Okay, let's review: 1.) A large number of lower and middle income jobs disappear (depression sets in). 2.) All the unemployed lose their employer-connected healthcare (illness increases dramatically). 3.) Huge numbers of renters are unable to pay their rent (desperation sets in). 4.) they get evicted and end-up on the streets (at least the weather's not bad - good timing). 5.) "Landlords" drop their rental income expectations but find no new tenants (except for some foreigners). 6.) A huge number of home owners are unable to make their mortgage payments (divorce and suicides increase). 7.) The banks evict residents and repossess their properties (adding to the astounding numbers of homeless). 8.) The banks put these properties up for sale at lower prices (to recover the shortfall - remember, banks don't lose). 9.) These distressed properties are quickly purchased by the wealthy at "fire-sale" prices (also Chinese and other foreign investors move in). 10.) The end result is even more wealth inequality (and the Republicans rejoice). Slavery!
Blaming marx for stalin and mao is like blaming einstein for hiroshima...also implying that there was nothing more to einsteins work than weapons development
@Mohammad Rahman If Trotsky had become a soviet leader we would've had the Third Reich on the whole Eurasian continent with hundreds of nations exterminated by now. It is only thanks to Stalin USSR managed to build the economy strong enough to fight back the invasion of the whole Europe united by nazis. Trotsky would have just wasted the money for revolutions overseas and USSR would've ended back in 1941...
I have a video for you to watch--if you like. It is a speech by Prof Grover Furr given in Norway. He is an American and he had access to the Soviet Archive and wrote a book called "Khrushchev Lied" and a book called "Blood Lies" His speech will surprise you about Stalin: ua-cam.com/video/Ccmj2Lj5jB0/v-deo.html
@Mohammad Rahman Noone denies his contribution to the revolution in Russia but it was impossible to finance the revolutions all over the globe and at the same time industrialise USSR at the rate needed. Considering that most of those revolutions failed and were severely suppressed there is no reason to assume that revolution in USA would have succeeded. And WW2 was not a result of the Mol-Ribb pact lol)) It was a simple nonaggression pact that Hitler signed with *every* major European country when he needed to bully some of his neighbours) In case with Mol-Ribb pact he needed USSR to stay neutral while he occupies piece of Poland (Gdansk). But it all went wrong as we know...) The western propaganda myth like "..Stalin united with Hitler to divide Poland.." is absolute crap. Secret protocols of the Mol-Ribb pact were declassified in 2019 and they say nothing about soviet occupation of Poland.
Blaming stalin and Mao is also a mistake. If we are serious about building socialism in the real world, then we need to learn from the achievements and mistakes, the good and the bad, of existing socialist projects and past socialist projects. In order to do this, it is mandatory that we actually study the facts, sort through fact from fiction, and figure out the REAL bad moves, the REAL good moves, etc.
I was going to comment the exact same thing... the constant comments by the interviewer totally pulls me away from concentrating on what Prof Wolff is saying... so annoying and distracting.. just let your important guests talk.
Thank you for having an actual Marxist on to define Marxism instead of the hypocritical, hyperbolic straw manning that usually happens in things labeled capitalism vs. marxism.
Learn more in the last 4 minutes of this video about economics than most U.S. citizens (or even economists) learned in their entire education. Fabulous!
The inventor who in turn makes the product deserves the profits for his initiative.But what makes the system work fairly is that he must employ people to do the work of production according to supply & demand by paying them a fair wage.Riches & profit do not in themselves equate to greed which some think makes up capitalism.The overall key quality needed in human beings is BENEVOLENCE!!
Socialism is the primary stage of communism. It is not state capitalism. State capitalism is a high degree of combination of private monopoly capital and state power. Under state capitalism, the means of production are still privately owned, but the means of production under socialism are Public, it's totally different
True. Unfortunately however, you and I often don't mean the same thing when we say something is fair or isnt,. So yes, while conversations can sometimes be bogged down by these discourse on labels and our pre-suppositions associated with then, I think it is nevertheless an important conversation to have if two people are to understand eachother's point of view
@@johnlock572 Okay, I understand how important discourse is but there are scientific ways to assess fairness when looked at from certain angles that everyone should be able to agree on. First of all we must all recognize that fairness is a construct imposed by humanity on itself for it's own preservation. The universe is not fair, it is paradoxically wrote and random due to our human ability to analyze yet not with enough depth to see the entire picture of physical causality. Fairness is a mechanism that regulates the well being of every different mind in human consciousness, no one wants someone to be unfair to them. If a contest is fair yet we lose, we accept it, same with business deals, debate arguments, ect. But what we all need to understand is that unfairness comes from the universe itself in how it sets up conditions for humans to exist in unfair states. (See causality and determinism) Fairness is not about crafting initial conditions for fairness by manipulating humans, but by manipulating the universe to serve the other piece of it we call human, like a body, the organs must be regulated or the system collapses, same with a population, but we can't eat ourselves, we must strive to allow as many people as possible to exist in as fulfilled a state as possible using outside resources or else we will never reach the pinnacle of what we can be...in the words of Carl Sagan, "We are a way for the universe to know itself." but we will fail in that task of knowing eventually and go extinct leaving it to another species to evolve and grasp that mantle...and that may be unfair, but it was never going to be fair, because the universe makes the rules, we just work within them the best our species knows how...I guess I'm kinda the Anti-Architect (From The Matrix) the problem is not so much that there is choice, but that there isn't...and it takes quite a bit of brain work to get around that as a human without going totally nihilistic and fatalistic...
@@42Mrgreenman Notice that even in your attempt to present a notion of fairness backed by rigorous scientific rationalism, you still suggests that something everyone should rather than will agree on, leaving the possibility for disagreement. In fact, imagine having this conversation 700 years ago in Central Europe, I think you'd have a hard time finding people agreeing with your notion of fairness or whatever beliefs you're currently holding. So it seems to me there exists only different theories, conceptions, way of thinking, the agreeability of which is a function of history, society, ideology, education, etc...
Not really. He was constantly interrupting and making unnecessary mouth noises. Like we get it interviewer, you don't like socialism or Marxism. Can you let him finish his point before you quip in?
While there are aspects about Marxist thought that can be critiqued, in the same way that you could critique any other economic philosophy, I find that in no other area, outside of possibly religion, do so many have such strong opinions on the idea without reading the seminal texts behind the idea. In the same way that people either cherish the Bible as the most informative book of all time, or they denigrate it as the most repellent book of all time, and yet most have not read significant portions of it, the same applies to Marxism. People either excoriate Marxism as one of the most corrosive ideas in history, or they advocate it as the panacea to our economic woes, and yet most have not read the Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital, and fewer still have read explanations of those ideas.
Drake Santiago , how many tens of millions need to die at the hands of communism governments for us to decide those results are enough to speak for themselves? You could read Karl Marx and discuss his thoughts 100 years ago, but we have already run the experiment a few times and it doesn’t end well.
@@fedcoin1602 You glossed over the suffering caused by capitalism: millions in slavery,, child labour in the industrial revolution, the great depression, colonial empires built on cheap labour and raw materials for mercantile capitalism, cold wars such as the invasion of Viet Nam to preserve and expand the frontiers of capitalism. The list goes on. The issue is what governments do in the name of capitalism and communism, and whether these governments are dictatorships or democracies.
@@fedcoin1602 Ok how many people have died in the middle east for oil? How about slavery? How many natives died for america to be what it is today? How many people have died in latin and south america as a direct result of US foreign policy etc etc... Like I'll never understand this weird blissful ignorance people choose to have to how many people "capitalism" has killed for the weird gotchya of "communism killed this many people" not even mentioning that the communist top down approach the soviets (after the revolution) and mao took is pretty much the direct opposite of what modern day socialists / marxists want which is a bottom up democratic approach.
@@fedcoin1602 LMAO. Just here in the US alone, that number is minuscule compare to the legal and illegal immigrants fleeing their now failed capitalist state of Mexico through the southern border in just the last 10 years
Any chance to hear from Prof Wolff is a good thing, so the weird interruptions and the brevity of the interview can be overlooked. 9:49 but bringing up Ayn Rand in the same breath as Marx and Smith? Idk why that grinds my gears more than the "Marxists universities" nonsense. It's like bringing up Dan Brown in a conversation about Shakespeare. Attempts to legitimize Ayn Rand are cringe
All forms of government systems , Finance, and all the isms will all fail if corruption is allowed to flourish! And it will unless in some way regulated and controlled by a benevolent and wise source!
The initial and middle stage accelerate the process of wealth build up through improving the efficiency, and innovation , the capitalism at the late stage destroys the achievement of early and middle stage of capitalism through the extreme greediness , and the capitalists take advantage of its power of unlimited wealth by manipulating the market dominate the wealth , as a result wealth concentrates in the hands of few capitalist, while the majority of the population have nothing which just can not justify the contribution of majority of the population to the progress of economy , as a result we have majority sink under poverty lost their consumption power , as a result the products and service produced by the capitalists have no place to sell, and the progress and prosperity stop to move forward , economic growth slowed down and eventually stop . Looking around the world , we see that every country with capitalism the wealth is always uneven distributed among the population and economy eventually go no where , as a result, in the late stage of the capitalism we should emphasize on the reasonable wealth distribution , and restrict the monopoly power and dominating power of the wealth by the extreme wealthy capitalists , which is a kind of mix of capitalism and socialism
There are coops in Russia. There are coops in the U.S., too, and in various other countries. But in no country, to my knowledge, do they make up the foundation of the economy, let alone operate to the exclusion of the private corporation. The reason has to do with how companies are formed. If the investment infrastructure of a country is privately held, then the investors are interested in owning a piece of the capital they paid for. A country with private banks, for example, will have private corporations for companies. If the investment infrastructure is public, then investment in coops is possible because the government (or other public or semi-public institution) need not be interested in owning the capital if it collects money for new investments in some other way (like taxes and/or just printing up cash).
There was a model of a cooperative enterprise in Soviet Russia which dates back to the collectivization of agriculture, something called collective farms. A groups of peasants, often dislocated by the army, where given a clumps of land where they were to engage in production; own and operate this farm collectively. Unfortunately the collective farm sector in agriculture gave way to state farms (agriculture land owned by the states on which the peasants work on) in the later years of the soviet regime in their effort to consolidate power
14:00 Wolf is wrong. Marx indeed wrote about the state. Read Critique of the Gotha Programme. "Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of revolutionary *transformation* (my emphasis) of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which *the state* (my emphasis) can be nothing but *the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat* (Marx's emphasis)" Pages 34-35 of Critique of the Gotha Programme. The 2018 Edition by Occultus Books
That is nothing more than a rhetorical flourish on marx's part. He did not go on to describe the exact institutional structures needed under this dictatorship of the proletariat.
There is something radically wrong with our American economic system when an egomaniac billionaire from New York can drop half a billion dollars on the presidential race as a johnny-com-lately only to withdraw after a few months while, at the same time, we have entire city blocks of homeless people living in tents. Professor Wolff is absolutely right about economic inequality in our country, in my opinion. I'm not a professional economist but I am a published author. My book: "The Conscience of An Agnostic" is listed on Amazon. If I did not have Social Security I could be one of the millions of homeless people suffering in the current economic climate. This is not the America that I grew up in and I fear greatly for our future.
Good up until the very end. I understand Wolff had limited time here, so explaining all the dishonesty regarding socialist states and what state capitalism was would take more time than he had, but it doesn't seem good to me to let that pass by. The withering of the state is central to Marxism. Marx did talk about the state. And despite all their mistakes, socialist countries are absolutely trying to make this transition. I would recommend anyone interested in the topic begin with reading Michael parenti (or watching or listening to his lectures). Let me know if you are im happy to supply links or explain anything you need. (I run a Marxist education program)
I don’t know what Hartman’s politics are, but this is one of the fairest interviews I’ve seen from a guy who’s not explicitly Marxist. I really didn’t see what everyone else is bitching about.
None of the conventional "isms" address the fundamental imbalance between human and property rights associated with access to and control over nature. In terms of labor and capital goods, nature as a zero cost of production. Nature is provided to humans for our use and survival. Almost alone among the great political and economic thinkers, the American Henry George presented a cogent argument for a labor and capital goods basis for property. Nature is, George argued, the commons from which all wealth is produced. Nature is the source of private wealth but is not legitimate private wealth. The ideal structure for accessing any part of nature is under a competitive bidding system for a leasehold interest issued by the community or society. Note that government is, then, the agent of the community and society for administrating such as system. As deeds to nature had already become a widespread norm, George argued that a second-best approach was for government to collect from every "owner" of land (broadly defined to include such natural assets with an inelastic supply as frequencies on the broadcast spectrum) the full potential annual rental value. This would serve as the fund with which to pay for democratically agreed upon public goods and services, which the potential for an annual citizen's dividend to be distributed. The term that best described the principles embraced by Henry George is "cooperative individualism". Edward J. Dodson, Director School of Cooperative Individualism www.cooperative-individualism.org
Inflation is a profoundly human issue. As long as people would want more than they can afford, the economy will implode every now and again. Our dependence on being evaluated by how we look and what we possess becomes an obsessive addiction that is being fueled by marketing, branding and financial policymakers. It isn’t capitalism it is humanism. Thanks Professor Richard Wolff.
Some comments are a bit harsh on Jason. Yeah, it's clear he didn't understand Marx and some of his points are a bit inane for those more familiar with the subject matter, but give the guy some credit where it's due; he brought a leading professor with an opposing viewpoint on his show, and made the effort to annotate and time-stamp the key points. That's more generous treatment than you get from a lot of anti-Marxist hosts. You can't expect him to suddenly jump up and shout "Eureka! Surplus labour! Now I get it! Let me just undergo an immediate paradigm shift!"
I don’t think government control over anybody is good because eventually you will get that one later you might have a leader that is good hearted any equally truly does want to help everybody but what happens when you get that one leader that is evil and corrupt like Hitler that goes in destroys everybody honestly I think that we are all given free rights freedom to choose to educate or not educate freedom to pick whatever job we want or to work towards a better job freedom to make a little bit of money or make a lot of money I believe above our freedom of choice for any individual is always what’s best
Adam smith said the wealth of a nation is reflected in the wealth of its citizens. That probably appealed to marx. Cant recommend reading adam smith its pretty dry.
It seems as though trade is capitalism and the different types of government regulate trade in different ways. This includes work if you think of trade as work in trade for something...like wage-slave.
James West in the marxist sense trade is distinct from capitalist accumulation. You are correct that Government's regulate trade based on the interests of the political status quo. Whether or not said government embody a simple label is a different issue. You are also correct that wage labor is as much a commodity as anything else.
What happens when an individual doesn't want to participate in a system based on Marxism, and they flourish because a meritocratic system has proven more innovative and efficient historically?
There is no meritocracy, and it had in many ways stifled innovation. The idea that innovation came because of capitalism and inspite or at best simply parallel to it is asinine.
@@javiervalenzuela8284 What system based on marxism is proving this? Capitalism is predicated on the free, reciprocal exchange of labor, thats it. Crony capitalism and capitalism are different things. You want capitalism to work better, shrink the government (getting rid of corporate socialism, assuming its not all, already a facade), and allow people to trade that labor more freely. Reciprocal marxism works fine under reciprocal capitalism. I've never heard Wolff address if he plans on using the state to implement this system on a grand scale?
@@RBGHfam Oh no... What is this thing that's so great, unless there's a complete, all thought out plan that works ducky fine 100% of the time that everybody agrees on, it could never be replace capitalism....
The way many changes in our societies happen: the majority of people have their minds changed, and no longer put up with injustices. Black people are no longer automatically slaves, women can vote, gays can get married - change can happen and it doesn't always take violence, the new majority overtook the minority.
You know, some 400 years ago, people would have said the very same thing to those who propose the idea of modern democratic government. So to answer your question: we don't know, nobody can tell the future. I may have some ideas of what to do, the professor may have some different ideas and some other smart people might come out with something different. Now you and I can talk forever about what idea is good and what isn't, but ultimately whether those ideas might actually work or turns out to be utopian, only history will be the judge of that. Change however would happen the way it always happens in history. Society will change one way or another not because someone has the right or best idea, but because the majority of people refuse to tolerate the current state of society and want change, whatever that change might be.
Give me all the power to control you and I will give you the utopia. This is about envy and power. You can vote in communism, but you can’t vote it out. Any generation that has tried it, never survived to see freedom again. Go talk to you grandparents or someone who has lived under Communism.
In big coops, they typically elect managers and higher leadership. You don't have to ratify decisions X, Y, and Z. There's still that practical division of labor. Merely, in the cooperative, you have the democratic power to change things if you find you don't like how they are being done. As a practical difference, apart from periodic elections, you can probably expect shorter hours and higher wages (and bonuses) since there's nobody there to skim off the top.
Truth Seeker communism occurs when children don’t talk to their grandparents. 4000 years of civilization and you think that you have all the answers at your young age?
I'm on the total flip side of that. Used to be super supportive of socialism then I learned about gold money Austrian economics and came out on the flip side thriving like never before. The only reason capitalism fails is because the only police for it is no intervention from government and gold. He made some good points though if you exclude the economics out of it.
Have high IQ, some very motivated. Sad, but not everyone us born with the same ability. Crony capitalism is the problem. All the corruption. It's ALWAYS existed, always will, no matter what the system. Decentralized power is where it's at, not more socialism. We have too much already in our "capitalist system". Give me an example of where socialism works, and it'll have even less freedom than here. Unfortunately, our freedoms are evaporating before our eyes, so having even bigger Gov't, like socialism demands, is 90% here. Wolff can pontificate all he wants and fool alot of people. I'm sure he's made quite a living at it.
This is about Marxism, not socialism. But Dr. Wolff still defines socialism in a way that addresses what you're talking about. (What you're using is the straw man invented by opponents to make it look bad, not what Marxists advocate).
regardless of your arbitrarily chosen differences (which by the way are all valued under capitalism, strange that you would pick those), everybody needs to eat, everybody wants to work, everybody wants to contribute, everybody wants to belong. a highly intelligent highly motivated person will still thrive under a communal system.
Yeah, but that doesn't really say much of anything does it? There's capitalism in theory and there's reality of it. Hell if Pericles could see how democracy would one-day be delivered with a laser guided precision to Iraq and Afghanistan then I'm sold
The reality of worker-owned co-ops is very successful and the workers in them do better financially and have a say in their livelihood instead of waiting for an authoritarian to dictate to them.
@@fedcoin1602 I wonder if you hold the same attitude towards every other aspects of life, going back speaking to your grandparents to ask for advice on your sex life and such
To say capitalism has not brought liberty, democracy etc. is just plain denial of reality. Marxism has brought nothing but death and despair. True, capitalism, rather its application, has faults because humans have faults by nature. My life and the life of my friends, family, community are so amazing because of capitalism. Socialism = death. Capitalism = life. Before anyone states that capitalism has caused deaths from colonialism/recent wars, be sure not to conflate capitalism with imperialism. All political/economic doctrines whether fascist, socialist, capitalist, anarchist, whatever are capable of imperialism.
This was pretty terrible. Dick says we need coops. No one is stopping anyone from having coops. He claims differences in income are due to organization in the work place. He claims he's an economist so I would at least expect him to understand why certain types of work are worth more than others (supply, demand, subjective value, etc). About the only thing he right on is that Marxism should be taught in schools. Maybe then we'll have fewer people died into that "flat earth" theory of economics.
Nice interview, but I don't agree that we have capitalism. We had capitalism thrive for 120 years with a limited government, but after that government grew and limited capitalism for over 80 years. Now we just have large government tyranny via Fascism, Communism, and Fundamentalism world wide.
@@tidakada7357 You need to use your brain to understand what he is saying: current employer/employee relation needs to turn into a "community" where both sides have equal say on how the business is run (in Marx/Wolfe's opinion), yet it was the employer who took all the risk setting up the business and infusing the capital. Getting equal say is getting something for nothing or free stuff as I said in my original post. If the employee wants to have equal say, let them contribute to the risk involved setting up the business.
@@paulpena9548 The workers risk more in real life. You are opportunistically switching to business game theory, where you use an abstract model of who put in more capital, from actual social relations between people, so as to not see that these people put in more resources time and risk in actual material terms, but not in terms of abstract money to invest the thing. You fail to see how your concept can be turned around-the capitalist can just as be easily seen as the free rider, unwilling to work for a living, wanting to be compensated for less work and less skills. When capitalists flee and workers take over firms, they tend to do better, because of the skills of being on the ground at the enterprise. Don't forget it is private property that came along forcing people to need employment in the first place, by pushing them off their inherited estates by force, and as we now see that firms can work without capitalists, both these facts mean no real service on the social level is being delivered by employing people in itself, don't just ask a native american tribe or an english craftsman or yeoman, ask an modern worker/owner of a giant worker run firm.
LOL, thanks for proving you don't know wtf your talking about. Marx isn't a "philosophy", never was. It's an accurate analysis & critique of Capitalism, nothing more. Only propagandising hacks make the positive claim that Marx "is a philosophy".
@@richardthecowardlylion5289 I'm sorry, do you happen to work your day job as a desk clerk at the Ministry of Truth, passing out stamps deciding what "is" and "isn't " philosophy?
Okay, let's review: 1.) A large number of lower and middle income jobs disappear (depression sets in). 2.) All the unemployed lose their employer-connected healthcare (illness increases dramatically). 3.) Huge numbers of renters are unable to pay their rent (desperation sets in). 4.) they get evicted and end-up on the streets (at least the weather's not bad - good timing). 5.) "Landlords" drop their rental income expectations but find no new tenants (except for some foreigners). 6.) A huge number of home owners are unable to make their mortgage payments (divorce and suicides increase). 7.) The banks evict residents and repossess their properties (adding to the astounding numbers of homeless). 8.) The banks put these properties up for sale at lower prices (to recover the shortfall - remember, banks don't lose). 9.) These distressed properties are quickly purchased by the wealthy at "fire-sale" prices (also Chinese and other foreign investors move in). 10.) The end result is even more wealth inequality (and the Republicans rejoice). Slavery!
Blaming marx for stalin and mao is like blaming einstein for hiroshima...also implying that there was nothing more to einsteins work than weapons development
Or Jesus for the crusades if you need an example you can throw at the Christian right
@Mohammad Rahman If Trotsky had become a soviet leader we would've had the Third Reich on the whole Eurasian continent with hundreds of nations exterminated by now.
It is only thanks to Stalin USSR managed to build the economy strong enough to fight back the invasion of the whole Europe united by nazis. Trotsky would have just wasted the money for revolutions overseas and USSR would've ended back in 1941...
I have a video for you to watch--if you like. It is a speech by Prof Grover Furr given in Norway. He is an American and he had access to the Soviet Archive and wrote a book called "Khrushchev Lied" and a book called "Blood Lies" His speech will surprise you about Stalin: ua-cam.com/video/Ccmj2Lj5jB0/v-deo.html
@Mohammad Rahman Noone denies his contribution to the revolution in Russia but it was impossible to finance the revolutions all over the globe and at the same time industrialise USSR at the rate needed. Considering that most of those revolutions failed and were severely suppressed there is no reason to assume that revolution in USA would have succeeded.
And WW2 was not a result of the Mol-Ribb pact lol)) It was a simple nonaggression pact that Hitler signed with *every* major European country when he needed to bully some of his neighbours) In case with Mol-Ribb pact he needed USSR to stay neutral while he occupies piece of Poland (Gdansk). But it all went wrong as we know...)
The western propaganda myth like "..Stalin united with Hitler to divide Poland.." is absolute crap. Secret protocols of the Mol-Ribb pact were declassified in 2019 and they say nothing about soviet occupation of Poland.
Blaming stalin and Mao is also a mistake.
If we are serious about building socialism in the real world, then we need to learn from the achievements and mistakes, the good and the bad, of existing socialist projects and past socialist projects. In order to do this, it is mandatory that we actually study the facts, sort through fact from fiction, and figure out the REAL bad moves, the REAL good moves, etc.
dude , let him talk ...stop saying yahhhh, sure , ya , okey .... STOP
very irritating...very likely he did not understand marx before this interview.
A sign of attention seeking
THANK YOU....Jesus, that was annoying.
I was going to comment the exact same thing... the constant comments by the interviewer totally pulls me away from concentrating on what Prof Wolff is saying... so annoying and distracting.. just let your important guests talk.
Agreed. Making me anxious.
Thank you for having an actual Marxist on to define Marxism instead of the hypocritical, hyperbolic straw manning that usually happens in things labeled capitalism vs. marxism.
Prof Wolff is an American treasure.
Love Professor Wolff. The interviewer needs to ask a question and then listen.
Learn more in the last 4 minutes of this video about economics than most U.S. citizens (or even economists) learned in their entire education. Fabulous!
Your interview with Prof. Wolfe should have allocated more time. Otherwise, great conversation.
Where do I find this whole interview?
It's on Creating Wealth a podcast by Jason
Thank you so much for having him on.
Brilliant insight by Prof. Wolff.
I got new knowledge after watching this video, thank you. It is both entertaining and educational.
I’m not sure why Jason seems to have the need to interject. Interesting interview, but please let your guest finish his thoughts.
The inventor who in turn makes the product deserves the profits for his initiative.But what makes the system work fairly is that he must employ people to do the work of production according to supply & demand by paying them a fair wage.Riches & profit do not in themselves equate to greed which some think makes up capitalism.The overall key quality needed in human beings is BENEVOLENCE!!
Wonderful as always from Prof. Wolff.
You misspelled "consensus" at 8:07.
Socialism is the primary stage of communism. It is not state capitalism. State capitalism is a high degree of combination of private monopoly capital and state power. Under state capitalism, the means of production are still privately owned, but the means of production under socialism are Public, it's totally different
looks more like predictive programing.
We put these labels on things but in reality it is just fair vs unfair systems
True. Unfortunately however, you and I often don't mean the same thing when we say something is fair or isnt,. So yes, while conversations can sometimes be bogged down by these discourse on labels and our pre-suppositions associated with then, I think it is nevertheless an important conversation to have if two people are to understand eachother's point of view
@@johnlock572 Okay, I understand how important discourse is but there are scientific ways to assess fairness when looked at from certain angles that everyone should be able to agree on. First of all we must all recognize that fairness is a construct imposed by humanity on itself for it's own preservation. The universe is not fair, it is paradoxically wrote and random due to our human ability to analyze yet not with enough depth to see the entire picture of physical causality. Fairness is a mechanism that regulates the well being of every different mind in human consciousness, no one wants someone to be unfair to them. If a contest is fair yet we lose, we accept it, same with business deals, debate arguments, ect. But what we all need to understand is that unfairness comes from the universe itself in how it sets up conditions for humans to exist in unfair states. (See causality and determinism) Fairness is not about crafting initial conditions for fairness by manipulating humans, but by manipulating the universe to serve the other piece of it we call human, like a body, the organs must be regulated or the system collapses, same with a population, but we can't eat ourselves, we must strive to allow as many people as possible to exist in as fulfilled a state as possible using outside resources or else we will never reach the pinnacle of what we can be...in the words of Carl Sagan, "We are a way for the universe to know itself." but we will fail in that task of knowing eventually and go extinct leaving it to another species to evolve and grasp that mantle...and that may be unfair, but it was never going to be fair, because the universe makes the rules, we just work within them the best our species knows how...I guess I'm kinda the Anti-Architect (From The Matrix) the problem is not so much that there is choice, but that there isn't...and it takes quite a bit of brain work to get around that as a human without going totally nihilistic and fatalistic...
@@42Mrgreenman Notice that even in your attempt to present a notion of fairness backed by rigorous scientific rationalism, you still suggests that something everyone should rather than will agree on, leaving the possibility for disagreement. In fact, imagine having this conversation 700 years ago in Central Europe, I think you'd have a hard time finding people agreeing with your notion of fairness or whatever beliefs you're currently holding. So it seems to me there exists only different theories, conceptions, way of thinking, the agreeability of which is a function of history, society, ideology, education, etc...
yes I agreee!
Don't be afraid Jason...the truth will set you free! 😜 take a deep breath...and air the entire interview...
Jason Hartman should really let the expert talk...
Well done. Excellent interview. Thanks
Not really. He was constantly interrupting and making unnecessary mouth noises. Like we get it interviewer, you don't like socialism or Marxism. Can you let him finish his point before you quip in?
Wolff is right as always.
Spot on. I agree
While there are aspects about Marxist thought that can be critiqued, in the same way that you could critique any other economic philosophy, I find that in no other area, outside of possibly religion, do so many have such strong opinions on the idea without reading the seminal texts behind the idea. In the same way that people either cherish the Bible as the most informative book of all time, or they denigrate it as the most repellent book of all time, and yet most have not read significant portions of it, the same applies to Marxism. People either excoriate Marxism as one of the most corrosive ideas in history, or they advocate it as the panacea to our economic woes, and yet most have not read the Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital, and fewer still have read explanations of those ideas.
Drake Santiago , how many tens of millions need to die at the hands of communism governments for us to decide those results are enough to speak for themselves? You could read Karl Marx and discuss his thoughts 100 years ago, but we have already run the experiment a few times and it doesn’t end well.
@@fedcoin1602 You glossed over the suffering caused by capitalism: millions in slavery,, child labour in the industrial revolution, the great depression, colonial empires built on cheap labour and raw materials for mercantile capitalism, cold wars such as the invasion of Viet Nam to preserve and expand the frontiers of capitalism. The list goes on. The issue is what governments do in the name of capitalism and communism, and whether these governments are dictatorships or democracies.
@@fedcoin1602 Ok how many people have died in the middle east for oil? How about slavery? How many natives died for america to be what it is today? How many people have died in latin and south america as a direct result of US foreign policy etc etc... Like I'll never understand this weird blissful ignorance people choose to have to how many people "capitalism" has killed for the weird gotchya of "communism killed this many people" not even mentioning that the communist top down approach the soviets (after the revolution) and mao took is pretty much the direct opposite of what modern day socialists / marxists want which is a bottom up democratic approach.
reaper39 how many people flee communism for a life here?
@@fedcoin1602 LMAO. Just here in the US alone, that number is minuscule compare to the legal and illegal immigrants fleeing their now failed capitalist state of Mexico through the southern border in just the last 10 years
Any chance to hear from Prof Wolff is a good thing, so the weird interruptions and the brevity of the interview can be overlooked.
9:49 but bringing up Ayn Rand in the same breath as Marx and Smith? Idk why that grinds my gears more than the "Marxists universities" nonsense. It's like bringing up Dan Brown in a conversation about Shakespeare. Attempts to legitimize Ayn Rand are cringe
All forms of government systems , Finance, and all the isms will all fail if corruption is allowed to flourish! And it will unless in some way regulated and controlled by a benevolent and wise source!
The initial and middle stage accelerate the process of wealth build up through improving the efficiency, and innovation , the capitalism at the late stage destroys the achievement of early and middle stage of capitalism through the extreme greediness , and the capitalists take advantage of its power of unlimited wealth by manipulating the market dominate the wealth , as a result wealth concentrates in the hands of few capitalist, while the majority of the population have nothing which just can not justify the contribution of majority of the population to the progress of economy , as a result we have majority sink under poverty lost their consumption power , as a result the products and service produced by the capitalists have no place to sell, and the progress and prosperity stop to move forward , economic growth slowed down and eventually stop . Looking around the world , we see that every country with capitalism the wealth is always uneven distributed among the population and economy eventually go no where , as a result, in the late stage of the capitalism we should emphasize on the reasonable wealth distribution , and restrict the monopoly power and dominating power
of the wealth by the extreme wealthy capitalists , which is a kind of mix of capitalism and socialism
Jason , you need listen .
13:48 Turning the enterprise into a COMMUNITY hence the word communism is the way FORWARD
doesn't Russia have a similar coop system where the workers vote to elect supervisors. Seems more democratic
There are coops in Russia. There are coops in the U.S., too, and in various other countries. But in no country, to my knowledge, do they make up the foundation of the economy, let alone operate to the exclusion of the private corporation. The reason has to do with how companies are formed. If the investment infrastructure of a country is privately held, then the investors are interested in owning a piece of the capital they paid for. A country with private banks, for example, will have private corporations for companies. If the investment infrastructure is public, then investment in coops is possible because the government (or other public or semi-public institution) need not be interested in owning the capital if it collects money for new investments in some other way (like taxes and/or just printing up cash).
There was a model of a cooperative enterprise in Soviet Russia which dates back to the collectivization of agriculture, something called collective farms. A groups of peasants, often dislocated by the army, where given a clumps of land where they were to engage in production; own and operate this farm collectively. Unfortunately the collective farm sector in agriculture gave way to state farms (agriculture land owned by the states on which the peasants work on) in the later years of the soviet regime in their effort to consolidate power
Classical liberal icon JS Mill expected worker coops would be the future
14:00 Wolf is wrong. Marx indeed wrote about the state. Read Critique of the Gotha Programme.
"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of revolutionary *transformation* (my emphasis) of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which *the state* (my emphasis) can be nothing but *the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat* (Marx's emphasis)"
Pages 34-35 of Critique of the Gotha Programme. The 2018 Edition by Occultus Books
That is nothing more than a rhetorical flourish on marx's part. He did not go on to describe the exact institutional structures needed under this dictatorship of the proletariat.
the USSR did not complete Marx vision, and there were no signs of doing so
Wolff is the Man.
You can let the Professor speak and ask timely, relevant questions, or you can beclown yourself.
Great interview. It would be interesting to also bring on Communists like Caleb Maupin to share their take
There is something radically wrong with our American economic system when an egomaniac billionaire from New York can drop half a billion dollars on the presidential race as a johnny-com-lately only to withdraw after a few months while, at the same time, we have entire city blocks of homeless people living in tents. Professor Wolff is absolutely right about economic inequality in our country, in my opinion. I'm not a professional economist but I am a published author. My book: "The Conscience of An Agnostic" is listed on Amazon. If I did not have Social Security I could be one of the millions of homeless people suffering in the current economic climate. This is not the America that I grew up in and I fear greatly for our future.
Good up until the very end.
I understand Wolff had limited time here, so explaining all the dishonesty regarding socialist states and what state capitalism was would take more time than he had, but it doesn't seem good to me to let that pass by.
The withering of the state is central to Marxism. Marx did talk about the state. And despite all their mistakes, socialist countries are absolutely trying to make this transition.
I would recommend anyone interested in the topic begin with reading Michael parenti (or watching or listening to his lectures). Let me know if you are im happy to supply links or explain anything you need. (I run a Marxist education program)
👍
I don’t know what Hartman’s politics are, but this is one of the fairest interviews I’ve seen from a guy who’s not explicitly Marxist. I really didn’t see what everyone else is bitching about.
None of the conventional "isms" address the fundamental imbalance between human and property rights associated with access to and control over nature. In terms of labor and capital goods, nature as a zero cost of production. Nature is provided to humans for our use and survival. Almost alone among the great political and economic thinkers, the American Henry George presented a cogent argument for a labor and capital goods basis for property. Nature is, George argued, the commons from which all wealth is produced. Nature is the source of private wealth but is not legitimate private wealth. The ideal structure for accessing any part of nature is under a competitive bidding system for a leasehold interest issued by the community or society. Note that government is, then, the agent of the community and society for administrating such as system. As deeds to nature had already become a widespread norm, George argued that a second-best approach was for government to collect from every "owner" of land (broadly defined to include such natural assets with an inelastic supply as frequencies on the broadcast spectrum) the full potential annual rental value. This would serve as the fund with which to pay for democratically agreed upon public goods and services, which the potential for an annual citizen's dividend to be distributed. The term that best described the principles embraced by Henry George is "cooperative individualism".
Edward J. Dodson, Director
School of Cooperative Individualism
www.cooperative-individualism.org
What happen in Hong Kong with the Weigers, that vote didnt seem like a community vote...just asking for a friend.
Inflation is a profoundly human issue.
As long as people would want more than they can afford, the economy will implode every now and again. Our dependence on being evaluated by how we look and what we possess becomes an obsessive addiction that is being fueled by marketing, branding and financial policymakers. It isn’t capitalism it is humanism.
Thanks Professor Richard Wolff.
Credit didn't invent busts, it merely made them worse.
Look! A Richard Wolfe video. Watch all the bot lovers of him appear in the comments.
just democratization of work place is not enough. its also un-scientific.
Jason inturrupts too much! :( ;Leaern to listen..
Some comments are a bit harsh on Jason. Yeah, it's clear he didn't understand Marx and some of his points are a bit inane for those more familiar with the subject matter, but give the guy some credit where it's due; he brought a leading professor with an opposing viewpoint on his show, and made the effort to annotate and time-stamp the key points. That's more generous treatment than you get from a lot of anti-Marxist hosts. You can't expect him to suddenly jump up and shout "Eureka! Surplus labour! Now I get it! Let me just undergo an immediate paradigm shift!"
I don’t think government control over anybody is good because eventually you will get that one later you might have a leader that is good hearted any equally truly does want to help everybody but what happens when you get that one leader that is evil and corrupt like Hitler that goes in destroys everybody honestly I think that we are all given free rights freedom to choose to educate or not educate freedom to pick whatever job we want or to work towards a better job freedom to make a little bit of money or make a lot of money I believe above our freedom of choice for any individual is always what’s best
Adam smith said the wealth of a nation is reflected in the wealth of its citizens. That probably appealed to marx. Cant recommend reading adam smith its pretty dry.
It seems as though trade is capitalism and the different types of government regulate trade in different ways. This includes work if you think of trade as work in trade for something...like wage-slave.
James West in the marxist sense trade is distinct from capitalist accumulation. You are correct that Government's regulate trade based on the interests of the political status quo. Whether or not said government embody a simple label is a different issue. You are also correct that wage labor is as much a commodity as anything else.
What happens when an individual doesn't want to participate in a system based on Marxism, and they flourish because a meritocratic system has proven more innovative and efficient historically?
Most wealth in America is inherited, do you think that that is meritocratic?
There is no meritocracy, and it had in many ways stifled innovation. The idea that innovation came because of capitalism and inspite or at best simply parallel to it is asinine.
Grinning Guise nope, most of those people in the top 1% change every year.
@@javiervalenzuela8284 What system based on marxism is proving this? Capitalism is predicated on the free, reciprocal exchange of labor, thats it. Crony capitalism and capitalism are different things. You want capitalism to work better, shrink the government (getting rid of corporate socialism, assuming its not all, already a facade), and allow people to trade that labor more freely. Reciprocal marxism works fine under reciprocal capitalism. I've never heard Wolff address if he plans on using the state to implement this system on a grand scale?
@@RBGHfam Oh no... What is this thing that's so great, unless there's a complete, all thought out plan that works ducky fine 100% of the time that everybody agrees on, it could never be replace capitalism....
I get the utopian idea, the question is, how would you implement that?
The way many changes in our societies happen: the majority of people have their minds changed, and no longer put up with injustices. Black people are no longer automatically slaves, women can vote, gays can get married - change can happen and it doesn't always take violence, the new majority overtook the minority.
Follow Professor Wolff - he does offer solutions to transition our economy. He is brilliant and really knows what he is talking about!
You know, some 400 years ago, people would have said the very same thing to those who propose the idea of modern democratic government. So to answer your question: we don't know, nobody can tell the future. I may have some ideas of what to do, the professor may have some different ideas and some other smart people might come out with something different. Now you and I can talk forever about what idea is good and what isn't, but ultimately whether those ideas might actually work or turns out to be utopian, only history will be the judge of that. Change however would happen the way it always happens in history. Society will change one way or another not because someone has the right or best idea, but because the majority of people refuse to tolerate the current state of society and want change, whatever that change might be.
How do you implement anything? How did we implement feudalism it slavery or capitalism?
Give me all the power to control you and I will give you the utopia. This is about envy and power. You can vote in communism, but you can’t vote it out. Any generation that has tried it, never survived to see freedom again. Go talk to you grandparents or someone who has lived under Communism.
the co-op idea will be difficult to put into practice, as most people that I know, prefer the comfort of not having to make any decisions.
Would you vote for a raise though?
In big coops, they typically elect managers and higher leadership. You don't have to ratify decisions X, Y, and Z. There's still that practical division of labor. Merely, in the cooperative, you have the democratic power to change things if you find you don't like how they are being done. As a practical difference, apart from periodic elections, you can probably expect shorter hours and higher wages (and bonuses) since there's nobody there to skim off the top.
The problem with communism tended to be violent ‘communists.’ The current fusion model
Seems to be an improvement?
Truth Seeker communism occurs when children don’t talk to their grandparents. 4000 years of civilization and you think that you have all the answers at your young age?
God, the interviewer is annoying; let him finish his answers
Karl Marx had long hair. Did they have hippies back then?
Sorry Jason but you lost this 1
They need to do the VAT Tax and UBI that Andrew Yang was talking about.
Dude looks just like his dad, terrible voice though
Fog
Gg
I'm on the total flip side of that. Used to be super supportive of socialism then I learned about gold money Austrian economics and came out on the flip side thriving like never before. The only reason capitalism fails is because the only police for it is no intervention from government and gold. He made some good points though if you exclude the economics out of it.
Socialism denies humanity's diversity: some are
Have high IQ, some very motivated. Sad, but not everyone us born with the same ability. Crony capitalism is the problem. All the corruption. It's ALWAYS existed, always will, no matter what the system. Decentralized power is where it's at, not more socialism. We have too much already in our "capitalist system".
Give me an example of where socialism works, and it'll have even less freedom than here. Unfortunately, our freedoms are evaporating before our eyes, so having even bigger Gov't, like socialism demands, is 90% here.
Wolff can pontificate all he wants and fool alot of people. I'm sure he's made quite a living at it.
This is about Marxism, not socialism. But Dr. Wolff still defines socialism in a way that addresses what you're talking about. (What you're using is the straw man invented by opponents to make it look bad, not what Marxists advocate).
regardless of your arbitrarily chosen differences (which by the way are all valued under capitalism, strange that you would pick those), everybody needs to eat, everybody wants to work, everybody wants to contribute, everybody wants to belong.
a highly intelligent highly motivated person will still thrive under a communal system.
There's theory and then there's the reality.
Yeah, but that doesn't really say much of anything does it? There's capitalism in theory and there's reality of it. Hell if Pericles could see how democracy would one-day be delivered with a laser guided precision to Iraq and Afghanistan then I'm sold
The reality of worker-owned co-ops is very successful and the workers in them do better financially and have a say in their livelihood instead of waiting for an authoritarian to dictate to them.
These kids have some ragging hard-on for the theory. Clearly none have spoken to their grandparents about Communism.
@@johnlock572 👍
@@fedcoin1602 I wonder if you hold the same attitude towards every other aspects of life, going back speaking to your grandparents to ask for advice on your sex life and such
To say capitalism has not brought liberty, democracy etc. is just plain denial of reality. Marxism has brought nothing but death and despair. True, capitalism, rather its application, has faults because humans have faults by nature. My life and the life of my friends, family, community are so amazing because of capitalism. Socialism = death. Capitalism = life. Before anyone states that capitalism has caused deaths from colonialism/recent wars, be sure not to conflate capitalism with imperialism. All political/economic doctrines whether fascist, socialist, capitalist, anarchist, whatever are capable of imperialism.
Marxist economics is catastrophic. Who ultimately benefits? Those at the top.
This was pretty terrible. Dick says we need coops. No one is stopping anyone from having coops. He claims differences in income are due to organization in the work place. He claims he's an economist so I would at least expect him to understand why certain types of work are worth more than others (supply, demand, subjective value, etc).
About the only thing he right on is that Marxism should be taught in schools. Maybe then we'll have fewer people died into that "flat earth" theory of economics.
Nice interview, but I don't agree that we have capitalism. We had capitalism thrive for 120 years with a limited government, but after that government grew and limited capitalism for over 80 years. Now we just have large government tyranny via Fascism, Communism, and Fundamentalism world wide.
this dude should have a talk with jordan peterson. marxist weirdo?
He showed up to debate Peterson. Peterson chickened out.
That would be interesting
Peterson agreed, Wolff agreed, Peterson backed out. Full remarks ua-cam.com/video/VdHO78PWr_8/v-deo.html 5-minute reply ua-cam.com/video/9Hg3hdAUAPs/v-deo.html
Wolff needs to read the Constitution which empowers the government to protect our freedom, NOT give people free stuff!
You need to use your ears which empower you to listen to what he says- because that's not his position and he makes it clear here
@@tidakada7357 You need to use your brain to understand what he is saying: current employer/employee relation needs to turn into a "community" where both sides have equal say on how the business is run (in Marx/Wolfe's opinion), yet it was the employer who took all the risk setting up the business and infusing the capital. Getting equal say is getting something for nothing or free stuff as I said in my original post. If the employee wants to have equal say, let them contribute to the risk involved setting up the business.
@@paulpena9548 The workers risk more in real life. You are opportunistically switching to business game theory, where you use an abstract model of who put in more capital, from actual social relations between people, so as to not see that these people put in more resources time and risk in actual material terms, but not in terms of abstract money to invest the thing.
You fail to see how your concept can be turned around-the capitalist can just as be easily seen as the free rider, unwilling to work for a living, wanting to be compensated for less work and less skills. When capitalists flee and workers take over firms, they tend to do better, because of the skills of being on the ground at the enterprise.
Don't forget it is private property that came along forcing people to need employment in the first place, by pushing them off their inherited estates by force, and as we now see that firms can work without capitalists, both these facts mean no real service on the social level is being delivered by employing people in itself, don't just ask a native american tribe or an english craftsman or yeoman, ask an modern worker/owner of a giant worker run firm.
Karl Marx’s philosophy failed in practice
capitalism has failed. whats your point?
LOL, thanks for proving you don't know wtf your talking about. Marx isn't a "philosophy", never was. It's an accurate analysis & critique of Capitalism, nothing more. Only propagandising hacks make the positive claim that Marx "is a philosophy".
They have Stockholm's.
@@itsfreerealestate15 this current pandemic proves it
@@richardthecowardlylion5289 I'm sorry, do you happen to work your day job as a desk clerk at the Ministry of Truth, passing out stamps deciding what "is" and "isn't " philosophy?
He should watch some Milton Friedman videos. All of his criticisms have been answered.
Wat
lol
no lol Milton basically destroyed Adam smiths capitalism and made our world worse off.
This man wrote voluminous critiques of Milton Friedman, you can find some in video format just searching it on youtube
John Lock there is theory and then there is the reality of history. Something, something, doomed to repeat....
Can’t stand this guy.
How come?
You talking about Jason? I suppose his personality isn't for everyone, but usually people keep that kinda opinion to them-selves.