Sources: Articles Birkan, A.O. (2015) ‘A Brief Overview of the Theory of Unequal Exchange and its Critiques’, International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 5(4/1), pp. 155-163. Chorev, N. and Babb, S. (2009) ‘The crisis of neoliberalism and the future of international institutions: A comparison of the IMF and the WTO’, Theory and Society, 38(5), pp. 459-484. Gereffi, G. (1978) ‘Drug firms and dependency in Mexico: The case of the steroid hormone industry’,International Organization, 32(01), pp. 237-288 Kapoor, I. (2002) ‘Capitalism, culture, agency: Dependency versus postcolonial theory’, Third World Quarterly, 23(4), pp. 647-664. Korotayev, A. and Zinkina, J. (2014) ‘On the structure of the present-day convergence’, Campus-Wide Information Systems, 31(2/3), pp. 139-152. Sutcliffe, Bob. ‘A Converging or Diverging World?’ DESA Working Paper No. 2 (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs DESA: October 2005). Available online:www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2005/wp2_2005.pdf [accessed: 21 March 2016]. UNCTAD. ‘Foreign direct investment, the transfer and diffusion of technology, and sustainable development,’ (New York and Geneva: United Nations publication, December 2010). Books Acemoglu, D., Robinson, J.A. and Acemoglu, P.D. (2013) Why nations fail: The origins of power, prosperity, and poverty. New York: Crown Business. Bourguignon, F. (2015) The Globalisation of Inequality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Collier, P. (2007) The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Shannon, T.R. (1996) An introduction to the world-system perspective. 2nd edn. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Wallerstein, I., ‘Structural Crisis, or Why Capitalists May No Longer Find Capitalism Rewarding’ in Derluguian, G. (2014) Does capitalism have a future? Edited by Immanuel Wallerstein, Randall Collins, and Michael Mann. United States: Oxford University Press.
Then & Now this is a great video and it's made a million times better by the fact that you cited you sources (seeing as many UA-camrs don't). I'm using it to help write a paper for my international relations theory class. This video makes it much more compelling and easier to understand than reading a dry scholarly source. It gives me a great place to start my own research. But i'll have to repeat some of the other comments made. The narration needs to be louder.
Only one source provided comes from the true theorists of these fields, that is why several mistakes were made. I will only focus on this: Dependency Theory and World-System Analysis (it is not a theory as Wallerstein himself asserted) are not opposed to each other. World-System Analysis fits in the Dependency Theory currents. And Dependency Theory is not a well defined and consolidated theory, but a varied set of theories, some of them even opposed to each other, some with marxist origins, some with liberal origins.
Omitted average national IQ which I (and many others) have run regressions on in my class which has an R squared value of 0.35+ and even higher when you control for communist and oil states. When your theory can not even address the root of economics, the humans themselves, you cannot explain different outcomes. This is why the left fears demographic realism and national realism in general.
This falls into a fallacy argument basically boiling down to: living standards are getting better, therefore this system must be the best system. Chomsky lays out a pretty basic argument against this fallacy being: We could use this to justify any system. Slave societies saw a rise in standards of livings, even among the slaves. In fact this argument could be used to support the marxist-leninist model in the USSR, which brought russia from the third world into the so-called second world. Rising living standards or "bringing people out of poverty" isn't an argument for capitalism in the same way that they aren't an argument for slave societies. There is inherently something wrong with the system that must be tended to.
@@greengandalf9116 As Noam Chomsky likes to point out, the Bolsheviks stopped being socialist only months after taking control of the country. The communist party became hegemonic and would go on to rule the Soviet Union under a command economy. Maoism is an adulteration of Marxism and implemented much like Bolshevik communism was implemented. I'd argue that socialism, preferably of the Marx variety, should be heavily considered moving forward. Contrary to popular belief, it actually hasn't even been tried on a large scale, much less failed on a large scale. The theory is there, the popularity (at least outside the US) is there, all that needs to happen is to implement it within a large western nation through (preferably) reform.
@@greenpea4239 And then you'll get what Parenti calls Capitalist Encirclement. Chile tried this route. Any country that tries an alternative gets shut down.
@@greengandalf9116 No, if you'd actually look at the history of socialism, and it's theory and practice beyond skin deep, you'd see that it worked well. Numerous times. Before getting toppled by coups, sabotaged by economic sanctions and blockades, thrown into chaos by literal invasions and bombings, encircled and forced to capitulate, or destroyed by literal fascists. Who controls the information? Where did you hear that Communism doesn't work? Because if you look at the polls for ex communist countries, the numbers tell a different tale. They show that the majority of people resent the collapse of their communist system and want a return to communism in some form. And those numbers have stayed pretty consistent over the years, and in fact, are rising. And mind you, these countries, like Green Pea pointed out, aren't/weren't even good representations of the Socialist system. Bolsheviks dismantled almost all Socialist institutions out of capitulation to the Capitalist powers in order to stave off invasion. If the approval ratings for cheap, off brand Socialism is that high. Imagine what real Socialism could do if ever it were able to get off the ground without being brutally suppressed and buried, and hand waved away by smug plutocrats whose major interest is to keep people like you believing that the Capitalist system is the end all be all so that you don't get any dangerous ideas and disrupt the status quo. Nothing is black and white. Capitalism has failed more times than Communism ever could, and unlike Communism most of the time, when Capitalism fails, it's systemic. Nearly every single "developing country" is a failed Capitalist country. Most of the world is Capitalist. Most of the world is also poor. What most people fail to realize, or simply refuse to realize is that all of this wealth doesn't just get "generated." No, it has to come from somewhere, and it doesn't take a genius to find out where it all comes from. Communism is far more complex and nuanced than what your middle school cold war propaganda infested history class taught you, who would have thought?
@@TheOGProtestantMormon 1) Chomsky isn't a Marxist, he is an Anarcho Syndicalist. 2) Anarchism, and Marxism are against the elite minority, not for it. Capitalism, however is systematically biased toward pursing the interests of the elite. 3) Corruption and control of governments and corporations are intertwined, you are correct. However this corruption stems from the profit motive. This directly contributes to said corruption. Example, the Rockerfellers, IMF, Halliburton, and all the various defense contractors wouldn't lobby for war, and do business with both sides of the war, if there wasn't profit to be had in it. They wouldn't lobby to fuck all these countries over, occupy them, and set up shop if there were no profits to be had. The Banana war in Guatemala wouldn't have happened. Coca Cola death squads in Colombia wouldn't have been a thing. And Imperialism and Neo-Colonialism wouldn't be a fucking problem. But clearly all of this stuff happens for a reason, and that reason is profit and the goal of infinite growth. One thing that i find to be a common characteristic between different reactionary pro capitalist people such as yourself, is the very poor understanding when it comes to the system in which you live, Capitalism. And the absolute lack of any understanding whatsoever when it comes to any of it's proposed alternatives. You have no idea. *Clearly.*
@@greengandalf9116 Highly regulated free market systems in societies that provide good quality public healthcare, public education, that guarantee a standard of living through generous social welfare and mandated employment practices (strictly enforced normal work hours/ parental leave and holiday leave) whilst having tight regulation on the exploitation of natural resources appear to do even better than laissez-faire economies. The countries I've visited that appear to have the best lifestyles also appear to have cultures that value mutual respect and mutual responsibility taking.
RIP Immanuel Wallerstein. It’s kind of hard to know where to start with this video. On a channel that usually takes thinking and philosophy pretty seriously, it’s surprising to see ideas and schools of ideas reduced to parodies. The source of structuralism for the dependency thinkers came not out of communism (which isn’t necessarily structuralist) but out of the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, especially under the directorship of Raúl Prebisch. Getting the economics right is important here and so is the politics: dependency theorists in Latin America advocated very different politics to Latin American communist parties. Wallerstein’s thinking about historical time and long cycles was an important correction of the very ahistorical march of modernisation or the abstract theorising of neoclassical economics. And this is not to say that any of these ideas are necessarily right: Wallerstein has had many trenchant critics, such as Robert Brenner who argued that by defining capitalism in terms of trade amongst nations, Wallerstein and dependency theory tended to be economic determinists where starting the analysis from class relations would give a clearer political analysis of capitalism. As to the discussions of inequality, would it not have been better to ask what each of these thinkers in your video think capitalism is and then see if that idea is coherent and consistent, rather than asserting that there is something out there that is “capitalism” that has a record of lifting people out of poverty? Marx himself argued that capital revolutionises the development of the forces of production; you would expect it to generate ever more wealth. This might lift some or even many out of poverty, but why were they poor? How did they lose their access to subsistence? One might suspect that capital has something to do with that, too.
I was about to write some of my disagreements of the video, but you already said all that has to be said. That's right, this topic is way too complex for a 15 min video, plus, there are some fundamental missunderstandings of the theories and a lot of shortcuts and reductionisms. Even inside the ECLAC were a lot of disagreements between the ideas of what does structuralism and neodevelopmentalism really means. As Ruy Mauro Marini said in his “Dialectic of Dependency”, the underdevelopment is a specific form of capitalist development, one in the periphery. It's a new form of capitalism, a "sui generis" capitalism. That's why saying that it's the exclusion from the structures of the capitalist model the primarly cause of inequality, is a very weird conclusion, that clearly means some misundestanding of the theory. This new form of capitalism that we see in the underdevelopment nations is not an exlusion of the model, is a new part of the structure, one on the periphery, but still a part of the structure. By the way, Maurini could be taken as a kind of structuralist. Another example of the complexity of the issue. Also, I wouldn't take very seriously Why Nations Fail. The autors take the neoinstitutionalism theories in an incorrect way and assumed that the institutions are some kind of organizations. A really, really weird interpretation. Anyway, I agree, this channel takes very seriously the issues and theories which he expose. Is just that, in this video, there were a lot of things that just went wrong.
"but why were they poor?". That question proves you don't understand the most important thing: almost EVERYONE was very poor until very recently. Before industrialization, even europeans barely had enough food to eat, due to lack of technology and trade.
@@BUSeixas11 Not sure that proves what you say it does - these theories arose in the context of decolonisation and dependency directly accounted for the active underdevelopment of the poorer parts of the world during colonialism. In fact Britain actively de-industrialised India. The poorer parts could not (some still cannot) industrialise due to the imbalance in world trade where they sell off resources and primary commodities to obtain industrial goods - this maintains them as primary producers. World systems then accounted for the changing dynamic where exploitation of labour was transnational rather than directly between nation-states. The global pressures have seen changes as many move to semi-peripheral status and yet the poor stay poor, just more distributed.
@@mick7557 Just to add to this, here's some details on how Britain de-industrialized India in particular: www.sgbgatelier.com/world/2019/11/21/5-ways-imperial-britain-crippled-indian-handlooms Essentially, the British fixed prices to make weaving profits impossible, put tariffs of up to 85% on textiles going to Britain (compared to 5% going the other way), and weavers caught selling to non-British were flogged and had their thumbs cut off to prevent them working. India had manufactured 25% of the world textiles in 1600, but only 2% at independence from Britain in 1947.
International institutions are undoubtedly governed by, financed by and run in favor of the Western capitalist ruling class. I think this video maps out the issue well but ends by presenting a 'bootstrap' view of the developing world. This is to completely ignore the historical importance of resource extraction through colonization, imperialism and even what we would tend to refer to as economic 'soft power' which often functions to tear down barriers to capital but build them with regard to labor. The global economy is premised upon a power relation that de facto and de jure represents the interests of the capitalist class and benefits states that themselves represent the greatest share of capital. The problems of corruption and bad governance in poor countries map onto that existing framework but DO NOT generate it.
@Anarchist Zero Differences in outcomes between human populations are mostly genetic and before designer babies become common place you can't do much about it. But sure, stir up racial hatred, if that's your goal.
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 interesting how you use genetics to explain generational poverty (which relies on racial logic) but call them a racist for pointing out the racism that occurs in the world.
@@noblebrown6077 "which relies on racial logic" If you believe that's "race thing" then you sort of become perplexed why generational poverty exist as well also within predominant ethnic group. "call them a racist" I did not use this slur as I find it over used until the moment it lost any clear meaning. I simply pointed out what's the end result of what's he is doing
@@noblebrown6077 Fun fact: I used very general word "populations" (as this phenomena can be observed in many situations like ex. assortative mating or brain drain), and you started to suggest it's a race thing.
For a video entitled "dependency and world-systems theory", much of it seems to be used advocating for new institutional economics ideas of acemoglu and robinson etc. Even NIE authors have ceded that their previous thinking failed to relate the success of any particular institutional settings to the pre-existing power dynamics between actors within and beyond the country's borders. I recommend reading about Mushtaq Khan's political settlements theory if you're interested in how or why NIE has shown itself to be poor at explaining real-world development
I slightly disagree with the assessments for two reason: -For starter, those countries you mentioned were never communist (eg: Stateless, classless, moneyless society, AKA community focus anarchy), those states were failed experiments of state capitalism. The wealth was never redistributed, classes were never abolished, political power was never descentralized and eventually abolished. They were simple dictatorships using the aesthetics of left politics to entice the populus to give any and all power to a selected few in a direct manner. Sort of how Hitler and fascism in general flipsflops between left and right aesthetics to achieve its goals. Legitimately attempts at establishing descentralized leftist states were crushed by the US, example of that would be the Dominican republic in the 60s, after the populus decided they had enough of the US BACKED dictator Trujillo. Another example, Chile, argentina... You get the point. Those states elected DEMOCRATICALLY their leaders, not by violent revolution, those states wanted legitimate grow and openess. -you don't need to be a cynic to see that the world is not getting better. *Living* and being alive aren't the same thing. The strategy of keeping the 3rd world in constant "development" for the exploration of the rich nation is basically an evolution of slavery. If you use the metrics but the IMF for instance, of course more people have gotten out of poverty, but why should the metric be based on a few dollars a day? If you use something like 15-20$ a day, the things flip and more people have fallen into poverty.
Our global environmental crisis is completely inaccessible from the perspective of texts like "Why Nations Fail." The term I've been seeing in recent scholarship is "fossil capitalism," which describes capitalism not as a Marxist stage, but as a means of mastering and exploiting the natural environment for utility and profit. Inequality largely springs from this relationship; capitalism necessarily involves the systemic disparity and inequality that emerge from environmental exploitation. It seems very clear now, in 2019, that things are indeed getting worse. You don't have to be a cynic to see that. In this century, being hopeful without being in denial will mean boldly imagining new ways of relating ourselves to each other and the world.
Yep. People think that iPhones getting cheaper or being available in ever more countries somehow counts as a real improvement in living standards. They don't. More rights and less labour are the hallmarks of rising living standards, not more gimmicky consumer goods.
That's right. I'm not against a private market, but unless it's subjugated to the First Value of human well-being, we're going to continue have these same problems. We have enough resources on the planet right now to meet everyone's basic needs, but the US govt, my govt, has no intention of allowing this to happen. They're the bad guys. They're a regime as much as any other regime. Sooner or later they're going to have to be neutralized if the planet is going to move forward.
I agree with most of what's in this video. I do believe that the current capitalist system we are in at the moment is not sustainable, not only from an environmental point of view but also for the labourers who are constantly being exploited due to the rich trying to maximise profit. The whole point of capitalism is profit maximisation and constant growth, but what happens after we reach that peak? Slavery? Environmental destruction? Exhaustion of resources? We can't just keep growing forever. However, I disagree with the narrator's quick jumping to conclusions about how Communism doesn't work, therefore we should just stay with capitalism and deal with the bad consequences. There are alternative economies, there are other options. We need to stop thinking about the world solely from a capitalist-communist perspective.
what other options/alternatives then? in today's world, it's not possible for a country to avoid the capitalist economic system. Many communist countries nowadays have adopted the capitalism and it has brought them advancement, technology and innovation, although poverty still the main obstacle for the developing countries to grow. The narrator has pointed out in the video that the fall of the USSR signifies that Communism as an "economic system" doesn't work. Communism in its ideology may sound appealing to most people but in practice, it's the exact opposite of that, I'm pretty sure you're familiar with George Orwell's Animal Farm if you never heard it then read it. Slavery and discrimination always exist within society, they're the pillars for society stabilization. The labours are being exploited it's because they want to be exploited, there's no one forcing them to choose that path.
@@afud1015 Not to be a party pooper but George Orwell was a famous socialist. I hate to repeat this argument, but communism, as Marx and friends layed out, hasn't actually been implemented on a nationwide scale. Bad copies have been tried, but sooner or later those adulterations turn into central command economies that, to your point, don't "encourage advancement, technology, and innovation". To the point about how communist countries have adopted capitalism; well yeah, after nearly a century of constant interference from the west. Much to peoples surprise, the west (namely the US and the UK) actually instigated the Cold War, and the Soviet Union's actions were purely reactionary. Trotsky, Lenin's Marxist comrade, was the one who wanted to "spread the good word" to the world. Following Lenin's death, Stalin took over and was famous for his philosophical rift with Trotsky over this and many other issues. Call him and blame him for what you want but Stalin never had intentions to spread Bolshevik communism further than to the countries that fell under his control following World War 2. It was the US who struck first... and second... and third... . The economic war that the Capitalists running the US and the UK waged against Soviet-aligned countries head devastating effects on the economic conditions on the "common man". Take Vietnam for example; they were initially aligned with the US when they drove out the French from Indo-china, but because the US became politically hostile once the communist revolutionaries began to win the war against the French, the Vietnamese leaders looked to the Soviets who TURNED THEM DOWN. The Chinese would end up supporting the Vietnamese revolutionaries. There are countless other examples of the US waging war against popular communist or socialist movements. See Spain, Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile and Nicaragua (or much of Lain America for that matter), Cuba, etc. To conclude, the reason the communist "economic system" didn't work was because it was constantly being meddled with by the US in an attempt to "kill the economic baby in its cradle". Remember that capitalism has had the benefit of being around for 200+ years at the end of World War 2, 200 years to grow and reform and mature; there was little chance that the "communist economic system" would have made it when the whole first world was against it.
@@greenpea4239 Yep, basically Capitalist Encirclement led to Siege Socialism in most of these countries, but even then... Even in these bad copies, Polls consistently show that people in ex Communist countries, want Socialism back in some form or another, because Capitalism clearly isn't working for them. If even a bad copy is better than the current system for most folks, then that should get across just how much of a failure neo-liberalism is outside of these core countries.
Just saying communism doesn't work like that's the end of it is extremely reductive. Some aspects of communism worked extremely well, others didn't work at all. Dismissing a way of thinking about economics and politics which has demonstrably benefited millions in it's entirety is just not a very smart thing to do when you know that capitalism can't last forever.
Diego Latruwe communisms main issue is the belief that a central source can identify all the needs in the world but markets do this better by several orders of magnitude.
I think it's worth noting that "communism" has had many meanings and that leftists generally understand it to be a theoretical end goal to work towards--a stateless, classless society. What people in the US call "communism" tends to refer to the various projects that attempted to work towards communism via a socialist state. These projects have all been experimental and different, with their own successes and failures.
great work presenting your process of thinking through this but um no. how are we defining innovation? there are many competing views regarding what we actually talk about (and don't) when we invoke Innovation™. it's like saying progress... what is progress? quite surprising to see your conclusion and process given that your other videos suggested that you would be fully aware of the blindspots of Enlightenment era notions.
The biggest error is measuring the size and health of economies with such narrow-minded and short-sighted measures like GDP. The concept of economic development is also faulty at its core, like the mainstream (neoclassical) economics that meticulously ignores or downplays the ecological and sociological facts of life.
Umm... The USSR had the fastest economic development and modernization of any country in world history, and you simply cannot argue that they did not have technological and scientific innovation. They kicked America's ass in the Space Race up until we landed on the moon. They were also at the forefront of climate science, even if Stalinism was ecologically disastrous.
@@andrii5175 1. Did you not read my question well? 2. Are you telling me USSR is guilty for not having colonies or robbing other countries through war? 3. Where did you take the number 30 million from? Did you include the civil war and famine casualties there or smth?
@@andrii5175 That number is outdated - all people that previously claimed that figure admited they were lying, now they say up to 7 million, but no thorough investigation was done yet, so this 7 mil number is probably much smaller. You should also know that population was constantly growing except WW2 time, and while US was already superpower by russian revolution, USSR had civil war, femins, bloodiest war in history and by the end of it still became 2nd superpower. That shows that it was most successfull country in 20th century.
@@andrii5175 It is 154 quadrillion people killed under Stalin, not 30 million. You gotta account for inflation. IF you look at the USSR population data from Stalin era, you'll clearly see a negative population, where the soviet bureaucrats were selling and buying dead souls like Chichikov. But I agree with the other points.
What keeps poor countries poor is simple ; The flow of resource is greater from the poor countries to the rich countries due to the predatory society and economy of the industrialized nations. In this way it is the rich countries that are the dependent ones by simple mathematics. With money rich nations only appear to be giving more and they only look as though they are in a better position to give, yet their dependency on resources and labor from the poor countries actually make their systems more unstable.
That's why they keep a tight grip on the 3rd world. They understand that if these countries nationalize all their business the west would loose massive profits.
like, you're a liberal and that ideological bias really really shows very thickly, but i mean, there's no such thing as unideological. Still, this is as good a treatment of these ideas I've seen on youtube.
Brenten Ireland Ireland Very obviously untrue the only place you can kind of say this is a China but capitalism never solves the problems of slums and poverty it only moves them around.
As previous commentators have noticed, there is no mention in this video of the systemic motivation within corporate capitalism to treat the rest of the biosphere and society as a source of exploitable labor and resources and as a sink for pollution and the immiserated masses. What capitalism under current legislation lacks are additional "bottom lines" representing impacts on the ecosystem and on social health and community
The presence of the Very Rich make democratic society impossible. Every problem mentioned is the fig leaf in front of the machinations of the very rich. Every single one. #TeamGuillotine
The flow of resources is always greater toward rich countries and away from poor countries. Therefore ,the rich countries are the true dependents because if the flow of resources stopped poor countries would keep more and benefit and the rich would be thrown into deep crisis. Money is a way for assets to be pillaged with the least effort. In a share economy cooperation is the currency.
Marxism will say that institutions will reflect the economic structure and not the other way around. You cannot expect 'good institutions' to appear as independent variables for growth as Acemoglu and Robinson naively believe (or want us to believe). In structures where exploitation needs military coercion and breeds corruption, institutions will reflect THIS.
For some reason I expected better from this channel than this half-baked paean to neoliberalism, where Bill fucking Gates is held up as a paragon of all that's good, progressive and "creative"
I think a common mistake people make is to attribute Capitalism to lifting billions out of poverty - it is not this at all; but it is the Scientific, agricultural and Industrial revolutions...which took place so long ago...Global socio-economic policies have had the effect of slowing down the ability of delvoping nations to catch up and also benefit from these revolutions...The best way to empower these nations is to help them build their Educational institutes so that they can stand on their own feet as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is doing
I agree with the innovation part, but when individuals amass huge amounts of wealth for themselves (ie. Bill Gates), there's no good in that system, it only leads to corruption, greed, and exploitation.
Power = Money. It's tautological that third world and resource-rich countries will be dominated by the power of the rich ones. It's a Kantian analytical judgment, where the predicate proceeds from the subject: capitalism creates inequality. I recommend reading Arrighi, how he develops world systems theory in a Marxist way is very interesting and useful
such a good video, really impressed by the quality in all departments. with current political developments + the recent popularity and success of 'video essay' channels (such as Nerdwriter) I implore you to return to making videos on youtube!
I truly think the 'west' needs to take it's lectures to 'poor countries' to heart THEMSELVES - almost of what you describe as real corruption and lack of media independence from government control actually exists in the US - what human and planetary cost does this whole hectoring exact? Great video but I think not being able to drink safe clean water in the richest country in the world is hardly a ringing endorsement of 'pushing for innovation' as an example to the' bottom billion'.
The hybrid systems of "market socialism" that combine socialism to raise workers out of poverty while promoting entrepreneurial innovation seem to work best, the success of China being one notable case that vexes Western capitalists.
Very nice video, it makes me more curious to know more about the reality of the current economic world which is in the hands of the great and rich countries, while poor countries still in nefarious dependency.....
Capitalism does not lift everyone out of poverty capitalism needs poverty to function. Without capitalism you don't need an underclass to exploit so no capitalism is not the best way to distribute commodities and it is inherently uneven and will always leeds to a concentration of wealth in a few hands when left unabated which is why they are constantly trying to redistribute wealth in capitalist society so the underclass came never organise.
"In theory, they are all ideal. But when it comes to the crunch, a system of government can only be judged by the time in between the date of its implementation and the date human nature fucks it up."- L. Hayko
though all is not really so well, without fiat currency capitalism could not have satisfied the elite and simultaneously humored the general populace as to its egalitarian benevolence...
It was a nice video until 6:27. Then it turned into shit. Lmao. People are being lifted out of poverty? By what or whose standards? Nice meme, if that is what you intend this to be.
So, if a country is already qualified in terms of natural resources, then it should immediately break away from dependence on a country that prides itself on being a developed country. free themself from the dependence of the world system that has long exploited to become an economic subordinate and consume raw materials which are the source of its country's prosperity.
Overlook the very fact that the accumulation of capital means accumulation of power makes possible the manipulation of the system to accumulate my more capital therefore more power. The only real solution is not to allow any individual, organization or institution to accumulate more capital and as result more power than any other individual, organization or institution.
Super insightful and informative video, Thank you! Using it as part of revision for a 1st year uni development exam I have in a couple of days and it summarises things nicely :)
Resources aren’t distributed equally. There are countries out there with barren land and can’t grow food but they have other resources. No one would say them trading for food is sucking resources from other countries. Not all cultures are the same. Not all people are the same. The world is an unequal place. Doesn’t mean we can’t work towards more equality but you’ll NEVER be able to reach full equality. It’s IMPOSSIBLE.
7:50min But how can he claim that for the past 50yrs of economic policy for even the center? The periphery was charged plenty a lost decade by the IMF. They talk about political institutions, but if you do not understand the history of these very same institutions (whether they oppose, or support progress) then the argument will fail at the policy level. As I pointed out below the history of those institutions, and the people that shaped them to defend themselves from what they insist are threats (the policies described below: like weekends without work) is crucial to see if faith, and trust is to be deposited in them as it regards material existence: who gets to enter, and who does not.
1.- There is a debate about the concept of poverty in the no occidental way of life. For example, in many indigineus zones of mexico the society lives in a sustained way trough the time, they never be afraid about have house or food, but is normal that sometimes they are below the line of extreme poverty; meanwile a lot of homeless in the cities easily can be uppper that level. If you want check the book "stone age economics". 2.- The capitalist way of life of the core nations needs to operate changing the political panorama of the periferic nations in order to get the legal and spacial access to the resources of these countries. A mayor part of the imposibility to get a decent democratic system are for the operations of the big capitals (the most time by a direct action of the international capitals). I have to say that i´m pretty mad with the argue that the inequality aren´t part of the society of free market, it´s common forget that isn´t only speech, but the only people who notice that this is part of the reality is because you be involved in the side who loses, and that hurts bro.
1 modernization capitalism good 2 structuralism capital bad ex swap 1 depency theory periphery to core unilateral law of raw material 2 world system -core semicore periphery Cure some form of socialism why nation fails monopolistic culture increase inequality less invotion civil wars oil discovery 1 conflict 2 dutch disease problem 3 less accountable government Transfer pricing election Media budget transferring from bottom
@@CosmoShidan i wouldn't know why this would be so much important(?) i am much more interested in other branches of information/theory - regarding the radical left. nonetheless, if i have time, i'll try to check it out. thanks for the reply.
6.40 "maybe the problem isn't the capitalist system as such, but maybe how you interact with and are a part of that world system, maybe it's exclusions .. " hmmmm
This video is Not Good. The glib repetition of neoliberal cliches is painful to listen to. But it's an older video; I wonder whether Then & Now has changed its perspective?
Great video, but your real-life examples are a bit off. Firstly Azerbaijan is not a poor country, it is one of the more prosperous post-Soviet countries due to its immense oil reserves. Secondly, Bangladesh doesn't have Nike sweatshops, Bangladesh doesn't even manufacture Nike products, they are more focused on RMG (ready-made garments) manufacturing, it would be more appropriate if you said RMG sweatshops in Bangladesh or Nike sweatshops in Vietnam or Cambodia. Otherwise, good summary of the Structuralist and WSA/WST frameworks.
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 true me too. It's just online personalities sometimes become entrenched in their own beliefs because of the positive affirmation. Nice to see growth and hope to see it in the future as well. I am a way different person than 6 years ago
@@eagleleft indeed. We all must try to expand our understanding as we get older. I'm sorry for the smoothbrains who can't. To quote- "Modern problems require modern solutions" - modern-day genius, Mr. Dave Chappelle* *Joke I don't think he's a genius but he is a damn funny guy
It’s a really weird decision to argue capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than communism and then use the examples of the Soviet Union and China. Both disprove the point you’re making immediately
The Soviet Union and China did no such thing, as Bakunin argued decades before that a socialist state is just another tyrant. It is therefore ahistorical to claim a socialist state lifts people out of poverty. Only anarchial communities such as ones in Ukraine, Manchuria and Barcelona, with more recent ones such as Chapias and Rojava, have done so. Hence anarcho-communism lifts people out of poverty since hierarchy is absent.
The problem with when people say that communism failed every time is: its a stupid thing to say. Imagine a parallel world where communism is that world's system and capitalism the fringe idea. Now, obviously people of that world would say, see capitalism fails every time and everywhere.
That parallel world would be highly underdeveloped, be in poverty and not free if they ever break the cycle of hunter-gatherers and adopt institutional governments anyway, obviously people of that world would say "we are starving we need food"
Sources:
Articles
Birkan, A.O. (2015) ‘A Brief Overview of the Theory of Unequal Exchange and its Critiques’, International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 5(4/1), pp. 155-163.
Chorev, N. and Babb, S. (2009) ‘The crisis of neoliberalism and the future of international institutions: A comparison of the IMF and the WTO’, Theory and Society, 38(5), pp. 459-484.
Gereffi, G. (1978) ‘Drug firms and dependency in Mexico: The case of the steroid hormone industry’,International Organization, 32(01), pp. 237-288
Kapoor, I. (2002) ‘Capitalism, culture, agency: Dependency versus postcolonial theory’, Third World Quarterly, 23(4), pp. 647-664.
Korotayev, A. and Zinkina, J. (2014) ‘On the structure of the present-day convergence’, Campus-Wide Information Systems, 31(2/3), pp. 139-152.
Sutcliffe, Bob. ‘A Converging or Diverging World?’ DESA Working Paper No. 2 (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs DESA: October 2005). Available online:www.un.org/esa/desa/papers/2005/wp2_2005.pdf [accessed: 21 March 2016].
UNCTAD. ‘Foreign direct investment, the transfer and diffusion of technology, and sustainable development,’ (New York and Geneva: United Nations publication, December 2010).
Books
Acemoglu, D., Robinson, J.A. and Acemoglu, P.D. (2013) Why nations fail: The origins of power, prosperity, and poverty. New York: Crown Business.
Bourguignon, F. (2015) The Globalisation of Inequality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Collier, P. (2007) The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Shannon, T.R. (1996) An introduction to the world-system perspective. 2nd edn. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Wallerstein, I., ‘Structural Crisis, or Why Capitalists May No Longer Find Capitalism Rewarding’ in Derluguian, G. (2014) Does capitalism have a future? Edited by Immanuel Wallerstein, Randall Collins, and Michael Mann. United States: Oxford University Press.
Then & Now this is a great video and it's made a million times better by the fact that you cited you sources (seeing as many UA-camrs don't). I'm using it to help write a paper for my international relations theory class. This video makes it much more compelling and easier to understand than reading a dry scholarly source. It gives me a great place to start my own research. But i'll have to repeat some of the other comments made. The narration needs to be louder.
Only one source provided comes from the true theorists of these fields, that is why several mistakes were made.
I will only focus on this:
Dependency Theory and World-System Analysis (it is not a theory as Wallerstein himself asserted) are not opposed to each other. World-System Analysis fits in the Dependency Theory currents. And Dependency Theory is not a well defined and consolidated theory, but a varied set of theories, some of them even opposed to each other, some with marxist origins, some with liberal origins.
Omitted average national IQ which I (and many others) have run regressions on in my class which has an R squared value of 0.35+ and even higher when you control for communist and oil states. When your theory can not even address the root of economics, the humans themselves, you cannot explain different outcomes. This is why the left fears demographic realism and national realism in general.
@@spencer5028 "National IQ"...? Oh, come on.
Wow.... actual citations. The rarest of occurrences on UA-cam.
Interesting choice of Bill Gates and Microsoft for "not a monopoly."
lol this came to my mind too
The guy who's buying up farm land and wants to patent vaccines.
Rigght
Bill Gates is involved in marlgalipoly, this is the worst form of business protectionism!
Lol. Yea. Misses Wallerstein's whole point too. The US is an extractive NATION.
This falls into a fallacy argument basically boiling down to: living standards are getting better, therefore this system must be the best system.
Chomsky lays out a pretty basic argument against this fallacy being: We could use this to justify any system. Slave societies saw a rise in standards of livings, even among the slaves. In fact this argument could be used to support the marxist-leninist model in the USSR, which brought russia from the third world into the so-called second world. Rising living standards or "bringing people out of poverty" isn't an argument for capitalism in the same way that they aren't an argument for slave societies. There is inherently something wrong with the system that must be tended to.
@@greengandalf9116 As Noam Chomsky likes to point out, the Bolsheviks stopped being socialist only months after taking control of the country. The communist party became hegemonic and would go on to rule the Soviet Union under a command economy. Maoism is an adulteration of Marxism and implemented much like Bolshevik communism was implemented.
I'd argue that socialism, preferably of the Marx variety, should be heavily considered moving forward. Contrary to popular belief, it actually hasn't even been tried on a large scale, much less failed on a large scale. The theory is there, the popularity (at least outside the US) is there, all that needs to happen is to implement it within a large western nation through (preferably) reform.
@@greenpea4239 And then you'll get what Parenti calls Capitalist Encirclement. Chile tried this route. Any country that tries an alternative gets shut down.
@@greengandalf9116 No, if you'd actually look at the history of socialism, and it's theory and practice beyond skin deep, you'd see that it worked well. Numerous times. Before getting toppled by coups, sabotaged by economic sanctions and blockades, thrown into chaos by literal invasions and bombings, encircled and forced to capitulate, or destroyed by literal fascists. Who controls the information? Where did you hear that Communism doesn't work? Because if you look at the polls for ex communist countries, the numbers tell a different tale. They show that the majority of people resent the collapse of their communist system and want a return to communism in some form. And those numbers have stayed pretty consistent over the years, and in fact, are rising. And mind you, these countries, like Green Pea pointed out, aren't/weren't even good representations of the Socialist system. Bolsheviks dismantled almost all Socialist institutions out of capitulation to the Capitalist powers in order to stave off invasion. If the approval ratings for cheap, off brand Socialism is that high. Imagine what real Socialism could do if ever it were able to get off the ground without being brutally suppressed and buried, and hand waved away by smug plutocrats whose major interest is to keep people like you believing that the Capitalist system is the end all be all so that you don't get any dangerous ideas and disrupt the status quo.
Nothing is black and white. Capitalism has failed more times than Communism ever could, and unlike Communism most of the time, when Capitalism fails, it's systemic. Nearly every single "developing country" is a failed Capitalist country. Most of the world is Capitalist. Most of the world is also poor. What most people fail to realize, or simply refuse to realize is that all of this wealth doesn't just get "generated." No, it has to come from somewhere, and it doesn't take a genius to find out where it all comes from. Communism is far more complex and nuanced than what your middle school cold war propaganda infested history class taught you, who would have thought?
@@TheOGProtestantMormon 1) Chomsky isn't a Marxist, he is an Anarcho Syndicalist.
2) Anarchism, and Marxism are against the elite minority, not for it. Capitalism, however is systematically biased toward pursing the interests of the elite.
3) Corruption and control of governments and corporations are intertwined, you are correct. However this corruption stems from the profit motive. This directly contributes to said corruption. Example, the Rockerfellers, IMF, Halliburton, and all the various defense contractors wouldn't lobby for war, and do business with both sides of the war, if there wasn't profit to be had in it. They wouldn't lobby to fuck all these countries over, occupy them, and set up shop if there were no profits to be had. The Banana war in Guatemala wouldn't have happened. Coca Cola death squads in Colombia wouldn't have been a thing. And Imperialism and Neo-Colonialism wouldn't be a fucking problem. But clearly all of this stuff happens for a reason, and that reason is profit and the goal of infinite growth.
One thing that i find to be a common characteristic between different reactionary pro capitalist people such as yourself, is the very poor understanding when it comes to the system in which you live, Capitalism. And the absolute lack of any understanding whatsoever when it comes to any of it's proposed alternatives.
You have no idea. *Clearly.*
@@greengandalf9116 Highly regulated free market systems in societies that provide good quality public healthcare, public education, that guarantee a standard of living through generous social welfare and mandated employment practices (strictly enforced normal work hours/ parental leave and holiday leave) whilst having tight regulation on the exploitation of natural resources appear to do even better than laissez-faire economies. The countries I've visited that appear to have the best lifestyles also appear to have cultures that value mutual respect and mutual responsibility taking.
RIP Immanuel Wallerstein. It’s kind of hard to know where to start with this video. On a channel that usually takes thinking and philosophy pretty seriously, it’s surprising to see ideas and schools of ideas reduced to parodies. The source of structuralism for the dependency thinkers came not out of communism (which isn’t necessarily structuralist) but out of the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, especially under the directorship of Raúl Prebisch. Getting the economics right is important here and so is the politics: dependency theorists in Latin America advocated very different politics to Latin American communist parties. Wallerstein’s thinking about historical time and long cycles was an important correction of the very ahistorical march of modernisation or the abstract theorising of neoclassical economics. And this is not to say that any of these ideas are necessarily right: Wallerstein has had many trenchant critics, such as Robert Brenner who argued that by defining capitalism in terms of trade amongst nations, Wallerstein and dependency theory tended to be economic determinists where starting the analysis from class relations would give a clearer political analysis of capitalism. As to the discussions of inequality, would it not have been better to ask what each of these thinkers in your video think capitalism is and then see if that idea is coherent and consistent, rather than asserting that there is something out there that is “capitalism” that has a record of lifting people out of poverty? Marx himself argued that capital revolutionises the development of the forces of production; you would expect it to generate ever more wealth. This might lift some or even many out of poverty, but why were they poor? How did they lose their access to subsistence? One might suspect that capital has something to do with that, too.
I was about to write some of my disagreements of the video, but you already said all that has to be said. That's right, this topic is way too complex for a 15 min video, plus, there are some fundamental missunderstandings of the theories and a lot of shortcuts and reductionisms.
Even inside the ECLAC were a lot of disagreements between the ideas of what does structuralism and neodevelopmentalism really means. As Ruy Mauro Marini said in his “Dialectic of Dependency”, the underdevelopment is a specific form of capitalist development, one in the periphery. It's a new form of capitalism, a "sui generis" capitalism. That's why saying that it's the exclusion from the structures of the capitalist model the primarly cause of inequality, is a very weird conclusion, that clearly means some misundestanding of the theory. This new form of capitalism that we see in the underdevelopment nations is not an exlusion of the model, is a new part of the structure, one on the periphery, but still a part of the structure. By the way, Maurini could be taken as a kind of structuralist. Another example of the complexity of the issue.
Also, I wouldn't take very seriously Why Nations Fail. The autors take the neoinstitutionalism theories in an incorrect way and assumed that the institutions are some kind of organizations. A really, really weird interpretation.
Anyway, I agree, this channel takes very seriously the issues and theories which he expose. Is just that, in this video, there were a lot of things that just went wrong.
"but why were they poor?". That question proves you don't understand the most important thing: almost EVERYONE was very poor until very recently. Before industrialization, even europeans barely had enough food to eat, due to lack of technology and trade.
@@BUSeixas11 Not sure that proves what you say it does - these theories arose in the context of decolonisation and dependency directly accounted for the active underdevelopment of the poorer parts of the world during colonialism. In fact Britain actively de-industrialised India. The poorer parts could not (some still cannot) industrialise due to the imbalance in world trade where they sell off resources and primary commodities to obtain industrial goods - this maintains them as primary producers. World systems then accounted for the changing dynamic where exploitation of labour was transnational rather than directly between nation-states. The global pressures have seen changes as many move to semi-peripheral status and yet the poor stay poor, just more distributed.
@@mick7557 Just to add to this, here's some details on how Britain de-industrialized India in particular:
www.sgbgatelier.com/world/2019/11/21/5-ways-imperial-britain-crippled-indian-handlooms
Essentially, the British fixed prices to make weaving profits impossible, put tariffs of up to 85% on textiles going to Britain (compared to 5% going the other way), and weavers caught selling to non-British were flogged and had their thumbs cut off to prevent them working.
India had manufactured 25% of the world textiles in 1600, but only 2% at independence from Britain in 1947.
@@LowestofheDead Thanks
International institutions are undoubtedly governed by, financed by and run in favor of the Western capitalist ruling class. I think this video maps out the issue well but ends by presenting a 'bootstrap' view of the developing world. This is to completely ignore the historical importance of resource extraction through colonization, imperialism and even what we would tend to refer to as economic 'soft power' which often functions to tear down barriers to capital but build them with regard to labor. The global economy is premised upon a power relation that de facto and de jure represents the interests of the capitalist class and benefits states that themselves represent the greatest share of capital. The problems of corruption and bad governance in poor countries map onto that existing framework but DO NOT generate it.
@Anarchist Zero Differences in outcomes between human populations are mostly genetic and before designer babies become common place you can't do much about it. But sure, stir up racial hatred, if that's your goal.
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 interesting how you use genetics to explain generational poverty (which relies on racial logic) but call them a racist for pointing out the racism that occurs in the world.
Exactly
@@noblebrown6077 "which relies on racial logic" If you believe that's "race thing" then you sort of become perplexed why generational poverty exist as well also within predominant ethnic group.
"call them a racist" I did not use this slur as I find it over used until the moment it lost any clear meaning. I simply pointed out what's the end result of what's he is doing
@@noblebrown6077 Fun fact: I used very general word "populations" (as this phenomena can be observed in many situations like ex. assortative mating or brain drain), and you started to suggest it's a race thing.
For a video entitled "dependency and world-systems theory", much of it seems to be used advocating for new institutional economics ideas of acemoglu and robinson etc. Even NIE authors have ceded that their previous thinking failed to relate the success of any particular institutional settings to the pre-existing power dynamics between actors within and beyond the country's borders. I recommend reading about Mushtaq Khan's political settlements theory if you're interested in how or why NIE has shown itself to be poor at explaining real-world development
I slightly disagree with the assessments for two reason:
-For starter, those countries you mentioned were never communist (eg: Stateless, classless, moneyless society, AKA community focus anarchy), those states were failed experiments of state capitalism. The wealth was never redistributed, classes were never abolished, political power was never descentralized and eventually abolished. They were simple dictatorships using the aesthetics of left politics to entice the populus to give any and all power to a selected few in a direct manner. Sort of how Hitler and fascism in general flipsflops between left and right aesthetics to achieve its goals.
Legitimately attempts at establishing descentralized leftist states were crushed by the US, example of that would be the Dominican republic in the 60s, after the populus decided they had enough of the US BACKED dictator Trujillo. Another example, Chile, argentina... You get the point. Those states elected DEMOCRATICALLY their leaders, not by violent revolution, those states wanted legitimate grow and openess.
-you don't need to be a cynic to see that the world is not getting better. *Living* and being alive aren't the same thing. The strategy of keeping the 3rd world in constant "development" for the exploration of the rich nation is basically an evolution of slavery. If you use the metrics but the IMF for instance, of course more people have gotten out of poverty, but why should the metric be based on a few dollars a day? If you use something like 15-20$ a day, the things flip and more people have fallen into poverty.
Yes.
Our global environmental crisis is completely inaccessible from the perspective of texts like "Why Nations Fail." The term I've been seeing in recent scholarship is "fossil capitalism," which describes capitalism not as a Marxist stage, but as a means of mastering and exploiting the natural environment for utility and profit. Inequality largely springs from this relationship; capitalism necessarily involves the systemic disparity and inequality that emerge from environmental exploitation.
It seems very clear now, in 2019, that things are indeed getting worse. You don't have to be a cynic to see that. In this century, being hopeful without being in denial will mean boldly imagining new ways of relating ourselves to each other and the world.
Yep. People think that iPhones getting cheaper or being available in ever more countries somehow counts as a real improvement in living standards. They don't. More rights and less labour are the hallmarks of rising living standards, not more gimmicky consumer goods.
That's right. I'm not against a private market, but unless it's subjugated to the First Value of human well-being, we're going to continue have these same problems. We have enough resources on the planet right now to meet everyone's basic needs, but the US govt, my govt, has no intention of allowing this to happen. They're the bad guys. They're a regime as much as any other regime. Sooner or later they're going to have to be neutralized if the planet is going to move forward.
I agree with most of what's in this video. I do believe that the current capitalist system we are in at the moment is not sustainable, not only from an environmental point of view but also for the labourers who are constantly being exploited due to the rich trying to maximise profit. The whole point of capitalism is profit maximisation and constant growth, but what happens after we reach that peak? Slavery? Environmental destruction? Exhaustion of resources? We can't just keep growing forever. However, I disagree with the narrator's quick jumping to conclusions about how Communism doesn't work, therefore we should just stay with capitalism and deal with the bad consequences. There are alternative economies, there are other options. We need to stop thinking about the world solely from a capitalist-communist perspective.
what other options/alternatives then? in today's world, it's not possible for a country to avoid the capitalist economic system. Many communist countries nowadays have adopted the capitalism and it has brought them advancement, technology and innovation, although poverty still the main obstacle for the developing countries to grow. The narrator has pointed out in the video that the fall of the USSR signifies that Communism as an "economic system" doesn't work. Communism in its ideology may sound appealing to most people but in practice, it's the exact opposite of that, I'm pretty sure you're familiar with George Orwell's Animal Farm if you never heard it then read it. Slavery and discrimination always exist within society, they're the pillars for society stabilization. The labours are being exploited it's because they want to be exploited, there's no one forcing them to choose that path.
He is presenting points of view and theories.
Plus the fact that authoritarian socialism, similar to the soviet model isn’t the only kind way to practice socialism.
@@afud1015 Not to be a party pooper but George Orwell was a famous socialist.
I hate to repeat this argument, but communism, as Marx and friends layed out, hasn't actually been implemented on a nationwide scale. Bad copies have been tried, but sooner or later those adulterations turn into central command economies that, to your point, don't "encourage advancement, technology, and innovation".
To the point about how communist countries have adopted capitalism; well yeah, after nearly a century of constant interference from the west. Much to peoples surprise, the west (namely the US and the UK) actually instigated the Cold War, and the Soviet Union's actions were purely reactionary. Trotsky, Lenin's Marxist comrade, was the one who wanted to "spread the good word" to the world. Following Lenin's death, Stalin took over and was famous for his philosophical rift with Trotsky over this and many other issues. Call him and blame him for what you want but Stalin never had intentions to spread Bolshevik communism further than to the countries that fell under his control following World War 2. It was the US who struck first... and second... and third... . The economic war that the Capitalists running the US and the UK waged against Soviet-aligned countries head devastating effects on the economic conditions on the "common man". Take Vietnam for example; they were initially aligned with the US when they drove out the French from Indo-china, but because the US became politically hostile once the communist revolutionaries began to win the war against the French, the Vietnamese leaders looked to the Soviets who TURNED THEM DOWN. The Chinese would end up supporting the Vietnamese revolutionaries.
There are countless other examples of the US waging war against popular communist or socialist movements. See Spain, Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile and Nicaragua (or much of Lain America for that matter), Cuba, etc. To conclude, the reason the communist "economic system" didn't work was because it was constantly being meddled with by the US in an attempt to "kill the economic baby in its cradle". Remember that capitalism has had the benefit of being around for 200+ years at the end of World War 2, 200 years to grow and reform and mature; there was little chance that the "communist economic system" would have made it when the whole first world was against it.
@@greenpea4239 Yep, basically Capitalist Encirclement led to Siege Socialism in most of these countries, but even then... Even in these bad copies, Polls consistently show that people in ex Communist countries, want Socialism back in some form or another, because Capitalism clearly isn't working for them. If even a bad copy is better than the current system for most folks, then that should get across just how much of a failure neo-liberalism is outside of these core countries.
"free market lifted billions out of poverty"
looks at the Global South:
oh no...
has/could any other economical arrangement? lol
Yes, they could
The level of inequality and the instability it creates cannot justify our systems ability to lift some out of poverty
Just saying communism doesn't work like that's the end of it is extremely reductive. Some aspects of communism worked extremely well, others didn't work at all.
Dismissing a way of thinking about economics and politics which has demonstrably benefited millions in it's entirety is just not a very smart thing to do when you know that capitalism can't last forever.
Diego Latruwe communisms main issue is the belief that a central source can identify all the needs in the world but markets do this better by several orders of magnitude.
I think it's worth noting that "communism" has had many meanings and that leftists generally understand it to be a theoretical end goal to work towards--a stateless, classless society. What people in the US call "communism" tends to refer to the various projects that attempted to work towards communism via a socialist state. These projects have all been experimental and different, with their own successes and failures.
David Song For one, not all communists advocate for a centrally-planned state capitalist economy.
David Song For two, the efficiency of an economy is not measured by how well it identifies people's needs, but by how well it *meets* people's needs.
I agree with the critical comments here. This video false into a couple traps and therefore ends up supporting liberal capitalism.
the middle of the video had my eyes start rolling up on their owm
Thank goodness it wasn't just me.
yeah, I couldn't focus on anything being said because of the loud, repetitive music.
thought that was just me that stupid
great work presenting your process of thinking through this but um no. how are we defining innovation? there are many competing views regarding what we actually talk about (and don't) when we invoke Innovation™. it's like saying progress... what is progress? quite surprising to see your conclusion and process given that your other videos suggested that you would be fully aware of the blindspots of Enlightenment era notions.
The biggest error is measuring the size and health of economies with such narrow-minded and short-sighted measures like GDP. The concept of economic development is also faulty at its core, like the mainstream (neoclassical) economics that meticulously ignores or downplays the ecological and sociological facts of life.
Umm... The USSR had the fastest economic development and modernization of any country in world history, and you simply cannot argue that they did not have technological and scientific innovation. They kicked America's ass in the Space Race up until we landed on the moon. They were also at the forefront of climate science, even if Stalinism was ecologically disastrous.
@@andrii5175
What countries did not develop "at the cost of the people"?
@@andrii5175
1. Did you not read my question well?
2. Are you telling me USSR is guilty for not having colonies or robbing other countries through war?
3. Where did you take the number 30 million from? Did you include the civil war and famine casualties there or smth?
@@andrii5175 That number is outdated - all people that previously claimed that figure admited they were lying, now they say up to 7 million, but no thorough investigation was done yet, so this 7 mil number is probably much smaller. You should also know that population was constantly growing except WW2 time, and while US was already superpower by russian revolution, USSR had civil war, femins, bloodiest war in history and by the end of it still became 2nd superpower. That shows that it was most successfull country in 20th century.
@@andrii5175 It is 154 quadrillion people killed under Stalin, not 30 million. You gotta account for inflation. IF you look at the USSR population data from Stalin era, you'll clearly see a negative population, where the soviet bureaucrats were selling and buying dead souls like Chichikov. But I agree with the other points.
ua-cam.com/video/a16cHsV2uq4/v-deo.html
What keeps poor countries poor is simple ; The flow of resource is greater from the poor countries to the rich countries due to the predatory society and economy of the industrialized nations. In this way it is the rich countries that are the dependent ones by simple mathematics. With money rich nations only appear to be giving more and they only look as though they are in a better position to give, yet their dependency on resources and labor from the poor countries actually make their systems more unstable.
That's why they keep a tight grip on the 3rd world. They understand that if these countries nationalize all their business the west would loose massive profits.
@@TH3FU113ZT Absolutely!
@@TH3FU113ZT At times I think keeping corrupts in the government avoids us from getting bombed.
@@chickensoup9869 what?
Man, i studied sociology at uni but ended up doing IT consulting, and man I'm glad to have found this channel.
like, you're a liberal and that ideological bias really really shows very thickly, but i mean, there's no such thing as unideological. Still, this is as good a treatment of these ideas I've seen on youtube.
Thanks! This is a pretty old video ;)
@@ThenNow ya will check others
@@TSBoncomptewhy do you say he's a liberal based on this one video. i have just found it, and it seems pretty unbiased to me. clean analysis.
Yeah, this was a tad naive
He lost me at “ the world is slowly becoming a better place.” Obviously untrue in 2019.
Brenten Ireland Ireland Very obviously untrue the only place you can kind of say this is a China but capitalism never solves the problems of slums and poverty it only moves them around.
Technically speaking if you look at metrics used for HDI is fully correct (higher GDP, higher life expectancy, more years of schooling).
As previous commentators have noticed, there is no mention in this video of the systemic motivation within corporate capitalism to treat the rest of the biosphere and society as a source of exploitable labor and resources and as a sink for pollution and the immiserated masses. What capitalism under current legislation lacks are additional "bottom lines" representing impacts on the ecosystem and on social health and community
The presence of the Very Rich make democratic society impossible. Every problem mentioned is the fig leaf in front of the machinations of the very rich. Every single one. #TeamGuillotine
Based.
Did this guy really hold Bill Gates in opposition to monopolies? Thats peak fam
The flow of resources is always greater toward rich countries and away from poor countries. Therefore ,the rich countries are the true dependents because if the flow of resources stopped poor countries would keep more and benefit and the rich would be thrown into deep crisis. Money is a way for assets to be pillaged with the least effort. In a share economy cooperation is the currency.
Marxism will say that institutions will reflect the economic structure and not the other way around. You cannot expect 'good institutions' to appear as independent variables for growth as Acemoglu and Robinson naively believe (or want us to believe). In structures where exploitation needs military coercion and breeds corruption, institutions will reflect THIS.
Much better than most of your posts. Well-researched and detailed. Learn how to use Oxford Commas in your titles.
Workers MUST own and control the means of production. Wage slavery IS slavery.
The state must also go down with capitalism following the revolution!
For some reason I expected better from this channel than this half-baked paean to neoliberalism, where Bill fucking Gates is held up as a paragon of all that's good, progressive and "creative"
So, it's the peripheral countries fault not to manage their resources properly. Go and tell that to Salvador Allende.
I think a common mistake people make is to attribute Capitalism to lifting billions out of poverty - it is not this at all; but it is the Scientific, agricultural and Industrial revolutions...which took place so long ago...Global socio-economic policies have had the effect of slowing down the ability of delvoping nations to catch up and also benefit from these revolutions...The best way to empower these nations is to help them build their Educational institutes so that they can stand on their own feet as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is doing
I agree with the innovation part, but when individuals amass huge amounts of wealth for themselves (ie. Bill Gates), there's no good in that system, it only leads to corruption, greed, and exploitation.
gloss over genocide and disgusting atrocities, yup capitlism is the BEST ! i think this youtuber is a oil funded homeboy
Excellent work. Please turn the background music down a bit. It interferes with the message 🙂
Really good video, although I'd part ways with you over the impossibility of socialism and the faith in ethical capitalism, all the same, great video.
You lost me towards the middle there. Was a bit too reductive.
I appreciate the huge work of video editing you did .
Power = Money. It's tautological that third world and resource-rich countries will be dominated by the power of the rich ones. It's a Kantian analytical judgment, where the predicate proceeds from the subject: capitalism creates inequality. I recommend reading Arrighi, how he develops world systems theory in a Marxist way is very interesting and useful
world-system theory is already marxist.
Innovation can easily become extractive.
such a good video, really impressed by the quality in all departments. with current political developments + the recent popularity and success of 'video essay' channels (such as Nerdwriter) I implore you to return to making videos on youtube!
I truly think the 'west' needs to take it's lectures to 'poor countries' to heart THEMSELVES - almost of what you describe as real corruption and lack of media independence from government control actually exists in the US - what human and planetary cost does this whole hectoring exact?
Great video but I think not being able to drink safe clean water in the richest country in the world is hardly a ringing endorsement of 'pushing for innovation' as an example to the' bottom billion'.
This not a very balanced view of the theories. Its a good presentation by the way.
The hybrid systems of "market socialism" that combine socialism to raise workers out of poverty while promoting entrepreneurial innovation seem to work best, the success of China being one notable case that vexes Western capitalists.
Perhaps think in terms of a balance of lifestyle
How much is required for a productive life
Do people require a mansion yacht or a basic home
Very nice video, it makes me more curious to know more about the reality of the current economic world which is in the hands of the great and rich countries, while poor countries still in nefarious dependency.....
Capitalism does not lift everyone out of poverty capitalism needs poverty to function. Without capitalism you don't need an underclass to exploit so no capitalism is not the best way to distribute commodities and it is inherently uneven and will always leeds to a concentration of wealth in a few hands when left unabated which is why they are constantly trying to redistribute wealth in capitalist society so the underclass came never organise.
You should see Socialism. It is the most mediocre-sad life. People are dead inside and have no freedom.
Respectfully, you don’t know what you say.
I really like the background music! Who is the artist?
song?
you lost me at bill gates bud
Please improve the volume quality. It is hard for non English speaking countries to understand if the voice volume not quite big.
"In theory, they are all ideal. But when it comes to the crunch, a system of government can only be judged by the time in between the date of its implementation and the date human nature fucks it up."- L. Hayko
Does anyone know the name of the song?
@9:55 then and now said that exclusion of capitalism causes inequality does that mean capitalism do not cause inequality but other systems do??
yes
just at the right time.....well done...keep keeping it....
though all is not really so well, without fiat currency capitalism could not have satisfied the elite and simultaneously humored the general populace as to its egalitarian benevolence...
It was a nice video until 6:27. Then it turned into shit. Lmao.
People are being lifted out of poverty? By what or whose standards? Nice meme, if that is what you intend this to be.
So, if a country is already qualified in terms of natural resources, then it should immediately break away from dependence on a country that prides itself on being a developed country. free themself from the dependence of the world system that has long exploited to become an economic subordinate and consume raw materials which are the source of its country's prosperity.
Overlook the very fact that the accumulation of capital means accumulation of power makes possible the manipulation of the system to accumulate my more capital therefore more power.
The only real solution is not to allow any individual, organization or institution to accumulate more capital and as result more power than any other individual, organization or institution.
Super insightful and informative video, Thank you! Using it as part of revision for a 1st year uni development exam I have in a couple of days and it summarises things nicely :)
"Bla bla capitalism is good"
Resources aren’t distributed equally. There are countries out there with barren land and can’t grow food but they have other resources. No one would say them trading for food is sucking resources from other countries. Not all cultures are the same. Not all people are the same. The world is an unequal place. Doesn’t mean we can’t work towards more equality but you’ll NEVER be able to reach full equality. It’s IMPOSSIBLE.
I kinda disagree with this as studying the current systems linked with inequality can bring us towards a solution on it
hi thank you for your jucy infomation, but your background is little too loud, I can not hear you well
Interesting that the video doesn't mention the word tax in all the video. I think that would solve quite a big part of poverty in the world.
Dependency theory is CLEARLY true, but nice try
marxists are such boring babies. lol.
I have final exam after 30mins, from development studies, thanks for this
7:50min But how can he claim that for the past 50yrs of economic policy for even the center? The periphery was charged plenty a lost decade by the IMF. They talk about political institutions, but if you do not understand the history of these very same institutions (whether they oppose, or support progress) then the argument will fail at the policy level. As I pointed out below the history of those institutions, and the people that shaped them to defend themselves from what they insist are threats (the policies described below: like weekends without work) is crucial to see if faith, and trust is to be deposited in them as it regards material existence: who gets to enter, and who does not.
great teaching, i understand it clearly. Thankyou!.
PLEASEEE PLASEEE PUT IN ENGLISH SUBTITLES (not auto-generated)
Who says bill gates getting rich helped anyone but bill gates?
So Bill Gates was being ingenious when he copied Apple's GUI and didn't try to create a monopoly with Windows and Microsoft? Ok lol...
1.- There is a debate about the concept of poverty in the no occidental way of life. For example, in many indigineus zones of mexico the society lives in a sustained way trough the time, they never be afraid about have house or food, but is normal that sometimes they are below the line of extreme poverty; meanwile a lot of homeless in the cities easily can be uppper that level. If you want check the book "stone age economics".
2.- The capitalist way of life of the core nations needs to operate changing the political panorama of the periferic nations in order to get the legal and spacial access to the resources of these countries. A mayor part of the imposibility to get a decent democratic system are for the operations of the big capitals (the most time by a direct action of the international capitals).
I have to say that i´m pretty mad with the argue that the inequality aren´t part of the society of free market, it´s common forget that isn´t only speech, but the only people who notice that this is part of the reality is because you be involved in the side who loses, and that hurts bro.
The World Cyclical Theories too are interesting. 👍 Because their dates seem very intriguing and correct!
I wonder what then and now's reaction to this video would be now, it seems a lot more reductive than his current day analysis.
So insightful. Thank you.
1 modernization capitalism good 2 structuralism capital bad ex swap 1 depency theory periphery to core unilateral law of raw material 2 world system -core semicore periphery
Cure some form of socialism
why nation fails monopolistic culture increase inequality less invotion civil wars oil discovery 1 conflict 2 dutch disease problem 3 less accountable government
Transfer pricing
election Media budget transferring from bottom
Nice work on this video.
Critics are the starting points of solutions, so they are as important.
failed "solutions".
Insightful video, thanks
Now if only we had an anarchist interpretation of World Systems Theory.
wdym?
@@francescocerasuolo4064 Dana Williams recently published a paper on WST from an anarchist POV.
@@CosmoShidan i wouldn't know why this would be so much important(?)
i am much more interested in other branches of information/theory - regarding the radical left. nonetheless, if i have time, i'll try to check it out. thanks for the reply.
In a finite world! Growth is suicidal...
6.40 "maybe the problem isn't the capitalist system as such, but maybe how you interact with and are a part of that world system, maybe it's exclusions .. " hmmmm
subtext **white people are innovators that's why they are on top**
awful pro status quo guff
Cambodia wasn’t communist. Also Cuba is doing amazing all things considered.
Nothing worse than trying to listen to a speaker with repetitive background music. Presentation 101!
This video is Not Good. The glib repetition of neoliberal cliches is painful to listen to. But it's an older video; I wonder whether Then & Now has changed its perspective?
A very thoughtful commentary. The concluding opinion surprised me based on the analysis that preceded it. Well done.
Great video, but your real-life examples are a bit off. Firstly Azerbaijan is not a poor country, it is one of the more prosperous post-Soviet countries due to its immense oil reserves. Secondly, Bangladesh doesn't have Nike sweatshops, Bangladesh doesn't even manufacture Nike products, they are more focused on RMG (ready-made garments) manufacturing, it would be more appropriate if you said RMG sweatshops in Bangladesh or Nike sweatshops in Vietnam or Cambodia.
Otherwise, good summary of the Structuralist and WSA/WST frameworks.
This is outdated already as the rising amount of billionaires. Greed is taking up a larger role than before, especially after the pandemic of '21.
an ardent cynic, I don't think so!
Background noise is too much,....
music is too loud
I hope you have grown out of this simplistic thinking
I think he has
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 yeah I think so too. Its kinda cool to see
@@eagleleft a lot can change in 6 yrs. My awareness on certain things is quite a bit further ahead than it was in 2014-16.
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 true me too. It's just online personalities sometimes become entrenched in their own beliefs because of the positive affirmation. Nice to see growth and hope to see it in the future as well. I am a way different person than 6 years ago
@@eagleleft indeed. We all must try to expand our understanding as we get older. I'm sorry for the smoothbrains who can't.
To quote- "Modern problems require modern solutions"
- modern-day genius, Mr. Dave Chappelle*
*Joke I don't think he's a genius but he is a damn funny guy
Great work!
I am sorry you did not understand what world systems theory and dependency theory are actually about.
Thanks
It’s a really weird decision to argue capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than communism and then use the examples of the Soviet Union and China. Both disprove the point you’re making immediately
The Soviet Union and China did no such thing, as Bakunin argued decades before that a socialist state is just another tyrant. It is therefore ahistorical to claim a socialist state lifts people out of poverty. Only anarchial communities such as ones in Ukraine, Manchuria and Barcelona, with more recent ones such as Chapias and Rojava, have done so. Hence anarcho-communism lifts people out of poverty since hierarchy is absent.
Pls music off
The problem with when people say that communism failed every time is: its a stupid thing to say. Imagine a parallel world where communism is that world's system and capitalism the fringe idea. Now, obviously people of that world would say, see capitalism fails every time and everywhere.
That parallel world would be highly underdeveloped, be in poverty and not free if they ever break the cycle of hunter-gatherers and adopt institutional governments anyway, obviously people of that world would say "we are starving we need food"
yes there have been ages of attacks and socializing minds to think the c word is always bad and will never deliver its promises. much ignorance
Very disappointed with how this video turned out.
please examine ecology theory
I disagree with this theory but thanks for explaining