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"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it's whether we provide enough for those who have little." - F.D.R
I mean nice quote but you shouldn’t idolize F.D.R how I have seen so many do, he did many good things but he was a war criminal and he is the one who saved capitalism in America
@@febopennyficari8716 I agree that he is a war criminal and talking about him should come with that preface.However he was good on the economy, createing social security and the minimum wage. Could you please elaborate on saving captilsm? I mean just read or listen to his second bill of rights speech. I do know he ran against the idea of socialism in the 1932, but he backed off that later, in fact socialists and communists were openly apart of the new deal coalition.
Interesting, I did not know some of that. However, going back to second bill of rights, I think that suppression of a thrid was not just to keep himself in power (although that certainly was a factor) but also to make democrats the leftwing force pary. He introduced the second bill of rights a little over a year before he died and said after the war he'd make this happen. But then Truman took over and the cold war took off. So I still don't think that it was a calculated effort to keep the u.s a peremptory capitalist country.
„The strength of a people is measured by the wellbeing of its weakest members“, literally the opening words of my country‘s constitution. The social democrats managed to sneak that one in hehe
@@TheGravelInstitute But can you argue with Furries? Why don't you invite furries to talk about progressive cultural changes and economic aid they've provided to its poorest members? We need a Gravel Institute video on the furry fandom! I would happily provide relevant data and information for you on that! In fact thousands would gladly provide information!
Dennis Prager actually went to college for communist affairs and lived in the USSR to talk to Jews who could not emigrate. He then spoke on their repression
Hate to be pedantic, but we've actually had fewer recessions than normal. Like he says in the vid, normally they're every 4-7 years. The period between the 2008 recession and now was actually the longest period of economic growth in US history. And yes, I'm a leftist.
It’s noticeable smoother the Prageru. Which, not only employs more simplified visual aid, but animates them to be choppy and fast past. It actually fits with the style of Right-wing pundits trying to overload rational thought processes by overloading their audiences’s mind. Information being thrown at you too fast to think of it critically.
“Socialism is when the government does stuff and it’s more socialism the more stuff it does, and if it does a real lot of stuff, it’s communism” - Richard Wolff
Well he wouldn't want to be relying on their substance! His own figures in this video show that there were 1.34 billion people outside China living above the $7.40/day poverty line in 1982, with that number increasing to 2.65 billion people by 2018. A major own goal if his intention was to implicate capitalism in global poverty.
@@Monaleenian I actually think this is the worst Gravel video they've made (the rest are far more watertight) for this reason. However, studies during the late 20th century showed that Socialism consistently produced higher quality of life than capitalism when at the same level of economic development. Despite this, China's integration into global markets was obviously how it became successful. Wolff analyses this far better in some of his own videos, often to illustrate some of the beneficial ways in which the Chinese government sometimes goes against market forces. Also bear in mind, Wolff is pro-markets. Global trade, economic growth and manufacturing aren't inherently capitalist, though they're currently operated that way. These things (and international aid + NGO work) are responsible for overall reductions in poverty, but Wolff and socialism as a whole isn't fundamentally opposed to any of them.
Why shouldn't you? The only other way to look at it invokes one of the seven deadly sins... jealousy. If you are doing well, and better than before, celebrate that
I'd like to describe the reality of Democratic Socialism. I am a single, retired truck driver. I have lived and worked in the Netherlands for 20 years. My income from my pension does not bring me up to the minimum income requirement set by Dutch law, so I receive subsidies from the government to bring it up to that level. In other words, by Dutch standards, I AM POOR. I live comfortably in a nice one bedroom apartment in the city centre, (purpose built with lift, community areas etc.,) and run a small (albeit ancient) car. I can afford internet access and cable TV. I never have to worry about medical bills or where my next meal is coming from. In fact my doctor tells me i should loose weight, probably caused by the fact that I can afford to always have a few beers in my 'fridge! If, God forbid, I should become too old to live independently, I have the option of living in an assisted living facility (old folks home) and when I shuffle off this mortal coil, my impoverished remains will be disposed of in a dignified manner. NOT BECAUSE I WILL CARE, BUT BECAUSE THE SOCIETY IN WHICH I HAVE LIVED AND WORKED DOES! My monthly income is US$1816. That is regarded as the poverty live in The Netherlands. Oh, nearly forgot, I get 13 of these a year, as EVERYONE is entitled to a MINIMUM of a months holiday pay!
It's so strange that people in such a rich country like the US don't have things we in europe (I'm from germany, hello neighbor!) take for granted for several decades now. Can't imagine how it is to leave school and being thrown into this total capitalistic driven world, in which you are not worth more than your working force. Yeah sure, it's not all shiny and perfect in germany either and capitalists are trying to take away rights people fought here over 100 years ago. But at least we don't have to die because we can't afford cancer treatment, vaccines or getting broke because we need an abulance >_>
@@Diablokiller999 We have to remember that the US is a very young country and will have to undergo the growing pains that so many countries have. Maybe in a couple of hundred years they will emerge from their medieval period and begin to live decently.
@@peterleadley7103 I doubt that they have to go through the same stuff, 'cause the USA didn't start from scratch ;) The citizens left their former countries before socialist ideas started to grow strong in europe so they missed the trend. Now they have to come to the conclusion that it's better for everyone to distribute things equally. Either they learn it or Cyberpunk 2077 becomes a reality for them. Hopefully we can defend our labor rights in old europe and won't be torn apart by russia financed right wing parties....
I'm a retired American citizen. I receive $2000/month in social security. My health care ($200/month) is deducted from that $2000. I have no dental or vision insurance, I pay $124/month is mandated auto insurance for a 13 year old truck, $800/month in rent and I can't afford cable TV. Let me know if you need a room mate!! :)
We're working on fixing the audio balance! RU-vid doesn't allow for reuploads but it will be fixed in the future and we'll upload a fixed version elsewhere.
@@stilltmg In economics, praxeology is basically rejecting empirical evidence and using deduction alone to reach the very same conclusions of the Austrian school. In other words, it's a rejection of the scientific method, it's a pseudoscience.
@@sarahjones9944 the only reason why crypto’s are even tolerated is they draw demand away from precious metals. If they ever become a significant threat to the dollar the NSA will vaporize them in a nano second
@@lovelyhomeboy2782 Astroturfing is the process by which a political movement (usually the right) masks their sponsors and supporters to make it appear as if it originates from and is supported by grassroots politics. Republican dark money has made it appear that many “normal people” support completely insane world views, which allowed them to gain legitimacy. Part of astroturfing tactics is having an army of bots/fake accounts poised to perpetuate the message that Republican interests aren’t the interests of the few, but the many.
This reminds me of when we did budgets for our college class. Our teacher called me in front, asked me in Disbelief if my pay & spending were real, if it was true I was working multiple jobs, if it was true I didn't have "fun" expenses, then called me a liar when I said I hadn't gone to the movies in 3 years. He just couldn't understand someone could be a hard worker & be that poor.
Did he make you flunk the class? He sounds dickish enough to do that at this point. And people say colleges are liberal brainwashing centers. One of my own professors made us read books by Pat Buchanan, Benjamin Nethanyahu, and the Ayn Rand Institute, claimed the Islamic Golden Age was a myth, and that we should have nuked Fallujah because "all the civilians evacuated anyway and we looked weak sending in easily killable troops."
You witnessed the generational wealth gap. Boomers (And some of early Gen X) were basically spoiled in terms of economic opportunity and lifetime financial outcomes. Everyone after them has been fucked because politicians took away all the programs and institutions that looked after people not profits. And far, far too many boomers, after being handed the cushiest deal in human history, are so ignorant and spoiled that they don't realise everyone born after them is struggling at all.
It's not even that they're bad people. They just don't understand that quality of life has been declining for everyone else while their own QOL has been improving or at worst holding steady their whole lives. They can't fathom.it because they haven't lived that experience, and they just assume that everyone who came after them must be lucky because we all have smart phones and the internet. But smart phones and the internet aren't affordable education, affordable cost of living, high wages, or any of the other key things that were simply handed to the boomers. If you're curious about more of this, check out Global trumpism m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KGuaoARJYU0.html And Have the Boomers Pinched their Children's Future? m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZuXzvjBYW8A.html
Where the hell does all Prager U's oil money go? This video looks a million times better than any of old PU's not to mention that it's grounded in factual reality. Keep up the good work!
probably just grifting it never ceases to amaze me how sheerly corrupt the powers that be are, anytime you give them money for something there's like a 99% chance a solid 40-70% of that money is being (literally, thanks Epstein) for hookerz and blow
No, it is very stuttery? Either no motion blur is used or lower than 24 fps. Just look at the list of patrons, it hurts my eyes. And the 'music' and sounds playing during the space-sequence and at other times was truely awful. Otherwise good visuals and content.
If capitalism, as a system, is so great why do large banks and corporations need bailouts? Why in such a supposedly stable system do governments need to pass specific laws to support free trade?
Capitalism is great.. It was admired by the time marx came along. It is well documented that Marx admired capitalism. We have not had capitalism in your or my life time... What we have is the neoliberal experiment that obummer put an abrupt end to.. Now the bankers have won.. It is likely that we are going from feudalism to the neo-dark-ages...
It is the people who need bailouts so that the industrialists can create wealth. That is not what we have right now... Sadly we are entering an economic apocalypse because of this. Wolff doesn't seem to understand..
Business people have a tendency to parasite power to incite that interventionism that destroys free competition and benefits them. The same goes for bankers. It's easier to satisfy a politician (bribe) than satisfy 100.000 costumers (good products at low prices). That's why State action should focus in protecting Free Markets, not because it's instable, but because citizens benefit from a free competition whose purpose is to satisfy their needs. The banking system is not a free market system, it's in fact, one of the most regulated sectors of any economy (try to read about the _Community Reinvestment Act_ and its implications in financing people to get in debt in the crisis of 2008 for example).
@@clup3136 Banking is not only the most parasitic but the most unstable in the economy needing constant free loans as well as relief as they become indebted to survive. This is because they don't write good loans but higher interest loans that can't be repaid. When those loans go bad, as the often do, they need grants from the fed to stay afloat. With those grants they pay their stock holders and CEOs. In essence they are a monopolistic unstable parasites between the fed and the people. This is not your father's 'industrial capitalism' ... It is the economy's over head that adds nothing to industrial production but in fact diminishes it. Wolff doesn't seems to understand this. It seems as as if he read marx one, feeling that we are living in what marx admiringly termed 'capitalism' , a point, when reached, increases production and economic justice. Wolff doesn't seem to understand this and seems to think all we need to do, being in capitalism, is to take over the ever diminishing work places 'democracy at work' and all is right with the world. I am very frustrated with Wolff for this reason.
Because of course the answer is market capitalism is unsustainable. It’s not a viable system. It’s not a healthy system. It’s a debt-based system that expects infinite growth on a planet with finite resources. We need system change. Resource-based economy is a viable system.
Even if I suspect you’re more of a social Democrat, thank you for helping being more people to the left. People trust you for a mature articulation of ideas, and those articulations translate well from music to politics
Mainstream media does not propogate these views and even youtube/google have modified their algorithm to throttle traffic to channels/websites that are anti-capitalist.
"Could you live on $1.90 per day?" Well, considering that it's difficult to live on $13-$15 per day in most places here in the states, I'm going to take a wild guess and say no.
That’s in the cheapest places. In most places in the US, like the east coast, west coast and Texas and the northwest, 13$-15$ is just not enough at all. Most who get that are renting with other people in New York City. That’s just not enough.
@@judithkim4050 The sad reality if we adjusted the inflation the Real Wage should be about 25$/day if we want to be able to by the same amount of stuff 40 years ago
Always remember when talking about poverty, we never mean that we have to produce more, so that one day we finally can feed and house everyone and to do so we need the innovative power ofcapitalism. We always mean, these people don't have enough money to buy stuff and no means of getting some. Isn't this weird? We don't have a problem of producing enough food or raw materials to build houses, electricity lines etc. all the stuff that makes modern life easy. That would be childs play and only a task of coordinating time, workers and materials in short: a technical challenge. With capitalism we somehow have a different problem, there never seems to be enough money to undertake these tasks.
Money is just an abstraction of value though. Getting someone to coordinate the time, getting workers, and materials, none of that is free. You can't just eliminate money and suddenly get that for free. Money is made up, but the energy and value it represents is not. So please explain where do you expect the money (or what it represents) to come from?
@@lost4468yt Let's start with this: What do you think about this difference between what we could do but don't, because it is not profitable, but in reality easily manageable from a standpoint of resources, labour necessary etc.? Is this good, bad, do we have to do something about this, how can money, the government the common citizen who- or whatever help? *Money is just an abstraction of value though.* What are you abstracting from an already highly abstractive term like value? *Getting someone to coordinate the time, getting workers, and materials, none of that is free.* I'm not saying "Boo, these filthy rich dudes only doing administrative work but no real work". That is not the "critique". *You can't just eliminate money and suddenly get that for free.* Why would that administrative work be needed to be done for free? Producing what is needed by everyone for everyone does not mean anyone is working for free or that administrative work would be considered not "real" work. It means that you help to produce what is needed and get from society what you needed, produced by yourself and others. The exchange between people is set in stone before production even starts and not mediated via money after productions has taken place without knowing if the stuff produced was actually necessary to produce. *Money is made up, but the energy and value it represents is not.* So why use money then? We could measure energy (hours of work done for example) to exchange products. In the end it boils down to relations between work done in different fields that can't be compared, because they are of a different quality. A costs 1 $ and B 5 $ and they are of different quality. As you can't compare different qualities A and B have to have something in common that they both share and that get's compared via money? What is that? You don't put an equal sign between 1 l of gasoline and your laptop. But somehow money does that. So rice and gasoline must have something in common and it can't be what they are used for. How do you compare fueling your car to doing work and fun stuff on your laptop? Money however has other qualities which my original post was trying to point at. There isn't really a lack of money, but in a money economy there is one singular goal and that is to increase its amount. This very process tends to accumulate money where there already is money and some are left out. That is inherently build into an economy that pays for labour with money. There is nothing to be done about this. And a developed industrial economy based on money will always only ever have capitalistic money (that which tends to make some filthy rich while others starve in overabundance).
@@fg786 A lot of great points you have made here. I especially liked: "So why use money then? We could measure energy (hours of work done for example) to exchange products." Indeed. You know how they say "time is money" well, how about time just being your time to spend how you want it? Like you said, we have the raw materials and ability to grow food, build homes, computers, etc. and we could easily manage it if it was as simple as "Just find out who needs the basics: food, water, shelter, etc. and make sure everyone in a community has that." Right there you solve major health problems and poverty as well. But, someone will say "Why would anybody work hard at all if people who work less hard still have food, water and shelter?" Well, what a anti-humanistic thing to say. How low do you think of the human species that you have been brainwashed to believe if humans were all given the basics for decent survival through the management and practice of science and technology that we'd all just sit around and do nothing of value? That's what most of us have been trained to believe. As George Carlin said (paraphrased) the poor exist just to scare the crap out of the middle class! Well, what kind of messed up human existence is that? How dare we call ourselves an intelligent species when we CAN but choose not to make sure all our brothers and sisters don't go without the basics for survival. I'm not directing this all at you, by the way, I'm just adding much of this to the conversation. Respond to whatever you wish. Again, many great ideas!
@@lost4468yt the motto of capitalism is go for the money and serve that group of people exclusively. The people with no money, get completely disregarded amd kicked while they are down. Ive worked in construction, it wouldn't even take them a year to build small houses to house every homeless person in the US. The US spend more money dropping bombs and fueling aircraft for training exercises in a month. a chain is only as strong as it weakest link. A strong country has no poverty. Lifting people out of poverty will transform this country. Poverty is more than just not having money, it erases all hope for the future for those in poverty..also, history has shown that incredible people have come from of poverty, so lifting people out of poverty effectively increases the odds of the next genius to help change the world to be found.
@@lost4468yt barter systems can work instead of money, money is pretty much an abstract. Once upon a time the u.s. dollar was based on the gold standard, that stopped being the case when nixon was in power. So now the dollar is based on nothing. These days more and more people don't even use physical money, they use debit and credit cards. So when this happens you have automatic deposit of your paycheck, then you use your debit card. At what point does the dollar become just numbers on a screen. Look at bitcoin for a moment, a currency based on nothing and uses up a great deal of resources just to achieve..numbers on a screen. Although in this case you cannot carry a bitcoin in your pocket and you can only use it for trading. In my opinion cryptocurrency is a scam. But if enough people accept it and use it for goods and services, it could become a legitimate currency. My point is at the point where currency becomes numbers on a screen ( not bitcoin ), why can't we just assign money to rid the world of poverty? I know most people would reply " but then everyone would stop working ", I really believe this would not be the case. " When people love what they do, they don't work a day in their life
Not only has the rate of inflation and the cost of living fair out paced the increase in minimum wage, due to improvements in technology the average worker is also fair more productive today than they were 6 decades ago. We are working more hours and producing more value per hour, for less proportional pay in a time that costs proportionally more.
@@kallerokanen8979 "Cope", you're a child. Living in your filthy rich Scandinavian country has made you forget how necessary Labour laws are, if we are to apply the same idea to say Indonesia, how do you think it would go for them? Even worse than it currently is. Unfortunately for you, the strong Unions which built your welfare state are dying, slowly but surely the labour laws you currently have are eroding, you may not find it necessary now, but when crisis comes knocking to your doorstep, you'll find out the hard way what it feels like to be starving and working for peanuts...
@@kallerokanen8979 That is ridiculous, give it a couple decades, these right wing politicians fostered in the youth love the Neo-Liberal filth you are spreading, then will come the period of "Austerity Policy", policy enacted when your booming economy based off of the third world starts to stagnate. The welfare of your country will be stripped, and as you rot in an underfunded aged care home you will sing PRAISE for the Thatcher/Reagan like figure, you will praise them for "saving the economy" even if it's to your own- and your working class interests, and to their interests to strip the welfare state instead of bringing Corporations into line. You will be so entranced in fervent nationalism that you don't even notice the crippling state of your country, you will once again learn what it's like to be thrown bare onto the rocks of Neo-Liberalism. Until then sister/brother, I pray you be well, you will need your health as you pick up your second job without healthcare security...
@MÅGÅ TÊÅRS ARË HÜMÅÑ NÏRVÃNÃ Well Ig My own goverment has brainswashed me because when i realized i Have to pay a real tax rate of almost 50% If i Make The equilevant of 15$ an hour, i became right wing. Its insane How much tax you Have to pay, and i still choose The Private services over The public ones.
Hearing that someone middle aged had to fight back against even their own family telling them to keep quiet and not complain is enormously comforting to me now, still sometimes questioning if I'm delusional or the only one who cares. Good video
My whole childhood has been moving from house to house, apartment to apartment, because rent keeps getting raised, and the higher ups at the jobs my mom would work at would be shitty people, kicking her to the curb for being a human that needs time for herself, her children, and housekeeping(she's a single mom, she'd be juggling both breadwinning, and parenting). You'd think after workin' hard for years, and trying to save what little she could, she'd've pulled herself and us up by the bootstraps, but no, she's desperately searching for housing in the midst of a pandemic, in the U.S., a country that we pay taxes to, but don't see benefits from those taxes. Capitalism doesn't work for the poor-not even just the poor, we were more lower middle class than poor. It just doesn't work.
I grew up poor based on economic metrics. IMO I was never poor. I believe there are ways for our government to improve and I am making no judgement on what you experienced one way or the other. I think your perspective of Capitalism is skewed and since that is our current system I would suggest taking a look again in how it may work for you, which may change your perspective. First you like 99% of all Americans are not a capitalist. Like most of us you work and expect a return for your work. This is great you contribute to the whole of man kind by what you do. I am not going to explain capitalism in a comment but maybe a very small part of it. Believe it or not you can turn the tables on capitalist. Capitalist need you. There are three basic ways for you to make more money per hour: One is to group with other like workers. Unions are good and part of healthy capitalism. The other two ways is a choice that you get to make. Improve your skill in an area where there is a scarcity. Improve how good you are at your job. Right now you get to make that choice regardless of what anybody else thinks. Why??? Because nobody gets to be in control. Nobody! (The whole. People only get to control their part). In other words: A non compassionate, unthinking, uncaring with no dog in the fight system decides. That doesn't sound that nice, but it works. Which means you get to own the fruits of your effort. BTW there is nothing fair about the chances you get in comparison to someone else. The only thing you get is a chance over and over and over again. As one who studies history that is pretty cool.
@@josefjensen4391 @Josef Jensen Sorry to point this out, but in every company I know you DON'T get to own the fruits of your effort. Improving your skills doesn't guarantee improving your wage in the slightest. Every seasoned worker will tell you it's more likely to increase your boss's expectations, with little to none monetary value for yourself. Acquiring "new skills in an area of scarcity" demands time and money - non-trivial amounts of both. We're talking of lifting people out of extreme poverty here; how exactly do you propose someone living on less than seven dollars a day is going to afford that? You've never felt that you've been poor? Perhaps it's you whose view of capitalism is scewed.
@@weareallbornmad410 I think it is unfortunate that you have those beliefs. I don't believe those beliefs will help you. I realize you believe it to be objective truth. I don't. I am a seasoned worker and I have received the fruits of my labor. I have had a good life and it is my wish to change minds towards hope over despair. To find the smallest of opportunities from those hopes that they can grow into greater opportunities.
@Cockroach ; @We are all born mad (and subsequently anyone reading this comment of mine.) Judging by the way the words are phrased in Josef Jensen posts, everything make them read like they were wrote by a bot. I strongly have my suspicion that this is a bot account, especially when looking at his profile : it's an account active since May 2020, yet it has absolutely nothing on it. Even both of your account respectively have some kind of activity (even mine for that matters). And, more importantly, there's always that very weird low account of "subscribers" present on all youtube accounts (even those that don't create contents like mine.) Yet on his there's nothing. Flat out nothing. Pardon the pun but that doesn't compute.
@@Tenhys No I am not a bot. Even if I were a bot that would not take away from the legitimacy of what I wrote. Ideas submitted as being objective are right or wrong based upon their own merit and independent of their author (or bot). Who cares what Josef Jensen has to say...I agree I am irrelevant to the message. If one finds interests or maybe even value in a concept then investigate it yourself. Don't accept it on authority or dismiss it out of slander. BTW: I assure you that I am not a robot. I had an organic nutritional supplement this morning. :)
It's also important to point out that capitalism profits from poverty. From payday loans to low wage jobs, capitalists exploit the poor. One question, sir: Do you really have a broccoli floret for a nose?
I'm glad I can send these videos to people instead of trying to memorize an entire chain of an argument just to have a chance at convincing one person.
I'm always reminded of an old cinema job i had for much of the early and mid 2000s. When i first started we were earning about £6 an hr and a ticket cost around £3-4 depending on concessions. As the years went by those ticket prices crept up, and not long before my job there ended, we were getting just over £7 an hr, but ticket prices had increased to £12-15 (sometimes nearly £20!). I worked as a projectionist in the later years, but then they decided to replace *all* the film projectors with digital projectors. They needed no man power to run, less maintenance, and required no film handling or heavy deliveries. They swore these projectors would save the company millions in running costs, and kicked out all projectionists (6 of us in total). While claiming these changes would save them money, the ticket prices still soared each year, and the workers wages barely changed in the space of a decade, while they cut jobs to run as few staff as they could, giving empoyees twice the work for the same wages.
@@scottandrewhutchins Amen to that. Working full time on a 'decent' wage and I still can't get accepted for mortgages. But no, no, the system is working fine u guys, totally, you just need to work harder. Got a full time paying job and not enough money? Get two jobs! What's that?! You still can't afford basic groceries on top of your housing and bills. Hm, clearly it's your fault and not the systems.
@@Spamhard i have a master's degree, and businesses think that a few dollars above minimum wage is OK. The only jobs I've had that paid well were with small outfits that couldn't take me on full-time or just needed me for one project. I became homeless seven years after earning my master's because of medical issues. Social Security says that I can do a desk job, but the replies top my applications are rare, and most are known scams (entry-level marketing scam, sell insurance at your own expense disguised as a job interview, and advance fee scams).
@@scottandrewhutchins That's shit to hear, sorry you're being dragged through it. The job sites are definitely full of scams these days. If it's not those marketing scams, it's either at home call taking to sell scams to other people, or people messaging about pyramid schemes. I got made redundant because of covid so I've got to start at the bottom yet again at some place new. Likely looking at min wage for a whole bunch of years. Timing sucked because I'd done everything fucking right, I'd been working hard and saving harder, JUST saved up enough for a potential housing deposit after 15 years of saving, but thanks to that small chunk of cash in my savings, I'm not allowed to claim Unemployment Benefits, so I gotta drain out my savings again while I look for work... back to square one. Capitalism is great.
The cognitive dissonance in some people when you point out that the only reason poverty is declining is due to the tremendous achievements of China is astounding and frustrating.
My constructive comment: I think it would be good to put credentials at the beginning of the video to establish validity (similar to how PragerU does it)
Considering that "credentials" are only needed when you are to be believed based on yout authority (which is a fallacy), I'm against it. Arguments should speak for themselves. PragerU shows you credentials so you believe them, even though everything they tell you is a lie. Every person can understand these things.
@@lynth yeah that's the fallacy fallacy, expertise exists. But yeah many people tend to invoke credentials and authority that have nothing to do with the subject at hand.
@@duncanohio With fairly I mean, no one is starving, everyone has a house and healthcare and no one is so inordinately rich that the balance of power is fucked in their favour
@@lausenteternidad Right. Who is against that? Like, less that 1% of the world is against that, even if you were to count within the richest 1% of "capitalists" only 1% would be against that.
Yeah it absolutely does lol. Mises and Hayek proved through the knowledge problem socialism can't, and we've seen this in 20th century socialist systems.
The music is a bit too loud for Richard to be understood clearly in parts, and while Closed Captioning helps a ton, I really recommend pulling the music down a bit for better a listening experience
Agreed, the sound levels aren’t optimal for getting the message across clearly to a wide audience. Consider a re-edit of what is otherwise an excellent and very important video.
To give some perspective, I do know it’s quite cheap to live in Vietnam as a tourist, so I looked it up today to see how low we could get. I assume that to survive as a tourist in the Old Quarter tourist district in Hanoi one would need shelter and food. Shelter: 3.77 USD a night for a backpacker. Found on Agoda, averaged over a 15 night stay. Food: based on memory about 25,000 VND a meal. 1.08 USD at today’s rates. We’re talking about survival, so you only get one meal. Thus a tourist could survive in Hanoi for under 5 USD per day. Perhaps the current travel situation has meant lower prices for shelter, but we’re also talking about prices in a tourist district. Also Hanoi certainly isn’t the poorest of places. Clearly we will be able to find an opposite example where $7.40 would be unbearable, it really depends on the price levels. One would probably need more in a developed country, as the op has stated. So any definition of poverty that does not consider local price levels cannot possibly be taken seriously. It’s a lazy way to analyze the issue IMO.
The $7.40 figure is in 2011 USD PPP. What this means is that it's the amount of goods/services that $7.40 USD would buy you in the USA in 2011. So...still an intolerably low amount.
*If $1.90 buys one loaf of bread in America, they mean that much money in another country* - in Vietnam it might be $0.19 for bread, so that's their poverty line. It's called "Purchasing Power Parity", or PPP.
"Socialism is when the government does stuff, the more stuff it does, the Socialister it is and if it does a whole lot of stuff, that's Communism" - Karl Marx
Finland and Denmark are both social democracies, meaning countries that heavily rein in capitalism-borne inequality with redistribution of wealth and social programs. But even here in Finland, inequality has slowly been on the rise, due in part to successive center-right gov'ts and international pressure against high taxes (e.g., wealthy ppl moving their assets to a tax haven, or companies being unable to compete with lower-tax countries' ones). This is an international problem. I like Janet Yellen's initiative to negotiate international minima for corporate etc. taxes as one of many necessary solutions.
@@caterosf Good question; it's not a yes/no thing. Whether or not it's fair depends entirely on _how much_ more they get. 1.1-3X as much, great. 3-10X as much, OK. 300X as much (CEO vs. minimum wage worker, currently) is insanity.
Anybody else questioning the nature of the comment section for this content. It is odd to see so many comments praising the provider of the content instead of discussing the content.
i think a lot of us already agree with this content, and are commenting because we're SO excited to see something to fight against PragerU's bullshit and share stats/info that are easily understandable.
@@luzucker3728 Exactly. You see yourself as part of a team against an opponent that the team has deemed to be bad. Your comment gives you a sense of belonging.
You do know that almost every problem with capitalism is actualy caused by goverments. Expecialy the world bank is one of the biggest ofenders. Thats whs this video is a absulute joke. The rotschild family is in charge of it. They thrive of states bankrupting demselfs with socalism.
@@passingshadow8934 most regulations put smaller busineses at a disatvantage thus less competion. Like this is an extreme example but the lockdowns actualy benifited the monopelies so they got even richer and a lot of small busineses had to close down. The goverment itself is an monopolie it and politicans have 0 acountibility and they would never admit if they were wrong. Because they want to be reclected so they just keep lying. In china for example until mao died the people stayed in extrem povert, but after him they atcualy made the market more free so the people helped them selfs not the goverment. It was not the goverment. Also national banks porupesly keep intrestrates low, wich only benefits the rich. They also keep printing money wich leads to inflation. So that the lower and middleclass can never build up fortunes. The bigest problem with socialism is that there is no "free money" someone has to pay for it and if you tax the more wealthy do heavaly there is no insentiv to actauly work hard. Becsuse its gonna get taxed anyway. It stiefels inovation and the masive corparations are so corupt that they dont pay any taxes anyway. Look at amazon they pay 0 federal taxes. How are you supost to compete with that when you lose a part of your income and they dont.
*“We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic and a tremendous waste of resource, and most of all our politics and values no longer serve us.”* - _Jacque Fresco, Founder of The Venus Project_
The fact that something has been around for a long time is evidence that it works, not that it needs to be replaced by some kind of novelty invented by an intellectual. Tradition incorporates the experience and wisdom of countless generations before us.
@@albionicamerican8806 empires were around for a long time in Europe before they ended, according to your logic someone in 18th century France should have said to public: "The fact that something has been around for a long time is evidence that it works, not that it needs to be replaced by some kind of novelty invented by an intellectual. Tradition incorporates the experience and wisdom of countless generations before us." and convince them to stay under a monarch. If I got you right, that is.
@@albionicamerican8806 I don't agree. Take the ancient idea of gods. The notion that gods exist has been around for a long time, but that hasn't worked out so well for hundreds of millions of people. Ideas like secularism has also been around for an equal amount of time, but that idea has been suppressed by then non-secular. Even though "Tradition incorporates the experience and wisdom of countless generations before us." we should remember that not all traditions are worthy of perpetuation. If it was so, we might all believe in Zoroastrianism.
@Tetra means of production being owned by the state ≠ being owned by the workers, Cambodians were forced to work on fields and didn't have control over what they did, Pol pot literally wanted 3 harvests per year which he imposed with a threat of death which is definitionally coercive and not socialist/Communist. In Mao's China, the ussr, Cuba etc. All factories, fields etc. Were owned by the state, not the people who put work into them. And if you understood what the 2 terms meant you would know they weren't either
@Tetra socialism advocates for the workers owning the means of production, so unless the state is directly controlled by the workers, like the Paris commune then it couldn't be considered a socialist state, and even then the Paris commune wasn't socialist, its reffered to as a dictatorship of the proletariat. In Marxian terms the state owning everything would be considered state capitalism, and a direct citation could go to Friedrich Engels' (co-writer of the communist manifesto) book: Anti-duhring And as for communism, no such society has existed as it advocates for a classless, moneyless and stateless society
The fact that the Congolese child cobalt miner is part of the example you gave is encouraging to me. We must reduce reliance on wealth extraction that relies on low-productivity natural-resource consumption by creating technologies that, through fierce alignment of economic incentive, force Capitalists to invest in publicly controlled resources, or perish!
@Tetra if elections make a country socialist then i guess the US is, we advocate for workplace democracy which none of the states you mentioned have fully endorsed, also 70% of the Venezuelan economy is privately owned so I have no idea why you are even considering using it as an example
Love how Gravel Institue, despite being nothing as ritch as prager, still manage to produce videos with mutch better graphic design and content every time
Amazing how people who are passionate about their work can produce better content than people who aren't. Almost like the idea that humans require a profit motive to do anything other than sit around a finger their assholes all day is total bullshit.
@@truedarklander Why would the opposition be a vulgar pundit? ....and okay sure maybe.... but that is not the point of a debate. It's unfortunate that people have not had exposure to good debate. I love to have a position challenged in a debate and not have the answer. I now have to re-think my position and possibly change it--I get to grow as an individual. I debate because I am not always right, so in your words lose. Sure I want to win but only if it worth winning.
Surely it made a tiny dent on poverty, but the big, huge knock on poverty was made when the left, unions, socialists and communists started striking and so putting pressure on the right (the business owners, the corporations, the capitalists) and forced them to start paying better (although mediocre, to say the least) salaries and wages to the workers. The left forced the corporations to give us workers annual paid leave, paid sick leave, compensation on retrenchment, contribution to our medical expenses, to our retirement, etc, etc. All this made a huge dent on poverty. Not capitalism. If it wasn't for the left we would be still working 15 hours a day 7 days a week, with a minimum salary well below the poverty line.
@@Chandler36 because this is where the true idiots(who think that capitalism is the best system in the world and that everything right now is perfect) go
He's a lying socialist. You have to unpack his arguments but they are garbage. I get his gripes, life is unfair, socialism fixes none of his grievances.
I remember asking this on their YT channel and apparently they did reach out to have Prof Wolff at Joe Rogan’d podcast but their reply was “they weren’t interested”. Its a shame because more people need to hear what Prof Wolff says.
"The solution to all the problems capitalism creates is MORE CAPITALISM!" I suppose in the same way that if you drown a drowning man even harder his problems will go away eventually.
This channel overly simplifies complex topics yet I find it to be in a sincerely revolutionary/activist manner. I also like how you guys come up with issues and topics which mainstream papers are always late to discuss and inform.
Open any history book, there you have your citations for socialism and communism. Or, as an alternative: Use common sense... e.g. what good does it to you, when sb else is getting his stuff taken away? if you'd expropriate all of US's billionaires (4trillion$), you would not even be able to pay for 1/6 of the US's debt. So much for the prosperity of gvt. spending... And here are your citations: americansfortaxfairness.org/issue/net-worth-u-s-billionaires-soared-1-trillion-total-4-trillion-since-pandemic-began/#:~:text=At%20%244%20trillion%20the%20total,population%2C%20or%20165%20million%20Americans. US Debt www.visualcapitalist.com/americas-debt-27-trillion-and-counting/#:~:text=Since%202008%2C%20America's%20national%20debt,including%20the%202019%20fiscal%20balance.
@@surrealengineering7884 people are already having things taken from them. Wage theft, look it up. Everyday you work, you are not being paid the value of your labor. And everyday corporations are lobbying (bribing) the govt. with millions of dollars to take away worker protections and public programs.
as a frequent traveller to India, I saw how much better it was once they changed their system from socialism to capitalism. poverty has gone down under capitalism
@@imtiazmohammad9548 I have been many times to India and have been to Kerela. It is certainly not the best state in India, for example GOA is more than double as rich per person.
See, the problem with socialism is that the state controls almost everything, which means that there is no room for innovation since there is no competition in the markets and that there will most likely be a dictatorship, but who am I to talk right? It's not like we have 100 years of history that showed us how much more poverty, corruption and repression a socialist state does when compared to a capitalist one (except for the extreme US view of capitalism). Capitalism has a lot of flaws it’s true, but when compared to what socialism did to the world you can see why socialism failed but capitalism is still here, must be another way (ex: social democracy with a free market and social liberal values)
I'm liberal, but I see problems and flaws with this. I will admit that capitalism has problems, but I think that socialism has many more. So which one's better? My opinion would be by doing a cost-benefit analysis, in which (my opinion) capitalism wins
@@brucetenhave6952 How is worker cooperative socialism possibly worse than capitalism. Everything stays intact, except for companies don't have shareholders, and they are democratic. Workers make more, the economy is more stable, and companies are more motivated to do good for the world.
@@brucetenhave6952 What are these problems of Socialism in your mind? Because in my mind, Capitalism's problems are insurmountable within the framework of Capitalism, and are currently proving fatal. Many of Marx's critiques of Capitalism are damning, and much of his worst predictions are coming true.
@@vlisto3712 Neoliberalism is the best ideology Gradual peaceful moderate reform over rapid violent revolution, semi-regulated free-market capitalism, social progress, strong governmental social welfare programs, legalization of weed-like soft drugs, zero corporate tax, economically liberalization (fiscally moderate), carbon tax for combating climate change (and much more), free speech, patriotic (not nationalistic) globalism, free trade & minimal protectionism, YIMBYism, minimal zoning, less strong borders (if possible open borders), liberal democracy, collectivistic individualism, liberty-based technocratic humanism, balancing inflation-unemployment, strong interventionism as counter-terrorism measures, secular (laïcité) multiculturalism, building worldwide military alliances like NATO with the EU & other similar UN countries, and multi-payer healthcare (with a public option) This is what Neoliberalism offers. It is unironically the best ideology ever tried and I'm proud to be a neoliberal 😎💹📈✊🏾✊✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏿🚀🏫🚇⚛️🗽💲🌐🏳️🌈
Absolute nonsense. There was food in the USSR until the end of the 80s. I was a little boy and I remember chocolate and ice cream and cotton candy and cakes and popcorn. My gang and I even stole cakes from the local bakery. There were also Soviet chewing gums), but they were very tough and only with 2 flavors - mint and also seemingly orange flavor.
and about killing .... Revolutions do not happen without blood and repression. When the French Revolution took place, didn't the bourgeoisie kill the lanlords, kings and other nobles?
i'm 15 and i was getting really suspicious of the ways my economics textbook taught me economics (saying unionization bad, socialism bad etc etc) and i'm glad i have these resources to educate myself on the things it doesn't teach me
Everything is biased, if you want to look at things objectively it exists in a gray zone outside the biases. The reality of the matter with these kinds of systems and ideologies every single one of them can have a use and can work under certain conditions that would make them viable. If you jump down from the fence and choose a side to believe in it will become extremely difficult to look at the other viewpoints as objectively as you at least humanly can and choosing a side will only cause you to join the team of the many dumbasses incapable of thinking for themselves and not question anything. Be critical of everything and I mean everything.
@@saki7781 That is a 'Triple 'A'' textbook that you have there. Work HARD, be resourceful, have a mind for entrpeneurship and the various market-place sciences, and I GUARANTEE YOU that you will reside in the top 5% earners income bracket in 2 decades -- (by the time that you are ~ 35 years of age, (fixed assets, illiquid intraday currency floats included). What you DO NOT want to do is listen to a false "academic" [view above video upload], and begin to place blame on others, (the rich, the capitalist system, the politicians, etc.), for your personal issues or challenges... You are brilliant, you are powerful, and you have the technical means to generate untold amounts of wealth in a VERY minute amount of time, given diligence and self-control/self-responsibility and proper life choices... (I know you possess ALL of these desirable qualitative traits, and more). -- I only ask that you do not become embittered and wrongly dissonant b/c of Marxists whom merely wish to convince you of the prevalence of your own "weaknesses" and the lack of agency or dominion you have over your life choices & monetary investments -- ALL propagated not for YOUR endemic benefit, but to exacerbate (virtually non-existent) class divide -- (not fluid income brackets and illiquid wealth acquisition per nominal GDP) -- and incite violence and discontent towards those they have deeply and meticulously calculated should be regarded as the "public enemies" of the common citizenry. (Done as a means of projecting their OWN inherent cognitive and vocational short-comings, deficits & poor life choices due to poor self-control & moral-evaluative paradigm upon others they deem politically expedient to villify, and thus expropriate [steal] from). You will be successful one day. You are a brilliant young person. Have perseverance and build your resolve against adversity... And you will accomplish wonders one day. 👍 God Bless you!
Personally, I think that no system can exist on its own without the presence of any other ideas and implementations. Capitalism alone can’t work for everyone, but perhaps a balanced system, implementing ideas of both free market ideologies and individual financial support and programs, could be effective.
I thought this would be leftist styled prager you, Bc I didn’t see sources in the video. But when I checked the description I was happy to see source link.
Your "source link", if you leftists did ANY research you would find links you to a document on "Google docs" Richard Wolff wrote!....you guys are so dumb and habitually get high on eachothers farts.....don't catch "COVID"
@@magnusvindaloo340 You're calling people out for "not doing their research" when you didn't even read that google doc you're complaining about! I guess I shouldn't be surprised by hypocrisy from reactionaries anymore. That google doc is a list of references, each with a link to the source. I don't think any of those source pages are written by Richard Wolff, perhaps you can point out if I'm wrong.
Don't be misled by it simply having sources, it's still propaganda. It's pretty much a left version of Prager U, and is just as bad. E.g. one of the most blatant ones in the video is that they imply that China got to where it is through social programs, etc. It didn't, it got there through capitalism. China literally aimed to do that and did it. China's success has come from capitalism. Even most roads in China have been built by private companies... That's more capitalistic than the US.
The irony is that we have more money being thrown at social programs now than is most of the history of the United States, and yet poverty rates, homelessness and economic inequality has been increasing, specially in cities with progressive policies like Cali. Throwing money does not solve problems.
If society can't provide all it's citizens needs, what's the point of society? You might as well live in a shack in the woods for all the good it does for the poor. Great video!
Richard Wolff is one of my favorite left-wing commentators around and he is a very brilliant man. Nice work getting him for this video Gravel Institute. 👍
Unlike PragerU, Gravel actually labels their graphs so people actually know what they're talking about, excellent video and thank you Richard Wolff for lending your voice to this video!
