RESOURCE WARS and the Economics of Scarcity with Richard D. Wolff

[@shahramazhar4378]

The more one thinks about it carefully the more one realizes that the multiplicity of crises we face can no longer be resolved within capitalism.

[@patricialongo5870]

We always opposed it. When the sugar planters arrived in Hawaii, they brought armies to beat the population.

[@munyaradzimunodawafa7745]

yep its an irrational system supported by psychopaths

[@falsificationism]

This. This is the way. ^

[@Northstar1989]

Capitalism will doom us all if we don't act. Climate change, uncontrolled due to Capitalist greed, will eventually make the very air unbreathable, long after it leads to an increase in hurricanes and droughts. Voting the "lesser evil" of two Capitalist parties will never get us out of this trap. People of conscience need to organize and join Socialist parties (they exist almost everywhere- even the United States has the Party for Socialism and Liberation), and start a path to change- beginning with campaigning and protesting for electoral reforms to end the systemic discrimination against third parties and those not funded by billionaires (public funding of elections, Proportional Respresentation, Ranked Choice Voting).

[@Grossmanite]

@@falsificationism kzbin.info/www/bejne/sKasmYmabc2ggKs

[@HPDevlin]

it is not a scarcity of material resources that dooms us, it is a scarcity of compassion.

[@KGRICK1]

both are true.

[@SaveEarthPlsBeKind]

And the abundance of greed, topped with power.

[@bkbland1626]

There are plenty of resources....if you can pay, dig?​@@KGRICK1

[@jayzbreemo]

There is plenty of compassion to go around. The problem is that there’s no market for it since it doesn’t make wealthy people any wealthier.

[@Grossmanite]

the problem is capitalist relations of production, which are becoming obsolete with automation kzbin.info/www/bejne/sKasmYmabc2ggKs

[@anneroy5346]

So well explained. Professor Wolff apart from being a brilliant economist is an exemplary humanitarian

[@bunyip5841]

The same imperial country and system of mass starvation famished Ireland in the mid 19th century. It was a forerunner of the Bengal famine. Irish people were similarly blamed for overpopulation and practising a 'beastly' religion.

[@patricialongo5870]

Sicilians were accused of bad genes and bad values as the fascists sought to acquire Sicily, and they denuded much of it. Sicilians ended up in America.

[@Movies2049]

SCOTUS is 66.66% Roman Catholic presently

[@M.M.Alam.Liberty]

Among the world's most Brilliant and honest economists is Dr. Wolff. 👏. Thank you for exposing tricks of the Empire.

[@natalaealluneedis780]

Thank you, Professor Wolff.

[@themusicalstrings412]

Standing ovation. Brilliant.

[@heyskipj]

Something else I didn't learn in school. Thank you.

[@jelef001]

i’m also ashamed i didn’t know

[@ansa336]

@@jelef001 It is not your fault; it is because of self censorship by the authorities.

[@russlcorey]

The Kalapuyans lived for centuries in the willamette valley. When the European settlers came to the valley they trapped furs and shipped them eastward. Within 70 years, multiple species went extinct and more endangered. It took the resource extraction of capitalists a little over a generation to deplete a once reliable resource the natives utilized for 1000 years before.

[@johnwright9372]

Most of the native people were killed by disease.

[@daviddobarganes9115]

Within a decade there will be many resources that wont be expandable any more. Look at the AI demand for power. Theyll need a second sun ffs.

[@tdavani]

Mr Wolff ,you are absolutely brilliant. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your views

[@spatuloso]

Huge fan of Professor Wolff! This is a great video, but its always interesting how these discussions of scarcity and production never mention the immense amount of oil/gas to maintain, and how the consequences of that energy dependence fuels the anthropocene. Imperialism runs on fossil fuels.

[@bkbland1626]

You should e-mail Charlie. I bet the Prof will mention it before long.

[@ethankennedy7655]

I like seeing Wolff in this kind of format. I feel like when he speaks extemporaneously, he tends to sort gravitate towards a repetitive sort of righteous indignation, which is understandable but not especially enlightening. But this kind of historical backgrounder is outstanding. More of this, please.

[@bpm1965]

Agreed. And this new tempo is more suitable to a wider audience. But he always has my ear.

[@Cosmic-anti-natalist]

Valid point

[@closethockeyfan5284]

Scarcity has two basic choices: barbarism or socialism.

[@helloInternets]

Star Trek plz. Bell riots took place Sept 2024 on canon. Inshallah.

[@kheionai8380]

"Welp, we're boned." -Bender Bending Rodriguez

[@midknight1968]

Modern socialism

[@matthewcaldwell8100]

@@kheionai8380respect for remembering the middle name

[@1wun1]

Laughs in Aral Sea.

[@pedromartinez5478]

Thanks Professor Wolff for the spread of knowledge and information so important, and mentioned my countrman Eduardo Galeano, and professor UTSA Patnaik, who like her husband are amazing intellectual s enlightened us with their knowledge. Thanks.

[@alcheung405]

Excellent narrative! Objective and honest! Thanks!

[@EduardoValle-rm4xy]

"Thank you, Professor Wolff."

[@LifeofMaximizing]

Excellent analysis, thanks so much for getting Professor Wolf to speak too. I’ve learned so much from his lectures!

[@electricAB]

So the Bengal famine was another Irish potato famine inflicted on a people by the fascism of British elites. As a Westerner of British colonial decent, I find myself asking what it will take for my fellow citizens to wake up and recognise how we are being farmed by the neoliberals and the ultra rich. Farmed like proverbial mushrooms in a manure of propaganda, austerity and the illusion of superiority. Thanks for a great video 👍🏽

[@abody499]

very nice metaphor

[@SimonFranck100]

By the legendary hero Winston Churchill, no less. Yet holding Britain to account is dismissed as cancel culture or wokism

[@ttystikkrocks1042]

Once again, professor Richard Wolff speaks the truth.

[@LeftWingNationalist]

Love Professor Wolff.

[@jodawgsup]

that's quite weird, "nationalist"

[@LeftWingNationalist]

@@jodawgsup what about it?

[@jodawgsup]

@@LeftWingNationalist that inherently is contradictorary to any leftist (or marxist) cause, but since you probably haven't read a great deal, i'm not surprised

[@LeftWingNationalist]

@@jodawgsup ok

[@jodawgsup]

@@LeftWingNationalist which petty little country are you from that makes you so proud anyway?

[@greendesertgoddess]

'How to Hide An Empire: . . . " is about this! A fascinating read!

[@kalahall5170]

Thank you for speaking the truth about the continuation of colonialism and the ideology of lies spread by the Europeans.❤❤❤❤❤

[@liksar]

I will never look at the famous Winston Churchill in quite the same way again. What a statement!

[@alandoane9168]

Brilliant presentation, more of this, please!

[@kranzonguam]

Thank you, sir! Please keep up the important work!

[@davidluckens3479]

Thank you for this video-We have hungry people in Eastern Ky,-No serious person believes that this disgraceful reality is caused by immutable "natural laws"-Bob Dylan might well have been thinking of the deep poverty of Owsley County Ky ,when he asked rhetorically in a long ago classic '60s Protest Anthem,"How many times can a man turn his head,and pretend that he just doesn't see,?"

[@Jay...777]

Scarcity is the product of profit maximization - the opposite of what you have been told.

[@Redpoppy80]

The single greatest problem is not the scarcity of resources. It is the greed of those who must always have MORE. Even though it makes no logical sense, we must always have more. That is what profit is. The exploitation of something or someone and the over accumulation of things beyond what is needed to survive or even live comfortably but to live a life of obese excess.

[@whatabouttheearth]

The basic Malthusian premise (which was actually about islands, mainly Britain) is correct though, no species can have infinite growth on a finite planet, a finite resource base, and that's fairly self evident. But global poverty isn't due to over population, that's a neo liberal lie, it's due to a structured vampirial resource drain from the global south to the 1st world, and it's not just the US and western Europe, China and Russia are also somewhat responsible to a lesser extent. I suggest the books 'The Divide : Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets' by Jason Hickel and 'The Weath of SOME Nations: Imperialism and the Mechanisms of Value Transfer' by Zak Cope

[@concernedcitizen1984]

such an important lecture and a reminder of the atrocities imperialism causes

[@twoforcesinbalance1543]

Someday the system will pay and the profiteers will regret their choices 🔥🔥🔥 It's coming

[@jamesmurphy9426]

Only after humanity is reduced to living in caves

[@TonyHiggs-n2j]

Dream on,they have held the power by a vice like grip for hundreds of years and they don’t intend to relquish it any time in the foreseeable,in fact they are increasingly strengthening their grip on the planet.

[@MrTooEarnestOnline]

@@jamesmurphy9426bullshit

[@whiterabbit2932]

Professor wolff 👏 🔝

[@thecatsbackyard4833]

Our food production is high enough to feed the human population more than twice over. And I mean to American levels of consumption. Overproduction of food is in fact a serious problem for grains and meats. It exacerbates climate change, disease and water shortage. Overproduction is done to oligopalize markets. And since 2,000 unsustainable corporate food production and climate change decreased food production capacity by a fifth per 2023 IPCC report.

[@bkbland1626]

And on the US, something like 24% just gets thrown away

[@thecatsbackyard4833]

@@bkbland1626 I think it's 40% but yeah. It's a distribution issue more than anything.

[@jelef001]

excellent

[@allypoum]

Good stuff.

[@anhedonic-voting]

Thank you Professor Wolff 🌎✊🗽🌹☮️

[@janolosnero325]

Good job

[@roberthornack1692]

The aerosol masking paradox makes abundantly clear that it is game over!

[@bma1955alimarber]

Democracy in workplace, is the solution of poverty and famine

[@Sean-p3o]

Yeah right 🙄 The solution is to evolve the human condition before we destroy ourselves

[@TheMighty_T]

It's already started, Ukraine is about this scrabble for more resources.

[@waxon2]

What a wonderful historical account of imperialist extraction. It explains so much of our current system. Thank you.

[@cringlator]

Potosi, the region with that mountain in Bolivia that the Spanish got all their silver from? Currently owned by Apex Silver Mines Limited which is a Colorado based company.

[@ceaseoccupation]

same area of the next liyhium plunder, the Lithium Triangle, chek out how Molei and Musk kiss each others asses over it

[@farinshore8900]

The food crisis did materialize. Sure, we have enough food, but the quality of that food is making us ill.

[@lucianfiul3035]

‘The only constant is change.’ 😮

[@marksmit8112]

Thanks for putting the capitalist reality into context. As a point of reference our population has increased from 1 billion to 8 billion in the last 200 years (thanks to fossil fuels ). Malthus although discredited, aligns with club of rome study on un/limited growth model. We need a sustainable planet with a socialist circular economy if we are to ensure we avoid a Mad Max

[@peacetheworld...........7105]

Thanks Professor R.W.......... And jocobin......... Tariq Ali book.......was right about Churchill??

[@NancyRode-u9i]

🙋🏽‍♀️prof Wolff

[@TheGarrymoore]

Wars are always for resources, i.e. money and power.

[@nthperson]

We have divided the planet into nation-states, each claiming sovereign control over the land and natural resources within a territory claimed and defended by the use of military force. This has been inevitable because we humans are instinctively tribal. Our languages, our rituals, our political, social and cultural norms have evolved as a result of relative isolation. That isolation did not last as tribal populations grew, as the environment could no longer support this population given the level of productive capacity. Groups migrated and eventually came into contact with one another. The possible outcomes were cooperation (i.e., sharing) or conflict. History reveals that in most instances the outcome has been conflict, with the group superior in numbers and the technology of warfare emerging dominant over the other. With enough time, some assimilation occurs. Enslaved women are forced to have sexual relations with their enslavers, producing offspring that are mixed race or mixed ethnically or culturally. Key to what happens in every society is whether the laws and norms permit nature to be privately claimed without appropriate compensation to the community for the privilege of exclusive control over some portion of what is justly the commons. As a result, the human-caused scarcity described by Professor Wolff is the inevitable, unjust outcome. The economics explaining this is straightforward: every parcel or tract of land and other natural assets (e.g., frequencies on the broadcast spectrum) has a potential rental value. This value is not individually created. This value justly belong to all. The failure to publicly capture economic rents results in the redistribution of wealth from producers to non-producing rentier elites. We end up with a few haves who have a great deal and a huge number of have nots who live lives of meagre subsistence. Viewers are referred to the writings of Henry George.

[@waltergoring8428]

This is a good video.

[@BernardSaniga]

I just want to say thank you for this lovely food i eat on this day of rest... I know the narrow path there is only goid with pure jesus ... He sat under the stars near the pyramids Yes guano ... And fertile soil ... Now We have many hands and... ⚡❤️‍🔥Ⓜ️🙏 There is plenty to make a deal ... It's ok ... Let's not fight ... We are above that... We do it humanly to our own .... I get very angry some days... Not all of you are like my demented mother Sorry a fountain of money brings ... Thank you i protected yout daughters ... Thank you for letting me limp away...

[@wheatonna]

The greatest lie of our time: "There isn't enough to go around."

[@loretoecheverria926]

An alarming sign: western media and right media in LA has ignored COP 16 (Biodiversity summit), taking place in Colombia , whose president, the economist Petro is committed to save the Amazon. A great example for the world. I would love to hear from Prof Wolff opinion about it.

[@BB-cf9gx]

Wolff is yesterdays man with 18th century perspectives and solutions.

[@falsificationism]

How so poptart?

[@BrunoHeggli-zp3nl]

Everything is amazing,just relax and have fun!

[@tarmotyyri6733]

Sooner than later our world will become a Mad Max movie.

[@marcbergeron-gx8bx]

That's what they are doing right now!....

[@le-ore]

well said!

[@sonyaweir1135]

Go, BRICS. Maybe the west will catch on.😊

[@psikeyhackr6914]

Hasn't planned obsolescence been wasting resources for decades while economists say nothing about it?

[@loretoecheverria926]

It would be v.interesting to hear the opinion of Prof. Wolff about his green government

[@PhilipWong55]

Western scarcity win-lose mindset vs Eastern (sans Japan) abundance win-win mindset.

[@M.M.Alam.Liberty]

You gave a Brilliant point. Thanks for sharing it

[@loretoecheverria926]

President of Colombia has been ignored by the pro western media, but he is a brave economist whose commiment for saving the Amazon is total and after the COP 16 his reat efforts should be supported. Petro is in fact the only decent president in Colombia and it would be good to hear Richard to talk about him

[@Sean-p3o]

We are the problem I inc Richard too And unless we evolve we will destroy ourselves We are to powerful now and we ignore the collective wisdom we have accumulated

[@blafonovision4342]

Wars are always about resources.

[@GScully42]

We already have the resource wars going on, Ukraine for lithium and on and on

[@davidregen1358]

Mr Wolff, Can you imagine a society which satisfies its needs and desires while consuming less than 1% of foundational resource reserves per year? It seems that some such restraint would be required for intergenerational justice. Necessary would be family planning by most ethnicities.

[@StephenSchleis]

Very good video. Thank you

[@waichui2988]

Looking into the future, I tend to be optimistic. Wealth is now made by knowledge, in factories and in peace. War destroys the production and trade processes and leads to poverty. In the information age, people are aware of how the system works. I see China as a major driver of this process. People can see how peace enables economic development. So they give peace a chance. They know how the system works and can think for themselves.

[@wdb-q4y]

Amazingly well done video, thanks.

[@JohnGeary-e9e]

Imperialism is the Vedic Kali Yuga thanks Professor for the shit wars memory we as school boys used laugh and joke about Guano

[@johnwright9372]

Most wars in history have been fought over resources.

[@karenfreeman1601]

Social security reduced purchasing power. High resale on available products is not enough for country survival. Many continents have all resources for healthy populations

[@crhu319]

They are NOT but ONLY because of the extremely rapid materials science and food technology breakthroughs.

[@charleshilton3193]

Not to get off topic but where does the first incidental guitar music come from?

[@tejomilenario]

Too much blame to the Spanish, we don't deserve that.

[@minhng7208]

Excellent ❤

[@martyknudson2676]

All the other species we share this planet with are having ever decreasing resources as we deplete their habitat for a population now exceeding 8 billion. Maybe we need to look at things from a non human perspective for a change.

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

Wow. In some ways, Churchill sure was a beastly person

[@somekindaguy100]

Lot of ways

[@giovannipanzeri6431]

More of this!!

[@macrosense]

It takes an enormous amount of resources to wage these wars. There is some temporary bulge in public fervor and military power that makes them seem viable.

[@MicheleCarmichael]

And it all so lucrative for military industrial complex, they will never stop, its like a money tree to the elites

[@samueloabilemunyari3717]

Minerals are plenty and we cant finish them just that we are greed..

[@KD--sj8eo]

Amazing by Richard as usual!

[@BlindintheDark]

War is a racket.

[@donaldwhittaker7987]

Scramble for resources is inevitable buckminster fuller optimism notwithstanding

[@robupsidedown]

Classic Churchill.

[@Alexxali63]

If only world leaders took advice from this distinguished professor What a shame Leaders have no compassion it seems

[@guillermoalcala5047]

All good except for the part on the anti-spanish black legend pieces. Cheers.

[@totonow6955]

...even bird s*$t...😁

[@psikeyhackr6914]

With economists not talking about planned obsolescence for the last 60 years. Why haven't socialists been advocating mandatory accounting in the schools? Karl Marx used the word 'depreciation' 35 times in the first two volumes of his major work, before automobiles were even invented.

[@eduanolivier7462]

Thank you Rick Wolff. Essential information.

[@martinwinther6013]

Im sry, how naive can one be?? What war isnt(ultimately) fought over resources??

[@sinethembakaku8336]

warmongers always have their way😭

[@productionf1lms]

The economy is absolutely horrible now. I'm not even a socialist, but I find myself seeking out socialist opinions because they are the only ones admitting how terrible the economic situation is right now.

[@grazianalu76]

Excellent information sharing

[@OussoumaniKone-i1z]

I am born and healthy but there do to me

[@surrealistidealist]

In short, the problem of resource scarcity is real but greatly exaggerated.

[@BlindintheDark]

The capitalism strip mine has fully encircled the globe, tipping points are tipped.

[@MinaPopova-u1m]

Hi from Sweden 🇸🇪 Great thoughts!

[@aaronsullivan1628]

The answer is YES… it’s literally Biblical, written about so long ago.