Weekly Roundup: October 6, 2021

Check out the latest content from Democracy at Work.

New this week: Economic Update, Capitalism Hits Home, Cities After..., Ten Years Ago, Ask Prof Wolff & Wolff Responds...

Check out the latest content from Democracy at Work!

Economic Update: Native Americans & American Socialists

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff present updates on global supply chain slow-downs; student costs/debts in US, UK far higher than in most peer nations; FED adds inflation to the ways its policies worsen income and wealth inequalities; and lastly, higher gun sales and violence since 1990s despite the dramatic declines in violent crime rate. The second half of the show features an interview with Michelle Vassel (administrator of Wiyot tribe) and David Cobb (Director of Cooperation Humboldt) on their ongoing political collaborations.

Cobb: "I want to transform this place... The reality is it has been an extractive, brutal, oppressive economic paradigm, known as capitalism by the way, that literally began to destroy this place. The Wiyot tribe threw their work at Tuluwat island to actually take an EPA hazardous site and turn it into a flourishing, ecological place that allowed the return of the renewal ceremony. That's the way forward.”

Capitalism Hits Home: Capitalism & Patriarchy - Cuomo, Cosby, Weinstein & Epstein

Capitalism is a class system of a small employer class making profit from the labor of a huge class of employees, who depend on employers for survival. Patriarchy is a system in which men are entitled to appropriate services from women who are considered less than fully human. Both systems interact to shape rampant sexual abuse. In this episode of CHH, Dr. Fraad explores expressions of patriarchy and capitalism in the much publicized cases of Cuomo, Cosby, Weinstein, and Epstein.

Fraad: "He used capitalist pressure to press his patriarchal privilege. And so, you can see the mutual shaping here of a system of patriarchy demoting women to a less than human status and capitalism using employer status on women to get them to sexually comply.”

Cities After... Post-Pandemic Urbanization: Spectacles, Speculation & Tourism - Pt 3

In this episode, Prof. Robles-Durán talks about the startling urban and socio-environmental consequences of mass tourism before, during and after the pandemic. He emphasizes four key contradictions: 1) The global privatization of local cultures; 2) Labor, Technology and Digitalization; 3) Alienation in The production of Infinite spectacles; 4) Environmental needs and its Destruction.

Robles-Durán: “Under capitalism, surplus accumulation, or profit, is realized by the guaranteed and sustained exploitation of labor power, by the high availability of unskilled unorganized labor in poor countries, and that makes tourism even more profitable… The working class majority, which supported the high revenues of the tourist industry, are the ones bearing the socioeconomic consequences of this unsustainable industry.”

Ten Years Ago: The Cost of Education [10th Anniversary of Economic Update]

In this video celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Economic Update, Prof Wolff analyzes what has remained the same about the cost of education these last ten years and what it means for Americans and the country’s economy at large.

Wolff: “The United States, it could be argued, is literally undercutting its own future, shooting itself in the foot by this crazy notion that we can charge whatever we want for higher education and either the students won't go or will burden them with debt that will distort their life choices for years afterwards.”

Ask Prof Wolff: The Conservative Libertarian Hustle

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "Could you respond to Rand Paul's Town Hall video about the $3.5 Trillion spending bill. I find it to be a blatant misdirection of blame to the gov't instead of employers in the country. Clip: fb.watch/89IjRqxxm0; Full video: youtu.be/QyShuvxEUUs." This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.

Wolff: “The job of the conservative libertarian is to make sure that every problem capitalism has and offloads onto the working class leads the working class to blame somebody other than the capitalist system. Because that's what conservative libertarianism is there to preserve at all costs.”

Ask Prof Wolff: The Contribution of Antonio Gramsci

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "Could you comment on the relevance of Antonio Gramsci to today's struggles for socialism? How do his theories address some of the failures of socialism in developed countries over the last one hundred years?" This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.

Wolff: “He studied literature, and poetry, and music, and the Roman Catholic Church, and the liturgy, and everything that shapes how people see the world so that he could add a subjective Marxist analysis about the possibilities of revolution to the traditional objective analysis of what's possible. And that led to vast new openings of research that many, many Marxists ever since then have been developing further, so that the tradition now is much more balanced between objective and subjective.”

Wolff Responds: Huge Berlin Victory for Public Housing

In this Wolff Responds, Prof. Wolff discusses the recent referendum in Berlin, and what the outcome means for public housing in Germany and the rest of the world.

Wolff: “This is a real blow to those who want to make out of housing what they've already made out of food, and water, and what they've made out of other necessities of life: a profit making opportunity… It is an enormous victory and step forward for those who want to make housing a basic human right and not a profit opportunity for a small minority of the population.”