Archive of videos on cooperatives, workers' self-management, workers' rights and other related topics.
There is an alternative to capitalism: it's called libertarian socialism. Capitalism should be replaced by a participatory democracy in which the workplaces are run by the workers and the communities.
It sounds like we need to have more standards. Make loans less readily available, governments should make it so that it behooves us to prioritize things that are actually important (like the well being and quality of life for a country’s inhabitants as a whole instead of entertainment and shiny things) and impose those standards and priorities on the residents. We’d be able to ensure an equitable society and more money could be pooled for the quality of life for a whole nation instead of a fortunate few.
i used to take both of these blokes at face value and therefore granted them some respect. no more. deep state assets both. the change in political topology has outed both of these chameleons. their roles: gatekeepers for the left. uniparty thru and thru. enough truth to support a great lie.
This person is VERY bias on his opinion. I feel as a professor he should be there to teach the meaning of these subjects only. From there I would like to form my own opinion. I'm not there for him to influence me nor am I interested in what HE thinks is right or wrong. There's a reason this country has done so well. A person living here has all kinds of opportunity to better themselves. You can do that by taking risk and starting a business or corporation, working hard, hold down multiple jobs, etc the opportunities are limitless. The business owners take all the risk so why shouldn't they make the most money? An employee can just walk away, they get paid an hourly wage regardless how business is doing. If they want to make more money then start their own business. They have the same opportunities as anybody else. In terms of paying employees more. It's call supply and demand. Take a look at how well this has worked out for Ca since the state mandates these businesses pays $20 minimum wage. Look at how many businesses have left Ca. or gone out of business. They are hiring less employees, cutting down on portions, and cutting business hours to save on overhead. Now the working class can't even afford a burger. How did this help the working class.? The whole point I'm trying to make is if you are going to teach a class then teach it without giving us YOUR OWN BIAS OPINION! That's not right!
As an employee, I take a risk on an owner with my time. If the business goes down, I lose work and my income. It’s a symbiotic relationship. He can’t function as a business without me, much less I can’t make money without them. At a certain point compensation should be correlated with contribution. The problem now is CEOs are making 1000% more than their workers. This is a problem
When large amounts of people protested under George W. Bush he told them to go ahead and then closed his curtains and shut his windows. They don't care if you protest anymore. They will do what they want.
We need to make changes to this system. Where's Robin Hood? What laws need to go away that keep people poor and working for tonights meal? What laws need to be set in place. Surplus labor is valued far more than the labor of the human doing it.. Houses aren't worth the cost when your home is your job. Unfortunately, most jobs are dreadfully repeatative and don't require more than a month to get down.. it's a terrible home. I am going to build my own home out of the earth, with the materials on the property.. 2 years of labor and I have a home.. instead of 30 years of work and l have a glorified shed with rooms even though I've built 100s of them and some entitled A-hole has 12 because of me and my broke friends
There are health consequences as well as crime consequences. Some people who feel abandoned by society are more willing to break the law to shield their children and themselves.
No one. And no one takes a risk at running it, and no one knows what to do when something goes wrong. And they all eat toothpaste they’ve produced because none of them could sell it.
Historically, it's been whatever collective people are interested in making/doing the thing and each democratically put their resources into it. And people will only do that for ventures they feel are truly worthwhile
of course the top 50 percent gained and the bottom half lost thats just capitalism, the question that should be asked is why didn’t the bottom half rise up? forget about losing everything you only have your chains to lose
Workers Self-managmnet socialism,was tried in Yugoslavia,but couldn't succeed due two factors,Western capital constant presssure and sabotage underneath, although publicly they were in favor of it, Second reason,for any sort of collectivist society ,it's simple doomed to fail,its the egoistic and imperfect human nature, that's the true and no one can't deny it... Soviet Union failed due the similar reasons, Low Productivity of work and corruption,due rhe absence of private entrepreneurship,was simply overwhelming
There are so many holes in this professor's lecture. He's too old to be this stupid. Go spend a year in a communist country and see how you like it. Go spend time with any immigrants from communist countries and see why they left.
Communism isn’t the answer. But not allowing people to get ridiculously rich is something that needs to be explored. No one should have that much power, to force continued cooperation instead of an engulfing. Focus points however are unavoidable, and communism is just greater concentration into an even smaller group of people, consequently with smaller scope due to where they’re standing, which results in poor governance and miserable people. So the answer is some decentralization so groups can take care of themselves but with a ceiling to prevent power imbalances. The smaller the groups the more power in the average persons hand, naturally.
What about all the genocide that occured by the Anarchist? Is that true? And was it a reason Stalin got rid of them? Since he really didnt want the republic to win and he already got all thier gold! Plus he wanted the English and French as allies was a priority for him.
Very interesting socioeconomic system. Most of the YT videos on Mondragon are at least 7, 8 or 9 years old. What's their status now, in 2024, and what can we learn from their approach to the economic dimension of modern life?
I took my time to watch this video, it's all BS and if you believe that the only value is created by the workers then you need to start a business. Experience is the best teacher.
When you start a business you are a worker. The interests of small capitalists are very much aligned with the interests of the workers (staving off starvation and exposure to the elements, not destroying your ecosystem). Compare to the interests of a capitalist (Maximizing profit, at any cost, RIP Boeing whistleblower). You see the difference yet?
Worker coops are brilliant but the comment about having jobs to buy falls into the consumer trap. We are here to sustain our living not to buy useless things. Worker coops sustain their communities where the many, not the few, share the profits and decide what, where and how to produce.
I must say the 2nd point is misleading. He does not define what systemic risk is. He left out that supply of money to the economy is all important, and banks are the key. That does not mean just transacting money, but more precisely supply of credit, for all money there is, there exists equal amount of credit. One’s asset is another’s liability.
The systemic risk and contagion is that somewhere out there is a concentration of bad loans. Lending money to all property developers and homeowners in an island under risks of natural disasters? Suddenly all loans go bad, assets must be written down, the bank is undercapitalized, depositors may want their money back and panic about their depoists will start more bank runs, that will constrain banking sectors ability to make loans, slowing down credit creation, money supply stagnant or contractring, and a recession.
What to produce, where, and how much are all determined by normal economic factors. I have a strong feeling that the whole story on these cooperatives in Ohio is not being told. There is no way that there are not some persons involved who have more expertise, more overview, and more control, than other people, or that everyone working at all levels of an organization can all have equal knowledge of the big picture as well as the many areas of specialization which most everything requires. There are so many jobs where this democracy idea just doesn't seem like a feasible option. That isn't to say that management can't benefit from being open to the knowledge and experience of workers on specific task related insights, but generally, thing A has to get to point B, and all that matters is that it gets done. We, as employees are the wheels on the car. Our job is to touch the ground and roll, not to steer the car. There is no way a democratic model would be of any value where I work. Most of the employees have no capacity for making meaningful input into the larger operation of the business. With their own specific tasks, maybe, but generally it's a low skill job and the main necessity is for production to happen. Also, I wonder how the democracy idea impacts those people with sufficiently low IQ that they cannot be trained even to do simple tasks. Not all people are capable of contributing the same level of economic value, and there is no moral reason why anyone should reap greater rewards than what they are able to earn. Equity is unjust.
Because it is complete bullshit. Wolff's entire argument stems from his ignorance of economics, which is pretty hilarious because he's apparently an "economist." I've seen him make this same point over and over, and it's ridiculous each time. He always says something like "when you negotiate for your pay, let's say it's $20/hr, the only reason the capitalist can pay you that is because your labor generates MORE than $20/hr, otherwise the employer wouldn't hire you." This is logically incoherent. It's just wrong and indefensible. What is generating $20/hr is NOT simply the work of THAT LABORER. It's the work of that laborer mixed with everything else that went into creating and running the company, which includes the contributions of the owner. For example, if I build a machine that produces shoes at a rate of $100 worth of shoes per hour, but I need somebody to pull the lever every few minutes to generate a new pair of shoes, and I hire you to pull that lever. You're not generating $100/hr. It's you plus the machine. The concept Wolff is talking about is Marginal Product of Labor, and a real economist would know that the marginal product of an additional unit of labor is NOT the same thing as what your labor is "worth." He's just wrong, plain and simple. It just sounds good to people who are either a) dumb or b) already inclined towards being sympathetic to Marxism..... but I repeat myself.
I love his comments at the very end. I’d love to see that as a movie - The American working class: with a vengeance! Of course, I would love that even more in real life.
You know I believe Chomsky when he says Henry Kissinger stated: "we shouldn't confuse foreign policy with missionary activities" Google has changed the record to "you should not confuse covert action with missionary activities" I've seen this happen many many times where I've had a vid recording of a live quote and go to pick it up a couple months later and there's "misquoted correction sites" claiming people are misquoting them with a completely different altered quote.
Wonder how much that university makes compared to the professor lol the worker takes no risk… why is he in a university and not independently teaching easy to stand on your soap box when you’re not taking the risk 🤯
It’s not that you are remotely “ripped off” it a false and cultured sense of entitlement. You produce thing with support of funding and opportunity that he assigns zero moral or tangible value…. The processor ignore all other factors and only the hyper focused individuals perception value of work compared to a perceived “product”. He is critically dismissive of complex skills and diversity of skill required to manage or operate a business. The concept here panders to fouls with “have Not syndromes” with over simplified logical fallacies. The moral is, No one owns you anything and you are lucky for opportunity capitalism creates. Any thing else he is selling is a lie. Marxist ideologues, historical precursors and socialism have breed evil that destroyed societies from ancient times til now , harmed and killed more humans that any over ideology.
All you brain turds forget 1 key detail. Humans are evil and it doesn’t matter what system you have in place at this time. Humans will screw everything up. The question should be which system will prolong human life and which will speed up the decay
Biggest crock of shit I've ever seen.....so obvious this guy has never actually built or run a business. How do you account for the fact the "evil capitalist" will have probably spent years of their life, working 16 hours a day 7 days week, sacrificed time, money and relationships, to get to the point where a business actually WORKS? In the instances where it fails before it gets going, the "evil capitalist" is supposed to just suck it up and accept they lost, but in those rare cases where it actually works, you now have it all taken from you and given to people you've employed? All this is, is a means to ensure no-one ever takes risks, no-one ever builds a business and no-one ever innovates or creates jobs & wealth. Worst of all, he seems to be ignorant (deliberately so?) that there's no reason under the current system that worker co-op run business can actually exist! There's nothing to stop people structuring a business like this. The fact they are not already wide-spread speaks volume about how successful they are likely to be.
