Economic Update: What's Wrong with Capitalism? 

The invisible hand of the market is touching me inappropriately!

Spot on

I agree with you with a single remark: Co-ops are for educated people only . All the best.

My three components are "partners", "rivals", and "clients". Capitalism has a very strange class system. It has domesticated us.

Thanks professor Wolff!

Communism doesn't and hasn't worked in the past either and that is what Pro Wolfe is recommending.

Capitalists have figured out that people don’t even need huts, they can live in tents ⛺️.

Capitalism is an addiction

George Carlin was not a comedian. He was not joking when he told us "you do not have rights, you have owners. They own you".

Exactly. All this "free market" horse manure has always struck me as a rationalization for pure selfishness by people who don't understand that we're all connected. A society simply cannot function if each person meets only their own needs and fails to consider the needs of others. In that sense, caring about others is actually a form of self-preservation, because the 1% don't benefit if the very foundation of society beneath them and all around them crumbles. It seems so obvious if you think about it for longer than one second.

Capitalism is where you define your success by money, and materialism . And when it’s gone which often happens, is when you finally learn who you are, and what your made of.

One of capitalisms problems is that the profit is not returned to the worker and the society that produced the profit. The profit is removed from the system that produced the profit which impoverishes both the workers and society in general. Capitalism had resulted in the opposite of promoting the general welfare.

Conscious capitalism ( b company) is like the double speak talked about in the book 1984. There can be no such thing under capitalism the most humanity is shown person to person not from companies

As a civilization we absolutely can and should do better than the base profit motive being the fundamental motor of our economic system. In fact we must move beyond the profit motive if we wish to not only survive but reach our full potential as a society and a species.

Prof. Wolff is the teacher every kid who wants to learn to think for him/herself needs to hear. I cannot thank Democracy at Work enough for him.

I’m with you Wolff. Keep it up.

EVERYTHING!!! THE END...

Thank you Professor Wolff. People might also read your book "The Sickness Is The System", Michael Hudson's books: "Super Imperialism" and "The Destiny Of Civilization" and Mike Gravel's "Citizen Power, A Mandate For Change".

Since the so called Greek crisis i never stopped watching u dear Richard

Capitalism and the DENIAL OF DEATH…INTERESTING AND PRESCIENT ARGUMENT.❤

The harder workers work to make the company more profit, the more the workers are punished with declining wages and conditions.

It's co-op or bust. Workers must step up since politicians either don't care or are bought...

Narcissism becomes normal under capitalism

I've been listening to Pr Wolff for some time now, and I always marvel at the simplicity and depth of his explanations. A shame my teachers back in university times didn't have the open laboratory that US hypercapitaism is to bridge Marx's views to reality. "Practise Das Kapital" should be at least a subtitle for all of his lectures. Thanks angd gratitude, Professor!

99.9% of the time Prof. Wolff nails it! This is another one of the many EXCELLENT episodes. Please spread far and wide !

Anti trust, windfall taxes, the elected lawmakers working for the people who vote, not the billionaires who donate is where we start. We need to vote on issues and policies and the people we elect need to do what we elected them to do. We all want similar things, on a issue by issue basis. Our elected officials ignore all of it and keep making it easier on the rich to keep shaving away at our livelihoods. Our youth see us working too hard for nothing and we think the youth are lazy….. they aren’t, not really. They just don’t want to be exploited like us. I don’t want to continue being exploited. It starts with us paying attention to what the lawmakers vote for and against. We can’t even get a decent minimum wage passed. They are not working for the masses. Just the top ten %

Spark plugs also need changing. It is the greed of capitalism that it is the essence of the problem. However, if one doesn't agree, one may say to the wolf that is howling, keep howling. I love wolves in the woods, not in governments of greed. Professor Richard Wolff is one who inspires me to listen and read 📚

Until cooperatives are "perceived" as a way to level people's aspirations, the ego, namely the complete identification with the thinking mind which drives the largest part of humanity, will push people to seek other forms of "separation" with the aim of perceiving themselves "different, better, superior" to any other. The solution does not come from changing the system first, but from the inner change of people who will no longer be slaves to the idea that to be happy one must possess more, be more, feel more. No home will be safer by rearranging furniture, painting exterior walls, or reinforcing the structure here and there. Only by reinforcing the foundations will the house be truly safer. Make some minor changes to the house and the next hurricane will smash it down. It took several thousand years to introduce concepts such as authority, superior power, social status, separation of powers and opportunities based on caste, etc. into the DNA of humanity. Even the Arts and Literature have been used to convey these concepts and make them accepted. Just think for a moment of all the paintings of the past where the images of power (kings, queens, high prelates) served to remind the people who represented "the power" at that moment. Propaganda has always used all means of mass diffusion to make the masses accept social conditions. In the past, it was the Arts, today digital communication systems.

I cannot believe the cost of food in some places, like Price Chopper, of all places. No prices being chopped there 🪓 just your purse 👛 🪓

One ASPECT of the ever growing disparity between the rich and everyone else can be pin pointed to one event. When Reagan decided to stop minimum wage increases with the cost of living. This is when overall wages began to stagnate. Without an increase in minimum wage, the corporate leaders have no reason to increase overall salaries. They can always point to the fact that you are doing better than minimum wage workers. One thing I would like to point out about this at the very least, to say minimum wage jobs are just starter jobs for high school kids. That is, on it's face, a ridicules statement. Do high school kids pay less than everyone else? Of course not.

The intro music gott me thinking Prof Wolff is gonna spit at us with some class conscious rap.

Wonderful explanation of the 3 stakeholder categories. Which other animal on earth has allowed itself to be subjugated by a dynastic minority of mostly inherited resources from the sweat of the many. None, only humans. We are many and they are few and the grasslands of our country belong to us all. We all deserve to enjoy our time on the plains of plenty. 'Unfettered' capitalism has had its self destructive day. Working co-ops as part of the mix would be an excellent start, more effective local governance would also kick start a fairer democracy. There is a global sickness in unfettered capitalism and whatever form of governance countries pursue, they have to address the fundamental truth that unfettered capitalism is sick and eventually destroys even itself.

Just because there is a invisible hand doesn't make it a good force, we have to contend with both good and evil. We have seen the fruit of Capitalism, it's time to believe what it is, a system that makes rich people richer at the expense of all else not just people but all of creation. There is another hand that we must start listening to, one that values the collective good for all. Thank you Prof Wolff for your thoughtful insights.

Profit isn't the problem. Profit SHARING is. "A rising tide lifts all boats". Except in America.

Well technicially what we have is not capitalism because capitalism doesn't work and collapses which is what happened with south America in the 1980's and America in the 1920's. What we have right now is state capitalism which is basically just public funded companies owned privately. We fund pharma for example by developing all the drugs at the NIH and then giving it to pharma to commercialize and profit off of. Capitalism largely doesn't work because it is so greedy that it doesn't prepare for hard times. This model with hospitals for example with hospitals makes it so that they are always at or near capacity. This makes the most money after all, you cannot have empty beds in preparation for emergencies, that won't make the board members happy. So come covid, there was a shortage of everything from beds to all sorts of medical supplies. The new deal by roosevelt was a great step in the right direction and largely something I coud live with today, it created the very prosperous 50's and 60's. Then Carter's vision, and Reagans follow through created 45 years of consolidation which is why we have monopolies today, and very little worker power. Neoliberalism at its finest.

Very good job done.... Capitalism one most important problem is it becomes crony compitition turns into compitition about theft...am I correct...?? Also war is a must for survival of Capitalism. Of course the list about what is wrong about Capitalism is long one.

A much shorter answer would be "What is right about Capitalism" Great videos Prof.Wolff, keep up the great work!

Depressing, but true. Now it's time to stop talking about it and time to start building a people run socialist parallel economy. Then we can transition away from the present oligarchy run economy.

Thanks professor Wolff for sharing the message with such powerful emotional nuance, keeping it fresh by coming at the problem from so many different angles exposing the culprit( Capitalism) again and again, because the capitalists count on us going to sleep so they can operate and your waking those who are listening

Savage video, pump this directly into my veins, I loge it!

Unfettered, unregulated Capitalism has foolishly abandoned the idea of the Common Good. Once our national moral conscious is gone, would it matter what economic structure prevails? I ask that question naively yet sincerely. I believe our ONLY hope is elevate and revere the simple, yet universal concept of the Common Good. It would benefit individuals and add to the cohesion of the entire enterprise. Currently way too much money and power lies in the hands of a privileged FEW.

Pursuing one's own interest is fine, until you run into interfaces with others, the environment, resources, etc... which is almost always!

Once upon the time, there was a country which lived this economic model Dr Wolf suggested as solution. This country went down in blood and tears 30 years ago, a "new" leaders are still having something to steal. I guess this economic model did work, if it was able to produce that kind of wealth, but people did not understand that they did not have only rights, but also responsibility. But then again, that is the same problem we are facing in capitalism, lack of awareness about one's responsibility to the world

One thing you must try, look at Scandinavian countries, I come from Norway and we have had a lot of socialism, the same applies to Sweden and Denmark, we have free education and free hospitals, use us as examples. There is a big difference between our socialism and Stalin/Mao's socialism and it seems that the USA does not quite see that difference. 😅✌

Insightful. Without analysis, no synthesis. ~Friedrich Engels

The increase in prices and cost of living has pushed me to my end I'm moving back in with my grandparents cause they're not charging me rent my rent went from 375 to 450 and in the summer it's going to 650 but my job is refusing to increase pay so I'm calling it quits

Thanks again Prof for another valuable political lesson. My thoughts these days are that we cannot do away with capital and therefor capitalists; however we can better manage the subsequent and almost inevitable emergence of 'capitalism', which almost by definition is the tendency to emphasise exploitation of labor and the accumulation of privately owned profit. Better managing capitalism might simply mean subordinating capital and capitalists to the service of socialism ie; giving a higher priority to meeting the social and cultural needs of the people than to the making of profit. Eg; China.

Love this Man!

inflation is a result of bad government, not capitalism. the answer to bad government isnt more government imo

"Fun" fact: the original notion of "free market" in classical economics with folks like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, et al. (culminating with Marx who merely takes all these concepts to their logical conclusions from a structural macro perspective) was a market free of *_rent_* , a stark opposition to its modern cultural distortion which is essentially a market free *_for_* rent. Speaking of Adam Smith in particular, what is never mentioned regarding his more wholistic analysis (I would imagine this is Prof.Wolff's issue with this narrow/discrete interpretation/distortion people like Milton Friedman had) is his highlighting of a process of industrial capitalism becoming a sort of proto-socialism with capital reinvestment/necessary taxation/redistribution (as opposed to purely profit seeking, as per an M-C-M circuit), the entire consensus of classical economics really, was to eradicate the 'rentier class' through taxation, a land value tax for instance prescribed by Smith, as rent is by definition value extracted _without_ value produced, a contradiction to the justifying logic of "the market" and correctly recognized as a vestige of feudal social relations (hence the term 'landlord'). _"Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title."_ - John Stuart "blockhead" Mill, Principles of Political Economy _"Kelp was never augmented by human industry. The landlord, however, whose estate is bounded by a kelp shore of this kind, demands a rent for it."_ - Adam "father of capitalism" Smith, ch.11 Wealth of Nations Finance capital in particular, or as Marx more accurately termed it 'fictitious capital', is the purest form of rent extraction (and thus the most profitable) and has ensured history flatters their divine right however, and thus we arrive at the cultural distortion of the term used to justify essentially the exact opposite, a market free *_for_* rent extraction/usury. Not a coincidence you get a play about that absolute scumbag Hamilton for instance. At least industrial capital has to produce something, a bug not a feature to London/Wall Street demonic arcons that have uncoincidentally subsumed the vast majority of real estate (Blackstone, etc.) and absorbed command of the military industrial complex to funnel any liquidity from central banks narrowly into military/policing means of enforcing their "full spectrum domination" globally, which also ensures any spillover of technology/R & D stays closely guarded to exclusively serve their increasingly privatized dominion rather than, say, raise the standard of living for the working class they immiserate. Finance capital _is_ the "central planning" bogeyman/the "invisible hand", that is abstracted into a nebulous rule of "nature" which "just so happens" to serve their divine right, mystified and packaged together into what is essentially the divine right of "the market". Anyway, point being, to echo Rosa Luxemburg from 1918 Germany, before of course being executed by the freikorps paramilitary (later becoming the SS, shocker) at the behest of Ebert's ostensibly _social democratic_ SPD party, almost immediately resonating the truth of such a succinct political dichotomy to this day: *_socialism or_* [continued] *_barbarism._*

Is Richard Wolff getting too old? We both lived through the inflation of the 1970s. I don't remember that inflation stopped with Nixon's wage and price freeze. I remember that inflation continued through the Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter administrations. Inflation didn't end until interest rates were near 20% and Ronald Reagan created a deep economic depression. If you can't remember what happened in your lifetime and only 40 years ago, then how are we going to trust you to know how to fix today's problems?

Thank you please continue.....in the year 2000 I had come to surmise that by 2020 the wheels would come off. Yet 25 year Olds hold the belief , think positive, and that's insane.

Absolutely true, all of these are literally not able to be debated upon; and the fact that people who argue against any of this, argue with red herrings (not answering the question, instead introducing a scenario where what they're defending favors their point of view).

This focus just on profit leads to corruption

Ty once again for the break down..

What’s not, everything is wrong with this system, can we talk about solutions now?

Everything. Next question

Thanks Professor Wolf. Always enjoy your videos. 👍

Update the corporate charter.

The greatest intrinsic force of inequality is the charging of interest (the original meaning of usury). A friegeld system would remove this intrinsic force. It would eliminate access to this engine of destruction from those driven by avarice

Are there any videos on worker coops that explain it in more detail?

How much clearer can this be said? Capitalism is not working! If you say that you are doing well, then I can tell you that your middle class dream is most likely to fall apart very soon. If, indeed a recession is coming, and that's the general opinion, then unemployment is coming to your business pretty soon. But even if you aren't touched by recession you certainly are being touched by inflation. You lost ground during the pandemic and now again in this inflation. Actually, you have been losing ground as a middle income family for 50 years, ever since Reagonomics. The middle class is smaller now. We don't have three classes anymore. We have four. The one with most growth potential is the abject poor. They can't work for one reason or another. Some are too infirm to work, some are too old to work, some have insurmountable debt and have, or soon will have, lost everything. But we see this group of people in tents, cardboard dwellings under bridges or sleeping in parkes or on bus benches. You can't mistake them. You can't avoid them. They are ubiquitous and a growing population. They live in cars and other vehicles and even on little boats but not decently in proper housing. One small step up from living under a bush or in a tent or a car are working class folks. They serve us our food, pump our gasoline, ring up our purchases and in many other ways serve the entire population. These folks, even when they have a union, spend their lives in service for too little compensation. They are paid as little as can possibly be paid to maximize profit. These folks have families and lives and there isn't enough money to go around. It takes a second and sometimes a third income to keep a roof over the head of a family. Everything in life is weighed against survival. The rent must be paid, laundry is urgent. Food costs too much so cut down our meat and reduce the fruit and veggies for sugar and starch. Everything is a balancing act to stretch wages as far as possible or the whole house of cards crumbles and the family falls into the growing unhoused population. A big step up from the working poor are what we like to call the middle class. These folks are wage earners too or very small businessmen and women. They often have a college degree and they often come from lower middle class families who could sometimes afford small luxuries like vacations, new cars every now and then and can often own their dwellings. But this lower end of the middle class is being pinched severely by wage stagnation coupled by inflation. They aren't getting richer. They too are gradually declining in standard of living. The upper end of the middle class spectrum has some money to invest for their old age. They have money to pass on to their children when they die but these folks aren't secure either. They can survive inflation but didn't thrive during the pandemic. They held on and just continue to hold on and try to bounce back if and when times improve. There is a teeny, tiny group of individuals and families that always thrive. These are our famous 1%. If we have inflation they don't cancel their vacations, golf games and private club memberships. They insulate themselves from the rest of us. We are vaguely unpleasant. We are beneath them. Their children go to private academies and they buy a guaranteed place in a good college for them with an endowment. They don't shop like we do. Their vendor comes to them. Their tailor, fashionable store, designer or chef comes to them or they shop for the fun of a pleasant outing. They don't know what we think or do or hope for and they don xt care to know. They are wrapped in luxury in their several houses, with their several cars, yachts, pedigreed pets and on landscaped properties. These few are our masters and they own or control everything. Now we all know this is the truth. The 1% don't hide their wealth and control. They live ostentatious lives of luxury and believe they work hard when they hire us to do everything for them. All I have done is use a lot of words to put you into the scenario that Professor Wolff outlines so clearly. He said it but you live it. You must now decide what I is best for you. Do you just bust a gut working until you retire into real stress or do you bust a gut, go into lifelong debt to hope to move from one class to another but gain little. Do you fool yourself into thinking the system isn't collapsing and that you can always afford another vacation, another house, and that all your investments will prosper? Or do you listen to that niggling worry that crops up only to be ignored? And if you were born wildly rich and privileged do you ruthlessly stomp on the rest of us to increase the fortune you already own or control? Professor Wolff has informed us, warned us and now we need to get busy and make decisions about what kind of lives we need, what kind of world we need and what is best for everyone in the long run. I'm ready for a better system than capitalism. How about you?

Great teaching 👍

From what I understand yanis who is also a socialist communist advocates for raising interest rates as a solution and his response to the the added hardships by the people was ….well tough. I was very surprised i love watching him he’s very smart however that pill didn’t go down very well with me. Clearly within those who are socialist communism leaning there doesn’t seem to be cohesive answers within.we have a lot of complex problems way above my head.i guess Yanis is an economist and all numbers and there is no place for a heart and soul within the science. At what point does love thy neighbor become the over arching principle by those who make decisions.? I won’t hold my breath.

Mr. Wolff, thanks again. Your video's, the work of Yanis Varoufakis, and more and more RU-vid content, help me to keep my feet on the ground and see how the Marxist theory still is the basis for a realistic interpretation of much that is going on in our world.

FROM THE **The Wealth Of Nations", end of Book I-- “On those who live by profit”-The wage earners’ “employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operation of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin. The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connexion with the general interest of the society, as that of the other two. Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every occasion), is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects, than with regard to the latter. Their superiority over the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market, and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can only serve to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. *The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.* My, my! Smith the Critiquer of Capitalism, the “society-ialist”-ie, Socialist, even if it’s the weak form known as “the public interest”-he makes Schumpeter look like the ass he truly is! JUST ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF THIS FOOL SMITH’s INCONSISTENCY WHEN COMPARED TO HIS ‘INVISIBLE HAND’ BULLSHIT! >>>p792f “…nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists”, here Smith lays open one of the many motives behind the assassination of John F Kennedy because/since he opposed the absurd price hikes of U.S. Steel, a monopoly maker of steel manufacture.

Second half: it's also The Sibling Society by Robert Bly...‼️🗡️🇺🇲💔🙏💸💸💸🍃🍃🍃🍃

Some of the biggest threat to Capitalism is... 1. Corruption 2. Greed 3. Politics 4. Poor education 5. Lack of competition

But for such corrections, everyone must vote, not allow themselves to be misled, not allow anyone to mislead, and not allow insurrection.

Why American hiring the Engineers from IIT'S , sir, Plz tell some difference between yale, Harvard and IIT

Greed is side product.. comes with the territory...it's in the pudding.. can't dismiss the word GREED ...

The sad thing is that many of the poor still believe in the capitalist system. They have this hope they will be beneficiary one day..like buying the lottery ticket.

Why do we you speak of this federal reserve as if they're truly looking out for Americans Interest..or that they are a branch of the government.. please brother..remind us of were it was born and what about the legitimacy of "]FEDERAL INCOME TAX LAW " CAN U EXPLAIN

Richard Wolf, have you ever been a Capitalist? During one one year in the late 70s, as a young boy, my family and I lived in a poorly insulated cabin. More a shack than a cabin, the property was near Plymouth Wisconsin, in-and-around the Kettle Marine. Everywhere in those hills were luxury and high-end homes. The well-to-do, rich, and elite surrounded us. We didn't have running water, heat came from an oversized wood stove, no phone, and a ratty line for electricity. Dad didn't do what he should have done to put us in a better place. Mom was too possessed by her "man", my Dad, to do what she should have done. No "neighbor" seemed interested in knowing what was going on. In the cabin were five children, on the brink of starvation and freezing. Neighborly love was where? Who took time to care, to love? During that winter, I learned to despise the well-to-do, the rich, and elites. Of course, I lost respect for my parents. Every day I'd hand carry our family's shit/piss... to a hole in the ground... a little trek most embarrassing to walk because our school bus was close enough for the driver and kids to see what I was doing. There's more to this narrative, but I leave it for another day. For all this time, I didn't blame an economic system. I don't blame the well-to-do, the rich, elites, Mom or Dad. The lesson I learned: The condition of man is what it is. As I make my way through life, as of today, I have determined there's no getting around it, Might Is Right. And for that reason, society creates its monsters, heroes, fathers, mothers, future, and fate. The only saving feature of existence is The Way. Subtle it is... requires many moons to learn. New Earth Army - 2nd Battalion "With pen on paper, we travel." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One Slip - Pink Floyd Roll The Bones - RUSH Doubleback - ZZTop Back In Time - Huey Lewis & The News Reach Out - Cheap Trick Don't Let Another Captain Captain Your Boat - Abney Park Word Of Mouth - Shakey Graves Cows/New Dress/My Crew - Firefly soundtrack 18 Lord, Mr. Ford - Jerry Reed Why Aye Man - Mark Knopfler Fools Gold - Stone Roses Tales of The Future - Vangelis Runaway Train - Ian Cussick Catch A Train - Ghost and The Darkness soundtrack A Bid For Freedom (Something Of Value) - The Wind and The Lion soundtrack Take Me Home - Phil Collins Faithfully - Journey Texas - Chris Rea The Ballad Of Marshall McLuhan - The Vestibules From Chaos to Harmony - Ian Brown More Than A Feeling - Boston ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Life is too short to not be cool." - Grandpa "Violence is the quest for identity." - Marshall McLuhan "Memories have huge staying power, but like dreams, they thrive in the dark, surviving for decades in the deep waters of our minds like shipwrecks on the sea bed.." - J. G. Ballard "The way it is, is the way it is. We gotta deal with what’s in front of us." - Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity

"They" also give the largest campaign contributions. Without campaign finance reform, ain't nuthin gonna happen.

sensitive capitalism, humnaitarian bombings, soulful corporations... lol😅😂... are my favorite bs claims.. i should record a rap cd... the boss makes a dollar, while i make a dime... i see 30 brands of hot souce, but i got no teeth... the invisiable hand is touching me down there... 😂

Sigh. Democracy didn't work in Athens, it proved unsustainable. John Adams spoke of it; " Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all Men under all forms of Simple Government, and when unchecked, produce the same Effects of Fraud, Violence and Cruelty." So much of what this man speaks is flawed. Winston Churchill once said, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Capitalism is neither moral nor immoral. It is amoral. Its use for good or ill depends upon those who wield it. Collectivist ideologies from which collectivist economics arise are unsustainable because they reject both fundamental aspects of human nature and because they reject certain operational principles that govern the external reality within which we all exist. Thus, to sustain themselves, they are forced to incrementally impose ever greater coercion. Lenin, for all his monstrous faults, knew whereof he spoke when he said that, "The goal of socialism is communism". And the 'fruit' of communism in the 20th century was 100 MILLION slaughtered human beings. Sadly, Mr. Wolff thinking exemplifies the old adage, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

All business reaching the point of wishing to be a "publicly" shared corporate entity...need to be vetted and owned by the "public"..."we" need to own and limit them... otherwise they own and limit us Duh!

Thank you Prof. Wolff and you always get to the truth. Russia stay sustainable from this sanction bc of India, China and many countries in Europe and Asia. As India FM said not all Europe problems are our problems bc we have to think of the survival on each country. I think the world are tired of all the wars created by NATO in Europe and the Middle East.

What could possibly go wrong with ever increasing demand for ever diminishing resources?!! ...Greed is at the very core of capitalism

Again I love that intro song! Related viewing that opened my american eyes to a layer of anti-socialist propaganda that had remained after listening to hundreds of hours of Democracy at Work + reading Wolf, Marx, Lenin, & Parenti! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gB7sGnJqIeo.html Totalitarianism is a misunderstood concept in the west. (Due to the uniformity of the high school English literary canon)

Profit focus under any circumstances will cause workers to go burned up, which will drop their effectivness and production.

Actually what Jesus taught the apostles was different than what Adam Smith has imagined God is doing in capitalism. Acts 4:33;34, "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. ... 34 Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold," Also, Acts 2:44-45 says, "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.". There are two or three more like this.

I work at a member-owned (customers) Coop gas and propane station. I'm retired from teaching. With the Coop I have defined benefits pension, extended health benefits and dental, sick leave, profit sharing. When the profits go back to the member owners and the staff, capitalism can work better. Not perfectly, but a heck of a lot better.

Uh, Diocletian's price edict again as a remedy against inflation. Did you ever hear of Volcker disinflation in the 1980?

Now you lost me, Richard. Why should a capitalist get profit - in other words, surplus just because they already control accumulated surplus - which always originated by expropriating it at an earlier time from the other two "partners"?

The problem here is that you are attacking capitalism and this means so many different things to so many different people. This does not work. What is more effective is talking about people's individual concerns. People get Universal Health care. Sell that. People get that the rich should pay taxes. Sell that. People understand that money shouldn't be in politics. Sell that. People want longer term more stable employment. Sell that. People want the banks to be regulated. Sell that. People want vacation time. Sell that. People want an efficient economy. Sell that. And we want to bomb our neighbors. Sell that. Wait, maybe leave that last one out... Little joke to lighten the mood at the end.. did you catch that? Harharhar?

Mr Wolf, Is describing the corporations responsibility to the communities in which they exist and in which they profit from the resources available. This is not exactly new. Prior to 1980's all universities with business or management coarse taught this corporate ideology. The corruption has a responsibility to the communities in with they exist. From the 1800's untill 1980's many cities and small communities grew by way of these wealthy corporations family owned who lived in the community where they existed. Therefore they vestiges in their communities, workers pay, housing. infrastructure churches YMCA''s parks recreation etc. You can still see many of these small Villages that were built on this idea. Today many are deteriorating and dying as those corporations bought into the milton Friedman BS and the original families sold off the businesses to foreign entities or outside investors who do not live or work in those communities. Their role as to milton Friedman is to suck all the wealth out of the community and then liquidate selling it off and or closing leaving the community to dry up. You can also see that in progress as you drive across the mid west. . It is a simple old question of your responsibility to the community in which you live and work and to your neighbors.

Wages were generally higher when unions were strong but Republicans convinces many that unions were the problem. Come to find out that appears to be wrong, like the idea that corporate earning not taxed would be spent on rebuilding the economy, instead just the opposite is occuring. Thank Reagan for both of those missteps plus increasing the debt 180% and increasing the size of government.

Excellent presentation Prof. Wolf and you couldn't have selected a more informed guest than Chris Hedged to discuss the polarization in our society and the rise of autocratic governments and fascism. It all comes down to the class war being waged on the working class by the ruling elites over the last forty tears.

Root of all Judaism is money. If you don't get rid of money ... I really don't care who is in charged or what people talk. As long we all do everything for money, usury in life goes as usual.

I disagree with prof wolff segment in this video. Adam Smith believe free banking and law of finishing returns. This means that bank should have high reserve requirements and investors should not expect Constant growth of companies. Greed make elite create their own version of capitalism which rigs competition. Milton friedman became catalyst of such movements and crush middle class. Mankinds never follow original system and their disobdiences trigger worst version of economic system. The same analogy applies socialism too

This is validating and makes me sound less crazy. Anywho, anyone know where I can find a South African version of this?

Oh, don't be so negative. We will all wake up some morning and find our bank accounts empty or our dollars worth almost nothing and we, being well-educated rational Americans, will blame the messenger. Guess who that is

The working class doesn’t need the hundred richest people in the world. The best for us working class is to achieve the smallest number of poor people ever in the world.

Please also discuss What is wrong with Communism Why have they all changed and turned toCapitalism?

Prof Wolf, can you bring some numbers into this converstaion regarding the volume of trade in oil and gas between Russia and Asia in response to the Russia sanctions?

I love your show, and I understand why workers go on strike, but doesn't that mean that the workers don't have any income until they reach an agreement with the employer?

substantive nature choice for God's free will sovereignty

Richard Wolff is today's Karl Marx, an American. What a gift !