Economic Update: How Capitalism Distributes Power
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- čas přidán 24. 03. 2024
- [EU S14 E12]
This week’s Economic Update Professor Richard Wolff discusses the resurging child labor in US, colleges athlete vote to join unions, unionization sweeping not-for-profit charities (hospitals, museums, etc.) such as MassMoca in western Massachusetts. Major discussion of how capitalism concentrates power in mass media (including social media), in authoritarian internal structures of corporations, and via donations and other controls exercised over two major political parties and over politicians.
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![Global Capitalism: A Marxist Critique of Capitalism for 2024 [May 2024]](/img/n.gif)
All the stuff we won't hear on NBC Nightly News.
nbc is corporate propaganda.
Calling our politician-corporation political system a "protection racket" is hitting the nail on the head. Good description.
Too bad he doesn't really understand what it means...since it's not the people paying
protection that have the power...and yet he keeps stating that it is the corporations
paying it that do.
If there is anything consistent about Wolff, it is his constant self-contradictions...but as you are all
"exploited victims", this is the only thing that resonates, and in the process, you miss
everything else.
It's just a glorified mafia that looks "professional"... they're not much different.
😂🤣😂🤣😂 there nothing funnier than seeing someone displaying willful ignorance and thinking others don't see through it. 😂🤣😂🤣😂
Name one willful contradiction.
So who displays willful ug iran e?
I've been watching professor Richard for more than 10 years .And still learning from him.
Funny how he avoids the topic of the FED. He just talks about the demon “capitalism”.
@@raymondkey1952ask him about the FED. What is your question?
Professor Wolff, sometimes i put your videos on loop because i enjoy hearing your voice so much, it reminds me of old-time radio (i wasn;t there, but i've heard such historical programs on CZcams), where presenters were well spoken and erudite. Better times, if only in memory. Thank you for your videos, they are always full of wisdom, i just wish the world would listen and act upon it.
I went to the JFK presidential library and left wondering who really runs the place, because it was obvious it wasn't anybody sympathetic to JFK.
@geraldmantel4955 Well, it's run by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), so that should tell you all that you need to know. (IE., it's federal government propaganda)
And I'm sure it's the same (or worse) if you visit the FDR presidential library. On the other hand, if you go to the Ronald Reagan library.....
@@paulkesler1744 Good point, I'll bet you're right.
@micro-organism-pv5gd Elvis didn't die, although Nixon did.
Have we slipped into full frontal fascism?
Many tks Prof.
Thanks for another great "Update"-All we need do is watch the evening news to see what the Ruling Class has done today without our consent or approval,
and framed in most peculiar terms. elliptical explanations on MSM to say the least.
The 'news' our corporate overlords allow us to hear...
Union Strong✊🏼
James Galbraith: As time goes on, the quality of the government lies, as well as the quality of folks reaching high positions ---- declines.
the quality of the government's lies declines? good news if it means their criminality is more transparent.
Very hard to be a genuine people leader on the top under capitalism.
REPUBLICANS ARE MOST TO BLAME FOR CAPITALISM BUT NOW DEMOCRATS HAVE JOINED THE PARTY.
@@anneliu3816 Too bad there isn't any "capitalism" left...and the tyranny that now exists
doesn't care how blatant the lies are...since after a century of brainwashing none of you know
what any of the words mean anymore.
One of the better editions of Democracy at Work, regarding capitalism and political power
I am a 77 Olay from New Zealand I really enjoy your program. We have a real right swing govt here at present. We need someone like you Richard to let people to know there is other ways. In the mean time we will keep watching you and making the odd comment
The corporate entities "own" the goverance of this "place /nation not a nation"
The US government was setup from the beginning to be for the rich not "we the people".
Best government money can buy!
Young people should read Edward Bernays' "Propaganda"; General Smedley Butler's "War Is a Racket"; and George Orwell's "1984" for a primer in contemporary American life.
and Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States",
Not just American life
Oof
Dystopia
What do Ancient Egypt & Modern Capitalism have in common?
A: They've both had their "pyramid" schemes ...
and slaves ...
True
@@fena1931 Wage slavery
@@williamblack4097 Really? You do know the difference between an agrarian economy and an industrial one?
You do know that "slavery" in the U.S. was largely a function of the agrarian economy, centered in
the South? Neither "industrial europe nor industrial U.S." had any need for slaves, and both ended the practice?
You do what the word "slavery" means??????
@@jgalt308OHH galty,, salty galty lol,, yeah I know the difference between an agrarian economy and an industrial one, do you want to tell me what moving thousands of tons of huge boulders and working on them IS other than heavy construction INDUSTRY? Yeah the ancient Egyptians were basically about as smart as cattle, working for enough grain to feed themselves and their families but they were people,, not just slaves... And your usual contention that slaves built the American economy but capitalism freed them, yes I do know what slavery is and wage slavery is only a little better than chattel slavery... Chattel slavery ended but the corporation wasn't done exploiting black people, and now we have insane cries for reparations when it isn't average white people holding black people back but the corporation holding ALL OF US BACK...
WHO do you think controls legal domestic policy in the united states, these idiot lawyers who infest Congress and Senate and the lackey judges on the corrupt supreme court, ALL OF THEM are involved in the destruction of societal peace and the rampant corruption and violence in American and other cities because of the idiocy of prohibition..... The de- industrialization that creates a lot of unemployed people, and in steps prohibition with the desire for illicit substances creating a huge black market so gangs can arm themselves and stake out their own territories and all this stupidity... ALL DESIGNED BY COINTELPRO,, the domestic CIA NSA program designed to keep black people and white people fighting into forever......
Prof Wolff why don’t you dedicate a whole program on how money is created and the role of banks in demise of economy and rise in inequality?
Unlike Marx, he doesn't really know what "money" is...nor it's history, so he isn't going
to do that...and he neither reads these comments, nor answers questions posed here.
Why is that?
@@moji8405 Why is what?
Referring to QE and how they have created asset inflation, funded fuedal technocrats and rise of billionaires? czcams.com/video/lbji8utP6dU/video.html
So just encourage him to make his statement of it and then criticize it point by point. That would mean much more than a judgment in advance, and it would encourage a substantial exchange with others.@@jgalt308
Great as usual prof. Wolff!
Thank you Professor Wolff for a brilliant talk .You have encapsulated so many ideas here.
I always come away with a much clearer understanding of what is really going on in our world today . Thank you so much for bringing us together here .
Another enlightening & wonderful episode, thank you, Prof. Wolff for spreading your much needed knowledge on all these topics.
Very informative and very educative lecture by professor Wolff,appreciate sir.
Great as always! Thank you Porf Wolff, and your the team for your work!
The golden rule: thems with the gold, rule.
Thank you Professor Wolff.
Спасибо за Ваши труды!
I really enjoyed this episode. Thanks for sharing Dr Wolff. Solidarity forever ✊
Great stuff Dr. Wolff !
Thank you professor Wolff.
Highly enjoy the program professor! You are a major part of my economic formation🙏💪
Read about monetary creation at the FED. His ideals are dangerously incomplete. These types just want to use ignorant people as canon fodder. I don’t trust him. Not that he doesn’t make good “points”
Hello friends and prof.! Thank you from Brazil!
Excellent discussion, thank you
Excellent work, Prof. Wolff! I appreciate the exploration of museums--I love them, and we need the workers who run them to be paid fairly.
Very nice...!!! Thanks for sharing.
As a working musician in 1972 a good pay for a night playing at a bar was $100 today in 2024 pay for a night playing at the bar $100 or less because you have fun playing music so you don't need to make money tell that to my landlord
Hello we didnt believe you guys until you start kearning economics the real economics and its impact on our life.
Thank you very much ❣️Greetings from CH🙏🕊️
Thank you Sir!
Very well said.
Capitalism doesnt distribute power, power distributes capitalism. Power and domination is what determines economic outcomes in a competitive market. Also the history of conquest and imperialism and first movers advantage is what made the capitalist class so powerful. Power begets power.
Believe it or not, quite a bit of what you say was, and could be again, mitigated in favor of the working class with something called laws and regulations. It worked pretty well after WW2, but needed some adjustments. Basically, it's reasonable taxes on the wealthy (and reasonable investment incentives) and keeping banks well controlled. The primary adjustment would be adding 'For all'. Capitalism today has virtually no competitive markets and the bankers (whether public or private capital) put the screws to everybody they can.
Market capitalism is unsustainable on all levels. That’s the bottom line. We need system change.
But how? Try One Small Town Contributionism. If not, what else?
@@breft3416 That was an illusion, killed by fiat and the 300% inflation that
occurred between 1939 and 1970. ( according to government calculations )
That doubled in the 70's to 600% and in terms of "lawful money" which still exists
actual inflation now exceeds 5000%. ( see Constitution )
Sadly, people don't know the difference between "lawful money" and "legal tender",
nor what "income" is...and as it pertains to "income" what an "employee" is.
Then there rights vs privileges...and you no longer have the former having traded them for the latter,
without any clue about how this was done.
So while the "exploited victim" narrative is attractive because it absolves responsibility for
what exists, it is ignorance that brought you here and will keep you here until you
start asking the right questions, and you're not even close to even beginning to do that.
Powers are very relative term. But if we’re talking about social, economic, and political domination….Capitalism seeks to expand its range of exploitation, therefore it relies on its current conquest to spread itself further. Think about the influence the east India company had on the British Empire. Power existed before capitalism came to rise, and the influence of capitalism spread itself with the assistance of power it had conquered. So capitalism is a system replace the power structure of feudalism with itself within those societies, and those societies spread capitalist, influence, and conquest through imperialism.
capitalism absolutely realize on a state to give it rise and to ensure it doesn’t collapse on itself. But it is the economic engine that drives most of the world today.
@@sojourner4726 Do you recognize that monetary-market economics is structurally unsustainable? We need system change. That's the bottom line.
And social system change needs to come from the bottom-up, community level cooperation. If we aren't working on that, then what sort of future are we looking towards?
Thank you prof
Brilliant analysis as usual I have learned so much about class analysis from your lectures Dr Wolff
Thank you professor!
...grande Prof. Wolff!!!...
It is a profound shame and a sad statement that our society operates the way it does. It does not have to be this way. The socio-economic "caste system" that has evolved in America is a refutation of most of the principles we supposedly cherish, the values ensconced in our holy books and historic mythologies. To say one thing and then do the opposite is the height of depraved hypocrisy.
Yes, it always was a democracy in theory more than in fact. As Wolff has pointed out, we escaped the tyranny of medieval feudalism and Renaissance monarchy, only to degenerate into corporate oligarchy. Democracy worked in America --- to some extent --- as long as the country had a predominantly agricultural economy and corporations were small in scale. But with the rise of industrialization and the first wave of Robber Barons, it started to go downhill. Meanwhile, a series of Supreme Court decisions gave corporations the rights of human beings under Constitutional law (predominantly, the 14th Amendment). It's all described in Adam Winkler's book, WE THE CORPORATIONS.
😂🤣😂🤔😂 That anyone thinks America is either a Democracy or a Republic shows how ignorant and brainwashed y'all are. You live in a Capitalist Oligarchy. The same as all the other western 'Democracies'.
"What do we see going on?" Fighting over scarce resources. Richard Heinberg explained this in his book, The Party's Over.
Thank you for what you do. Your content is priceless 🔥 💪🏾 change MUST come 🔥 💯
"An investigation by the United States Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division uncovered child labor violations across eight states, with over 100 employees - some as young as 13 years old - working 13-hour overnight shifts in meat processing facilities.
But is child labor is on the rise in America? Cases of child labor violations have fallen since the early 2000s. But from 2015 to 2022, the number of minors employed in violation of child labor laws rose by 283%, according to data from the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division."
"A series of investigative reports over the last few months has revealed that migrant children, mostly from Central America, are working in some of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S.
New York Times investigative journalist Hannah Dreier has interviewed more than 100 migrant children working in violation of child labor laws across 20 states."
This post is for the capitalists who claim that child labor in the USA amounts to paper routes...
The constitution is just words some guy wrote and a bunch of rich people agreed on.
Love the CEO analogy.
I love this!
Bottom Line: You mean things aren't exactly looking "rosy"?
The workers acquiesced their power to a ruling class. No one needs a ruling class. Take it back.
You forgot to mention Trudeau from Canada with the other Authoritarians.
Arguments against basic workers rights of past truly eye-opening about modern insane arguments of rich exploitators
"For the bourgeoisie, freedom of the press meant freedom for the rich to publish and for the capitalists to control the newspapers, a practice which in all countries, including even the freest, produced a corrupt press." - Lenin in 1917
Could you do an update on europe? Maybe even the netherlands? I live there and am really curious about what you think its going. Cause i feel like its slipping badly. But i am no economy professor.
What‽ greed ain't good anymore?
It never was.
Hello fellow distributers.
If minors are allowed or have to get jobs, they must pay taxes, therefore they must have every right to vote. No taxation without representation. They must also have the right to a union and a living wage same as adults. Fair enough Republicans?
You think the people who pay taxes are represented?
@@jgalt308 haha yeah that's a good one.
No but still younger people need the right to vote regardless. Younger people don’t have nearly enough rights tbh.
@@piku5637 What rights do you think you have? What is their source?
It's a fuzzy concept...and most haven't thought it through, nor
do they bother to seek any evidence to support what they claim or believe.
Good day can I get your opinion on investments in gold and silver. Thank you
get your hands on all the gold you can.
Buy low. Sell high.
We did not Give Power to the billionaires - they just grabbed it .
Something called cost benefit analysis and what is cost prohibitive. I didn't understand economics until I was introduced to the notion of the cost of all things....
Yes, but who's paying the costs versus who's getting the benefits? If it costs a CEO less to pollute the environment than to clean it up, he'll pollute the environment. To him, that's just an "externality" --- he'll be charitable enough to let the public suffer the consequences.
appreciate the reminder of our home-grown authoritarianism
Private company authoritarian vs governmental authoritarian - is he really so dumb to compare them to each other?
👏👏👏
Don't call them employers - call them : gift givers - Gift in German is : poison
Thanks for this update. Capitalism is as capitalism does.
Interesting perspective...machinery and technology are the bearers of value in the workplace, these tools make money out of time. The machines have a social arrangement with live workers but the workers have no value arrangements with the owners of the machines.
I never watch the news- this is my news!
You heard it here, folks.
Good news about the young students waking up to their need to unite and unionize.
Capitalism Distributes Power among Capitalists
Concentrates, not distributes
The athletes unionizing should get compensated in terms of paid housing and food on campus, tuition credits and stipends for career advancing seminars and events, rather than cash, as only a small percentage of all student athletes go on to be professional athletes. This won’t be a big bite percentage of student body wise for schools.
Prof. Wolff: Interesting show, I too question the powers that run our somodel. ciety. Your show is needed to be able to think, talk over things. It seems to me though that the scale of modern institutions is more our problem: Capitalism is only a piece, along with Chinese, Russians, Latin America, etc. systems of organization.
You know that's the sad thing about the human being and that goes for everybody all over the world you have to suffer enough everyone has to suffer together to push something through
💗🍃🙏
🙏❤️🌎🌿🕊🎵🎶🎶
It's called in house outsourcing?
Government distribute’s power!
Is it fair to say the the employers are ungrateful? I think so.
EVERYONE…
Male and Female Alike, White and Black in Positions of Authority and Power Should Be Held Accountable No Matter How Much Monetary Means They Accrue or Which Position They Hold. We Are Ever Evolving Spiritual Beings Having Human Experiences Though Perfect Within Our Imperfections Nonetheless, We All Fall Short. As We’re Meant to Do. Justice is a Universal Principle. Religion Has Nothing to Do With It.🗽
😮
my my...
They want you to work till you are 70 to receive your social security , Is this the reason why ? In Fact they want to send Grandma And Grandma in the street or send them back to work ?
No I think they want you to work till you die
Bingo.
Excelente programa, professor. Apenas, como brasileira, devo dizer que Bolsonaro (a quem eu espero chegar a ver no cárcere) não deve nada a “Mister Trump” , como a quem o professor polidamente se refere. De outra parte, eu gostaria de viver para ver ao menos o pluripartidarismo aqui nos EUA. Já ajudaria um pouco.
It is more like how capitalism distribute irresponsibility and unaccountability?
No, that would be the government...or haven't you been paying attention.
Employer and employee sounds so equalish
Comments for the algorithm
It is a conundrum isn't it. The powerful can and will always buy the vote of the people as people will sell their vote, often just for nice promises which never materialize. So when people cannot make up their own mind, does it really matter whether they have the right to vote? Is it surprising that people often don't like the outcome, and could not wait to change the person they put the crown on. That is the human condition. I do like democracy because there is the possibility of bargain. But we have to accept that it is messy.
In order for "democracy" to work under capitalism, it has to be kept as limited as possible. We get to vote on political candidates, often put up and supported by capitalists. But the majority of decision that affect us in our daily lives are made directly by unelected owners. I believe it's called "bourgeois democracy" - fancy word for democracy controlled almost entirely by the rich. (BTW, "democracy" controlled by the State is no better.)
Great but now we work into old age
Some do because they dont know what else to do with themselves.
@@jillfryer6699 I have to stand my ground unions have driven the cost we want we want so price goes up so now the next group wants more and on and on the price of everything go's up it seems to me that we are living on fake money 💰.
Yeah, I hear the hunter/gatherer retirement plan was the bees knees.
Hunter/gatherer tribes took care of the whole tribe, including their elderly.
@@ronstephen-wy4ib And you acquired this knowledge from what source?
Who are your favorite hunter/gatherer authors?
Dear Professor,
I greatly respect your work. I love your 'Classes'. But I have stopped coming here because - radically, one can say, rigidly - I cannot accept that anyone should equate the discussion of CLASS with any other discussion. Maybe I'm wrong - I feel I'd be Betraying the Working Class: more and more betrayed every day! I study Zen. I study Gender Relations. I study Psychoanalysis. I like Lao Tse. I like Jung. I love Hanna Arendt... But CLASS discussions are not on the same level. They are Structural to the Human Race.
Wishing you the best of the best!
#judiascomPALESTINAS
So you're saying what? That all human systems are hierarchical and therefore involve class struggle? But if we go back to medieval Europe, the "struggle" was either nonexistent or impractical. The ideological paradigm called the "Great Chain of Being" meant that people born into a socioeconomic class had to stay in their place because God had ordained it. And since most medieval people were illiterate, they rarely could see beyond the paradigm that clerical authorities laid out for them. What changed with the Enlightenment was that populations no longer had to accept the "God-ordained" system, but could challenge it. Science and exploratory mercantilism revealed a world where people at least theoretically could "leverage" their circumstances and, through class struggle, move up the social hierarchy. Despite this, the ability to rise in the system was always more theoretical than actual, simply because most wealth and power remained at the top. All I'm saying is that in order to view human society in terms of "class," we first had to move to a historical period where class mobility was a *theoretical* possibility, even if the promise was only fitfully fulfilled. We can flatter ourselves with "mind over matter" reductionism, but as fatcats remake the world, the future looks more and more dystopian.
U said its started from 100 years buts in actually its continued from Ancient Era, its not new, as usal super analysis
Wait whaaaat. How would a company grow if it didn't incentivize production... Look if ur not getting the wage you deserve stand up for yourself and give your employer notice. Or if you dont know how to move up in your company ask! Most jobs offer some type of training for improvement in sales, customer service etc. Richard is describing the companies you dont want to work for lol
Shorpy - old photographs site dedicated to boy - greaser of mine rails.
Once again Professor Wolff enlightens us with his brilliant analysis.🧐
Trust me, you're still in the dark.
Said the silly troll.
In the dark, like how he failed to mention the forced labor of children in communist societies, vs volunteer labor in capitalist societies? Seems like a lack of context from our professor.
The basketball team voted 13 to 2 for a union. Who were the 2? Not very good in a team, they should take up golf.
Question, What socialist country or company did you buy your graphics program from?
😂🤣😂🤣😂 there nothing funnier than seeing someone displaying willful ignorance and thinking others don't see through it. 😂🤣😂🤣😂
What about the one trillion debt of USA federal government every 100 days from incoming taxes ?.
Test
Muricans : temporarily embarrassed millionaires
Idiotic talking point
@@ExPwner says the idiotic talker
@@yogikarlnope says the person who actually read Steinbeck’s actual writing on the topic which was mocking communists for their delusions and not capitalists.
“Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property.
"I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew - at least they claimed to be Communists - couldn't have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves."
If there is an idiot in this conversation it’s you bud.