Weekly Roundup: December 8, 2021

Check out the latest content from Democracy at Work.

New this week: Economic Update, Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, All Things Co-op, Global Capitalism & Ask Prof Wolff...

Check out the latest content from Democracy at Work!

Economic Update: Class Struggles in the US Today

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff talks about teacher burnout economics, inflation as an employer-employee fight, the "labor shortage" isn't, "Build Back Better" does not begin to approach what Europe already has, the basic political economy of last November's elections, the critique of obscene wealth.

Wolff: "We live in a society that produces, promotes and celebrates obscene wealth. And here's the irony. We are poorer as a country because of it.”

Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Monopolistic Competition

In this episode of ACC, Prof. Harvey speaks about monopolistic competition and its impact on market pricing and location. All monopolistic competition is spacial competition that creates a highly unstable economy and has a tendency to produce conglomerations in rich locations.

Harvey: "I've often gone to beaches now and I always look where the ice cream sellers are located and they're always located in the center, because this is the nature of monopolistic competition. But this is not optimal from the standpoint of the consumers. In other words the social optimum, which would have you spread out on the beach, is violated by the competitive optimum which means that two of them [move] together."

All Things Co-op: An Interview with Patrick Conlon of WORCS

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Larry and Kevin talk to Patrick Conlon of Worker Ownership Resources and Cooperative Services, otherwise known as WORCS.

Patrick Conlon: "People don't like capitalism anymore. That's one thing that I've noticed. It's kind of a current where a lot of people are noticing that the current situation is just unacceptable... The material conditions seem to be the driving factor of a lot of these things, of why people are interested in worker co-ops.”

Global Capitalism: The Competition Between China and the U.S.

Prof Wolff takes a look at where the United States and China are competing, and how they are influencing the rest of the world. Only time will tell what strategies will determine the future of this relationship.

Wolff: “There is a fundamentally different strategy emerging on the part of China versus the United States in their struggle, given their interdependence and given their competition... They are trying to compete around the world by developing a different kind of society.”

Ask Prof Wolff: High Costs of Restaurant Dinners

A Patron of Economic Update asks: Hi Prof. Wolff, I came across the following article from the restaurants specialized magazine 'Food service equipment' where they point out the increase of restaurants that charge, on average, £200+ per head. How can this be explained when the global economy has been badly affected by Covid? https://www.foodserviceequipmentjournal.com" This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.

Wolff: “The reality has been that the inequality of these capitalist economies has gotten markedly worse- pretty steadily for the last several decades. That's why you can look around you and see so many signs of either bad income, or excessive debt, or insecure jobs or all the rest of the realities around us, and yet also read about 200 British pounds-per-person restaurant dinners. For those at the top, the system has worked pretty well.”