felt there was probably a lot of detail in the book that gave nuance to the fella's arguments but that it didn't come across well here.

[@michaelrch]

@ did you watch the interview with Anne Applebaum? It was quite similar (although Applebaum's ideas are even more wrong so Aaron had to push back a ting bit). Aaron clearly agrees with a lot of the wrongheaded ideas in the book being discussed. That's why he made a big effort to have the guy on to spread these ideas to the audience. He said these ideas challenge the right and the left. In fact, the left had a response to the issues raised here decades ago which is only being proven more correct over time.

[@danieldavis5376]

Yep. Standard neoclassical economist

[@PantomimeHorse]

Remember when Novara was a left-wing channel, rather than a wannabe Times Radio?

[@darrylsugg7230]

Really??

[@killerdec21]

A supposedly leftist media org giving a soapy interview to this guy, amazing

[@alfredk471]

I noticed a complete attitude change at NM about two or three days ago. I think they have a new sponsor.

[@Phil-n7c]

@@alfredk471 Wait til Aaron starts getting at ordinary old people... he's already re-tweeting Telegraph journalists moaning about how much public money is spent on the elderly. Think it through: if they break the triple lock against a background of rising inflation, ordinary elderly people are going to burn through their savings AND have to start selling assets. That's only going to harm them and their kids / grandkids and benefit the already super wealthy. The financial elite are clearly eyeing the baby boomers' property and don't plan to let their kids / grandkids inherit it. I'm starting to wonder if Bastaani is a plant. "Older rich people" - yeah sure, because the young ones have it sooo hard

[@ronstephen72]

@@alfredk471 It's been a LOT longer than that.

[@juhanleemet]

Stephanie Kelton points out that when a government runs a surplus, it is effectively extracting money from the private sector, which would seem to slow down the economy?

[@andrebittar8666]

And that deficits do not really matter as much as is made out for countries that issue a fiat currency.

[@DrBenVincent]

Correct. Novara have an anti-MMT stance for some reason. Which is a shame because it makes much of what they discuss totally irrelevant or wrong.

[@alancornes8916]

@@DrBenVincent Exactly. I have been pointing this out at every opportunity. Even after Ash interviewed Stephanie Kelton, in subsequent videos she confirmed that she had learnt nothing from her.

[@craigtildesley1501]

I've been in threads with Aaron where he dismisses MMT views, despite it perfectly fitting reality, he prefers the trad left wing tax the rich approach. MMT makes it clear that taxing the rich is unnecessary while ever they are sitting on their wealth as money at rest can be ignored and this just doesn't fit with the world view. I prefer outcomes where all of society improves. As for deficits not mattering, well that's just wrong, deficits have to be the right size - hence Stephanie talking about deficit owls instead of hawks and doves. As for this interview, there were points where it was neoliberal 101 tripe. He has some good concerns but draws the wrong conclusions and seems to just want to roll back the state. Regulation is necessary, maybe the state should invest in helping businesses of all sizes follow the rules

[@DrBenVincent]

@ it’s a bit of a shame. If you want to intervene and make changes in the world you need to understand how it works. And understanding monetary operations seems entirely orthogonal to whatever political views you have, so I’m unclear why there’s resistance there. It just leads to speculation about their motives.

[@NikosKoutsilieris]

Capitalism was never about competition and low profits. At first it was about colonialism and slave trade and profit upon alienation. Then it was about what dickens said in his work : chikd labor , loooong hours in industry. Then it was 2 world wars. Then it was the golden age of consensus for 30 years with unions , the state policy shifting somewhat Keynesian and the pressure of the ussr playing the role of gaining the welfare state for the masses. Then after the 80s , it was about financial casino , super globalized production and money printing mania to bail out the bankers and guarantee profits for multinationals. This idealised version he is describing never existed and never will. Seems like a hayekian mystified Fantasyland of markets are and how they work. But i have to say it is not bad to hear that even people from that camp see that the system is sick.

[@michaelrch]

And of course, the solution is less government. This is such discredited bs. It's genuinely concerning that Aaron doesn't get or call it out. I really don't want my substantial monthly donation funding this dross so I have cancelled by donation.

[@Pmor75]

100%

[@andrebittar8666]

Absolutely. Aaron misses some key opportunities to challenge what Sharma is saying.

[@kennethmarshall306]

At least Government is, in principle, responsible to the people. Private companies are not

[@whensonzhou4174]

Aaron doesnt seem to significantly challenge anyone or push back on the interview though... Gonna read comment section before watching downstream recent week

[@michaelrch]

@@whensonzhou4174 which is a big problem when the guest is spouting rubbish. It's a big disservice to the audience to just let the bs go unchallenged. In fact Aaron was actually nodding along and agreeing at most points.

[@krazeebrit]

As soon as he mentioned "Taxes pay for things" I had to switch off. "We used to run surpluses but in the last 50 years we've been running deficits!" In case he hasn't noticed, we're no longer on a gold standard or pseudo gold standard (Bretton Woods) since circa 50 years ago!!!! You can tell he's a capitalist, arguing for a fairer capitalism, not for a more equal society. Having more homes will not solve the house prices conundrum unless you regulate rents because wealthy people want to spend their money on assets that bring in a good return. Rental does that so surplus housing will get snapped up by these people, keeping the prices high. We need more regulation in areas that help people to stop them getting ripped off

[@carlyb8434]

Terms like big government or regulation are just words that don’t describe much (the size of government is far more relative than the function) the same seems to apply when talking about markets. The majority of us are not involved in regulating the government (or the markets). If the government is not regulated by its constituents then why would we expect them to regulate the markets in a beneficial way to the majority? It’s clear to many of us that the markets are regulating the government and the rest of us are just being dragged along and increasingly buried.

[@nathantolemariam2957]

"If the government is not regulated by its constituents then why would we expect them to regulate the markets in a beneficial way to the majority?" on point

[@peterwait641]

Foreign companies, hedge funds and private equity are allowed to buy UK companies load them with debt and asset strip. This makes the country poorer. Many of these are not in the national interest but the Governments don't care or set debt limits . Royal Mail is the latest, increased debt burden and he will be selling high value sorting office sites and moving out of town.

[@intelligenceofacertainkind]

True. Good points.

[@juhanleemet]

Richard Werner points out that banking policy should be to NOT create money for loans for speculation, but ONLY create loans (and thereby money) for true business investment, i.e. investment in the "real" productive economy and not in the financial economy (which causes asset price inflation)

[@johnmoorefilm]

🎯

[@alellanro600]

Saw his book in the shop, added it to my list. After this, I’m removing it. He doesn’t understand the dangers of deregulation and society before unions and government intervention of big monopolies. The issue today is not that governments are spending too much money, it’s that big corporations are buying politicians and making regulations benefit themselves. That is why smaller companies are struggling, because they are being held down by the bought political system. There could have been a lot more questioning of his views in this episode, you let him get away with a lot of rubbish that’s been proven wrong in the past.

[@garethwynlewis402]

Thanks!

[@hdhdhhehe6709]

Increasingly funny that Novara describes itself as “left” and even “communist” with interviews like this. If you’re going to be a vapid receptacle for neoliberal book marketing why would anyone pay you?

[@darrylsugg7230]

Isn't it always best to hear all sides and then be able to challenge? Or do you only like to hear just one view, ie yours?

[@fghhgdgdggskkk]

@@darrylsugg7230 this comment section is full of hypocrites and irony. This type of left radical love a bit of cancel culture defunding threats for not saying and doing exactly what strokes their egos

[@alancornes8916]

@@darrylsugg7230 Maybe some of us would like to hear more ‘pushbacks’ as Novara presenters often say.

[@Cro8621]

Nah this is not it. Having this guy on should have been met with combative questioning from Aaron. And he just lets this shill talk.

[@longshank59]

Here's hoping the New Year gets better for all of us. Or at least we fight back against the powers that be.

[@satyasyasatyasya5746]

*Had my suspicions about Novara for a while now... and this isn't helping*

[@TheOracle12]

Heaven forbid they interview someone you disagree with

[@satyasyasatyasya5746]

@@TheOracle12 and so it begins... textbook reply... everytime.

[@ronstephen72]

@@TheOracle12 It isn't about our agreeing or disagreeing it is about the interviewer allowing the interviewee to spout nonsense without any pushback - at all!

[@gerhard7323]

Genuinely curious. Why so in this instance?

[@intelligenceofacertainkind]

It's only a very recent development for novara having guests with different viewpoints than novara. When you've only ever been an echo chamber it takes time to build up the debating skills to rigorously test opposing viewpoints.

[@Babysqid]

Although there are germs I agree with I don't find Sharma's overall argument particularly persuasive tbh, it reminds me of old internet libertarian refrain "that's not capitalism's fault, it's corporatism!" For a start, direct government intervention in domestic markets may have been rarer in earlier phases of capitalism but wealth inequality was vast (larger than it is today) and there absolutely were commercial and industrial oligopolies that could weather even the most severe downturns thanks to their vast political influence (think of those 19th century railroad companies). And that's not mention the *intense* overseas intervention of establishing/conquering colonies and enacting highly restrictive tariff regimes.

[@juhanleemet]

I do not think that regulation is driving housing prices, more like QE causing asset price inflation?

[@alfredk471]

It is a well established fact that house price increases are driven by private equity firms like Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, etc buying up houses as an investment. The old NM subscribed to that claim but they seemed to have taken a sharp rightward turn.

[@danieldavis5376]

Yep, and the privatisation of housing stock. In UK selling council homes, buy-to-let, foreign investment. No push-back. Just accepting this neoclassical trash.

[@elrevesyelderecho]

16:45 Once the Gold was removed as a reference for the US dollar he government can do whatever they want/print money at Infinitum.

[@getmurked6859]

Jacket indoors ! guys we need to ramp up the donations.

[@rikke3510]

Perhaps brand on left side chest is ‘donating’? That and general demeanour is leaving me uncomfortable and I am leaving less than 10 minutes in.

[@FullerHob]

@@getmurked6859 please do not donate to these liberal grifters. Donate to Declassified UK instead

[@crashnova7601]

"Capitalism eating everything out of existence, including itself"

[@robertharwood8460]

Corporatism ate capitalism

[@CrackCocaKolaine]

Capitalism is just the existence of private-ownership, currency, business, competition, and profit. Capitalism does not create wealth inequality in theory. Balanced inflation is the fuel that maintains the existence of capitalism.

[@michaelrch]

@@CrackCocaKolaineno it isn't that. The most useful definition of capitalism is the central class relationship and the process of capital accumulation through M > C > C' > M' Markets, private ownership, competition etc are not unique to capitalism so they are useful as part of the definition.

[@CrackCocaKolaine]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@michaelrch If you remove one thing out from the essential unified-building-blocks of capitalism I described above, then you have no capitalism. There are multiple types of capitalism too and all of them have the essential things to capitalism I mentioned above. What you are describing is the practical consequence of capitalism caused by some human psychologies and also a partial definition of capitalism that is just profit.

[@michaelrch]

@ ok thanks. But that obvious nonsense. You have no idea of what you're talking about.

[@andrebittar8666]

At 23:18 he spouts some utter garbage (i.e economic orthodoxy). He says governments can't keep running deficits to address the polycrisis we're facing. Someone send him The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton (or a link to Ash's interview with her on Novara). His example of France is incorrect (or disingenuous?) as it is in the eurozone and does not issue its own currency. Countries with monetary sovereignty do not have the same constraints.

[@alancornes8916]

@@andrebittar8666 Novara seems to be resolutely against MMT for reasons I can’t fathom.

[@johnmoorefilm]

I do love the way “we seem to have…” is applied to systemic analysis…”seem to…”. Right.😐

[@ronstephen-wy4ib]

Two apples plus one apple seems to be three apples.

[@joeldwest]

Austerity for starving homeless people is terrible. We need more social programs not less. We need SS fully funded

[@bengallup9321]

Yet another soft-ball platforming of conservative tripe. This channel is really going downhill fast, which is a shame.

[@Mikeybandz]

A lot of the guests that have been on this show in the past few times have been pretty bad. Where are guys finding these people? “Let’s ask the financier what we don’t understand about capitalism” lol what?

[@maltesetony9030]

On competition: "One capitalist kills many," (Marx).

[@nicolaford7510]

It is not so much governments regulating capitalusts...but capital regulating governments. Ha ha.

[@reniayou001]

I was about to be fascinated by the analysis until I heard that Greece is doing very well after the reforms. Greece's public debt is higher now that it was before the reforms, both in real numbers and as GDP ratio. Besides, nothing belongs to us anymore thus no government would be able to have an independent political initiative regarding the economy in the foreseeable future unless a new cosmogony occurs.

[@jaiagarwalla]

Look. The state does not operate in a bubble and the view presented/implied is that if only if state had been an independent arbiter we would not have had this situation.The state is basically in the control of (though not fully) CAPITAL ie the people owning capitalism, the people believing in capitalism , the narrative of Big capital . The state is just a tool of whoever controls it . we need the people to control the state .

[@erkinun]

Answer to this question "But why is the economic model of the West increasingly incapable of generating growth without more debt?": You need more money to create and support economic growth, unfortunately they call money creation "creating debt" these days. Also the reason we have a housing crisis has a lot more to do with the captive markets of housing and no alternative supply from the public side.

[@rayciaf]

Capitalism seems to be ‘working’ exactly the way it is supposed to.

[@kennethmarshall306]

What should really matter is whether we have got the people the skills and the resources we do what we need and want. Not whether we’ve got money, which can be printed any time you want to divide up the wealth we create.

[@been_a_bean]

Gary's Economics channel explaind v clearly: A. Why government is spending more and yet leaving people dissatisfied B. Housing crisis Its wealth inequality. If wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, they will invest by buying housing and infrastructure, driving prices up well beyond what the average person can afford. The rest of us (individuals and governments) will pay higher and higher rates, leading to a cycle of us getting poorer and the wealthy wealthier. We need a wealth tax.

[@DileepaRanawake]

Disagree with so much this dude is saying. I agree re not bailing out big companies. He’s wrong about housing costs. Young people can’t afford houses because their income has not grown, their debt has grown, and they are competing against private equity and people with heaps of cash in the bank. We need to tax the super rich. Stop money influencing politics. Tackle wealth inequality and prioritise people over profit.

[@neilsingh17]

I think his fundamental problem is that his definition of capitalism is about competition. That isn’t actually true. It’s a lie that pro-capitalist economists like to put out there, rather capitalism is a society that is run in the interests of capitalism and in fact this ultimately tends towards monopoly.

[@andymetcalf9902]

My thoughts are that there is agreement here about them way capitalism is described - it’s all about government policy - but what about the inherent tendency for capitalism to become more and more monopolised , more and more dominated by huge multinationals. Does not that inherent tendency explain so much of what we experience in capitalist societies today ❤

[@Sherkriek]

I've just finished listening this podcast and reading Sharma's book. I have to say I am somewhat disappointed by Aaron's lack of critical analysis or challenges of the theories put forward by Sharma. Sharma essentially argues that over-regulated capitalism and socialism for the rich is the problem, and if we identified this problem and just went back to competitive market forces then all would be well again. I am sceptical about his apparent lack of knowledge (as well as disappointed by Bastani's mention of) established Marxist theory which completely predicted that this is not an unintentional outcome but the completely inevitable conclusion of capitalist economics. Wealth concentration and the lobbying of monopolies to ensure it's continued hegemony is the point, not an accident. The basic principle is obvious - we cannot continue to enjoy continued economic GDP growth indefinitely. It is the fundamental question which lacks an answer by Sharma. Marxist theory predicted exactly all of what we see today. It isn't reversible through some lens of "fair and competitive" capatalist utopia which simply will not exist again. The economic growth we enjoyed over the last century came down to our productivity gains due to industry and novel fossil fuel usage. Is there a new super energy source or global technological innovation on the horizon which is going to herald some new age of economic growth? AI will only exacerbate the problem. The answers lie in instead readdressing what the point of society and work should fundamentally be about - improving our collective human experience. If we continue to think about our lives as Sharma does, the market will continue to run us for it's own good (and it will run us into the ground), instead of us running it. Again, disappointing to see no introduction of leftist theory into this discussion from this channel. But thank you for hosting the conversation nonetheless.

[@kennethmarshall306]

Capitalism wouldn’t last for five minutes without a strong government to support the capitalists. Development is a better aspiration than growth

[@noelburke9845]

Aaron ... 24 minutes in and no questions about the relationship between economic growth and energy supply ... his perspective is the protection of private wealth, it seems to me. Given the environmental and energy rock and hard place situation we are in the social justice momentum is toward the leveling DOWN of wealth ... the pie is shrinking. This needs to be acknowledged.

[@getmurked6859]

Please aaron try to get Micheal Hudson on,

[@andheydsj]

Competition is pointless because most things today don’t need to be competed over, they need standardisation and ease of access.

[@intelligenceofacertainkind]

I think that's true of immutable things like water, electric, gas, oil, coal, nuclear fuel, steel, timber, concrete, bricks, roads, railways, sanitation. But in other areas competition is good.

[@andheydsj]

@ Most industrial equipment and manufacturing facilities also need standardisation and ease of access. This is largely forgotten.

[@andheydsj]

@ Robotics, Ai and a lot of tech should probably be standardised also too to a degree.

[@theenglandyoda]

Didn't expect to hear arguments like this atall on Norva Media. These are more common on right leaning outlets like Lotus Eaters, pointing out the problems with Corporatism (our current system) v. Laissez-faire Capitalism of the past. The only argument not mentioned here was the role of Fiat Money in allowing huge government deficits after the Nixon Shock.

[@davidparry5310]

'Laissez-faire capitalism' never existed.

[@Anarchist_syndicalist]

Sharma is an upper caste in the Indian caste system and they hold 60 percent of indian wealth and have over representation in political and news media, entertainment, sports and corporations.

[@andrebittar8666]

Next week, "Everything You’re Told About Communism is Wrong | Aaron Bastani Meets Jordan Peterson"

[@sabyasachimitra5719]

I used to like this kind books ("what went wrong with Capitalism/Free market, etc.") when I was not following Marx' economic theory. Generally such books try to prove that Capitalism is good system but some politicians, governments ruins it always. This is a logically flawed argument. If you need an investment banker (with Marxist background), bring Tony Norfield (his book The City) or Michael Roberts.

[@ntskl]

Bailouts of big companies didn't start in the 80's in the USA, they began as soon as the central bank was established.

[@chipperrobinson4663]

Is novara media now a platform for extreme neoliberalism? This guy is talking just like a partner in a financial consultancy company. Heard it all before many times. What happened to class struggle Aaron? Are you now new Labour?

[@benharris3285]

The government can instruct its central bank to set a zero interest rate permanently. Japan has been doing this for many years now. All the bond traders keep claiming that their government and currency is going to collapse and the BoJ just holds the line and nothing happens. All the deficit and debt payment stuff is rubbish when you are a large diversified economy with your own currency

[@zakpullen8113]

He doesn't really get macro. Surpluses require deficits somewhere.

[@EastbourneEscrime]

Just a rehash of Milton Friedman, but those economics got us here. Because big business only wants regulation to go, not the safety nets. It's a shell game where the corporations got the best of both. Noone wants Wild West capitalism; been there and we all nearly died.

[@fashphil]

Agreed, most of this is indistinguishable from Friedman.

[@fredrickdemello2260]

I am from India and sharma is the last guy I expected to see on novaro. Why would you invite him? Extremely disappointed. He is more concerned about maintaining the capitalist status quo without it getting too unpopular.

[@charlenegraham1923]

Huge deregulation that happened in the 80s is the cause of the bank failures but the gov knows this type of instability causes great suffering for the population so they bail out the banks. So the banks have it both ways; so now banks do what they want and bear no consequences!

[@jtvj8423]

Ah the head of Rockefeller Capital Management's international business, and was an emerging markets investor at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. Great platforming once again, when you could have on leftists and teach communism instead. There are endless amounts of conversations that need to be had to educate leftism. We don't need capitalists.

[@FullerHob]

Well said. Most people leaving comments like yours are also being purged by Novara (like my comment). They do this with all their videos

[@Pmor75]

100%

[@kristinwatkins371]

What went wrong with capitalism? It began to exist!

[@robertharwood8460]

Capitalism was ruined by corporatists

[@intelligenceofacertainkind]

Kings, lords and squires looked after the people better than the business class. They allowed and protected the use of common lands and at least they had chivalry, loyalty, a sense of duty and a code of ethics. Making money, at any cost, in any way, is heartless and anti-human.

[@Stoddardian]

I love capitalism. It's making me rich.

[@jamietulacz7742]

Disagree fundamentally on the point around housing affordability being down to too many regulations. Private builders are not building for profit based reasons and the state is not building enough houses

[@daviddevoy5966]

To a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail. It sounds like your guest is identifying the same problem as Gary Stevenson, capitalism is simply resulting in growing inequality.. The divergence is in the proposed solution. Gary wants more government intervention, this guy wants less. They can't both be right.

[@jameswarren2222]

I understand novaras stance on being friendly to interviewees so they can get a wide range of interviews and we as an audience can make our own mind up but I don't see how any of his suggestions will remove wealth from the rich. I would have like Aaron to ask that. He says there is socialism for the rich but then doesnt suggest anything that would help with that... Well thats not true i suppose hes suggesting socialism for no one.. Last time wealth inequality went down was after second world war. We had 90% taxs on high profits. Just do that again. Sorted.

[@TraceyCutts]

The corporations and banks have become too big to fail! Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor 😢

[@dp9ch]

Churn has social consequences, mostly bad ones. So let's not completely damn socialization of risk. Let's simply cap the upside: When governments spend the big bucks, there needs to be a contractual and enforced limit on the profits. It has been done before during the space race with the almost limitless investments into NASA.

[@CastroWu]

I'm favoured financially with Bitcoin ETFs approval, Thank you buddy.$28,600 weekly profit regardless of how bad it gets on the economy.

[@TheophilusGogo]

Same here., I strongly agree that the Bitcoin ETFs approval will be greatly life opportunity for us, with my current portfolio of $102,500 from my investments with my personal financial advisor Steve Miley I totally agree with you😊

[@SusanSummers-i1w]

YES!!! That's exactly his name (Steve Miley) so many people have recommended highly about him and am just starting with him from Brisbane Australia...🇦🇺

[@NicoleAllen-d5s]

He's my family's personal Broker and also a personal Broker to many family's in the United states, he is licensed and a FINRA AGENT in the United States.

[@GoodNess-u7d]

The very first time we tried, we invested $1000 and after a week, we received 4500. That really helped us a lot to pay up our bills.

[@EdwardCoblah]

Steve Miley has really set the standard for others to follow, we love him in Canada🇨🇦as he has been really helpful and changed lots of life's

[@positivepolitics1]

I quit listening to this ideologue after 20 mins. Did Aaron ever hold him to account?

[@no_humbug1535]

I have not yet read Ruchi Sharma's book, but I will, so I might be doing him injustice. His view of competition seems rather to be a 'neo-classical' view of competition that does not obtain in reality, that a myriad smaller companies compete to compete away 'super normal' profits. The reality is that some of the technology giants of today - e.g. Google, Facebook etc. - are natural monopolies that serve as utilities where competition would not necessarily serve the public interest. Yet this concentration of power in the hands of the few has to be challenged. I don't know how - I don't have the answer is. Sorry!

[@ronstephen-wy4ib]

Professor of Economics Richard Wolff has the answer. Most people don't want to hear it. Democracy in the workplace. He's on YT.

[@fghhgdgdggskkk]

A monopoly can only be in the public interest if it is owned by the state. The fact that my comment survival rate on youtube is around 50% because google chooses what dialogue is and is not allowed should exemplify the problem. Google curates the internet and the information landscape and now we have biased AI's to tell everyone about all the things they don't quite understand. Google is a nightmare come to life

[@fghhgdgdggskkk]

If you can't see my previous comment then it shows how Google needs to be broken apart in the public's/humanity's interest

[@LeeJohnApeDor]

Maybe we can let people know in the comments that you can listen to people, disagree with them, and say why, without having a complete tantrum about it. You don't have to agree with someone to learn from them.

[@nicolaford7510]

But Aaron didnt disagree with him. That is the problem. His questions were shallow and so the whole interview was much less interesting than it might have been.

[@kennethmarshall306]

I subscribe to the Hoover Institution to get this sort of perspective

[@LeeJohnApeDor]

@@kennethmarshall306 Go there then? This is the attention economy and you just admitted to investing badly.

[@grubernitsch]

5:35 ff, I am afraid that this distinction made here between the bad monopoly capital and the good 'competition' of small and medium enterprises will lead to a reinvention of the Ferdinand Braudel (nouvelle histoire) type of thinking ... which has been playing out in the confederated EU for the last 30, 40, 50 years. 'But the EU is run by big business', you might say. To which one might reply that this is exactly what the rule-based order is supposed to forbid from happening. With 'rules based order' is meant the system of abstract labor, value, commodity, money, market, state, nation, democracy; or simply bracket it as 'technocracy') ... and so we go back to politics, still supporting big business, etc. and so on. An inward spiral ad infinitum.

[@JustinKent]

"regulatory overkill" wtf are you talking about man? these firms are bleeding us dry and he thinks we have too much regulation and hopes that DOGE can have a meaningful impact? get out of here with that nonsense.

[@delfimoliveira8883]

This guy makes some good points but there's a thing he can't see the actual state of capitalism is not an anomaly but it's systemic to late stage Capitalism

[@mattdavies8153]

"Housing is expensive due to regulations". No that's not the reason. Too much of what this guy says accepted without question.

[@abraxis20]

We already have relatively new builds falling apart within a few years. How much more deregulation does he want?

[@mattdavies8153]

@@abraxis20 billionaire states that the reason society doesn't work is because he has to follow too many rules, and this is just accepted?

[@mt0068]

@@abraxis20 That's not due to deregulation - its an inability of the state to correctly enforce regulation that exists with regards to quality guarantees both during and after the build process.

[@MitchT1211]

I don't know why I got pulled into this. High end strategist of the capitalist class 'The solution is less regulation' Exactly what every capitalist says. Maybe try, redistribution of wealth? 'No no no can't do that'

[@gerhard7323]

Always welcome when a poacher apparently turns gamekeeper but the reality, as ever, is that they invariably only do it once they've made their money in the system they always knew was rotten to its core.

[@harriet1192]

This was disappointing. It would be really nice for Novara to have a wider range of guests and topics, rather than just the same types of economists all the time. Would also like hosts to critique their ideas more, there was a lot to be heavily challenged here!

[@queenvagabond8787]

What good is 'productivity' if it comes at the expense of workers rights and health and safety standards? Surely these sort of interventions are *vital* for the state to engage in to protect people as a whole? Or is this critique of 'intervention' solely about bail-outs? I agree we need more houses, but I disagree that we need to *own* our own homes, or even that its especially desirable. It would be better to reform regulation to make it easier for social housing to be constructed, with rents that will go back into the system solely for maintenance and new constructions, not to private profits.

[@RichardBergson]

Deficits per se are not the problem and it is common sense of the lowest order that in a system of a fixed amount of money if you amass surpluses in government you decrease financial resources in the economy. A major problem in rising deficits is that not enough government spending is finding its way to productive business and thereby increasing output, jobs and wages. Ruchir is obviously aware of both points but fails to make the connection.

[@MacAndBlain]

He keeps talking about excess liquidity and deficits but never mentions taxing the wealth of the rich.

[@Mondballer_00]

He’s got to link up with Gary Stevenson

[@ronstephen72]

Or Richard Wolff.

[@luisdavidllense2293]

@@ronstephen72 Even Robert Reich

[@ronstephen72]

@@luisdavidllense2293 IMHO: RR is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He says ALL the right things but he's a Capitalist through and through. None of the great socialist things he claims he stands for have EVER been adopted by ANY President that he was an advisor to. So... he talks like a socialist in public but his advice has always been pro-business and pro- Capitalism to those he advises.

[@alancornes8916]

@@Mondballer_00 Or, Richard Murphy.

[@robertward8035]

This guy's a corporate shrill. He talks in circles. Regulations do not make houses unaffordable. People think different the last fifty years. Look up how property values used to be. Greed , by flippers and home owners are trying to retire after every sell... It's a joke, and everyone has played themselves. Just watch, cars homes, you're only going to be able to lease..... You've been walking into a financial trap.

[@spiralizing]

I think his model really fails in the globalized world we live in. It's always the case with these people, they base their analysis in the past only... We live in a very different world, we need a more Bayesian approach.

[@S10wGuY]

Excellent interview - I'm really looking forward to reading the book.

[@aguy6833]

aaron you never asked him if it was a good idea to have someone running doge with that many conflicts of interest while also being a welfare billionaire

[@041101213]

Of course the investment banker completely ignores the inherent contradictions of capitalism. As if the adversarial nature of the employer/employee relationship would lead anywhere else. Regulations arent the reason housing is expensive, the rentier class, which the guest is a part of is the reason... shocking. Businessmen are the most unserious people, like y'all are common theives.

[@danieldavis5376]

Is this a new point of view? Sounds like a pretty standard neoclassical economist. Ie, competition will solve everything, negative externalities, ninbyism. Come on. The neoliberal state is the natura outcome of where big business has gained enough power to run governments