Economic Update: Exposing Economic Myths
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- [S10 E05] Exposing Economic Myths
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This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses how the "unemployment rate" is an inadequate measure of the U.S. economy’s well-being along with the decline of the “real” value of the minimum wage in the U.S., the multiple failures and flaws of markets and how corporations as less economically efficient than worker co-ops.
Read the full episode transcript here: www.democracya...
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Learn more about Prof Wolff's new book, "The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself" released in September 2020. Available as a paperback now!
www.democracyatwork.info/books
"Richard Wolff in his new book examines frightening and anti-democratic configurations of corporate power, offering not only a blueprint for how we got here, but a plan for how we will rescue ourselves and create new models of economic and political justice.” - Chris Hedges
Check out Prof. Wolff's other books "Understanding Socialism" and "Understanding Marxism"
www.lulu.com/sp...
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Great meme quote:
“What they said about communism, that we would lose our houses and savings, that we’d be forced to labor eternally for meager wages, with no voice in the system...
... that’s all come true under capitalism!”
Oh and the debt. Should’ve added that in there somewhere.
JoSciFi - Sadly ☹️
Lol, I think that's called projection...
That is actually depressingly funny because it's true, under a capatalist system I had all three happen and socialist policies have been the only help I have had to survive.
Where did you get Capitalism? This economy is so mixed it makes my head spin. What you have isn't Capitalism, it's a centralize miasma of nimrods that don't understand economics, enters Mr. Wolff with AOC holding his coffee. People that don't have a clue of how reality functions, let alone economics.
Fuck bro, you missed the train a year ago, this guy is a joke.
I only come here to hear insanity as a laugh.
JasonDesignMedia - I know what you mean, there was loads of money being doled out, up until 2008, and then it all collapsed. I haven’t been able to re-finance and re-structure my very small business, (which under capitalism is perfectly normal) Neither has my friend and we all know the banks aren’t lending.
I have been able to scrape by, by cutting costs to the bone, business and personal, but I don’t know how much longer I can do it.
If I give any inkling that there is an issue, the predators would swoop in for the assets. (Same with my friend).
I believe that it is, if not a deliberate Manipulation of the system, then it has become standard practice to asset strip, or growth by corporate by takeover.
“They” are taking away the social security safety nets as well, “they” want “everything”!
Who are “they”. Well either they are a the right wing neocons, or the are a bunch of psychopaths, I suspect the latter!
They will destroy the human race as we know it!
The biggest trick they have pulled is to convince working class people that they are middle class. It’s made them fantastic consumers, and the highest group of people in personal debt.
@zizzy The tick is not to get into debt then no one owns you. I'm 100% mortgage and debt free with 31 years out goings as cash savings, not loaded, just not stupid like the masses. I see the middle classes buying to lifestyles that they simply can not afford to sustain, which is the same pattern throughout all the western economies.
@zizzy Ooh! I just thought my way into a billion dollars. Next, I'm going to think I'm Jeff Bezos. Ah, the power of mind.
Well, put, Gold Digger. What a con. Fortunately, people are getting hip.
There is only two classes of people, those who must work to earn their money, and those whose money multiples for them. The working-class/middle-class 'divide' is a confidence trick. Divide and conquer.
@Steven dont be a dick. Dick.
Professor Wolff on JRE would be a dream come true
The world needs to hear this message.
It already has here in America, but that's not going to stop the people here from fearing the word "Socialism".
They do hear that capitalism is leaving a majority of people behind.
@@jeremymeyer6593 Do send all the proud supporters of Capitalism this link. viapopuli.com/working-hard-thinking-you-will-get-rich-by-hard-work. I'm afraid we still have temporarily embarrassed millionaires in America, who think they can reach the top society just by doing hard-work alone. America also never had a free economy to begin with. www.thebalance.com/america-is-not-really-a-free-market-economy-3980689. So, why the fear of socialism? Also based on socialism "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by *the community* as a whole"
All the gloating about success from mega-rich investors and corporate executives comes from the backbone of millions of Americans. But years and years of corporate propaganda have fallen short and victimized stupid people to believe they can finally earn a top spot, especially those from the right.
To have a laugh, I agree completely. No one takes this guy seriously.
@@Objectivityiskey Yeah, who's afraid of the big bad Wolff, the big bad Wolff, the big bad Wolff? R. Buckminster Fuller used to talk the same way about the U.S. economy in the late 1970's and early 1980's and nobody listened to him. They don't listen now. There was no conspiracy to repeal the banking laws of the 1930's and undo everything done by President Roosevelt's administration. Housing never became industrialized like cars and there is no corporate Grunch of Giants. Russia didn't rake in any global line of supply winnings and the existence of a cancer stage of capitalism is a myth.
thank you for the education-many feel something is not right but can't put it into words.
Wow! This is such an eye opener, thank you, Dr. Wolff.
Is it?
Is it really? nothing but a populist guy ... no different than Trump. Pay attention to the FED printing press.
@@barabimbaraboom7830 have any arguments against his story? Would love to hear because he's only telling facts.
@@barabimbaraboom7830 no way in hell is Professor Wolff and Trump are the same. Wolff is an economist and you know actually knows how the economy works unlike trump. So if there's anyone who we should listen to for economic advice its Wolff
Professor Wolff, you have changed my mode of thinking overnight. Turning a new leaf at 46 is truly enlghtening experience. Your work will reap fruits in not too distant future.
glad to hear it friend
George I sure hope so. We definitely need a democracy in the work places all around the world.
BoulderPM to say that “no one is stopping you” is beyond ignorance... have you ever considered that the government is in fact doing the complete opposite and has a history of continual resistance towards labor unions? ever heard of right to work laws? looked into IMF/World Bank led austerity and anti-labor programs in the attempt to create better “business climates”? ever read the history of state led repression against labor unions and other similar movements in the US and around the world? There are very real things stopping people, and while I don’t, nor do I think Wolf does, advocate for a state led democratization of the workplace, if a government subservient to private interest can provide barriers to it, then surely a government serving the working class can incentivize it. What a lazy and uninformed argument you’ve presented here.
BoulderPM not at all irrelevant.. do you expect the democratization of the workplace to involve simply creating new worker coops which would compete with and eventually drive out existing highly subsidized transnationals? Wolf explains worker coops as the end goal, the means in which you get there for the majority of people in any foreseeable future is through unions. All of the things I mentioned are very real barriers keeping workers from joining and/or forming them
BoulderPM that’s what I thought, completely missed the entire point and continue to do.
God bless you sir! At 46 I thought I knew it all. But as always Socratic dielectic reared its head 'True wisdom consists of knowing that you know nothing.' Keep learning!
Mr Wolff you've changed my perception of the economy 180!
My father got his first job in 1970 for 22 dollars an hour at a union run meat packing plant with a mere high school education. He got great benefits and bought a nice house in about three years. This is impossible today. Thanks capitalism.
Matthew Condie....Do you mean $2.00 an hour?
@@rg5445 no
$22 an hour in 1970? No, I don't think so. I was working in the mid 70s and I had a great wage at $5 an hour, the best wages were at steel factories, but no one was making $22 hour wages, that would be about $45,000 a year which is about 7 times what the average was then.
Thanks to capitalism someone purchased your fathers labour, he saved and invested his capital in a home. But for government programs, wars, socialism and oligarchs controlling the means of production, working together with government.. we cannot afford a standard of living.
@@spacepope69 Believe it. The meat packing plant was competing with the local steel mill. In three years my father had a corvette and very nice house with an indoor swimming pool. This is what is possible when capitalism dies.
While in hiigh school in the late 1950's I worked part time at a local post office. I was surprised to learn that a great number of the customers of the post office was to buy money orders to pay their bills. It was a truted public banking system that no longer exists.
Money orders are cheaper at Wal-Mart
Yes, gone are the days of interest-bearing savings accounts, Christmas Club accounts and layaways. No one can save money anymore, they need credit cards for everything.
A lot of things have changed. Ask Blockbusters.
Dennis Miller - Agree! It has all been centralised in the hands of a few major bankers!
I guess it was inevitable that the survival of the fittest would end up being the psychopaths!
Jj - Agree, But now they have sooooo much power, I don’t know how we can ever arrest it back from them.
Thank you for this stimulating and truthful argument. I have been unhappy and disheartened with these truths since the late 60s. In 1975 I made a similar wage argument to my employer for a raise. The result was that I was replaced and lost my job. I have been unrelenting in my desire for community and have come to the realization that the deck is stacked and the people that think I am a perpetual discontent are unknowing victims who have been brainwashed. They too are in pain but the cool-aid they have drunk acts as an analgesic.
Stimulating, no. Truthful, also no. Wolff is a fraud, like the evangelists that trave spreading the word of super daddies in the sky. They both don't have a grasp of reality or productivity.
So is the nature of Collectivist.
@@Objectivityiskey Provide evidence.
"Don't venerate Markets, they don't deserve it", well said Richard Wolfe.
Don't venerate the FED printing press
Yeah, markets are terrible things. We'd be much better off if we would just barter the stuff we make with our neighbors, right? That way the ice cream cones would go to the poor kids who need them more than the rich kids do. What the hell is he thinking?
@@clarestucki5151 he just wants to sell mugs for $26
7:29
Productivity measures what you give your employer.
Wages are what your employers gives you.
Wages have gone nowhere for 50 years while productivity has increased by 33%.
Exactly. Wages have been decoupled from productivity for 30 years now. Employers will, the majority of the time, pay their workers as less as possible regardless of their productivity.
One more reason why we need a general strike in this country.
Time to bring the corporatists to their knees.
Break out the pitchforks.
thanks for the summary
@@twistedoperator4422 Right and of course they will only pay the minimum that a worker is willing to accept because it would be bad business to do otherwise. And a worker will accept increasingly lower wages because there are increasingly less alternatives due to automation, population growth, and the growing assault on welfare. Workers have no bargaining power. The GOP has seemingly tried to address the surplus of workers by locking people up in prisons, deporting them and locking the borders, or sending them to war lest they otherwise have to pay welfare or create jobs.
Richard Wolff has pointed out elsewhere that Jeff Bezos is rich not because he created jobs, but because he eliminated them, causing a surplus of workers putting downward pressure on wages.
u can only pay people what u make in sales. Your productivity can increase by 1,000 times, put if you cant sell that produce it is irrelevant.
As always.... Thank you to all.
Especially our Dear Professor.... You are one in a billion.
#WeAreTheSerfs #ResourceBasedEconomy
How to make the bewildered heard realize the class war that has been ongoing since forever?
@Troll Trollsen what happens in France with the yellow vest movement is making its way to the New York subway. Where to next??
"The bewildered herd" is smarter than you think. One good step is not to begin by setting yourself apart as an intellectual. The "bewildered herd" will choose its own leaders.
@@heraclitusblacking1293 you have more faith in your fellows than I do.
@Troll Trollsen "HYEEEEEE!! Even Dumbest of Dwamark realize that Screwing other Dwamarks over is not good for make friends! *Cough* HYEIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!" -the 234th Dwamark-bashers from Stellaris. 2020
What a waste of time considering this nonsense. I'm already programming a droid that will do your job better than you, and I won't have to pay it a wage. I hope you find a place in the old world while I build it new.
Fantastic insight into some thing I have notice throughout my life, and these things should change to stop corporations from making massive profits at our expense, I noticed the C.E.O OF Boeing was fired and given 92 million Dollars when he knew that these 737s were not safe, So by allowing 360 innocent people to die ,He was rewarded with more money than he could spend in a life time, It sure is time Dr Wolff, Thank you again.
Inequality is actually far worse. It's not just the 2,000 richest that have as much as the bottom half - it's the 26 richest, according to Oxfam.
@Venraef how do you figure higher wages for workers results in the divide between rich and poor getting wider?
@Venraef Don't put the blame on minimum wage. Put it on the lack of regulation place on these companies that made them become so big they are deemed too big to fail. Small companies don't stand a chance. Because these corporations have monopolized the market.
We've never heard anyone discuss the economic consequences of women joining the labor force en masse in the 1970s, almost doubling the amount of job applicants to employers which suppressed wages while corporations responded by immediately doubling the price of almost everything (housing, cars, appliances, etc.) knowing that there would now be two wage earners in every household. This has nothing to do with gender politics and everything to do with the basic economics of employee supply and demand. More importantly, children are now being raised in households where both parents are absent during most of their waking hours with all the well documented negative consequences implicit in that circumstance. US Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders recently quoted studies (there are many) showing that the first four years of a child's life are the most critical in their development in terms of their physical health, sense of self-worth, and later success in the educational system and labor force. Does anyone actually believe that a nanny or a daycare center can replace the love and nuanced care and support of a biological parent that children desperately need?
We've heard some economists remark that "women were pushed back into a subordinate position in the household after WWII" during which European and Asian manufacturing facilities were destroyed and the US became the manufacturer to the world. Wages were high due to strong employee demand in conjunction with the power of labor unions. However, the US is now primarily a low-wages non-union service economy. This raises a question: since when is raising your own children a "low value" or "subordinate" job? How many working class jobs are more interesting, intellectually challenging, and more valuable than raising your own children and imbuing them with the values of empathy, compassion, social justice, and independent thinking that the left also espouses?
To be clear, we’re people who’ve strongly supported equal rights for women all our lives. That stated, it's now clear that corporations-not women-were the chief beneficiaries of the 70's feminist movement which encouraged virtually all women to join the labor force. Their mistake was believing (and creating a feminist dogma to support that belief that has became institutionalized worldwide) that men live more "fulfilling" lives working in factories doing boring, repetitive, and often dangerous work, building homes, hospitals, schools, infrastructure, etc., than women were experiencing raising their children at home. This may be true for the top 1% of male wage earners and women in the professions, but certainly not for the vast majority of workers.
To surmise, as a result of radical feminist dogma (as opposed to equal rights for women in every sphere of society including the labor force), the supply of workers increased, the demand for labor decreased, and this has benefited corporate America more than any other social and economic phenomenon.
The cost to families (for-profit child care), communities (people relocating in large cities for work) both qualitatively and financially has created a defacto caste system where class mobility has sharply declined. Two generations of children have been raised with their parents being largely absent during most of their waking hours. It’s worth noting that the rate of divorce increased significantly during this period exacerbating the negative effect on the children involved.Unfortunately the economic paradigm of the two wage earner family has become institutionalized and is now almost impossible to reverse.
We realize our remarks are likely to be misunderstood or deliberately taken out of context by many, but we also believe that this is an extremely important issue worthy of discussion by women who wish to have children-and even more important for the children they wish to have.
Yes..thats great!! Liberals ...progressives: I am somewhere on the left, we automatically reject any criticism of Womans equality/liberation so I was enjoying the thoughtful and important point that you made. Thank you for putting in all of the details, I feel that I gained some new ideas.
You do raise several important points. There are yet other issues to consider, so, to name a few:
How feminism has always been predominantly about power and self-determination. How technology and peace sapped most biological foundations of a gendered division of labour, and how universal education sapped the cultural foundations. How, in a capitalist economy, you're always ultimately dependant on others when you don't earn your own money, so capitalist women felt forced to seek that attainable source of power. How the social institution of full time motherhood did not exist in pre-industrial societies, although labour had to be in great measure divided by gender and, most importantly, house work encompassed a broader range of activities and was communally seen as labour. How soviet feminism before Stalin defended community child care (in an industrial form of that which had been the norm in pre-industrial societies - and vast regions of Russia were effectively pre-industrial) to allow for female liberation to the workforce instead of just sending women to work and leaving the issue to be solved by each family. How in today's capitalism we pay people to care for our kids mostly because large families living in viable proximity to form a decent support network are the exception (less kids in the last 40 years, workers relocating for jobs, later retirements...). Etc.
The issue is so complex that I honestly don't think any reductionist take can account for it. There's just studying as many aspects of industrial social transformations as possible to try to grasp strateegical points where lucid interventions can change people's lives for the better.
Why have you chosen to ignore the influx of Vietnam veterans into the workforce post-1975 when that war ended? They had to compete with the women in the work force, many of whom had to work because their husbands and boyfriends were fighting in the war and then did not want to give up their incomes. The late 1970s were a period of stagflation, that is, low economic growth, high interest rates and inflation, partly as a result of all the new workers and partly due to all the new goods coming in from China and Japan.
Well, third wave feminism and modern Marxism do cover the fact that what is dubbed emotional labor (the care of people in a family and friends) is not compensated under modern capitalism while still producing an enormous amount of wealth for any given country. Proponements of UBI say that their program would be a great way to recognize the input that care givers give to the economy, not only that it would allow parents not to have to choose between economic well-being and the care of their children.
Actually 'Capitalism Hits Home' with Harriet Fraad has discussed the traditional family model and how the women's rights movement fell short....
Richard Wolff has frequently discussed this within this program and has Harriet Fraad come in to speak of it as well.
Thank you again Prof Wolff! I watch this program every Monday morning and am always happy I did. This one makes me FURIOUS (that is quite a motivator btw). Indeed I remember the early 70s well. I lived in what I consider to be my Heart Home---LA, CA. During those years I worked PART TIME, went to CSULA FULL TIME, had a car, a nice apartment and LOTS of time to study, work, and have a rather fantastic life. Today? Big difference! I am retired, on social security (not enough to 'live' on) and am stressed about nearly everything. --#CapitalismKILLS-- ---- dreams, futures, and everything life is made of. #WorkersUNITE #YellowVestUSA #FreeJulianAssangeNOW #BringEdwardSnowdenHOME #FreeChelseaManning #FreeAllWhistleblowers #NoMoreWars #HandsOffGlenGreenwald #EpsteinDidNotKillHimself
What ever happened to Ford's observation that he needed his employees to be able buy his cars?
The rate of profit overall is such, that the fordist compromise isn't feasible anymore, GM makes much more money loaning cars than it does manufacturing them
The short answer is: China.
Ford moved to China.
And made more money.
And sold cars to those that still had jobs.
@@antediluvianatheist5262 now they're moving FROM China because the Chinese developed a middle class who are demanding a better standard of living, the manufacturers are now moving to South and Southeast Asia
@@antediluvianatheist5262 And that system is self defeating eventually. Actually Ford moved to China recently. America open its markets to cheap, so manufacturers moved to where cheap was plentiful. American consumers were thus pitted against American workers. Since the workers and the consumers are the same people, they were enticed to act against their own interests and in the interest of the profit seekers. We had a blueprint for freedom and prosperity in this country, but nobody in leadership capable of following the plans.
What happened to it, was that it was never true.....he required a reliable work force which he didn't have,
and this was the means he employed to get one. ( and there were many strings attached to the raise in pay )
www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/04/the-story-of-henry-fords-5-a-day-wages-its-not-what-you-think/#4c2913c766d2
Also the cost was $440 in 1914, which would represent 44% of the income of someone making $5.00 a day.
Also credit financing for automobiles was an infant industry and has an interesting history.
www.365daysofmotoring.com/blog/motoring/history-auto-financing/
Richard Wolff spitting that hot fire!!
"The 3 richest people have more wealth than the bottom 50%."
Mic drop.
"HYEEE! Us coming to revolution-raid you to keep you from growing big and fat. Yes! HYEEEEEE!!!"-Marauder Clans. Stellaris. 2020
And?... Btw, even if you take away all their money to redistribute the bottom poorest half of the country they would get about $1800. Not exactly life-changing, right?
Found the bootlicker.
Erick Delgado Math is not exactly boot-licking, honey:)
@@juniorgod321 I don't see how that figure produces an apathetic response from you. How about we put 60% of the wealth in the hands of the few, are you concerned now? How about we keep inching that percentile figure up until you flinch, I'm just curious as to how we got the slider up to 50% and you still find it to be a forgettable fact. Moreover, $1800 dollars is life or death for a good deal of Americans who can't afford basic medications like insulin so... that take strikes me as callously aloof from humanity but you know, why not just let all the money belong to a few people.
I love Dr. Wolff's educational videos, but I wish they could add some text maybe for his points or terms that he uses.
I think that's quiet a lot of work; you have something particular in mind you want to know? Maybe I can give you some explanation.
I agree, turn this into the news, put up some graphs.
Go directly to the D@W website.... Or go to the good professors blog page RDWolff...
Much more written info available at the website locations.
www.rdwolff.com/
Do you mean text on the screen, captions or transcript and glossary? Text summaries on screen and text highlighting can help emphasize and make a point memorable. I've seen it done on t.v. in India during speeches and discussions.
Low wages will eventually come home to haunt business owners & managers. Consumers stop buying stuff & business order's vapourise.
Exactly. The internal market is being destroyed by this.
Most (revolutionary)socialist already know this would happen but a fixed date when it will happen was never predicted sofar i know. For those who want to research this more "tendency of falling rate of profit" is linked to this prediction
If the market really decided and we lived in a meritocracy, then education would be free for all and all college applications would be blind.
There's no such thing as "free" education, or free anything, for that matter!
Not in a market-driven economy. The colleges need to make money. Education would not only not be free, but it would be expensive, like luxury goods.
juniorgod321 I meant tax payer funded. After all government funded Education is a Capitalist ideal of investment for future payoffs.
Barry Cooper And why do you think it’s such a great idea to make someone pay for someone else’s degree, specially when a bunch of degree are useless?
@@juniorgod321
Because when those educated people would enter the job market, they would themselves pay for other people's education. It's a social contract.
Thank you Professor Wolff.
Thank you for this valuable information.
Think we could stand much of this mind changing economic truth on a daily basis. The learning curve might then just become a spike ... constant incremental learning so valuable ! Thank you.
Lower quality jobs, gigs, are 75% of job offers in Brazil in the last 2 years
Professor Wolff YOU ARE EXCELLENT. YOUR PRESENTATIONS ARE ACCURATE, CONCISE AND SUFFICIENTLY DETAILED. YOUR SPEECH IS PERFECT. PLEASE, CONTINUE TO INFORM AND TRAIN YOUR FELLOWS CITIZENS
Great as usual!
This is a great video. Gets through a lot in under 30 minutes and has a couple of good recommendations for further study. Keep up the good work this channel is always getting better.
Class War. The only just War we should ever sign up to Fight.
Amazing video this is what I tell all my clients thank you so much👍
Professor Wolff needs to run for president. I think he knows a hell of a lot more than Bernie. At the very least, Sanders should hire him to be his economic advisor. Wake up, Bernie, and get your act together.
I think leftists need to start routinely running in high profile elections, but within the Democratic Party. Because that seems to work.
@zizzy Cool. Thanks for sharing someone else's ignorant opinion, since you couldn't come up with one of your own. I guess I have no choice but to submit to the overwhelming logic of your argument and join the Republican Party now.
Would Wolff be better as Sec. of Treasury or Fed Reserve Chair? Could he do both?
@@craigbowers4016 that is an excellent question. Honestly, I don't know the answer. I would say he should be in whatever position that would afford him the most effective power to fix our broken system.
@@Soleilune1995 I don't know about the Democrats. I don't trust them at all. I see basically no difference between them and the Republicans. They are both the parties of the elites. What we need more than anything in this country is to break the stranglehold of our two party system. It's totally insane for the American people to allow themselves to be enslaved to a system of government that only provides false choices as options. We have grown weak and stupid in the last 50 years, and as a result we are doomed unless we wake up and fight back.
I love the intro music
Everyone forgets the most important intellectual property. If it were not for the American workers, these corporations would not have made it so big. The workers own the corporations just as much as those who hold the title.
To say that this lecture was fascinating & interesting is to UNDERstate the case. It was phenomenally so even to a well-educated person as I am. Dr. Wolff has an uncanny ability to deconstruct these myths without, for a second, being boring and overbearing. Thanks so much! In the end, the amazing thing about these myths isd not that they exist, but that we en masse bought into them almost completely uncritically. I wish that more such lectures were in store, and one myth I'd like to understand more fully would be "the Poverty Line."
I hope that within our lifetimes we will finally slaughter the myth that economics is rules based and rational. Finally put down the myth that the "Market" serves people better and that we somehow manage it by fiddling with incentives under the hood. The free market being the best format to distribute resources is false in every describable way except in making money for the people at the helm. The mythology of the free market has dodged ownership of the death and misery it deals, and isolated the people running the show from the consequences of their actions.
yep
Hello from Brazil. I'm a great fan of your work and your class. Congratulations for initiative, we really need develop a critical think In the poor people of the world to make a extraordinary revolution and make a more just planet without inequality and social exclusion.
Professor "Virginie P`erotin Economics Leeds University Business School in the UK.
Thanks I was looking for her journals.
I love your videos, but for a lengthly 30 min video, a suggestion:
Please introduce timestamp. This gives us easy jump point to topics we like to go back (review). This serves like a "Table of Content".
Thanks!
Love your work! A question: when you say 'average' hourly pay are you talking about the mean (including Bezos et al) or median? - The distinction is crucial in an economy with a vastly skewed income distribution.
@Ayan Majumdar Thanks Ayan but there aren't any mini-bezos, just big, sociopathic ones, the rest are just sycophantic wannabes, but I'm sure you wont disagree too much with that.
Bezos doesn't count, or any of the 1%. They aren't wage workers. Only wage workers are factored into the statistic.
One of the best episodes so far!
their is segration in every united states city
Thanks professor.All scholars should give time to explain and reveal economic truth often hidden in daily news reports.
I can't hear the theme song without hearing "Pony" by Ginuwine
k1001001 lmfao you have changed my perspective forever
I hear you.
Thank you Dr Wolff for exposing the hypocrisy of capitalism system.
Asking Trump for his opinion about the economy is like going to a plumber for a prostate exam.
Thanks
Some facts from experience: 1966 - min wage $1.25; Whopper, fries, & coke $.70 + .03 tax; year-old Mustang $1500; Semester at state college $85 (for books).
I wonder if individual States will choose to secede from the United States Union, in future years. Any thoughts?
It starts with two highly divided parties. Who know how this division grows.
We are the Ferengi from Star Trek, all hail the 268 rules of acquisition
Richard Wolff is describing the situation in our town when he talks about people having to pretend to be happy to find a job-any job-with lower pay and fewer benefits than they had with their longtime employer who suddenly absconded for more lucrative pastures.
18:40 to 18:50 Do I want to live in a place where whatever is scarce goes to the people with the most money? Absolutely not, instead I want to to live in a place where whatever is scarce goes to the people who are willing and able to give up the most amount of money for the scarce resource. That is a pretty important distinction.
Great report Mr Wolff, thanks.
Populist guy ... no different than Trump. Pay attention to the FED printing press.
In a system with rations, how did people do simple things like buy more eggs and milk and flour than their personal needs in order to bake cakes for a big family reunion? Do we now have to make calls to friends and neighbors to send me their ration tickets or to come earlier on a holiday and bring their milk and eggs personally? I'm on board with most of what Prof Wolff talks about. I'm thinking out loud what life would be like. Maybe I just need to read his book.
For one thing, if they didn't have enough flour and milk and eggs for a big cake, they did without. If you talk to anyone who lived through the rationing, you'll know that most people did not give away their ration cards. They were coveted possessions. People understood that they had to sacrifice some of the nicer things in life, such as birthday cakes, for the higher good of winning the war.
It's completely possible to create a society that revolves around a COLLECTIVE distribution of resources.
Forget rations.
If trying to imagine a ration system is difficult.... try to Imagine an economy where goods and services are produced and distributed without money..... but based on need and abundance rather than greed and scarcity.
A Resource Based Economic Model.
Wolff for President!
Very interesting and very informative discussion by Prof. Wolff.
Great video!!
Another words, GREED took over!
The old Aristo/Pluto-cracy was trying
to gain 'Additional' layers of "Privilege"
by instituting Religio/Ethno-Fascism. ..
Nice and clear
8:12 something was missing there, the real comparison should have been the *median* , not the average, and since wealth disparity has gone up, the difference between the 2 has increased thus, the average worker need a lot more than 22$/hr to have the same as 50 years ago.
I am a conservative. But honestly this guy is awesome. I really wished the right will move to the left a little and I wished the left would shift to the right some and do what they are supposed to do. Do what’s right for America’s
17:43 to 18:32 How would you allocate the 6 ice creams? I assume first come first served? So, in your example, parents that can "afford" to go to the ice cream shop 10 minutes earlier get the ice cream instead of the parents that could only "afford" to get in line 9 minutes earlier. How about beach front housing? That is scarce, and many people want it. How would you decide those who get beach front housing, and those who don't if you don't want the market price deciding? A national lotto? Is that a "fair" way to allocate? Prices are signals. In an actual market economy, the ice cream vendor will get more ice cream to meet the demand.
Would you please cite some studies and statistics to help qualify your various claims? I love your work and agree with the points you make, I just want to be able to send this to friends who don’t already agree
I agree that fewer people are looking for work. I retired a few years ago, after working since the age of 16, and the first thing I tell people is I can't believe how many people don't have jobs. I never noticed before because I was too busy working. Now I've seen it for myself. It's insane!
Thank you sir for making it easy to understand for us low educated people like me, god bless you sor
Richard Wolff is awesome.
Please explain to me how one "gives up looking for employment"? If you are an independent adult, who will provide you shelter, food, clothing, medication? Who will pay your bills if not yourself? I have been unemployed a couple of times before, but I looked for work everyday, and it NEVER occurred to me that I simply could choose not to. HOW COULD ONE AFFORD TO "GIVE UP" LOOKING FOR EMPLOYMENT and go on surviving. I don't get it. Please shed a light on my lack of understanding. thanks.
Sandra Lima I’ll take a stab at it. A lot of people that give up, do so because they’ve already lost their home, etc through being unemployed too long, are likely in debt with no means of repaying, and they live in a depressed area (mostly rural) where there are simply no jobs available. In the U.S. most need transportation to get to work. Unless you are in a big city, public transportation is nonexistent. In suburban or rural areas one must have a vehicle to travel miles to a job that may well only pay $8 - $10 per hour. Even if rent is on the low end in your area, that wage is not enough to afford housing, food, and fuel costs depending on how far you’d have to travel to work.
Thank you for taking a stab at it. I agree that the situation you described is probable. That being said, we shouldn't refer to this demographics as "those who gave up looking for work", because it sounds optional.
I agree. It does sound optional.
I don't see how anyone can argue against what Dr. Wolff has said here. To do so would be folly.
This channel has compelled me to organize as a socialist, and to study leftist ideology. Thank you for this public service project and for all the information and knowledge you're spreading.
Insightful, as usual.. Thanks Doc,
Populist guy ... no different than Trump. Pay attention to the FED printing press.
American workers are way better off than Portuguese workers, then. In Portugal, our minimum wage is 600€/month, raised from 500€ a couple of years ago with the consent of the capitalist class only if government promised to give them tax rebates to compensate for the extra 100€. Our wages haven't stagnated, but gone down since the introduction of the Euro in 2002 and then the intruduction of austerity measures in about 2010. My mother, who has been retired since 2013, earns a pension that's 40% lower than her salary before austerity.
William H. Sylvis (1828-1869) was born in 1828 in the borough of Armagh, Pennsylvania. He became a pioneer American trade union leader. Sylvis is best remembered as a founder of the Iron Molders' International Union and the National Labor Union, the latter being one of the first American union federations attempting to unite workers of various crafts into a single national organization.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Sylvis
William H. Sylvis, president of the Iron Molders International Union and, in 1868, president of the NLU, believed that unionization was important, but by itself it could not solve the problem of poverty. He declared,
The cause of all these evils is the WAGES SYSTEM. So long as we continue to work for wages... so long will we be subjected to small pay, poverty, and all of the evils of which we complain.[4]
The federation was anti-monopolist, and advocated communitarianism - the pursuit of a more just society established on cooperative principles. The organization also favored shorter work hours, and the establishment of libraries for the express purpose of educating workers.[5]
The 1868 NLU convention also embraced Sylvis's view that a "bank... is a licensed swindle." Sylvis was against privatizing the commons, and also appeared to favor progressive taxation. The NLU wanted congress to control interest rates, which they thought would help to address the fairness issue.[6]
Uriah Smith Stephens (August 3, 1821 - February 13, 1882) was an American labor leader. He was most notable for his leadership of nine Philadelphia garment workers in founding the Knights of Labor in 1869, a successful early American labor union.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriah_Smith_Stephens
The Knights of Labor was intended as a voluntary association of producers, who would work cooperatively and fraternally, as opposed to the self-centered materialism of the Gilded Age.[9] In Stephens’ vision, the K of L included elements of a fraternal organization or secular church, including rituals and secrecy.[10] Secrecy was initially regarded as essential, given the number of incidents of violence against workers, including coal worker strikes in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.[11]
At the new order’s second meeting on December 28, 1869, the group adopted Stephens' ritual work, Adelphon Kruptos (Secret Brotherhood).[12] In it, Stephens expressed his conviction that the "Everlasting Truth sealed by the Grand Architect of the Universe" is that "everything of value, or merit, is the result of creative Industry."[13] Rituals included lectures on the nobility of labor and the evils of wage slavery, monopoly, and over-accumulation of wealth.[14] Stephens created an equilateral triangle within a circle as the new order’s emblem, embellishing it with symbolism from the various lodges to which he belonged.[15]
_
Professor, it would be very timely a criticism of the gdp...
In the US you introduced the minimum wage during the Depression. In the UK, it wasn't introduced until 1996.
Gentrification caused me to move out of the Bay Area.
I didn't even know that there were such thing as a worker coop.
1. Productivity goes up due to technology not human labor.
2. Minimum wage is not living wage and never designed as living wage
3. Living wage with good jobs and benefits with limited education is gone
4. To unchain then at least provide universal healthcare. Universal healthcare will give the workers leverage and forced employers to compete by either increasing wage or benefits
5. UBI is a must in the future to give normal people a chance to adjust to the displacement of technology
26:53 to 27:08 So let me get this straight, the less efficient corporations, in addition to competing in the market place, also spends money to bury research that is against it's interests. Ok ,for the sake of argument I will grant you that (I am not paying for access to the paper). But if co-ops are more efficient how is that not discovered by the market that has both corporations and co-ops? Why is it not the case that co-ops (which are more efficient) are making more profits, and using those profits to bury research that is against their interests?
@~19:00 rural America is even losing their Post Offices.
Unfun fact, the new Post Master General is switching to long distance trucks for USPS Priority Mail instead of airplanes. I'm sure it's a coincidence that the new Post Master General used to run a trucking company that got $60 million/yr in new contacts from the Post Office because of the switch.
When you do calculations do you take into account income taxes for those years? Just curious if you are calculating net or gross pay. Also I’d be curious to hear rent/mortgages as well as fuel and food.
The economy needs a basic income to make unemployment feel not so bad.
People are lazy enough already and you want to pay them not to work too?
The "housing market" as you put it is controlled by city council. When you only allow for 3 floors, there is bound to be a shortage.
talk about stolen money try income tax for starters
A moral economy is one based on fair compensation, not profiteering off the labor of others. All value comes from labor. Capital has no value unless labor is applied to it.
It's much worse than Dr Wolff can show with the "basket of wage goods" comparison. Typically, that measure doesn't reflect prices of housing, healthcare, insurance, taxes, education, and possibly some other big items. Subjectively, I'd say that's where I got hit the hardest... And that's when I could find work. Watched my take-home shrink drastically while economists talked about wages "stagnating." My discretionary income shrank even in years where I got raises in gross pay. That's not stagnating wages. That's a net loss. There's more to this, but that's my experience, and it feels crazy to hear we're treading water when in fact you're sinking.
Thank you for this. Only one thing: Use _falsehood_ (at best misconception, error, deception) rather than 'myth'. Actual myths, you know, Antiquity and all that, are marvels of truth. What you're talking about are most abominable lies.
By the way. WA has one of the best economies in the nation. We've had the highest minimum in the country for years and it's indexed so that it increases every Jan1. Next year we will achieve $15 across all sectors.
What you are describing in the second half is elastic demand. Kids won't be happy that their parents cannot buy them an overpriced ice cream but they can make do without. Allowing many parents to drop out of the bidding war, limiting how high prices can go.
But imagine inelastic demand. What if the item was an Insulin pen. The kid doesn't merely want it, the kid has to have it or die. Now this is where the bidding wars really starts. There is no option to drop out, other than to die. So parents will pay anything for the insulin pen, $10, $100 even $700.
Iin Malaysia (same brand, same company) a box of five pens (Novorapid) cost $45. In America, Novorapid cost $600 for the same box of five pens. That is what capitalism does. Yes, if you think insulin cost $600 for 5 pens, than yes Universal healthcare is too expensive. But the actual price is only $45 and when you strip all the profit gouging that happens in the US medical system, universal health care is very affordable.
Yes, I do want the people who are willing to pay more for it to get it. It is moral. It encourages the vendor to have enough on hand, others to become vendors too. The people with less money to earn more or go elsewhere for cheaper alternatives. Markets are a means to communicate needs and wants.
Great information. Can you analyse the number of large corporations that do not hire full time employees but they hire temp services? You can't get a job now without going through a temp service. A lot of employers farm out their human resources departments so they don't have to pay for full time employee benefits. Thanks for posting your video!
'Love you Richard Wolff
That beat though.
thank you.
Workforce participation rate today in the US is 63.3%, which is only 3% lower than the historical maximum of 67% at 2008, but this is all higher than years prior to 1980s. During 1970s was approx 60%. Unemployment is calculated by persons actively searching for a job, agreed by the World Labor Organization, not some capitalist crooks..
I will say that productivity isn’t just increased thanks to the workers, there’s some R&D that goes in to it, which the capitalists will attribute to their investments. Problem is they are investing the money that should’ve been shared with the workers in a co-op.
Learnt so much 😱😱😱