Weekly Roundup: August 10, 2022

Check out the latest content from Democracy at Work.

New this week: Economic Update, Cities After..., Global Capitalism & Ask Prof Wolff...

Check out the latest content from Democracy at Work!

Economic Update: Noam Chomsky on Fragile US Empire

Prof. Wolff gives updates on US freight workers strike preparations; progressives and labor targeting municipal government; Chipotle store-closing to stop unionizing, and Occupy Wall Street's "Debt Collective" $5.8 billion student loan forgiveness win. In the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff interviews Noam Chomsky on the decline and fragility of the US empire, the role of US military, and the rise of fascism as a coping mechanism.

Chomsky: “It's very interesting to see how in the internally dysfunctional United States this problem is being faced. So, it's commonly observed that Congress is dysfunctional. Can't do anything. That's a curious way of saying that the Republican Party has simply gone off the rails... The name for them? That's outright fascism, not proto-fascism."

Cities After… Animated on YouTube!

We're bringing our podcast Cities After... to YouTube! With new, animated graphics to accompany your podcast listening, you can enjoy the work of Miguel Robles-Durán as he dives into the future of cities and allows us to imagine both the dystopian and utopian possibilities for our urban environments.

Watch episodes 1-8 on YouTube today!

Global Capitalism: Economics of a Culture War

Prof Wolff explains why capitalism is the key to understanding why the employees of this country have become so divided by cultural beliefs recently.

Wolff: “So we developed in this country the left wing into anti-racism, anti-sexism, environmentalism, but a right wing that wanted to re-establish the good old days economically by having a job that was secure with benefits. They never got that. They couldn't get it. It was not there, and you know what happened to them because they could not get economic restitution, because they could not reverse their decline economically? They became all the more- here we go now- enraged about the denial of their culture: their culture of patriotism, their culture of white supremacy, their culture of religious fundamentalism.”

Ask Prof Wolff: Will Politicians Ever Stand Up to Big Business?

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "I am confused by the 7/12/22 article in the Washington Post: 'Republicans threaten Wall Street over climate positions' by Steven Mufson (https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment). Are Republicans really turning on their Wall Street backers? Are the big banks really concerned enough about climate change to do something meaningful at the expense of profits? It doesn't seem likely." This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.

Wolff: “All that's being exchanged are some words. Nothing is going to change in what gets actually done and therefore, it's all a kind of shadow boxing. It is possible of course that a kind of split will develop that goes further than that. We haven't seen that for at least the last half to full century, so it's not something you should expect around the corner. But it could happen.”