@@BadFaithPodcast Wow, shout out from South Africa, new subscriber. I really do wish that you would all meet up with some of our lesser known legends who experienced these battles in the field during Apartheid. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OD1fUF63QfE.html
Her description of consensus and coercion as being the two mechanisms governments use to inflict austerity is exactly right, especially in the US where people are perpetually gaslit about what they deserve and quick to agree with “common sense” declarations that we just don’t have enough resources for everyone to be fed, housed, or educated. Until the consensus about how little we deserve is broken, we will never break this cycle.
The hallmark of someone who doesn’t want to have that conversation (because they know they can’t defend it) is interrupt and offer your vision with platitudes and idealism (w no shot of anytime becoming true) they usually ascribe to lefties.
‘Neither lender, nor borrower be’ was an old idiom I remember hearing when I was little. It came from people who knew the true cost of debt, and the power of it. Those people felt that it was a problem best avoided altogether…yet somehow an entire economic structure was built around people not having enough to get through. We live in a land of plenty, but are constantly told there is not enough. Scarcity leads to all sorts of problems, but it’s not real. The pandemic showed everyone what hides behind the curtain, and how weak the threads that hold society together are, and how unfair the systems that govern everyone actually are.
The Obama response was smooth. I know he doesn't think that people in communist countries don't work but he still slid that in there to wedge in that false dichotomy for us to look down our noses and out of protestant work ethic tinted glasses at. He's such a lovable sleaze, now I can see why all my humanities professors keep talking about how much they miss him.
It is very easy to like Obama. He is friendly, suave, funny and a great conversationalist. But on the other hand, he is also a complete corporate tool, a warmonger and a liar. As a Leftist I have no respect for him. But all my liberal friends think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread and it is impossible to persuade them otherwise.
Wage Growth doesn't matter if you don't break the Rentier serfdom of the banker, the monopolist and the landlord. What we need is to not need so much money, ie universal basic services
How was this segment valuable? I'm genuinely asking in good faith. All I see is more progressive young people like myself complaining about capitalism, without any semblance of a framework for how a socialist system would/could be implemented. Without that, all this is, is another bitch fest. I don't even recognize anything they talked about that plenty of self identified capitalists already agree with. There is no economy on the face of the planet that is not already at least somewhat of a combination of capitalism and socialism. That said, it's not relevant to praise Trevor for stating "why have we halted at capitalism?", as though the system is purely black and white. You could promote medicare for all, $15 minimum wage, student debt cancelation, free college, comprehensive childcare, etc, and remain a capitalist. Why? Because none of those policies change the fact that we would remain still within a predominantly capitalist system. As much as it pains me to say, I agree with Obamas sentiment that arguing over semantics as though the issue is black and white, doesn't make any sense whatsoever, and isn't even a value shared by a single representative in government. It's the sentiment shared by the RU-vidr that you seem surprised only has an audience of 200. When that's the case, we should question why that is.
As Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said "...if the workers are more insecure, that's very healthy for the society ...they'll serve the masters gladly and passively."
Austerity is possible because capitalism has concentrated power in a few megalopolies in each industry--social media, defense, oil. Finance capital, banks and hedge funds, dominates all industries. There's little to no competition.
Also the role of racism as a foundational and defining element within capitalism. That capitalism cannot exist without the capacity to define specific groups as disenfranchised and powerless. Hence utterly free to be exploited without regard of their humanity. Thus acting as a buffer to the inherent instability of the capitalist system. Which would destroy itself without that buffer.
Clara is so awesome on this stuff, passionately outlining a class conscious historical materialism leaving us with the undeniable singular choice left for humanity at this point. 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._* If anyone happens to be looking for further elaboration of the economic logic here, here's that Marx guy to supplement Clara's initial explanation of the class war inherent in austerity capitalism (aka...capitalism lol...), _"Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest. Overpopulation is therefore in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and it gives the workers good advice which it knows to be impossible to carry out. Since capital only increases when it employs workers, the increase of capital involves an increase of the proletariat, and, as we have seen, according to the nature of the relation of capital and labour, the increase of the proletariat must proceed relatively even faster. The above theory, however, which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as any other natural event without bestirring himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault and to punish it. To be sure, the proletarian can restrain his natural instinct by reason, and so, by moral supervision, halt the law of nature in its injurious course of development."_ As Clara illuminates, to Wall Street and its backers, the solution to any price inflation is to reduce wages and public social spending (austerity). The orthodox way to do this is to push the economy into recession in order to reduce hiring. Rising unemployment will oblige labor to compete for jobs that pay less and less as the economy slows. This class-war doctrine is the prime directive of neoliberal economics, as mentioned defining things like "efficiency" strictly as capital accumulation, etc. in stark contrast to the classical economics of folks like Adam "father of capitalism" Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, et al. which in itself is contrary to how these figures' ideas are culturally caricatured. It is the tunnel vision of corporate managers and finance capital (or as Marx appropriately termed it fictitious capital) and bounds all possibility strictly to profitability, ensuring the tidal material forces fix humanity on a trajectory toward the _"common ruin of the contending classes."_ And of course historically, we can further extend a direct continuity to things like interwar Germany and the socialist uprisings that were snuffed out with duplicitous elites and a paramilitary of mostly veterans who upon having their humanity hollowed out via senseless violence of WWI are eager to fulfill any sort of purpose, utilized extensively by those wolves-in sheeps-clothings to snuff out any momentum toward a collective escape velocity out of this class domination. I think Mussolini's March on Rome similarly offers us a clear example, where Mussolini's thug paramilitary blackshirts posture their support for capital and small-holder bourgeois by beating up any of these militant labor leaders, which is met by nothing other than approval from those that stand to benefit from this, which importantly includes a vast majority of supposedly self-declared "left" or "liberal" small-holders/landed-gentry aka the "bourgeoisie". As the adage goes, _"scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds"._ Ok I'll shut up before I end up writing my own book here lol, but I highly recommend Clara's book (The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity), it offers a wealth of archival support and insights in regards to the relationship between liberalism and fascism, ie its undergirding ideological assumptions inextricably linked to an overlapping austerity capitalism where fascism is merely the more explicit form of this normally impersonalized technocratic structural violence. _"Fascism is a false revolution. It makes a revolutionary appeal without making an actual revolution. It propagates the widely proclaimed New Order while serving the same old moneyed interests."_ - Michael Parenti
I remember when addressing Obama's corruption, Trevor Noah said "get your money Obama" and excused it. There's nothing leftist about that clown, in my opinion.
Combine this with Varoufakis's remarks the other day about the omnipresence of "transfer payments" anywhere the mitigation of systemic capital imbalances is a sufficient political imperative, and you get a good picture of our situation. (See ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LVxmOTaX4gA.html ). As he says there, even a mild reform in austerity doctrine in the Tierra Madre of imperial capitalism -- the United States -- could have enormous salutary effects for humanity.
Obama can't even carry on a conversation about these things without lying. WHO THINKS SOCIALISM = NOT PAYING FOR THINGS? That's the future Star Trek socialism that i personally want... but NOBODY talks like that. I can't believe they didn't mention that. He's revolting.
You are spot on. Getting back to the days when corporations and the wealthy paid tax is a million miles away from Obama's insistance that Socialism can only mean Stalinist oppression and 5 years plans.
let's also not underestimate the quality o' work which has shifted majorly in this country. we went from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based one ("do you want fries with that ?"). that reduction in pride in one's work cannot be ignored......grocery shopping is WAY cheaper in germany than in the u.s. (as it is in most european nations), and yes, we pay 'less in taxes' (which is barely true : federal, state, county, city, plus special taxes on certain goods - like alcohol in washington state...), but all it takes is ONE serious illness to bankrupt you here - THAT'S a kind o' 'tax' as well that corporate shills love to forget to add into their calculations when speaking down to us unwashed masses...
I keep thinking about that song “Whitey on the Moon”. A rat done bit my sister Nell BECAUSE whitey is on the moon. I always thought of it as a lack of priorities or compassion, and that that song illustrated that. It all feels different ever since Kelton and Mattei.
Regarding the 16 min mark comment by Obama: I counter by saying 'But under capitalism, if you sell your labor, some guy in an office DOES determine how many potatoes you will grow....
The folks who are very anti-capitalist and reject the mixed economy model, in their envisioned socialist future, who decides the job I do? Is it me deciding how I live my life, what job I do, and what my goals are or is it the government?
The main impetus in Socialism currently is the move to cooperative corporations Co-Ops. Richard Wolff does some very good videos on that topic. One thing they do in either Italy or Spain, is when people become unemployed they have the option to use their equivalent of our unemployment insurance to instead get together with 9 or more others to get that money immediately as the seed money to start up a new business of their choice, which has resulted in a major growth of new small businesses. There are a few different models of structuring the management of Co-Ops, with the workers hiring and being able to fire a manager or managers depending on the size and needs of the business, the workers getting equal votes, the workers getting votes based on length of time in the Co-Op, and other models all being options. There are other programs in the same vein such as workers being given the option to take out a loan from the government to buy their workplace when an owner decides to sell it so it doesn't get bought up by venture capitalists that would otherwise do things like loading it up with debt before dismantling and selling off the parts piecemeal before sending the business into bankruptcy and closure as often happens here in the USA.
Both the original Socialism and modern Socialism are about giving workers more choice and power, though the Soviet Socialism gave the term a bad label through having an equivalent system to capitalism except with government controllers of most workplaces instead of corporate controllers of most workplaces. Even in the Soviet system there were still private small businesses and markets, but most things, especially in times of scarcity, came under government control and most Socialists since about the 1960s/70s have moved past that model.
One cannot ignore the increasing role that A.I. will ultimately play in the destruction of the working class. If the ultimate goal of Capitalism is maximized profits at the lowest cost possible, then it's obvious that eliminating the worker, (the greatest expense of most employers) is of highest priority. It is very true that A.I. could be used to improve the lives of people everywhere, but it's just as true, and probably more likely, that upon reaching sufficient advancement, it will ultimately be used to improve the lives of those who can afford it.
@Ronald Shaw: _" If the ultim ate goal of Cap italis m is max imized prof its at the low est cost possible, then it's obvious that elimin ating the work er, (the greatest expense of most employers) is of highest priority. "_ Not really. Autom ation does not eliminate the workers since someone has to mai ntain those mach ines.
Can you look into what is happening with New York City municipal unions, contract negotiations, and health care? Maybe this is too niche a subject, but you do NYC issues sometimes.
Anyone who doesn't start off a discussion of the american labor conditions without beginning by explaining how the fed printed $6 trillion from 3-2020 to 12-2021 and used it to buy OVERPRICED bonds and corporate debt THAT WAS CRASHING (buying corporate debt was illegal btw) FROM THE RICHEST PEOPLE ON EARTH which in turn INCREASED THE MONEY SUPPLY BY 40% (by far the greatest expansion in world history) is intentionally not telling you the whole story. Workers got a 40% pay cut from 2020-2022 because of that expansion/theft. This paycut was so massive that workers left the labor market in huge numbers, which she actually does talk about here but doesn't explain why it happened. The Fed is now trying to combat the inflation they intentionally created by inducing an economic contraction by increasing interest rates that will tighten lending and throw some of the people who could not afford to withdraw their labor out of work now, thus increasing the supply of workers willing to work for such crap wages and decreasing what can be demanded for labor. Put succinctly, the fed is right now intentionally trying to destroy jobs with interest rate hikes. that's how they intend to slow the inflation. with your pain. it's a crime of unimaginable evil all by itself. Listen. I 'm a communist, but I would suggest at least when you hear about these huge fed interventions like during covid, or when they suddenly change course after 14 years and start raising interest rates, try to synthesize your your economic analysis with part leftists and part libertarians. because leftists ALL LEAVE OUT the biggest part of the story. If you listen to Richard Wolfe tell this story all he will tell you is corporate greed is why we are seeing this inflation & then the rate hikes, sure that's part of it they will be as greedy as they can always. I don't know why the heck that is. Does anyone know ? I'm not saying you should listen to mainstream economics bc their ENTIRE STORY will be lies. but only libertarians seem able to tell this vital part of the story for some reason, and I hate libertarians and they lie about other stuff so it pains me to say it.
Anyone that starts off a discussion that way is clueless about the true significance of what you're pointing out; you sound exactly like a GOP trying to scare their ill-informed base. They could have raised the money supply by 200%; what matters is where money goes. That money stagnated at top and went into stocks, is the real problem with that.
@@pdlussier What? Do you think somehow you will be able to capture the FED? why are you trying to protect it? I pointed out they gave it to the richest people in the world FOR OVERPRICED DEBT OBLIGATIONS that were COLLAPSING. I called it THEFT That you don't believe it matters to people paid with WAGES that suddenly their WAGES are worth 40% less shows you are an idiot, or worse. Why are there so many of you that pretend to be leftists? You people intentionally leave socialists and communists ill-informed raving about pure greed and corporate price hikes causing 40% inflation so they sound dumb. Why didn't the capitalists hike these prices before is what a normal person wonders when told YOUR incomplete story which is tantamount TO A LIE. Are you trying to in fact protect the Liberal Order? Because that's how you do it. You can't destroy the liberal order while propagating it's lies. You must tell the LITERAL & COMPLETE TRUTH to your VANGUARD which is who this Podcast is trying to inform.
This only became a political problem then, when a crumb of it was tossed to the working poor. It's not like money-printing started in December 2020. QE and other "bailouts" of the super-rich have been going on officially since 2007, and in practice long before.
@@lewstherintelamon1377 newly printed money has never gone to the poor, it will never go to the poor. it only goes to the rich. this has never been a political problem because literally the republicans and democrats never talk about it, ever. I'm talking about it. but you don't want to. and that's strange. you appear to understand but still intentionally conflate deficit spending, which is inflation neutral, and which republicans and even some democrats complain about, with quantitative easing which went directly to the rich and has caused a 40% pay cut for the working class. Now why would you, a leftist, be engaged in this dissembling?
Anyone know if her book is going to come out on audible ? (I listen to books when I walk my dogs and travel via car for work). Would love to read this.
If one thinks somebody else will take care of you better than you, it's quite easy to favor socialism...this doesn't mean one should not have obligations to recognize depredations of suffering poor. Where I live in New Mexico, not so long ago, it was unusual for young person to have a (capitalist) bank account and own an automobile; I have discovered it is very "nice" to have a bank account because some day you might (will) need it. This is certainly a "freedom" and profit is not central, but it is necessarily involved. Pay fair wage, earn a fair wage is the ideal. Obama was right in this, IMO.
I never saw that Obama interview. What a total bell-end. He's pretending to misunderstand socialism in order to promote so-called "capitalism" to viewers who understand neither system.
It's right to criticise the real character and intention of alleged "democracy building" projects around the world, but these are not neo-colonial, they are neo-imperialist. There are no recent instances of colonialism. Some of the colonies established by imperial powers, mainly in the 19th century, continue, though most do not, having been extinguished by independence movements. Imperialism is a much more complex and intractable beast, capable of adaption and flexibility, and the "neo" prefix is certainly appropriate. Imperialism is a necessary pre-condition for colonialism, but one followed the other only in a few historic cases (where climate and other conditions were congenial). The two should not be muddled.
Every time when government mixes socialism and capitalism - capitalism gets all the blame. One more privileged person, probably never worked a day in her life a real job teaching us abut workers rights. Promotes philosophy of marx who was also an idler and freeloader. Stay safe in your bubble!
While the video is interesting, Clara didn't hardly get a chance to talk about anything. An interview should have more of the interviewee than the interviewer.
Can all in left-YT please start educating everyone about both the: (1) difference between right-authoritarian vs. right-libertarian; & (2) difference between left-authoritarian vs left-libertarian? It’s long overdue. People aren’t cattle or sheep: They will understand if we educate them. Though we need to educate (& learn) about all the nuance.
@E Good luck with it, friend. I can't even persuade people in large to understand that the Democratic party is a right wing and often far right party except on a handful of social issues. Most simply boggle then get angry or stroke out, conversationally speaking, so contrary is the mere idea to everything they've been indoctrinated to believe. I'll grant that on left twitter it's not difficult to find people able to understand that right-libertarianism is a perverse offshoot of Libertarianism, a fundamentally left wing philosophy with a far longer, stronger pedigree, but that's speaking with the converted. Our essential work is to teach what socialism and left-economic populism are, not what they've been told they are, and then to permanently divorce the left from the divisive social justice posturing promoted for that purpose by Democrats and which currently passes for 98% of left wing policies. I know few everyday people who don't believe that "the left" is almost exclusively represented by trans rights concerns, the worst of feminism, and screechy anti-speech protests on college campuses. If we don't change that, nuance won't matter.
@@ald3975 Lol, there is no difference between a right and left libertarianism. Not to mention the fact that a discussion of political structures differs entirely from a discussion over economic structures. Not sure why most people seem to think those are synonymous.
Arguably the US has abandoned capitalism for deindustrializing feudalism a long time ago. Why would anyone bother to describe an economic system that destroys capital 'capitalist'? Supposedly we all love capital.
But before the US abandoned industrial capitalism, the capitalists themselves did, because higher profits could be achieved by other means and in other countries. Capitalism devolved into a new form of feudalism fueled by “fictitious capital”, as some 19th century theorists predicted it would.
You can't really spend your way out of inflation. Surely there are times where a country must cut spending. I worry that the real definition of fascism has gotten lost
But the rich's solution is to cut public spending, after the rich received trillions in handouts. Yes, cut spending, to the rich, but then spend that money on all of us. Otherwise when you say cut spending, what you're really saying is kill people/neglect people to death.
She's conflating several things from different time periods, administrations. Lower corporate taxes under Trump didn't cause inflation and/or a labor market reset. The lowered corporate rate became on par with most European countries. The labor market was getting tighter, lower income people were getting wage increases and Trump bragged about it becaue he was connecting it with the decreased influx of illegal workers from South of the border (which is debatable). The major labor market disruption came as a consequence of the fucking prolonged lockdowns that destroyed whole sectors of our economy. And after that came the whole vaccine mandates disaster! We don't know yet exactly where all these people are who quit!!! Most have not yet rejoined the work force, professor! So to claim that this massive tightening of the current labor market is some fundamental win for the workers is an undigested and premature celebration. What's striking, since Clara wrote a book about austerity post WW I, is how she is ignoring the economic disasters of runaway inflation of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe and the U.S. and current day South American economies such as Venezuela, Argentina etc. What are we supposed to do, professor??? I understand you're coming from the neo-comminist school of economics but you can't just ignore economic history and simply become an exited cheerleader for exactly what? Circular, self-referential logic?
The best system is a combination of capitalism and socialism. You should be discussing which bits should be capitalist which bits should be socialist. Healthcare for example is much better run by the government (medicare-for-all) because when it's run by the private sector there are perverse incentives. Also it's much more efficient when it's run by the government. As Warren Mosler puts it Medicare for all would be a deflationary event.
I think most of the economy should be socialist. You shouldn't stop at healthcare. I only see a few sectors that make sense leaving it in private hands like restaurants/art/entertainment
@@CameronsCookingChannel Check out the Cowboy Economist "How to tell if someone is a socialist" not only is it a good laugh it's also thought-provoking.
@@kyron42 it depends on the sector. There's hundreds of economic sectors to go over but a big one that you didn't mention which in my opinion is even a greater case for public ownership is utilities. Electricity, cell networks, water systems, garbage, etc. These areas benefit the most from monopolization due to economies of scale, as it doesn't make sense to have multiple networks /grids/etc. It's wasteful spending. That's a good indicator to see how something will benefit from socializing. If the sector favors monopolization to run more efficiently and provide a better service, maybe we should look into socializing it.
She's speaking in circles. WHAT do you want to see to happen? Enough critiques. Yes. Capitalism is imperfect. What does Clara actually want? She can't say. Briahna doesn't care what happens to Ukraine, so why does she care about its economics?
I asked this on Wisecrack, and I want the Bad Faith community to provide their thoughts on the following: When people discuss capitalism, are they referring to commerce? Commerce is just trading things back and forth. It has existed before capitalism, and it exists in places we wouldn't even call "capitalist countries" Capitalism isn't commerce.
