David Harvey on The Contradictions of Capitalism
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- čas přidán 17. 05. 2024
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One of the world's most respected public thinkers visits the RSA to explore the hidden workings of capital. David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate School, unravels the paradoxes at the heart of capitalism and offers a manifesto for a new way forward.
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He's getting a little more frail as he gets older, but underneath his calm and well-delivered speech you can still see this enormous anger and frustration that he has for our system. I respect him so much. :)
LOL YOU GOT ME HOW DID U KNOW
also you're assuming I'm american and that's so fucking hilarious. I HAPPEN to be american, but america is not the world, you dumbass troll. :)
+Grey Winters the world is pretty much united against US imperialism. Note the Middle East & China preferring the Euro over the dollar as another nail banging in. Or deconstruct Star Wars. Storm trooper or Jedi?
You call it U.S. Imperiailsm how archaic I call it globalism. Or the 3rd Way as Mussoini and Bill Clinton call it.
@@greywinters4801 AMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERICAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@greywinters4801 I feel sorry for you. To be this bleeding stupid...
No matter which systems you've favored in the past... ANY SYSTEM based on perpetual growth, consumption, and waste is no longer an option for the future. It's that simple, obvious, logical, rational. The new system will be based around efficiency, preservation, conservation, and sustainability. Infinite growth on a finite planet??!! Not gonna happen.
you mean how the native americans lived, respected everything around them, mmm i wonder who buggered that.
@@andcouncil1 the same greedy nature they themselves employed while fihhting over hunting grounds.
@@andcouncil1 They were not that great. They fucked up as well.
But less than the current system, for sure.
You absolutely can have infinite growth with finite resources, because the ways in which you can restructure those resources are infinite. Look at Spotify, it does away with CDs, records, even the hard drive space for the tracks, it is a restructuring of resources to a model more sustainable than before, and yet due to increased accessibility, it is demonstratable market growth. So-called capitalism morphed into a knowledge based economy before our very eyes and it was so subtle most of us didn't even notice.
@@Atamanxxxvii Spotify did away with CD's but still it's not "infinite" Growth. They still have limits of servers and data that can be stored. We go on growing but it doesn't become infinite
Any sound economic system moving forward into the future really only need take two things into consideration:
*1.)* Respect concerning the dynamic equilibrium of planet earth's biosphere & the most efficient usage of it's finite resources.
*2.)* Equitable access to necessities for all of society to the extent that it fits within the first point.
ThePromisedWLAN Desired goal depopulating 75% of the population.
Anarchism
That's a lot of uncessary jargon.
@@CauseItsNotMidnight - No. It's very suitable jargon. Our language system is just clunky and people are not used to expressing ideas clearly.
You make me think you've probably heard of "A Resource Based Economy". It seems to be the only decent proposal (so far) that takes into account these factors. Although there are certainly some partially-considerate concepts such as steady-state economies. ……. Anyways, the key seems to be in utilizing our best technology and scientific insights. For instance, more direct measures of value. I.E. - assessing resource quantities in real-time based on a scale of properties and quantity and intended usage. This could be combined with blockchain technology (to assure transparency, security, accounting and the like), and neural network feedback (to keep a balanced fluctuation between communities/facilities/whatever)………….There's so much we could be doing to overcome the absurdly outdated obstacles we face.
I'm basing my school heresy project on this guy's work. I truly admire him!
That’s awesome dude! Harvey is brilliant. I hope that project went well.
Why?
And now you're... on reddit playing the stonks
@@rayek4eq Nothing wrong from profiting from the stock market, when everyone else is doing it at a more dangerous and larger scale
After hearing reference to what 'statistics' say about the 1%/2% and the under-class, it occurred to me that that statistic from whatever 'survey' is apart of the 'cycle' we all create-&- contribute in maintaining while drawing attention to the need to improve it ... Fascinating!!
Pretty interesting to watch this now with the whole NFT Craze. And how the asset bubble fits this market.
And to see it completely crash now
The asset bubble is linked to the central manipulation of the interest rates. This is related to central control. This has more in common with Marxist philosophy than free markets. It is not a capitalistic thing to do to manipulate currency in such a manner.
Excellent, on point as ever.
God bless you dear Sir 😍🙏
This is really good stuff
Mesmerizing
Wow! Just wow, Sir!
8:00 the reason 3% growth is required is precisely because of central banks selling the public's future labour to bondholders.
Interest from debt instruments is not such a predominant type of income for the wealthy. Capital gains and dividends are also very important. However, dividend yields have also been zigzagging downwards over the decades.
No. Without real growth in productivity (which is falling BTW) the rate of profit tanks and the capitalists go nuts trying to carve a larger slice from a more slowly growing pizza. Notice, we haven't gotten to even 3% for (in real terms) a single quarter between 2014 and the huge stimulus to combat COVID. That slowdown is real, it originates in production. You make a fetish of the bank, because you think value springs from nature itself and not social labor in production.
David Harvey
1 crisis use value and exchange value (cost of production,saving, vehicle of exchange) market system not best way to use value.
2 adequate use value to all or exchange value system which benefit few.
3 comodification of everything
4 measure of exchange value money not reflective of use value
5 relationship between pvt property and state
6 difficulty in caping compounding growth.
7 investment in asset value creation of bubble than investment in production value.
8 intellectual property activity loss of labor
9 direction if flow of value.
10 universal alienation
Identity vs Jobs
11dissillusioned about political power
1 immense money power concentration influence election circle of power
2 education system good job not a trouble maker service so must pay for it.(ideological and practical level)
In regards to the contradictions in capitalism, i.e., the 3% growth per year: I'm surprised that Mr. Harvey did not mention Nixon's visit to China in the 1970's. If importance is to be given to China, then it would be apparent that Nixon's visit was not only a geopolitical strategic move against the USSR, but also an economic move to bring China into the capitalist market. Perhaps this was the obvious underpinning to his visit? I don't remember, however, it being openly stated, though I was only about 12 years old when Nixon made his visit.
Sorry, but I can't understand a particular term he's using and the captions are confused. It sounds like "wrong tier" or "ron tier" class (15:52). Does anyone know how this term is spelled? Thanks.
rentier
Wonderful to hear him say he’s been told he’s “crazy,” me too. Lol It’s actually everybody else who is crazy they’re so stupid they go along with everything when the power is in the mind.
Every organism has growth which reaches and equilibrium, new traits of a species will change this equilibrium from time to time. To not have growth means that if the species suffers a deprivation of a resource they could lose a portion of the population or in our case culture, without growth this portion will not return back to the equilibrium.
At the heart of the debate over the merits of capitalism versus socialism is finding the right balance between protection of "human rights" and "property rights." We cannot even reach consensus over whether we have human rights, or whether all rights exist by contract with one another, by enforced agreed-upon laws. Then, there is a serious disagreement over what is and what is not private property. Is the planet and and what nature provides free of charge rightfully claimed as individual property? Or, is the planet our commons from which we produce tangible goods as our legitimate private property. Decades ago I discovered the writings of the American political economist Henry George. Anyone seeking a clear understanding of what our relationship with the planet is and ought to be under law should read Henry George.
2023 and hes still going!
The houses lost to default foreclosure in the yrs following the financial crisis involved little or no financial loss, as the buyers overwhelmingly had no equity in the property.
Is please someone kind enough to transcribe (or subtitle) the video for people who can read english but have trouble to listening (and writing) it?
Interesting.
The idea that people own their own homes is ridiculous, and a clear sign of the interviewer’s boomer POV. Home ownership is plummeting throughout the developed world, and there are few places where even genXers can still afford to buy, let alone younger generations. Even when people “own” their place of lodging, it’s most often a condominium which is rarely owned outright (read the contracts), and rarely can be used to provide rents sufficient to qualify the owner as a rentier. The vast, vast majority of rental units are owned by very large corporations, and AirBNB has only made this worse.
Watch Jeremy Rifkin's recent video "A World Without Markets" (which might be in the Related Videos on this page) to understand how and why we're moving out of the systems we've known in the past. It's happening right now. He calls it the "Collaborative Commons". Others might say a "Natural Law Economy". We can settle on a term eventually. A World Beyond Markets
If we adopt a “use value” system, who decides the use value of everything? For example, in an exchange value system, buyers and sellers decide the exchange value of things through price negotiation.
Very relevant question. With a bit of imagination, you could imagine a way to democratically decide the use value of things. The value of commodities is already imbued in the commodity itself, due to the labor time it has taken to produce the commodity.
I think Paul Cockshott may have discussed this at some point. Check his channel he may have a video on it.
Wait what? Nobody "decides" use value, or nothing regulates it. Exchange value is regulated by the amount of labour required to produce the commodity, meanwhile use value is just based on your subjective evaluation of it, what modern economics calls utility (and pretends its measurable). The doing away with exchange value just means that you do away with the commodity form of exchanges. Education, healthcare, food, housing, clothing etc are no longer commodities, i.e., they aren't "sold" to "customers" on a monetary value for profit. Doing away with commodity form will mean that these things are no longer commercialised, they aren't to be sold for profit, they are essential things that everyone needs for a good stable life. You won't be paying for any of the commodities. You do away with exchanges. Everything is produced on need, not on the profitability of exchange values.
The present pandemic is symptom of capitalism. Suddenly we have great pause going on through the lock down.
Capitalism is in free fall shock, governments are scurrying around to pump money into business with a last after thought for the self employed. Why are so many people self employed to day? It’’s because of nature of capitalism. Workers losing there PaYE jobs of the past having to work and survive in the gig economy. Companies can offload contractors don’t pay national insurance or tax or sick pay or any other fringe benefits such as pensions.
UK governments having to find money for them but there last in line after companies and corporations and the employed! Where’s the money coming from all these billions of pounds from the central banks. Electronic money out of thin air. Billionaires scurrying around for handouts such as blond haired airline owners, the whole capital system stinks it’s rotten to the core. Suddenly nations are socialising their economies. Maybe the chancellor of the exchequer should complete overhaul the tax system after this. Society needs safety nets they have be paid for by the wealthy not on income but on intrinsic hoarded wealth capital!
What is a "rontier" /"rontere" (spelling?) economy?
kristi szi I'm sure you already figured it, but if not they were say a rentier economy. It's when you make money off of rents as opposed to production.
I don't understand how you can talk about the 2007-2008 economic crisis and not discuss what happens when, within the space of less than 12 months the price of the most widely used and least elastic substance doubles. Oil.
Susan Krumdieck what’s your opinion on that?
Whose better, David Harvey or Michael Parenti?
What is a ronteer economy
*****
thanks for the 1st sentance of that. I'm not sure what happened from there on though.
Has this been edited? Seems like some impatient bastard has cuts bits out to make Harvey's speech go faster.
Use vs Exchange?
Marsha Creary core his concept about political economy
The reality is that no system works, they all contradict themselves. People are the common denominator. People are imperfect and so is the world. The best system is that which promotes freedom most effectively, that is the question.
Daniel Suelo and ecovillages seem to be on the right track...
…so which system is that?
There is a theme to all of this and although what he and many other say makes alot of sense . Talk talk talk... and not much is done to fix the great inequality why?
That's depressing ..
Human folly is endless - capitalism being just one example of it.
Hey -
I for one will GLADLY take the contradictions of good old fashioned Capitalism rather than the lumps, bloody noses, broken bones, and the total destruction introduced by Socialism, Communism, and by any other asinine ism -
Interesting his comments on leaving the gold standard in the 70s. Anyone who is paying attention to our monetary crisis should be buying bitcoin (not crypto, just bitcoin) to opt out of this system.
NO NEED FOR MONEY : When the robots initiate the process of substituting human labor force on general terms , which seems to be an inevitable outcome , and that money as a concrete value , would be totally obsolete ( human labor to robot labor ) , thereby creating the posibility to substitute and transform money to another means (value?) accourding to human and social necessity so thereby opening another system of capitalism (or whatever?) , its to say , the increasing human unemployment problem would cease to be a problem , being that all input would be none human , automatic , no wage , 24 hour's none stop labor system , and In a 100% robot production system the level and quality of human life would and should rise inevitably , creating a new model of existence for human life i.e: Time to study no matter the age , time to travel , time for leisure , time for sports , time to live........etc., all of which could be subsidized or amortized if needed ? by robot labor intrinsically.
Robot-work future has to be some kind of socialism, because capitalism theory only works when people not machines create value. When machines create the food and the houses, people can relax and just do maintenance. It would make no sense if few who happen to own the robots get all value and the rest starves because there are no jobs.
That will be the great discussion in the future, when every kind of work can be done automatically. Than it´s either everyone gets to enjoy the robot value, because honestly in the big picture technology is an human archievement over the last thousands of years and not an archievement of few who have the luck to be in a place of power in the right place in time. Or its revolution.
those who would benefit from automation the most are top production owners in the world, and because these are private individuals they would not be willing to share their wealth with others, basically what Iam saying is that you will have 2 options there as of this moment, either starve to death because you have 0 wealth or join comrade Stalin and his glorious revolution, as you understand both of those options are bad, thats why its important we have people discussing other options and possibilities now, before its too late.
1. We can produce almost everything we really need semi-automatically already, and given that some people like being farmers, coders, engineers, etc. most of that could be sorted, except now we have many jobs for the sake of jobs and needless consumerism.
2. If complete automation happens under the current capitalistic system (as pointed out by the other commenters), it will only be the few that benefit, while the many are f***ed
watch money as debt. listen to a lecture by michael hudson. or don't. good thing fiat money or fractional reserve banking was't discussed
To all critiquing Marx's Labor Theory of value...
Have you even read Marx and do you understand the theory?
If not, why do you believe you are in a position to make any claims of the theory?
Simply believing him wrong because that's the propoganda you've been raised on us NOT a rational justification.
Marxist are those who read Marx, anti-marxists are those who actually understood Marx.
@@redmonkeyass26
So which do you think you fall under?
If you have read and disagree let's find out why.
@@davec-1378 i fall under the anti-marxist, because almost everything Marx claims is wrong and outdated. Some of his claims were even outdated by the time he wrote his book. Somehow Harvey believes that under socialism everything will be better, which we already know it does not work. Capitalism is the best way we know how to manage our resources and it provides the best life for the most amount of people possible.
@@redmonkeyass26
Explain to me what claim you think the Labor Theory of Value makes that has been shown false.
The vague response you just gave makes me suspect you fall in the category of people that do not understand the theory at all.
Here is a quick question that will clear up if you have any knowledge on the subject at all.
Tell me, according to Marx, WHAT is the reason for the secular tendency for the rates of profit to reduce during periods of long term expansion?
A couple simple paragraphs will do fine.
@@davec-1378 What would Marx know about economy ? He was not an economist.
How could he possibly know about expansion and modern capitalism ?
Do profits rates reduce ? Where ? When ? How ?
Lets talk about something related to the actual theory.
If i work 100 hours to make a shoe and
you work 5 to make the same shoe.
Which shoe should be worth more ?
Money should either be a unit of account or a store of value, preferably both.
If we think of money as a unit of account, debt-based currency and money printing is outright fraud.
If we think of money as a store of value, removing the backing and money printing is outright fraud.
The economic convection that roils asset bubbles...
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 has 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 private 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 administering such a 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, with the potential for an annual citizen's dividend to be distributed. The term that best describes the principles embraced by Henry George is "cooperative individualism".
Edward J. Dodson, Director
School of Cooperative Individualism
www.cooperative-individualism.org
great guy!
I studied economics when Keynesian economics was the thing and then it was not the thing. People getting upset and name calling because he is a marxist have no clue. Economic models change and morph over time. A pure market economy has never work perfectly, if it did, there would be no need for regulation. Pure Marxist or Capitalist based systems do not work perfectly either, and thought leaders and policy makers need to start exploring what modifications we can make the solve these problems. As a species and civilization, our welfare and longevity depend on it.
Capitalism works the best. The problems are from leaving it.
To solve those problems we need to move in the direction of Mises.
The scientists studying social construct
How does the possibility (inevitability?) of space colonization change this argument? Space is infinite. I oppose space colonization but I’ve never understood the answer to this question. People like Elon will continue to win if we don’t figure out the answer
You make a good point. It all depends on how truly inevitable collecting resources from space is. The amount of time required before it becomes viable could be unexpectedly long, or short, effecting the relevance it has on history. We can't predict the future, and as such can only view space resource collection as a possibility, and prepare aswell for other possibilities.
Capitalism works...but only if there is no greed or desire for power. Both of which, unfortunately, seem to be inherent human weaknesses. So let's go to the other end of the spectrum...communism...which also works...but only if there is humility and morality. Both of which are characteristics that seem to be inherently lacking from human nature. So what's the answer? Sustainability is the new black.
In capitalism we have to be greedy and selfish to succeed. If you look at primitive societies humility, morality and cooperation are the overriding characteristics.
spaceforrest Capitalism works because of greed. Communism doesn't work because of desire for power. Capitalism fails when it is mixed with communism as is going on in most of the world. Once you put people in power to tinker with the free market, capitalism becomes corrupted by desire for power and greed is unleashed from the restraints of a free market.
davidharvey.org/2018/11/new-podcast-david-harveys-anti-capitalist-chronicles/ Here is a lot more unfold on what was told in bullet-points.
The strength of capitalism is that it ought to properly align rewards with efforts, at least generally.
I don't like David Harvey's monopolistic socialism/communism Marx-Frederich-Hegelian viewpoints, but I agree that Capitalism is monopolistic high risk and elitist vanguardism economic system..
Have you ever read Marx?
@@andrewg3196 always a good question. In my experience, people will talk about Marx as if they know something, and when you ask if they've read any Marx, they'll straight up say oh yes I've read lots of Marx when in fact they haven't read a lick. I guess they're embarrassed. They haven't even read Adam Smith, either, or Ricardo or even Hobbes and so on. They might not even know who these people are or roughly when they lived and what their contributions were. As you talk to such a person it becomes clear that they have no functional definition of terms like market, commodity, capital, etc. Typically these are the staunchest proponents of whatever they mean by "capitalism" and denouncers of whatever they mean by "Marxism," and it's always really difficult to find out what that is. It sounds like I'm poking fun, but I'm seriously just describing an exchange I've had with people so many times that I could set my watch by it.
If commented on this no existence, because people are so greedy and selfish. Attack is eminent. Right?
Thanks.
Rapaz
Sovereign debt of nations where the balance is subject to yearly or semiannual or daily compounding periods. The near exponential growth is not sustainable since all available wealth is vacuumed up. Borrow $1 for 2018 years at 6% semiannually and the balance owing shall be a 51 or so digit number. Those number of digits quickly approach the number of digits that track the number of atoms on planet Earth. Imagine borrowing $2?
When some expert claims that inflation comes from growing wage demands, introduce the fact that currency creation that debases the existing supply happens as a direct consequence of borrowing additional currency to pay down they yearly interest. The wealth building of a country cannot maintain pace with compounded interest due to the fact that the currency is debased faster and faster as time goes by.
The solution offered by tycoon bankers and countries of all political leanings is war and the killing of innocent people targeted by leftist tycoons for genocide then claiming FALSELY that this was Charles Darwin's "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest."
Historical claims are that there was a schism between ancient religions many thousands of years ago between pagans and monotheists. Good and Evil--Well being and Harm come from the transition between night / darkness (evil) and day / light (well being) and that the dark and light gods (creator god versus Satan/devil) were actually two halves of the same coin. The belief came that both good and evil (war and peace cycles) had to be done, but kept in equal balance. Supposedly some ancient sect of pagans still has strong influence even to this day--yet how foolish are these ancient beliefs?
Religions are theorized by some intellectuals to be organized knowledge for tribes to survive genetically over long spans of thousands of years. So that various diseases, germs, and such are avoided by ritual practices that take precautions not to become sick, etc.
Dumbledore?.
I know that my ideas to many may seem very childish on this subject, but why can't life be simple?
Why can't a doctor heal someone because... Isn't it amazing to have the knowledge of medicine to be able to do that!?
Why can't we do things in life for the sole purpose of how it benefits an entire community?
Why can't everyone break a sweat for humanity's benefit?
Why can't the rich be leaders in this and put a little back bone into building their own dreams instead of using money to hire others to do everything for them?
Why can't we all unite as one because it is the right thing to do?
And why do we need money to build a future we all want if we all agree to the necessary sacrifice?
Why must there be division between countries?
Why must there be any walls blocking us from working together at all?
Why can't we aspire to a higher state of living for all?
Why can't we reimagine our world?
Completely take a new path...
Yes, I may be childish on some levels.. but I am childish for asking a simple question...
'Why not'?
Are we not creative enough?
Are we afraid because we've become too comfortable in our isolated dreams we don't want to unite them?
Or are we just too lazy to take action?
To fight against being held down...
I think for most they're too concerned with being right to do what's right
We don't need money
We don't need religion
We need cooperation & reason & purpose & drive
And we need to for once...
All have the same vision at the same time
Somehow break the blinds over everyone's minds
+Skye M too many people seems one obstacle. Finite global resources and no strict population control. Hopefully after WW3 money can be removed from the equation.
Skye M Because you live on this planet...and not on another lawless planet.
I think what you are describing is along the lines of the Venus Project or a resource based economy. Fear of missing out and the wedges being driven into the populace by the powerful that promotes competition and insecurity, together with a lack of knowledge of science and alternatives to what we have now, all contribute to the painful system so many dislike. Most want the same basic needs of life. Education and cooperation must come first, a massive undertaking, unfortunately.
Because we live in the kingdom of Mammon instead of the kingdom of God on earth. Marx, as the most developed theologian of the idolatry of Mammon likened our situation as a species to that of an organism struggling to be born which is trapped inside its integument (an organic sac that is part of the organism, a bit like a larva's coccoon, that keeps it alive). The integument is the social system and economy we have built together over the course of human history, which we depend upon and which shapes us. We have built it collectively by our combined creativity and labours, but irrationally, haphazardly and unconsciously, and so it is uncomfortable, and has all kinds of inhuman side-effects and characteristics, and it distorts our personalities and consciousness. What we have to do is break out of that integument by coming together consciously to rebuild society and the economy collectively but consciously, so as to get rid of all those inhuman features. Marx's definition of human nature is the capacity for conscious self-creation, that unlike any other animal we can shape ourselves by how we live, by how we build our own environment. So in rebuilding the world consciously and collectively we will be doing conscious collective self-recreation, which is finding our true humanity. As they say at church, the glory of God is a human being fully alive.
20:20 Why MUST capitalism be based on growth? A capitalist could start the day (years, really) and end the period with less wealth than they start with. I don't see how this is impossible, and it's still totally capitalism. In this world, people don't invest to grow their capital, they invest to preserve capital from decreasing in value. Money has inflation. Other things as well. Revenue-producing ventures could be nearly break-even and still be superior to cash. Sure, unchanging assets would increase in value... until they don't anymore.
Dgfrmxon the thing is, say you own a business, and are starting it. You are about to start making profits, which is good, as it will allow you to live off it. Now you may say, not being particularly greedy, that that is pretty much all you need: enough to make a comfortable living, and thus decide to not expand or grow your business. While this could happen within capitalism, although it is not quite common, a problem arises. Your business has to compete with the other businesses around who are selling similar products. In this competition, those who have the objective of increasing their accumulation of wealth ever and ever (and they exist pretty much in every sector), will be often trying to find ways to conquer whichever market they are participating in, gaining the most they can of the demand of the goods they sell. This may happen through many mechanisms, like scale economies and so forth, but the point is that the businesses who are expanding and competing against you will wage a war against you by, say, lowering their prices so you no longer receive enough costumers to make any profit, and in fact start loosing money. Put in this position, you can either let your business die out, or partake in the competition and expand your own business. And this is what happens, the only businesses that are viable in the long term within a capitalist system are those who are in chase of constant growth, those who aren't die out, even leaving their owners in deep debt. This is the reason why capitalism has an inherent need for growth, it is a byproduct of the competition we've always been told is really good for everyone. Sorry for this response to a very old comment, it just seemed odd to me nobody responded.
Joshua Aranda not just that. The competition is unnatural and those at the top strive to eliminate it at all cosfs
Financiers...
please, not the money argument again, money is just a storage device of value, money itself means nothing, so if it's backed by a comodity then it will have the value of the comodity + the added value that labour or other source pump in it, as simple as that, stop the marx's romanticism
unfortunately money is not anymore backed by commodities...
Exactly. It's gone from partially to purely ideological. Capitalism is hugely a lie, the worst crutch of society. And screw the people who give you the whole 'oh go study some basic economics you fool'. I have studied some economics. It's a game created by using mathematics to plead selfish interests. High technology and artificial intelligence is going to change our whole concept of 'economics'. Economics and game theory is really just about people and how they behave and interact, not this external mechanism like they would have you believe
to be fair to the die-hard capitalists, we've never lived in a free and unregulated capitalist system. The closest thing we have to that that is pretty big right now is bitcoin, but even that has it's issues...
Jon Reyes people are so misinformed, money is nothing without something valuable to back it up, and something valuable is something people would like to have. There's is no alternative to a consumer based society because we are consumer beings just like any living thing on the planet, so if you know an alternative please explain
The guy before me just said money is not backed by commodities anymore. Did you not read that? Money is a unit in a database. Sure, we consume things but it doesn't have to be solely based on that. Basic needs are what is most important. capitalism as it is now is so wasteful. It's time to get smart and think more deeply about things. As I already stated, high technology and artificial intelligence are changing everything as we know it. Welcome to the information age
Did he try to put common sense and modern world in same sentence ?!
He is crazy ..
Explain.
His point about finite resources explains WW1 & WW2. Without strict population control and strong benevolent dictatorships like USA, UK, China, Saudi Arabia and perhaps Turkey WW3 is on the horizon. 1% of the population controlling 99% wealth is typical of most dominant species; notably many ape species, hyenas, walruses, wolves, and other group animals at the top of the food chain. The dominant male or female has the proverbial "lion's share".
Tooo fast talking.
#coronavirus
5:23-5:40 is an absurd and concerning oversimplification.
Contradictions of capitalism are NOT as BAD as contradictions of socialism/ communism . History already proved it .
@@TheTazzietiger Communism as live economic system NEVER existed , but idiotic communist theory exist and some people are falling for it .
@Michelangelo TRY to think outside of socialist propaganda BUBBLE !!
This is an extremely seductive analysis for the uninitiated trying to comprehend the political and economic dysfunction that has unfolded since 1971. But that doesn't make it correct. Mr. Harvey is quite erudite as an anthropologist, but his Marxist economics leads him astray on certain points. In a dynamic system characterized by uncertainty over time, saying that money is merely a claim on social labor is inaccurate and incorrect. With uncertainty, money also represents a return to risk-taking inherent to that future claim on labor. In other words, a labor contract stipulates payment before delivery and labor may shirk that claim, saddling the enterprise with losses. If there is no profit to compensate for successful risk-taking, there will be less investment in ventures that require putting capital and other resources at risk.
Second, economic growth in any economic system is not solely a measure of physical expansion. In fact, it is more accurately a measure of change. 3% growth merely means that the world is constantly changing at a rate that replaces existing resources every 23 years or so. For example, productive growth in humans does not stop when we reach full physical size maturity in our late teens (and our physical cells are constantly changing). The auto industry grows, but cars don't become gigantic, nor do we drive more than one at a time. So, 3% annual turnover is eminently possible and probably necessary less the earth grow stagnant.
The problem, which Mr. Harvey points out, is the breakdown in the distributional mechanism of market capitalism (but this assuredly occurs under socialism, etc. as well). Skewed distribution leading to inequality is a very real and serious weakness. We need new analytical models to understand the network dynamics of exchange markets and how that affects distributional outcomes. Neoclassical economics cannot really do that for us, but neither can Marxist analysis.
There's a good explanation for why there are fewer and fewer people who share Mr. Harvey's frame of analysis. Like Piketty, that analysis leads to a dead end where crisis is the only passive response.
Policritic write a paper concerning your analysis of Harvey's views and have a meaningful discussion with him directly.
+pensive nincompoop
I have, many.
+joe jarden
That is a problem of agency, a violation of property rights we have popularly labeled cronyism. It's a violation of capitalist moral principles and thus is indefensible on those grounds, no matter how efficient. We should not decouple risk from reward, as that is the simplest rule to insure moral outcomes in free markets (as we strive not decouple action from consequence in the legal realm of justice).
Labor cannot get a larger share of returns if they do the same thing by writing contracts that shift risk to others while securing the rewards for themselves. For example, public unions have been doing this for the last three decades. Justice is justice, not a rationale for self-interest.
+Policritic
In the first paragraph of my original post I should have used the word profit instead of money to be more accurate with terminology.
+joe jarden
I suppose if I had all the answers I wouldn't be spending my time on CZcams!?! But seriously, I'm a social scientist and an analyst, so first we have to understand the problem, which is no simple matter. Our politicians and media look at the symptoms and address symptoms not causes. The intractable part of this inequality problem is that we're moving from a finance capitalist economy into an information network economy. Network dynamics are mostly winner-take-all and yield extreme power law distributions.
When finance capital is the concentrating factor we can merely promote policies that encourage the widespread accumulation, ownership and control of capital. This would flatten the distribution somewhat. No small task, but still conceivable. But when information data is the concentrating factor (see Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook) + new technologies to displace labor (robotics, AI), it's a bit more difficult to conceive of a different distributional mechanism besides human labor. For example, if robots do the work, then what really matters is who owns and controls the robots.
Nobody really has offered a solution for this yet, but I think people need to secure the product of their value as part of the global "network" and they still need to own and control capital and real assets to diversify their risks. Basically we need to think outside the "20th century" box of a post-industrial society. We definitely need to shelve the simple capital vs. labor model that seems to guide Harvey's analysis.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thus he spake, on a podium with an electrified microphone, in front of crowds, well fed and watered, likely in decent health with good home, all of which are fruits of Capitalism...
Some guy in 1800: Those silly abolitionists, lecturing on a podium built by slaves to a crowd of people well fed and watered, with decent incomes and good homes, all of which are the fruits of slavery…
Just because good things come from a system doesn’t mean it is a good (morally speaking) system or a sustainable one..
No? It comes from the fruit of the labour of workers who were exploited
@@TuckerHolt are you seriously comparing the lives of modern, Middle class Westerner to that of slaves?!
That's very insulting to what slaves went / go through....
No, government investment and risk, then Capital cherry picks , which is fine, but let's not get confused about the origins. i.e, Musk borrowed $350 million plus, succeeded and paid it back, (under the threat of interest) another company (solar cell tech) borrowed $400 million and failed, therefore the money was lost. Both from government. Musk paid no dividend to the government, but only to private shareholders (ie 'shareholder value').
That is capital being wise and government being foolish, (mercantile not free market capitalism )we are all stakeholders and therefore should all benefit, not just those who already have assets and only take a risk when most of the initial start up risk is absorbed by government agencies ie University research funding (private assets being often inherited so not even earned on the classic meritocratic myth). Ref; Mariana Mazzucato, the value of everything.
Sounds like backjard canibal treath
Why is he talking so fast?? His pace seems altered by the recording / mixing Technician.
As for his content.....I don't need another Socialist pontificator altering conservative values.
lmfao who is this joker
Your dad..
His oversimplification of the housing crisis is an indication he doesn't really understand what happened and how government interference had in the end undermined the market. Listening to him makes me think he has a theory he believes in and tries to make everything fit the theory but reality is not so cut and dried. Typical academic who has never worked outside of an institution.
Capitalism is the best system that has been tried thus far. Nothing else comes close.
@Michelangelo lol
@Michelangelo communism everyone lives in poverty, except the poltican they will be Billionaire with increase taxes
That's a very Marxist point of view you have there :)
so David Harvey is a democrat
He’s British, obviously, and a Marxist, obviously. So of course he isn’t a democrat. I imagine he would rather vote Democrat that republicans but only because they’re the lesser of 2 evils. Democrats are still capitalists.
This is an academic argument against an academic understanding of capitalism. Academia lives in a vacuum. It's important work. While this presenter understandably criticizes the top 1%, he should also thank them for having funded the infrastructure that made his top tier education possible. We need more capitalists, not fewer, if we're to continue to fight them so courageously.
Governments funded infrastructure, then capital uses it. The bond market is funded by money creation via the banking system. The real issues is where it goes, Production, Assets or Consumers, two are inflationary one isn't. That is the real issue, money is just a construct for a liquid transference and storage of value. It's how it inflates in relation to labour powers ability to earn enough to lead 'a good life' that is the issue, if not addressed then war and revolution ie the 20th century.
Bring it on. We have guns, and we will defend ourselves.
maybe you should buy some books
@@CGI__ I've read more books than you.
I'm 1:45 in and everything is wrong. Here's hoping the next 13 minutes doesn't use this for its foundations.
Why does no one say that Capitalism simply doesn't exist?
Social, Communism, etc. these ideas just don't exist in the real world; only in the minds of people who discuss them.
Governments are designed to protect the wealth of the nation, whatever or whomever that may represent. How they do it should be analyzed. How they should do it should be analyzed as well.
These -isms aren't real though. No Government provides everything for it's country or Socializes all major industry or lets the Free market provide the needs of everyone. Instead of fitting Government and Economy into ideas which don't exist, we need to start labeling the mechanisms that we see in the real world ... like ANY science.
Why is that so DAMN difficult?
damn i know why humans do not understand this. we call ourself s intelligent..... LOL really. intel.. how do we come up with this stuff. it s not real the way we humans are trying to hold to this system is false.smart science and engineering is the only way to a RBE system not a piece of paper stating i m now a lawyer. LOL. we humans.
UniversalPotentate I do believe it's a serious reply. :)
Government should be a tool for the majority of the people and not a small minority. Government should be there to protect us from the rich monopolizing wealth and power. Government shouldn't be about protect our wealth but maintaining a balance of power and protection from offensive attacks on us. It shouldn't be a tool for the rich to conquer the world.
Someone had too much internet...
Have you ever actually read Marx?
Socialism always has failed and always will fail, but Hervey still believes in his religion.
I don't think you understand what social - ism, means. Or even what capital - ism means.
@@strongfp I go by the dictionary definitions because, it is much easier that way. However I know socialists make things up and play semantic games but please educate me. Maybe you are the one socialist that plays it straight?
@@kurtwilkinsongardendesign8000 socialism follows the social order of a community and collective. It can change from one decade to another.
Accumulation of capital, for the purpose of trade and profits is what capitalism means, it too changes with current market systems.
Socialism and capitalism are both non static ideologies and evolve.
@@strongfp thank you for concisely expressed your position, it is refreshing.
As for the isms, I prefer the fundamental concepts of capitalism relating to the rights of the individual over the group and private ownership of the means of production, verses socialism where the collective has power over the individual and public ownership of the means of production.
I think per your definition of socialism we always have socialism no matter what the culture or ideology implemented. I don't see how that defines what is going on in a society, by your definition which countries are not socialist?
@@kurtwilkinsongardendesign8000 capitalism in what it used to mean has changed drastically, unfortunately I think capitalism in your literal definition has become an ideology, a personal experience to put yourself forward in a market system. Capitalism as an actual economic system, is dying. Name one free market system on planet earth. I can probably only think of maybe a handful, and they're most likely war torn hell holes or tax haven tiny islands scattered throughout the globe.
Socialism is a by product of capitalism, since it does inevitably lead to oppression and exploitation. I believe what we are seeing now days is a chilling reality, in 20 years you will be driving an electric car, whether you like it or not.
Unless we achieve some sort of equality and equity only then our liberties and freedoms will follow.
he doesnt understand economics.....
KLJF no it doesn’t, it presupposes the production,cans distribution of buyable, sellable products.
KLJF In true socialism there is no incentive and no growth. It’s essentially the highest form of austerity
KLJF But that’s the thing. Everything could be free. And there would no longer be any reason to expand the market basket. And people will very soon no longer be satiated with which they have and a free economy will emerge naturally again.
KLJF Not need. Want. And hobbies develop into economies. And you might not want to believe it but economic productivity is dialectically related to teleology
KLJF That’s formal entertainment in the strictly hedonistic sense, and that is not what teleology refers to. Communism is wherein there is no economically associated teleology. You just think everything exists for you to take? Well your bloody dead wrong mate. You fukin wish.
Winston Churchill once said that democracy is by no means a perfect system but it's the best we know of. I believe the same applies to capitalism, it's not perfect in any way but at least it works not just in theory but in practice as well which is something most other systems fail at.
Kind of. It works better for some than for others.
I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by saying that you probably aren't intending to justify these systems, but that stupid quote does just that. Justifies them and breeds the very same apathy that has gotten us deeper and deeper into this mess. The promotion of that hopelessness is depriving people of their true power.
These systems are deeply flawed. Some by mistake, many intentionally flawed to exploit the masses and they must change. Who can change them? You, me and the rest of us can. We just don't know it.
Anyone would agree with you, as long as they were ignoring everything that proves that it doesn't work of course. Capitalism's perpetual growth imperative, its incentive to externalize costs, to create reinvestable surplus capital (profit) is destroying the environment, which we require to live decent lives. As Karl Polanyi said, Capitalism will annihilate the underlying social context.
It clearly doesn't work, that is the point of the talk. I have a question: Do you believe that humans have evolved socially, to such a point that there is no further progress to be made? Do you think contemporary capitalist democracy is the final form of human society?
Thomas Walmsley Nope. Did you actually read my comment? " it's not perfect in any way" is what i said...
Mr Harvey's analysis is excellent!
One fundamental flaw however...
He calls our current system 'capitalism'. IT'S NOT. It's fake capitalism. He identifies the same flaws that Austrian free market economists agree on. But the contradiction lies in government intervention. The impossible mix of socialism and capitalism is what causes all of the problems in the world.
This may sound ridiculous to you, as it once did to me, but capitalism is the most compassionate and natural system of mankind
+cherokee charlie ... It is and I don't
awsome i hoped he would talk about the contradictions in the ideology of capitalism (free trade free assosiation and free markets vs centralplaning, control of the masses through the few, trying to control markets to go a certain direction, monopolies, and keynisen theories.)
but it was still pretty close :)
It is like how can free trade and free association and private property be a bad thing but people enforcing there subjective values upon large groups of individuals be a good thing.
It is as if each individual has created a “job”, And the purpose of this job, is to use the fruit of or labor without our own consent. Cuss we cut not possibly find a way to satisfy or needs if we had to ask every one, so we just choose to hire someone, to make decisions on our behalf’s and then we just have to find the right guy for the job and then our life will be prosperous. Without realizing, that if, we were more engaged in the decision-making then we would probably end up with decision that favored our self a lot more. Therefore, no matter whom you hire it would not make that much of a difference.
Rodney Gold capitalism is defined as any economic system with private ownership of the means of production and use of the means of productions for profit.
黎安沛 yes it's the lack of private ownership that makes our current system something different
What a bunch of nonsense.
Harvey needs to read some economics and economic history. Marx's understanding of the economy was mostly wrong. The use vs. exchange value distinction? False. Declining rate of profit? False. Labor theory of value? Even Marx himself abandoned it later in life. Self-exapnsion of Capital? Sheer fiction, which is where Marx literally borrowed it from. There's not even a coherent definition of capitalism here, let alone a theory that matches what we find in the real economy.
Some big claims here Michael, please enlighten, so I might be able to understand how and why you have come to the above conclusions.
@@grantbeerling4396 this is not the place for a full course on political economy. but try and find a definition of capitalism in Marx. is it private ownership of the means of production? that cannot suffice; competition is integral. is it the commodification of labor? also inadequate. Marx flits from one allegedly essential feature to another, but it is never clear how the parts are supposed to fit together into a "mode of production." this is because there is no such thing, except as a kind of notional shorthand. J.K. Gibson-Graham demonstrate this in elegant and compelling fashion. and of course it is no secret that Marx derives his imagery of "capital" from Frankenstein's monster.
@@Profmak78 I fully appreciate neither of us has the time to expand our relevant economic theories/knowledge/experience, after all as one great philosopher allegedly once said 'the reading of many books is tiresome' in the context 'all is vanity and pointless like chasing the wind. Unlike Smith, Ricardo, and Keynes, Marx never wrote a formulaic definition of Capitalism, rather 3 volumes describing it as a historical change, (Braverman 1978) exaggerated and sped up by the then technology of the day, namely Adam Smith's 'Pin Factory' thought experiment of the division of labour via machinery to combat the expense and monopoly (Smith would argue) of trade guilds, let alone the prior inefficiency.
Volume one of Capital mainly records the mass injustices, deprivation and shortened life of the working classes, (ave death
@@grantbeerling4396 you are right, "Marx never wrote a formulaic definition of Capitalism" because there is no such thing. All economies are mixed economies. What Marx did do is offer a reified image of "Capital" as a voracious and insatiable monster bent on sucking the lifeblood out of the men who birthed it. That was and is a heuristic fiction, not a theory of political economy or history. And it bears little resemblance to the reality of modern economic arrangements.
BTW, Say's Law is true, for the simple reason that it is a tautology. That is why GDP can be measured by aggregating production or consumption; they are one and the same thing. The phrase "supply creates its own demand" is not Say's; it's Keynes's. He was making a point about the temporality of market adjustments in a money economy, not refuting Say.
As for private ownership, there is nothing at all exploitative about it per se. It's one way of generating efficiency-if coupled with competition. Nor is there anything uniquely capitalist about the latter; even Che Guevara said that "competition is a weapon of the revolution." Societies of all sorts have relied on it from time to time to solve collective action problems, which are ubiquitous in social life and often quite intractable. As even Marx recognized, the "capitalist mode of production" usefully replaced far more exploitative and violent relations of production.
The fusion of private ownership and competition, provided it can be sustained, generates massive improvements in the lives of most humans. It is not a "contradiction" any more than the business cycle is. The whole point of it is to reduce profits to virtually zero while delivering the best possible goods and services to those who need them while utilizing the least costly means.
This often can't be done, which is why other forms of provision abound, from club goods such as gyms, churches, condominiums and the like to public goods such as healthcare, education, and so on. The specific mixture varies from society to society, but every society on Earth relies on all three (and more). The "class struggle" today is simply a political contest over the specific balance among the various modes of provision. There is no "capitalism," let alone "Capital" marauding around the world like a rabid wolf.
Rubbish speech he understands zero economics.😢 yet still talks on the subject spouting crap.
Economics aren't laws of nature only theories. There is a major backlash against neoliberalism and globalization in the West right now. That's why billionaires are putting tons of money towards the culture war. Distract and divide people.
David Harvey thinks Venezuela is a socialist paradise.
You will never see socialist, Harvey debate capitalist, Ben Shapiro.
9avedon Capitalism is eating itself and you know it
And It's so delicious, under Capitalism even the poor people are fat.
Capitalism rewards increasing productivity.
that is because Shapiro is a schmuck and a hack.