KPFA's Salima Hamirani speaks with Prof. Wolff about the state of politics in the US and his ideas for rewriting the economic script in the country. His latest book is Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.
KPFA's Salima Hamirani speaks with Prof. Wolff about the state of politics in the US and his ideas for rewriting the economic script in the country. His latest book is Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.
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We are so close to collapse that it would be a waste of time, energy and breath to refute these illogical statements. Capitalism is a vast Ponzi scheme that has only succeeded as far as it has through the systematic looting of the worlds resources.
What you equate as “communism” is merely a “State Capitalism” rather than a “Corporate Capitalism”. Its simply a slightly different version of Capitalism and is neither democratic, nor communal economics. Dressing up a defense of capitalism with a professional sounding vocabulary is merely attempting to make a silk purse out of a “sows ear”.
The problem is much broader than a new economic system. It hinges upon the character of mankind. Capitalism is easily refutable not only intellectually, or economically, or even ethically….its not spiritually defensible.
Your argument is about as pertinent as quibbling over how many humans were killed in a genocidal act. Does it really matter?
Here I go again….shame on me. This is as useful as arguing with a termite about the flavor of oak!
But you are right about one thing. Capitalism is the natural order of things, and there is the problem. As long as greed and self-interest dominate the motivation of man, such economic systems will be the norm, with all the evils they produce.
A deep study of Scriptural wisdom is the only path toward enlightenment…..Proverbs 9:10 !
Capital accumulating rapidly is the most valuable type of capital to the economy. There is a multiplier effect. Marginal utility of money should be zero when one has more money they could possibly spend, right? Wrong! Capital is the measure and means of society and it has its own needs and wants. Shackle capital, rob capital, throw it to the mob to be divied up and wasted, and the mob rises less than society itself sinks. The best evidence for this tack is the loser in the Cold War. Mr. Wolff’s great good friends.
America is not “open” to communism, there is no sudden political opportunity for communism’s ascendance. There is only naïveté. We don’t all forget the lessons of the past, especially the painful lessons, like ivory tower dreamy economists like Wolff hope or suppose.
Our capitalism is not dying. It is vigorous, striving. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Hillary Clinton: people of achievement, people of renown. We’ve tried your communist alternative. It sounded good, but surely it is dead, dead, dead, everyone a slave to the state is not the panacea it was thought to be by ivory tower economists. Capital is not collapsing, either. Far from it, with institutional strength and political accommodation, it thrives.
I provided the Federal Reserve Board with Quantitative Easing to provide monetary policy tools. Let me be the economist. Humanity needs the smart capital of smart people. Theft is not democracy. Capitalism is not in opposition to democracy. Capitalism is the life’s blood of democracy. Communism is not and never will be “a democratic workplace”. Capitalism is not a zero sum game, assume that and be condemned to repeat the red error of the last century of conflict, terror, and mass deaths. China suffered its worst famines not in ancient untutored times, but in the late fifties and early sixties misguided by communism.
Look at the track records of armies run by vote of the troops vs armies ruled by Napoleon. Our own country’s experience with the inefficiencies of militia vs standing armies in direct battle. Capitalism is the natural order of things, a natural hierarchy of efficiency far more beneficial to humanity that communism ever was. Red science lags, always lagging, catching up, inefficient, old fashioned, obsolete.
Money is not obscene, money is merely accounting. Applying normatives, calling it names, merely seeks to excuse confiscation and application of capital to suboptimal purposes.
Our capitalist system is not incompatible with slave societies and feudalism, either. There has been no evolution from one to another. Indeed, transactions of both those systems are capitalist. There is no exclusiveness. Even in communism, capitalism’s insidious efficiency undermines the hoped for goals of red leadership because communism itself is incompatible with human life. No communist society ever existed that didn’t have surpluses of people to be exiled, killed, or otherwise disposed of.
Silly yankee. Tricks are for kids.