Lex had some chances here to ask imo some very powerful questions. For example, where does competency fit in this framework? If I do things better, do I get more? If I get more, do I get to decide what I do with the more I get? If not who decides what happens to the more I earned? Exploitation isn’t the only means to get more, it may be the worse kind of way to get more but not the only way right?
If you're making food for you and your friends, why would you want more? Someone else could have volunteered to cook, and they would have let everyone have equal amounts.
@@ConnoisseurOfExistence because I'm rewarded my achieving....it is a basic characteristic of who i am...i understand that it's a difficult concept to grasp...but some people are innately ambitious...they like to "do"....why would you want to stifle that? And better yet...isnt there an amount of arrogancy is thinking your status quo should be the standard for everyone? Also....i want more for when there is less....
You ask good questions. I think the problem is that Marx analysed factory work in the beginning of industrialism: There was no room for competency, actually the work had been cut into small pieces so there were no space for individual differences. Wolff generalises Marxses analysis for all kinds of work in an market economy, that might be a problem. The mechanisms of exploitation are clear in this rudimentary factory work, not in all work IMO. Your questions bring out the fact that Marxian analysis might not be the right tool of analysis for all kinds of work.
As a person born to the African continent without any choice this explanation lays down beautifully how many of us feel about being the richest continent in terms of resources yet we have no damn say in how much we get or what to do with it.
@@Nocturnus6355 if being resource rich is the only thing that matters than it would've been the Africans going to Europe to enslave them. The lesson is not that humans are cruel, everyone knows that. It's that there is more to being rich that just having all the resources you can get your hands on.
You can tell Richard wolf has never run a successful business in the way he preaches. Or ever had to manage a crew of individuals to build something. All he has ever produced is noise. Never take advice on building something from somebody who never has. Now if you want to learn how to become a carear academic follow his blueprint.
He is criticizing the structure of capitalism itself. Why would he want to play a game of Monopoly knowing that his belief is against it? You assume that his failure or the lack of trying to create a business lead him to his philosophy which just completely robs you of learning about his perspective. In my eyes, people who dont relate to the side effects of capitalism are very likely to have had it good and would likely credit themselves for their own success. Success in a capitalist environment is not 100% controllable. Not everyone has access to it.
How do you know this? He runs a few businesses such as Economic Update with Wolff. Also, Wolff in his other works gives examples of how democracy in the workplace has worked in the past and now (Mondragon). He also acknowledges that innovation slows down in a democratic workplace; however, you also get a better environment and happier people who can enjoy their lives more, pursue interests, be with familles, and so on.
@@aklem001 he doesn’t run his TH-cam page as a democratized business. Otherwise he would tout that fact. He runs his business like any good entrepreneur and capitalist. People can say whatever they want. It’s what they do that matters. I wonder if he takes advantage of tax write offs or if he strokes a check for the full amount. 🤷
@@cryptobref lol. The smart phone was inevitable no matter who put their name on it. Steve Jobs didnt invent anything - the scientists working for him did.
@@1nfty- I am not a Marxist, I do not agree with Marx in the book Capital in which Marx like classical economists (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus) do not consider consumer relations and the chain of commodity value generation. The example of the cow is an allegory for the sentence: That the means of production belong to the workers without the segregation between capitalist and worker, because for Marx he approves that the same individual is both a worker (the one who offers the labor power) and a capitalist (one who owns the means of production).
@@1nfty- yup, it's the Ponzi scheme of "socialism" these intellectuals sell to College kids, thing is nothing is free, somebody always has to pay, and these kids grow up never learning that lesson even through adulthood.
It only makes sense in the mind of someone who does not and has not ever produced anything of value or made any positive contributions to our economy. Its the mind set of a human leech.
There is no employer in this equation. Or rather the employer is your fellow workers. Organisation is led by other workers who are trained and elected in to administorial roles.
Did the workers pay for the raw materials and means of production? Did the workers invent the supply chain, or the machines they are using, or the products they are assembling? If no, the work they did was only one small piece of the puzzle so that does not entitle them to all the value produced.
December 1861 Abe Lincoln's letter to the congress of the U.S. "Labor is prior to and independent of capital, capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much of the higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln 1861.
But did the ceo turn ras materials into goods? No. Workers could do all of that. Or maybe a manager. The issue is not authority or leadership itself but the lack of accountability. We dont vote in managers or ceos.
Slaves, serfs, and employees are a historical progression. The Roman Empire was built on slaves, who were paid with housing and food. Medieval kingdoms were built on serfs, who were paid with land. Post enlightenment societies were built on workers, paid with currency.
@@obrokbobama6203 The issue here is that Slaves, Serfs, and Workers (modern crapitalism) have 2 things in common: First they are all in the majority and have little to no power in the society. Second, slaves, serfs, and workers (the working class of today) all toil and they produce a surplus which they themselves do not get.
I agree that most workers and consumers are being exploited and it’s an age old problem. On the other hand however, people (it seems) are perfectly happy being slaves (employees) as long as they don’t get beaten too much. When your an employee, you work and then go home and forget (usually). When your a business owner (employer) you are responsible 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Most people just don’t want to be a business owner of one.
Do you think if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos dies today, to use big capitalists for example, Amazon or Tesla takes a hit? My bet is on no, they would just keep existing normally. Elon Musk kinda showed that a capitalist actually working is a bad idea on the Twitter fiasco haha
A person applies for a job at a company knowing what the employer produces. The employer offers the new employee a wage and benefit package based on their skill set and experience level. The new employee willingly accepts the pay and benefit package being offered. Paperwork is signed followed by a handshake. The employee agreed to the terms of employment and can leave anytime they so choose. Someone please explain how that translates into slavery or theft by the employer.
What about the person who created the system so 1 million chairs could be built? Creating a system like this is complex and difficult. It requires an enormous investment of capital and intelligence. What about their compensation? Taking the surplus isn't theft. It is payment for the difficult work and investment and risk that occurred. The average person building a chair in a factory has no concept of efficient manufacturing, investing capital, or managing people. Surplus is payment for the acquisition and deployment of enormously difficult skills. Building a chair is easy. Building a system that manufactures a million chairs is tremendously difficult. Almost impossible.
Ability is not valued in this system. Need is. That's why it fails. Unless creating more needy individuals depended upon the state is considered success.
The point he is making is why should only the innovator (or someone else) have a say in how the surplus is used? Why not all the people it took to produce the surplus.
Richard is quite getting to the core. It reminds me of Jordan P asking “how far can you go to the left before it get’s ugly? Let’s start with property and determining who decides when what is mine and what is yours”.
well it depends, in a world where we face problems of abundance and not scarcity I, personally, feel less a need to own/protect/be selfish of what I have when it can be easily replaced. Get with the times.
Are you talking about a physical death? Yes, he's dead. But his soul still lives in our hearts. You need to clarify this in order to be more precise with your argument. RIP MB.
His arguments completely ignore the role of innovation, which is the foundation of all prosperity. A modern combine makes the "stuff", of 1000 workers. If Marxism was a minor branch of labor relations, it'd be reasonable. But building a society around it is insane.
It does not. If you watch the whole podcast, he carefully gives out positive points of capitalism. Having good results however, does not bullet proof capitalism from criticism
@@taughtbytragedy And at any point is he critical of his beloved Marxism? Nope. Even when directly asked by Lex why Marxist and Communist leaders often turn out to be evil monsters, Wolff blames Capitalism. To Wolff, Marxism is a non-theistic religion. He is pathologically incapable of realizing and/or admitting its obvious flaws.
I think the point he is getting at is there are social issues that happen in society and we can't just ignore them. Do I believe going to the level he's talking about, no. But it's a fine balance running a productive economy and dealing with social issues because neither one can be ignored or there will be issues on both sides.
@@airtimebt4306 hey nobody needs your nuanced view here, you're either with us or your against us, and you need to decide now.... Then I just spontaneously shout "USA! USA! USA!" Until you're with us. Works everytime 😉.
@@jjrossitee For sure, that's how it feels now days. You can't have a view on anything without being attacked by someone or group. Even if you don't pick a side you are still the enemy.
sooo, what then? i suffered from idealism for a few years. horrible disease. ideals are good to set a direction but never should they presume they can be a goal. the endpoint can't exist. ever. it will move and so it will cause deep discontentment which leads to someone getting thankfully strangled.
@@antonleimbach648 When thinking of governments or social structures the only ideal i can imagine working is live and let live but would everyone agree with that? No. Especially if it involves children or animals or pyschedelic substances. then people are very in other peoples business. So, what ideal can you give that will satisfy everyone? Is it truly achievable? Equality of outcome is a joke as a goal. That would be horrible oppression. I am fairly certain there will be consequences that would happen if almost any goal was achieved that would not be favorable to everyone. Therefore perhaps the ideal could be to accept differing opinion and beliefs, right? My basic point is that a person can want too much, get caught up in an OPINION and become affected negatively by comparing what is to what they wish it is and this produces people that go out and scream thier heads off like a nutter because they think life is full of boogeymen. Most idealists seem to be out of touch with the complexity of society, national, and global structures and fail to account for human nature within those structures. Nature is a beast and man is an animal and power is the language that never becomes obsolete. Ideals are good to work towards. That is useful. Peoples and cultures change. Ideals change. Always will there be movement toward something. Never will the ideal be agreed on nor reached. Theres a bit of maturing necessary to come to that viewpoint naturally i assume, but it seems rational enough explained and the more i think on it, the more i feel it is correct. Its my own theory so ive no one to blame for thinking it, lol
@@drewhester6836 all good and well as long proper incentives exist at all levels and for all necessary required occupations. there is undoubtedly some positions that require more time more accountability responsibility and stress kills, it needs rewarded differently to assume more risk or unpleasentness, although you can fill some of those roles by having a surplus of starving people that will do anything to survive...
He has some very important points. Our country was at its strongest when Unions were at their highest membership. By shipping jobs overseas, moving both political parties to the far right, and ensuring anti labor judges were elected, corporate America has destroyed the middle class.
I think Richard really misses the mark here, his examples are from the same 19th century economy that Marx was writing about. The economy he describes largely no longer exists in the modern West, most production is through the provision of services and a great deal of compensation is through equity ownership. In the modern economy I believe key problem is automation and the rise of zero or negative marginally producing workers. The most productive workers in the 21st century are vastly more productive than 19th century workers. However if we moved to a system where workers kept their entire surplus, I'd expect inequality to get much worse. The people who create and manage the machines / algorithms are wildly more productive than others. People don't make chairs anymore, machines make chairs and people manage those machines, along with supply chains, insurance, finance and marketing. Based on his logic it would be these already highly paid workers who are being exploited and therefore deserve a greater share. While historically important I think Marxism is largely irrelevant for describing the 21st century economy.
I agree, Richard Wolff is so into Marx's perspective, that he has a childlike view of things. We now have a global economy, if we, in the West decided to deal with the ice cream cones in a different way, many people would not have ice cream cones to eat. We are largely consumers in the West, we make less as each year goes by, so the West's key value is being able to keep your wealth inside countries/economies, that are respectful of ownership, so money flows from East to West, whilst manufacturing flows from West to East. If you take time to observe what people do, you will see the huge swings in productivity, so in essence, as you allude to, the productive people get to share the spoils of their output, which arguably, is capitalism. I guess if Marx was alive today, he would be asking who owns the machines that create 'the more', (the surplus)? One key point that is rarely discussed by Wolff and his ilk, is the concept of pensions and retirement. i.e. if you make chairs, and you were allowed to keep your 'more,' (the surplus), to provide for you in later life, then where would you store them, and how would you know if it would be worth anything in forty years time? Finally, the concept of who owns 'the more' is such a nuanced issue, its all very well to talk about chairs, but who looked after the woods/forest that produced the raw materials to make your chairs, who made the lathe that turned the wood, and who decided whose forest it was in the first place? Exploitation is not necessarily a zero-sum game, and this is where Karl Marx was fundamentally incorrect in his writings.
I agree, this is not the best example, which is sad because he had a great opportunity here, basically what he's trying to say is that capitalism has run its course and the workers are worse off than ever while the owners are better than ever, but of course this isn't a bug, this is the GOAL of capitalism. It's time we moved onto socialism which means that workplaces are democratized and owned by the workers not the shareholders and ceo's so you, as a worker can be properly compensated for the work you do rather than arbitrarily given a wage (wages that are often stolen as wage theft is the most common and financially damaging type of theft in the world, people working off the clock, not being paid enough or given proper raises etc) When the workers own and run the work place and each have a vote and say in how it's run, not only does it run better and more efficiently you have happier more productive workers who are working together (rather than competing with eachother for money or the boss's favor) and they make better money and work less hours because there isn't as much overhead going into the CEO's bonuses. I can explain more if you have questions, I'm really disappointed in Richard Wolff here, he's normally better at this, I'm going to react to these videos on my channel and post links in the comments because I see a lot of comments misunderstanding him Here's a link to Richard's channel where you can find videos that explain this idea better in the meantime though th-cam.com/users/democracyatwrk
The workers are only helping the company with tasks, and for that, they get paid a salary that they agreed to before accepting the job. They're not creating anything. If they did, they would-be business owners with their own creations.
No. I don't like Wolff, but there are jobs in which an employee creates. I'm a jeweler, I design, take raw material, and create jewelry with it. Some jobs are just tasks, others there is a creative process and a product created.
Then we have Lex giving us quality and somebody i would've never known about but also i can immediately hear the confidence in his ability and wants me to know more
The guy has never owned or run a business. He doesn't actually know what he's talking about, regardless of how entertaining you find him or how carefully he chooses his words.
@@jessemccord1878 I see you parroting the other people in this comments who also missed the point. He is essentially saying mankind is not ready for communism as historically and currently there will always be someone up the top exploiting the working class.
@@CFox.7 Nah. He's making excuses as to why his beloved Marxism has failed in practice EVERYTIME its been implemented in the real world. It CAN'T be that the system is garbage, its because the world just isn't ready for something so amazing!!! Laughable...
@@jessemccord1878owning a business isn’t a prerequisite for talking about how businesses run. By that same logic everyone who had run a business should therefore only be able to talk about the very specific kind of business they ran.
The question in 2:58. Doesn't Zipf have something to do with this? Meaning you get many parts of the system so distribution follows a curve due to the fact that logistics and all other stuff matters in reality.
I mean this brings up a great point, perhaps the surplus shouldn't be totally owned by the creators, but some portion of it may be controlled by the innovator as to still encourage entrpreneurship. Yes though, currently the surplus creates a class of 1% that owns more than the bottom like 90% which is just absurd. Like if you want the country to fall apart then continue down this path. No one saying the guy who came up with the idea shouldn't get rewarded for his risk, but at a certain point he doesn't own all the work that people spend their whole lives doing, that is thieft. Like how much value did Bezos put into Amazon, maybe 10 billion dollars worth, why does he continue to get all the wealth generated by his workers 20 years later, eventually 50 years later? How is it he owns all the productivity his workers do. At a certain point they together have done more to create success for the company than Bezos had, and they should be entitled to some portion of that if not all at a certain point in time.
Bezos' worth isn't from profit. It is from founding the #1 company to work for in the United States for several years running, according to Americans in private surveys. Whatever that stock blooms to, him and his employees and investors deserve what they make. If it all goes bad somehow, they will suffer that loss.
Read Kant (idealism is a philosophical term describing the belief that we construct the world with our minds, with variations on that theme). Oh, you mean pie-in-the-sky? That's because capitalists kill socialists whenever they can and people say "look, it doesn't work!". They kill them because they know once it works somewhere, everyone will want it. Who wants an asshole dictator boss that can fire you to maintain his profits while you lose your house? No thanks, I'd rather live in a democracy.
I don't understand how you can conveniently ignore the fact that the employer paid for the raw materials, supplied the tools, paid the workers for their time and paid for the factory where the things are created. He doesn't "get" the surplus, he already has it. And if he could sell it to the workers, he would because it's a liability to him. What you are saying is that he should pay for all that AND give it to the workers because they "built" it.
The employer is living in luxury while the workers starve, they have a base of cash and are lying about their true wealth, I've lost 20 pounds because I'm not making enough money to afford basic supplies, f you you fingers liar.
Without the labour to transform the raw materials into a finished product, no amount of capital will do that for the capitalist. It’s quite simple. Why should the person doing nothing to add value to the finished goods be the sole benefactor of the fruit of labour?
@@francofavot6761 Straw man. There may be a few cases where you can find an owner sitting back and letting everyone else make money for him. But that is not the norm. His goal is to create an income stream and, once that is rolling, go create another one. They enjoy the process of creation. And yes, without laborers, it is difficult to do something like this at scale. However, the value of that labor is collective, not individual. Meaning an individual contributor is not valuable, and their value is further eroded by how easy they are to replace. And sometimes that replacement is a machine, especially if the ROI happens relatively quickly. If your job function can be automated away within a year, then even the collective value is near zero.
What he fails to realises is whoever carry’s the risk of starting the company should reap the most reward. If the employees don’t like it they should their own company
I agree. He should get more. But not more than 12x more the employee with smallest salary. That woud be a huge step. But now go and look, how many x's more our techies, banksters etc. take from the pay and come back to me and say, that thats okay because of the risk. no way. Like he says: "Es geht schief!" and we need to fix this as a society!
The risk of starting a company is mostly based on the initial capital at hand, which only the rich have to start with. Within the capitalist system, poor people are forced to be poor, not by choice. The rich are able to start a company and get richer.
I like Richard Wolff, but I think he oversimplifies the production of goods and value. There are many people/roles besides labor that contribute to the creation of new value, while he seems to imply that labor is the only value adding contributor, while all levels of management, organization "above" it are simply exploiting that labor. I would be interested to hear how his proposed system would work in a real production setting, and how he values the contributions of supervisors, managers, marketing, logistics, etc.
I agree with the over simplified bit. I was under the impression wolff’s “surplus” he is referring to was basic needs/products. Maslow: Food, shelter, medicine. The surpluses in these markets are going to the people rigging the market.
the roles are inverted, now are the workers who decide if they need a manager to manage or marketer to market, at that point they democratically decide how much to pay to the now worker, based on the real contribution they have on the production and selling of the stuffs, not those big ass salaries auto entitled to themselves.
If it is necessary, it is also labour. But workers' ownership over the means of production would significantly redefine what work, especially managerial, is necessary. Check out "Bulshit jobs" by David Graeber.
Economics like time, population, prices and profit are in fact numbers and this is essential to get right. It is the truth and if the ideas "don't add up" to truth, you are mistaken that this philosophy is valid or even ethical. This is one of the key ways marxist economic philosophy is unethical and immoral. The other way these ideas are wrong is because the violate people's human rights.
I don't think he fits in 'the poor'. He's probably living just fine in one of the richest countries in the world. He is crazy far from 'the poor'. In capitalism, the victim is the working class.
The word stolen implies that you can identify something which has been stolen. Or appropriated. If I work 10 bucks an hour, how do I know I’ve been robbed of 20? Professor Wolff would argue that if the cost of the goods sold was purely your labor, the capitalist would have appropriated 10 from you. If that’s the case, why would I work for anyone? I could have sold my services directly to the market for 20 all the same. But we all know that’s not feasible. It’s never an instance of labor or raw materials or even capital machinery being the sole determinant of price. What academics who’ve never had to do a real job in real life failed to identify is the value of “risk”. Risk yields reward. Not everyone is willing to invest in innovation, new products, advancement, improvement etc etc. those who are willing to take the chance (capitalists) ought to be rewarded. And we all know that not everyone can take risks, but everyone can perform labor. The economic contribution to any markets must account for Function (labor), Assets (capital) and Risk. That’s why any non oppressive democratic free system to trade economic surpluses, will invariably gives rise to a capitalist class. There will always be possibility of winners and risk of losers in a competitive system. Even in cooperatives competing with other cooperatives, the risk would certainly be priced in.
There are many more people willing to take risk and having good ideas, than the count of those who can financially afford to take risk. That invalidates your argument. The opportunity for taking risk isn't distributed fairly.
@@ConnoisseurOfExistence I’m simply pointing out the “theft” analysis on value and surplus of labor fundamentally discounts risk as a relevant consideration. I don’t think the uneven distribution of opportunity in anyway explains away the gap in any Marxist’s analysis over the importance of risk in any economic activity. I do agree however, that there is a legitimate area of discussion over the distribution of opportunity.
@@cesarvarela Wouldn't be better to compete through games and sports for your own pleasure, rather than be forced to compete for survival? Wouldn't you be more free and happier if your survival didn't *depend* on competition?
This guy is so angry. If only he was dictator of the world and could rearrange every aspect of everyones lives in every country, city, town and village on the planet, then we would have nothing to feel sad about 😆
not quite sure if it's just me but this guy is somewhat hard to understand. it's like he's talking a lot without saying a whole bunch of anything. how does that surplus that workers create go to the rich in modern times? he didn't seem to actually explain this fact and its ramifications.
Durrr... The problem arises when in a town of 10,000 a town can only support so many fast food joints. You want to start up another... then you need to leave town for a bigger town. This is the ponzi scheme which requires population growth.. through immigration in mostly.. Result ? overpopulated, polluted world, but who gives a fk yeah ?
Doesn’t matter how much you produce, in order for a capitalist to maximize profits for their shareholders they have to pay you the least amount possible for your labor. Kind of the whole point. 😂
I think the most important part of the capitalist system is making those responsible for decisions benefit when they make a surplus and suffer when they have a deficit. This whole argument leaves out the loss part, most businesses fail. This means that the employees were being paid more than they were producing, the net result of their labor was a deficit and they were rewarded for it. "20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years."
Workers's cooperatives are known to be the most resilient businesses. That's because workers want to keep the jobs and their communities, so they shrink their salaries in crisis times. On the other hand, private employers just lay people off, close the shop, or move the production to another country. Check Mondragon or Emilia Romagna's eco-system of cooperatives.
@@ljubog one isn't more resilient than the other, they're just resilient in different ways. Cutting employees and moving production abroad to weather a storm is being resilient. Workers co-ops are less vulnerable in one sense, its difficult for them to obtain debt so they're less likely to be in debt, in times of crisis you can cut back everything except debt servicing.
The extra does go to the workers: the factory owner opens up another factory therefore employing more people. He also buys a Ferrari, and so the Ferrari employees get to have jobs too. Employees don't necessarily know the best way to use the surplus but the employer does sure know how to build something from nothing, so he has proven that he can make good choices.
Extremely basic generalisation based on a the assumption of an ever expanding market. Besides, the Ferrari is not the best use over all of all available resources - materials, brainpower.
@@Clyman974 I dont get supercars. So low to the ground, cant open them up anywhere due to speed cameras. On top of that I date girls with brains who aint impressed by cars. Besides, that new super affordable roadster by Tesla will cream all them all on the strip. Whats the point ?
@@CFox.7 @C Fox Some people like them, some people don't, it doesn't have to please everyone to exist. Also some people buy cars to actually drive them and have fun, not to impress girls
His first assumption is off enough to form the wrong conclusion. Without partnering up, we are left out in the wild to fend for ourselves and the situation is far from good. There is no excess in 99% of cases. A small portion of people create excess and most do not. And to make matters worse, it’s very difficult to know where you fall on that spectrum. It’s not a simple calculation. Value is best measured by price but even that’s not perfect, and if it was, how do you allocate the price to the various participants indirectly and directly involved with the product or service? And if you’re on the wrong end of the excess or shortage spectrum, life is dangerous. The employer/employee relationship significantly reduces this risk for employees and the employer gets the return for lowering this risk. Communism says, lower the risk for me, but if I happen to be on the good side of the spectrum, I still want to keep the excess. That doesn’t work. If you want the excess, then bet on yourself, quit your job, and open up your own business. You’ll quickly learn how hard it truly is to create the excess he makes sound so easy. Capitalism has its flaws for sure. But you’re going to have to do better than this. We need something better than capitalism, not dumber, and until then, I’ll stick with capitalism.
There is so much wrong with this I honestly don’t know where to begin. Given the blatant inequality in our society as well as the ecological devastation seen around the world any human being with half of a brain can see that promoting and/or maintaining a system of infinite growth while being on a finite planet is problematic to say the least.
The workers are not producing 100% of the product by themselves. Why would they get 100% of the surplus? They are compensated for their portion of the labor. There are many more inputs than labor in the making of a product.
Much respect for the professor and Lex . However as many people have noted .This discussion is not relevant to todays problems. The main question not addressed is . What political/ economic system will save the Aspirations and Hope for a better future for all Working Peoples in 2022 !! With AI and fantastic productivity in most countries now , and with an educated and informed population, what Laws must be enacted to Redistribute this increased a wealth fairly !! The Gap between classes is increasing and with it violence , homelessness, drug addiction and poverty . Freedom by itself is vague and is not the answer . Redistribute Now !!!!
I always find that when people ask why the surplus isn’t distributed amongst the workers, why don’t the workers make a business? They have the skills and labour, so why not form their own competing business where they get the dividends due to their invested capital? Apparently making a successful business at be harder than that.
Wealth distribution being badly done in this country does not take into account the fact that wealth is not a fixed pie. It's constantly growing as we create new avenues of wealth in the digital age. Just look at this country's GDP in the 1950's and compare it to today. We're a much bigger, much wealthier country from the value creation that has taken place by new industries forming new businesses that no one could have imagined in Marx's time. The tech industry is a prime example.
Kradzione nikogo jeszcze w życiu nie uszczęśliwiło i nie uszczęśliwi a za wszystko co robimy w naszym życiu ponosimy odpowiedzialność w taki czy też inny sposób , prędzej lub później . Morał : chamskie cwaniactwo tak naprawdę nikomu się nie opłaca .
The issue which no Marxist, including Marx, has been able to resolve is how you replace/alter those relationships. Marx himself writes that economic relationships are a function of the production technology of an age NOT its political frameworks (which operate as a "superstructure" beholden to the economics). In this way, Marx's persuasive analysis of history and economics in Das Kapital predict the failure of his political programme in The Communist Manifesto - unfortunately Lenin and Mao didn't pick this up!
Yeah sure. Russia went from a backwards farm the size of a country, to winning the space race and china went from one of the poorest countries (11th poorest in 1949), a hundred years of humiliation with other countries waging war against them to sell drugs to their people to being the second world power and probably the first in the next decade or so. Huge failures.
Marxism has been proven to be false. Marx based his claim for "exploitation" on the labor theory of value. We know for a fact that the labor theory of value is false. One example for this is that different types of gasoline sell for different prices, despite taking the same exact amount of labor to produce. According to the labor theory of value, there should be no price differences in such a case. Marx just borrowed from classical economists. We have moved past this silly claim that is based on the labor theory of value. It's unfortunate that anyone would try to defend Marxism, not just because it is demonstrably false, but also because of the millions of deaths it has caused.
My advice to Wolff: start your marxist company structure! If its so good it will be a big succes and all the good workers will come to you. Good luck! However I think he will find out about Prices law and see that most of the people want to do as less as possible. They need stimulation to create wealth.
The worker trades his labor willingly. All gains or losses are the employers to have. The workers labor is traded for an agreed upon compensation. Workers can leave individually or as a group and attempt to produce without the employers direction. It is a free market and labor is the workers commodity.
In a free market with scarce resources that have alternative uses the prices are used to dictate what goed where in the market snd the people decide what the price is based off of what they will pay for that product or service
The owners of the business bears all of the risk. The worker produces, but they don't acquire the resources to produce (material, machinery, ...) They are a spoke on a wheel getting payment for their piece of effort. It's not that complicated. CEOs getting paid $Ms, why? For the most part they have a rare talent to run a business and make it grow. Not all, but in general.
Really? Do I have to point out the obvious here? Any idea how many business owners have hard times? Basically it not being worth it over a good career? But if by chance it does work out its exploitation? Go do your own thing then. It’s not like you aren’t free to do so. You should make the case where resources can be hoarded or owned in ways that makes it impossible for new contenders to enter. But I bet that wouldn’t sell as many books or shows or whatever you do to make a buck right?
It's exploitation from the moment you pay your worker a wage instead of all the value he/she produced. You know you don't pay him/her all they produce, because what would it be your reason to employ him/her in the first place? Freedom to go do your own thing is there to various degrees - we don't live in a paper world of classical economics textbooks. We are born into class positions, into the world of violently defended privileges, into a certain historical moment. There is vertical social mobility, yes, you can be born a worker and become a capitalist, but it is still capitalism, and it is still exploitative. On the other hand, you can have an entrepreneurial drive and business idea, and develop it with a group of co-worker-owners in an cooperative. A cooperative can recognize your business idea as your starting share in the cooperative firm, why not, if it's that good. They can democratically decide to give you bonuses for a time, or a life long pension... Whatever they want if they decide it democratically. There is nothing in the workplace democracy that is against business idea, innovation, industriousness, recognizing people's needs... It's only without exploitation.
Is it also exploitation if the worker has agreed to give the "more" to someone else? It seems to me that wage workers agree to give up the surplus of their work to their employer _before_ they do the work, i.e. _they_ decide how the surplus is distributed. The worker is not forced to give up the surplus. In exchange for giving up the surplus, the worker gets to be paid _before_ the owner. The owner takes the risk of losing his entire capital, but he also gets the benefit of keeping all the surplus. Is this relationship exploitative?
Worker agrees to sell his skills and time to the highest bidder. That's all. There is nothing about the surplus or agreeing to give something to someone else. Plain and simple. If the workers' skills and time are valued highly, he gets paid more. What's hard to understand? -- Cohen the Barbarian
Workers are "free" to choose to whom they sell they labour power. But the fact that they have to do it is the problem, and it is historical, and it's political. In the times (and places) of high unemployment, you feel "lucky", even happy for a day or three, to get a job, yes, but that doesn't mean there is no exploitation going on (it actually worsens during high unemployment).
People need to get some of their owns ideas down on paper and try put them into action. Ideas that result in something being produced that the populace needs or wants then try to produce on a mass scale by taking on risk, shelling out the cash for plant & machines and/or hiring the labour needed. Still think profits should be shared equally with those employed? We are a thick lot in North America pushing wealth re-distribution in a capitalist environment - everyone is free and able to turn a buck with some semblance intellect,motivation and work ethic
Yes, worker owned cooperatives plan, risk, produce, sell in the market conditions already today (and for hundred+ years) They also decide on their pay, and what on what principles shall they distribute the pay. They also decide on hiring, or rather accepting, new people to their work organization.
Substitute “bank” where “rich” because aggregate of money flows are steered from appropriated funds from production. Class is simple, who controls the bank, controls those flows and diverts with power ungranted by producers. It tears itself of wealth from by central misuse of authority- so command economics is the same with exploiter whether of whom with exploitation external from producers, misallocates and destroys the bigger objective in the process of seeking good when greed subsumes it!
I think we need less 'high-level' ideas and more specific implementations. If forming a C-corp, raising funds, and hiring employees is wrong, how does he propose new ventures get off the ground? What specifically does the cap table look like? How are individuals compensated? I am very excited about the prospect of DAOs experimenting with these types of questions. To equate profits with exploration is an oversimplification.
He's not saying its wrong by current standards. He went on to say that even if you remove the business owner exploiters ( exploitation in itself not a bad word ) there are others in the system that will rule the workers - see communism.
Great guest.... at first I was repulsed, but it was worth it to listen. His view represents soooooo many people, and he really clearly states it, which makes it easy to see why this ideology goes so sideways so fast. It seems reasonable but they completely exclude the people actually creating wealth from deserving any of the "surplus", as though the so called exploited can actually create a surplus on their own. Having worked for other people my entire life I have gained a deep respect for entrepreneurs and business leaders, and am truly grateful for people that excel at creating the wealth from which I benefit so much. There is no doubt a limit to how much surplus anyone person should reasinably have, but throw all the farmers in jail, and starve while congratulating the expoited masses on their collective emancipation... is just not a reasonable alternative. I would love to hear an honest well reasoned alternative though.... so hopefully conversations like this one can flourish, because it will eventually help us all land somewhere that works for all humanity.
The problem isn’t that the child shares his/her ice cream, but that the parent orders her/him to. If I give my child a bag of apples or peaches and I say, hand these out to your brothers, sisters, cousins and neighbors and see how happy thst makes them- no foul.
No, the problem is not that the parent "orders" the child to share. Children often need to be taught to share. The problem is that the parent was lazy and unthoughtful, handing both ice creams to one child, assuming that that child would share without being taught about sharing or that the child is emotionally mature enough to know the concept of sharing and thinking about other people.
Oversimplification. The workers could not have made the surplus without the employers up front contribution (machine he supplied for them to produce with etc etc).
So what happens when the people producing the surplus are too busy producing surplus to do anything with the surplus? They have production skills but that doesn't necessarily translate to skills in sales or production management and I would argue relegates their time to production.
I think the fact that he doesn’t acknowledge the government impact in the poor decisions that it makes ( like devaluing money as an example) says he doesn’t understand the problem. He needs to listen to some Milton Friedman asap.
If we just continue to give more money and power to the rich and powerful, everything will be fine. This is what we've been doing in America since the 80s, and it is working splendidly.
I know you are saying this in jest but it actually has worked out very well. We are still the most powerful country in the world with the most allies. The civil strife at the bottom means very little geopolitically
WHAT A LOVELY GUEST. THIS IS GREAT TO PUSH THE MINDS OF THE COMMUNITY. there are some close minded folks in the chat but let’s be real, this dude spits facts all day
If anybody is genuinely interested in learning about worker co-ops, then you can watch this brilliant video by Unlearning economics here: th-cam.com/video/yZHYiz60R5Q/w-d-xo.html
Lex had some chances here to ask imo some very powerful questions. For example, where does competency fit in this framework? If I do things better, do I get more? If I get more, do I get to decide what I do with the more I get? If not who decides what happens to the more I earned? Exploitation isn’t the only means to get more, it may be the worse kind of way to get more but not the only way right?
Why do you want to get more, than others?
If you're making food for you and your friends, why would you want more? Someone else could have volunteered to cook, and they would have let everyone have equal amounts.
@@ConnoisseurOfExistence to know that I am better than them.
@@ConnoisseurOfExistence because I'm rewarded my achieving....it is a basic characteristic of who i am...i understand that it's a difficult concept to grasp...but some people are innately ambitious...they like to "do"....why would you want to stifle that? And better yet...isnt there an amount of arrogancy is thinking your status quo should be the standard for everyone? Also....i want more for when there is less....
You ask good questions. I think the problem is that Marx analysed factory work in the beginning of industrialism: There was no room for competency, actually the work had been cut into small pieces so there were no space for individual differences. Wolff generalises Marxses analysis for all kinds of work in an market economy, that might be a problem. The mechanisms of exploitation are clear in this rudimentary factory work, not in all work IMO. Your questions bring out the fact that Marxian analysis might not be the right tool of analysis for all kinds of work.
As a person born to the African continent without any choice this explanation lays down beautifully how many of us feel about being the richest continent in terms of resources yet we have no damn say in how much we get or what to do with it.
Africa is still as poor as is it is precisely because of stupid government rules standing in the way of economic progress
@@user-sm9zs7sc8u yh corrupt governments kept in play by western nations and corporations or china that stifle any sort competent governance
@@user-sm9zs7sc8u Sure, and eeuu and european never robbed, eslaved and killed them.
Our African leaders are in the pockets of Western bigwigs and leaders. Our leaders are wealthy for sure, we're surviving, to say the least.
@@Nocturnus6355 if being resource rich is the only thing that matters than it would've been the Africans going to Europe to enslave them. The lesson is not that humans are cruel, everyone knows that. It's that there is more to being rich that just having all the resources you can get your hands on.
You can tell Richard wolf has never run a successful business in the way he preaches. Or ever had to manage a crew of individuals to build something. All he has ever produced is noise. Never take advice on building something from somebody who never has. Now if you want to learn how to become a carear academic follow his blueprint.
Absolutely. Top-down ideas fall, trial-and-error hard work produces. This is why academics should never run societies.
He is criticizing the structure of capitalism itself. Why would he want to play a game of Monopoly knowing that his belief is against it? You assume that his failure or the lack of trying to create a business lead him to his philosophy which just completely robs you of learning about his perspective. In my eyes, people who dont relate to the side effects of capitalism are very likely to have had it good and would likely credit themselves for their own success. Success in a capitalist environment is not 100% controllable. Not everyone has access to it.
How do you know this? He runs a few businesses such as Economic Update with Wolff. Also, Wolff in his other works gives examples of how democracy in the workplace has worked in the past and now (Mondragon). He also acknowledges that innovation slows down in a democratic workplace; however, you also get a better environment and happier people who can enjoy their lives more, pursue interests, be with familles, and so on.
@@aklem001 he doesn’t run his TH-cam page as a democratized business. Otherwise he would tout that fact. He runs his business like any good entrepreneur and capitalist. People can say whatever they want. It’s what they do that matters. I wonder if he takes advantage of tax write offs or if he strokes a check for the full amount. 🤷
@@taughtbytragedy who doesn’t have access to success? Success differs from person to person.
The owner also had a part in creating the 'more' by creating the business and employing the employees.
No, thats the market. The business owner either successfully or unsuccessfully services the demand for shit ppl dont need but think they want.
The market creates the business?
the entrepreneur is the key figure. he decides what goods are to be produced and organizes the business.
@@cryptobref lol. The smart phone was inevitable no matter who put their name on it. Steve Jobs didnt invent anything - the scientists working for him did.
@@CFox.7 keep thinking that, comrade. 😂
@@TheMaxKids he lives in Manhattan you m*ron, he is hardly a commie
So a worker gets to decide who gets the surplus without taking the capital risk? There's no way a society can run like that, idiotic
The worker become also the capitalist. That is the proposal solution. The man who milks the cow is also the owner of the cow.
@@localprose523 How does that makes the even slightest of sense? I painted the house, therefore i also own the house. Lmao.
@@1nfty- I am not a Marxist, I do not agree with Marx in the book Capital in which Marx like classical economists (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus) do not consider consumer relations and the chain of commodity value generation. The example of the cow is an allegory for the sentence: That the means of production belong to the workers without the segregation between capitalist and worker, because for Marx he approves that the same individual is both a worker (the one who offers the labor power) and a capitalist (one who owns the means of production).
Not a worker, the workers collectively democraticly and don't forget about the risks the workers take themselves.
@@1nfty- yup, it's the Ponzi scheme of "socialism" these intellectuals sell to College kids, thing is nothing is free, somebody always has to pay, and these kids grow up never learning that lesson even through adulthood.
Why would an employer pay someone to produce something if it meant the product was then owned by the employee?
It only makes sense in the mind of someone who does not and has not ever produced anything of value or made any positive contributions to our economy. Its the mind set of a human leech.
Isn't the company in this example also owned by the employee in part? It would be like owning shares in the company that you work for.
It wouldn't. The 'employer' just wouldn't exist at all. The working class would own the means of production.
There is no employer in this equation. Or rather the employer is your fellow workers. Organisation is led by other workers who are trained and elected in to administorial roles.
Did the workers pay for the raw materials and means of production? Did the workers invent the supply chain, or the machines they are using, or the products they are assembling? If no, the work they did was only one small piece of the puzzle so that does not entitle them to all the value produced.
December 1861 Abe Lincoln's letter to the congress of the U.S. "Labor is prior to and independent of capital, capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much of the higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln 1861.
So once the capitalist has received his return on investment, anything more should be considered exploitive?
@@fullsend8738 otherwise it’s basically usury, right?
But did the ceo turn ras materials into goods? No. Workers could do all of that. Or maybe a manager. The issue is not authority or leadership itself but the lack of accountability. We dont vote in managers or ceos.
Lmao none of those raw material or means of production would exist without labor. Good one bud.
Slaves, serfs, employees. One of these is not the same as the others in a very important way that this guy conveniently ignores.
Most are still serfs, dont kid yourself
Slaves, serfs and employees are in the majority. They all produce for the minority. In that sense they are the same.
You're right, slaves were treated better. As were serfs.
Slaves, serfs, and employees are a historical progression. The Roman Empire was built on slaves, who were paid with housing and food. Medieval kingdoms were built on serfs, who were paid with land. Post enlightenment societies were built on workers, paid with currency.
@@obrokbobama6203 The issue here is that Slaves, Serfs, and Workers (modern crapitalism) have 2 things in common: First they are all in the majority and have little to no power in the society. Second, slaves, serfs, and workers (the working class of today) all toil and they produce a surplus which they themselves do not get.
I agree that most workers and consumers are being exploited and it’s an age old problem. On the other hand however, people (it seems) are perfectly happy being slaves (employees) as long as they don’t get beaten too much. When your an employee, you work and then go home and forget (usually). When your a business owner (employer) you are responsible 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Most people just don’t want to be a business owner of one.
Do you think if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos dies today, to use big capitalists for example, Amazon or Tesla takes a hit? My bet is on no, they would just keep existing normally. Elon Musk kinda showed that a capitalist actually working is a bad idea on the Twitter fiasco haha
A person applies for a job at a company knowing what the employer produces. The employer offers the new employee a wage and benefit package based on their skill set and experience level. The new employee willingly accepts the pay and benefit package being offered. Paperwork is signed followed by a handshake. The employee agreed to the terms of employment and can leave anytime they so choose. Someone please explain how that translates into slavery or theft by the employer.
You're using the word 'willingly' very loosely here. The proletariat has no choice other than to sell their work force in order to survive.
What about the person who created the system so 1 million chairs could be built? Creating a system like this is complex and difficult. It requires an enormous investment of capital and intelligence. What about their compensation? Taking the surplus isn't theft. It is payment for the difficult work and investment and risk that occurred. The average person building a chair in a factory has no concept of efficient manufacturing, investing capital, or managing people. Surplus is payment for the acquisition and deployment of enormously difficult skills. Building a chair is easy. Building a system that manufactures a million chairs is tremendously difficult. Almost impossible.
Ability is not valued in this system. Need is. That's why it fails. Unless creating more needy individuals depended upon the state is considered success.
The point he is making is why should only the innovator (or someone else) have a say in how the surplus is used? Why not all the people it took to produce the surplus.
Well said. Entrepreneurship is not easy. This is the most important point that he completely skips over.
@@matthewbazeley2984 What about the vast majority of new business ventures where there is no surplus for quite some time?
@@mustang607 if there is no surplus, there is no decision to be made about how it's used. So that's not really relevant to this clip.
Richard is quite getting to the core. It reminds me of Jordan P asking “how far can you go to the left before it get’s ugly? Let’s start with property and determining who decides when what is mine and what is yours”.
JP is a sick ignorant individual
well it depends, in a world where we face problems of abundance and not scarcity I, personally, feel less a need to own/protect/be selfish of what I have when it can be easily replaced. Get with the times.
What property do you think socialists are referring to when they talk about property?
If only Michael Brooks was still alive and you could have him on
Are you talking about a physical death? Yes, he's dead. But his soul still lives in our hearts. You need to clarify this in order to be more precise with your argument. RIP MB.
Michael was quite a fellow. his Marxist Obama impression still makes me laugh every time i think of it.
@@agustinpodepiora5525 I'm not making an argument. Would just love to have seen Michael and Lex chatting together
His arguments completely ignore the role of innovation, which is the foundation of all prosperity. A modern combine makes the "stuff", of 1000 workers. If Marxism was a minor branch of labor relations, it'd be reasonable. But building a society around it is insane.
He talks about this elsewhere in the episode.
It does not. If you watch the whole podcast, he carefully gives out positive points of capitalism. Having good results however, does not bullet proof capitalism from criticism
👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼the society that chooses that path will have a bad future ahead. Not a good precedent
untethered capitalism is not necessary for high levels of innovation
@@taughtbytragedy And at any point is he critical of his beloved Marxism? Nope. Even when directly asked by Lex why Marxist and Communist leaders often turn out to be evil monsters, Wolff blames Capitalism. To Wolff, Marxism is a non-theistic religion. He is pathologically incapable of realizing and/or admitting its obvious flaws.
This guy couldn't operate a lemonade stand.
At the lemonade stand the worker usually owns the means of production. Jokes on you.
I think the point he is getting at is there are social issues that happen in society and we can't just ignore them. Do I believe going to the level he's talking about, no. But it's a fine balance running a productive economy and dealing with social issues because neither one can be ignored or there will be issues on both sides.
@@airtimebt4306 hey nobody needs your nuanced view here, you're either with us or your against us, and you need to decide now.... Then I just spontaneously shout "USA! USA! USA!" Until you're with us. Works everytime 😉.
Ironically he would actually own means of production so your joke here doesn’t really count
@@jjrossitee For sure, that's how it feels now days. You can't have a view on anything without being attacked by someone or group. Even if you don't pick a side you are still the enemy.
sooo, what then? i suffered from idealism for a few years. horrible disease. ideals are good to set a direction but never should they presume they can be a goal. the endpoint can't exist. ever. it will move and so it will cause deep discontentment which leads to someone getting thankfully strangled.
If you watch this guys other talks he really believes in a democratic workplace. That's his main thing, which has been done in many countries.
So having ideals shouldn’t be a goal?
AHH YES, weak men with no integrity, thats what they want you to be. Easy to control. I bet you think you're smart for being afraid.
@@antonleimbach648 When thinking of governments or social structures the only ideal i can imagine working is live and let live but would everyone agree with that? No. Especially if it involves children or animals or pyschedelic substances. then people are very in other peoples business. So, what ideal can you give that will satisfy everyone? Is it truly achievable? Equality of outcome is a joke as a goal. That would be horrible oppression. I am fairly certain there will be consequences that would happen if almost any goal was achieved that would not be favorable to everyone. Therefore perhaps the ideal could be to accept differing opinion and beliefs, right? My basic point is that a person can want too much, get caught up in an OPINION and become affected negatively by comparing what is to what they wish it is and this produces people that go out and scream thier heads off like a nutter because they think life is full of boogeymen. Most idealists seem to be out of touch with the complexity of society, national, and global structures and fail to account for human nature within those structures. Nature is a beast and man is an animal and power is the language that never becomes obsolete. Ideals are good to work towards. That is useful. Peoples and cultures change. Ideals change. Always will there be movement toward something. Never will the ideal be agreed on nor reached. Theres a bit of maturing necessary to come to that viewpoint naturally i assume, but it seems rational enough explained and the more i think on it, the more i feel it is correct. Its my own theory so ive no one to blame for thinking it, lol
@@drewhester6836 all good and well as long proper incentives exist at all levels and for all necessary required occupations. there is undoubtedly some positions that require more time more accountability responsibility and stress kills, it needs rewarded differently to assume more risk or unpleasentness, although you can fill some of those roles by having a surplus of starving people that will do anything to survive...
He has some very important points. Our country was at its strongest when Unions were at their highest membership. By shipping jobs overseas, moving both political parties to the far right, and ensuring anti labor judges were elected, corporate America has destroyed the middle class.
Even better if there were no classes. No one has the right to exploit others.
Democrats are far right, got it.
How healthy was the middle class in the 30's and 40's?
Our country got stronger after WW2 though, and before that it was at its highest.
@@xaviercopeland2789 It was in a depression up until WWII.
I think Richard really misses the mark here, his examples are from the same 19th century economy that Marx was writing about. The economy he describes largely no longer exists in the modern West, most production is through the provision of services and a great deal of compensation is through equity ownership. In the modern economy I believe key problem is automation and the rise of zero or negative marginally producing workers. The most productive workers in the 21st century are vastly more productive than 19th century workers. However if we moved to a system where workers kept their entire surplus, I'd expect inequality to get much worse. The people who create and manage the machines / algorithms are wildly more productive than others. People don't make chairs anymore, machines make chairs and people manage those machines, along with supply chains, insurance, finance and marketing. Based on his logic it would be these already highly paid workers who are being exploited and therefore deserve a greater share. While historically important I think Marxism is largely irrelevant for describing the 21st century economy.
I agree, Richard Wolff is so into Marx's perspective, that he has a childlike view of things.
We now have a global economy, if we, in the West decided to deal with the ice cream cones in a different way, many people would not have ice cream cones to eat.
We are largely consumers in the West, we make less as each year goes by, so the West's key value is being able to keep your wealth inside countries/economies, that are respectful of ownership, so money flows from East to West, whilst manufacturing flows from West to East.
If you take time to observe what people do, you will see the huge swings in productivity, so in essence, as you allude to, the productive people get to share the spoils of their output, which arguably, is capitalism.
I guess if Marx was alive today, he would be asking who owns the machines that create 'the more', (the surplus)?
One key point that is rarely discussed by Wolff and his ilk, is the concept of pensions and retirement. i.e. if you make chairs, and you were allowed to keep your 'more,' (the surplus), to provide for you in later life, then where would you store them, and how would you know if it would be worth anything in forty years time?
Finally, the concept of who owns 'the more' is such a nuanced issue, its all very well to talk about chairs, but who looked after the woods/forest that produced the raw materials to make your chairs, who made the lathe that turned the wood, and who decided whose forest it was in the first place?
Exploitation is not necessarily a zero-sum game, and this is where Karl Marx was fundamentally incorrect in his writings.
I agree, this is not the best example, which is sad because he had a great opportunity here, basically what he's trying to say is that capitalism has run its course and the workers are worse off than ever while the owners are better than ever, but of course this isn't a bug, this is the GOAL of capitalism.
It's time we moved onto socialism which means that workplaces are democratized and owned by the workers not the shareholders and ceo's so you, as a worker can be properly compensated for the work you do rather than arbitrarily given a wage (wages that are often stolen as wage theft is the most common and financially damaging type of theft in the world, people working off the clock, not being paid enough or given proper raises etc)
When the workers own and run the work place and each have a vote and say in how it's run, not only does it run better and more efficiently you have happier more productive workers who are working together (rather than competing with eachother for money or the boss's favor) and they make better money and work less hours because there isn't as much overhead going into the CEO's bonuses.
I can explain more if you have questions, I'm really disappointed in Richard Wolff here, he's normally better at this, I'm going to react to these videos on my channel and post links in the comments because I see a lot of comments misunderstanding him
Here's a link to Richard's channel where you can find videos that explain this idea better in the meantime though th-cam.com/users/democracyatwrk
@@smileyp4535 As a matter of interest, who invented capitalism, with this 'GOAL' that you claim?
@@garylake1676 I doubt you'll get an answer...
@@Ahabite I live in hope, I may learn something, however, I had best not hold my breath ⚰
They know so much that isn’t true.
The workers are only helping the company with tasks, and for that, they get paid a salary that they agreed to before accepting the job. They're not creating anything. If they did, they would-be business owners with their own creations.
No. I don't like Wolff, but there are jobs in which an employee creates. I'm a jeweler, I design, take raw material, and create jewelry with it. Some jobs are just tasks, others there is a creative process and a product created.
- The encroachments of the rich are more destructive to the state than those of the poor. (Aristotle)
Then we have Lex giving us quality and somebody i would've never known about but also i can immediately hear the confidence in his ability and wants me to know more
Wolfe is among the best in regards to educating.
Check him out "democracy at work" is his youtube channel
Edit: here's the link th-cam.com/users/democracyatwrk
I love how this guy expresses his ideas. Very clear and entertaining. Thanks for having him on Lex
Yeah, he's an engaging communicator and takes time to find the exact words he is looking for.
The guy has never owned or run a business. He doesn't actually know what he's talking about, regardless of how entertaining you find him or how carefully he chooses his words.
@@jessemccord1878 I see you parroting the other people in this comments who also missed the point. He is essentially saying mankind is not ready for communism as historically and currently there will always be someone up the top exploiting the working class.
@@CFox.7 Nah. He's making excuses as to why his beloved Marxism has failed in practice EVERYTIME its been implemented in the real world. It CAN'T be that the system is garbage, its because the world just isn't ready for something so amazing!!! Laughable...
@@jessemccord1878owning a business isn’t a prerequisite for talking about how businesses run. By that same logic everyone who had run a business should therefore only be able to talk about the very specific kind of business they ran.
The question in 2:58. Doesn't Zipf have something to do with this?
Meaning you get many parts of the system so distribution follows a curve due to the fact that logistics and all other stuff matters in reality.
Homeschool your kids
I mean this brings up a great point, perhaps the surplus shouldn't be totally owned by the creators, but some portion of it may be controlled by the innovator as to still encourage entrpreneurship. Yes though, currently the surplus creates a class of 1% that owns more than the bottom like 90% which is just absurd. Like if you want the country to fall apart then continue down this path. No one saying the guy who came up with the idea shouldn't get rewarded for his risk, but at a certain point he doesn't own all the work that people spend their whole lives doing, that is thieft. Like how much value did Bezos put into Amazon, maybe 10 billion dollars worth, why does he continue to get all the wealth generated by his workers 20 years later, eventually 50 years later? How is it he owns all the productivity his workers do. At a certain point they together have done more to create success for the company than Bezos had, and they should be entitled to some portion of that if not all at a certain point in time.
Bezos' worth isn't from profit. It is from founding the #1 company to work for in the United States for several years running, according to Americans in private surveys. Whatever that stock blooms to, him and his employees and investors deserve what they make. If it all goes bad somehow, they will suffer that loss.
Next subject that he should rant on: Idealism. I would love to get his take on that as well.
Read Kant (idealism is a philosophical term describing the belief that we construct the world with our minds, with variations on that theme). Oh, you mean pie-in-the-sky? That's because capitalists kill socialists whenever they can and people say "look, it doesn't work!". They kill them because they know once it works somewhere, everyone will want it. Who wants an asshole dictator boss that can fire you to maintain his profits while you lose your house? No thanks, I'd rather live in a democracy.
I don't understand how you can conveniently ignore the fact that the employer paid for the raw materials, supplied the tools, paid the workers for their time and paid for the factory where the things are created. He doesn't "get" the surplus, he already has it. And if he could sell it to the workers, he would because it's a liability to him. What you are saying is that he should pay for all that AND give it to the workers because they "built" it.
The employer is living in luxury while the workers starve, they have a base of cash and are lying about their true wealth, I've lost 20 pounds because I'm not making enough money to afford basic supplies, f you you fingers liar.
Without the labour to transform the raw materials into a finished product, no amount of capital will do that for the capitalist. It’s quite simple. Why should the person doing nothing to add value to the finished goods be the sole benefactor of the fruit of labour?
@@francofavot6761 Straw man. There may be a few cases where you can find an owner sitting back and letting everyone else make money for him. But that is not the norm. His goal is to create an income stream and, once that is rolling, go create another one. They enjoy the process of creation.
And yes, without laborers, it is difficult to do something like this at scale. However, the value of that labor is collective, not individual. Meaning an individual contributor is not valuable, and their value is further eroded by how easy they are to replace. And sometimes that replacement is a machine, especially if the ROI happens relatively quickly. If your job function can be automated away within a year, then even the collective value is near zero.
What he fails to realises is whoever carry’s the risk of starting the company should reap the most reward. If the employees don’t like it they should their own company
I agree. He should get more. But not more than 12x more the employee with smallest salary. That woud be a huge step. But now go and look, how many x's more our techies, banksters etc. take from the pay and come back to me and say, that thats okay because of the risk. no way. Like he says: "Es geht schief!" and we need to fix this as a society!
The risk of starting a company is mostly based on the initial capital at hand, which only the rich have to start with. Within the capitalist system, poor people are forced to be poor, not by choice. The rich are able to start a company and get richer.
That's easy to say when your wealthy parents bail you out every time your business flops. Joe average doesn't even get a chance.
I like Richard Wolff, but I think he oversimplifies the production of goods and value. There are many people/roles besides labor that contribute to the creation of new value, while he seems to imply that labor is the only value adding contributor, while all levels of management, organization "above" it are simply exploiting that labor. I would be interested to hear how his proposed system would work in a real production setting, and how he values the contributions of supervisors, managers, marketing, logistics, etc.
I agree with the over simplified bit. I was under the impression wolff’s “surplus” he is referring to was basic needs/products. Maslow: Food, shelter, medicine. The surpluses in these markets are going to the people rigging the market.
the roles are inverted, now are the workers who decide if they need a manager to manage or marketer to market, at that point they democratically decide how much to pay to the now worker, based on the real contribution they have on the production and selling of the stuffs, not those big ass salaries auto entitled to themselves.
If it is necessary, it is also labour. But workers' ownership over the means of production would significantly redefine what work, especially managerial, is necessary. Check out "Bulshit jobs" by David Graeber.
Whether or not the math checks out, humanity cannot be controlled with math. We don't fit into neat equations. We're far too messy for that.
Economics like time, population, prices and profit are in fact numbers and this is essential to get right. It is the truth and if the ideas "don't add up" to truth, you are mistaken that this philosophy is valid or even ethical. This is one of the key ways marxist economic philosophy is unethical and immoral. The other way these ideas are wrong is because the violate people's human rights.
The poor are the victim? There must always be a victim with these people, and they always need to play that part. Patterns emerge.
My guy are you saying poor people deserve to be poor?
@@mistawiski2690 No. Is English not your first language?
I don't think he fits in 'the poor'. He's probably living just fine in one of the richest countries in the world. He is crazy far from 'the poor'.
In capitalism, the victim is the working class.
The word stolen implies that you can identify something which has been stolen. Or appropriated.
If I work 10 bucks an hour, how do I know I’ve been robbed of 20? Professor Wolff would argue that if the cost of the goods sold was purely your labor, the capitalist would have appropriated 10 from you.
If that’s the case, why would I work for anyone? I could have sold my services directly to the market for 20 all the same. But we all know that’s not feasible. It’s never an instance of labor or raw materials or even capital machinery being the sole determinant of price.
What academics who’ve never had to do a real job in real life failed to identify is the value of “risk”. Risk yields reward. Not everyone is willing to invest in innovation, new products, advancement, improvement etc etc. those who are willing to take the chance (capitalists) ought to be rewarded. And we all know that not everyone can take risks, but everyone can perform labor.
The economic contribution to any markets must account for Function (labor), Assets (capital) and Risk.
That’s why any non oppressive democratic free system to trade economic surpluses, will invariably gives rise to a capitalist class. There will always be possibility of winners and risk of losers in a competitive system. Even in cooperatives competing with other cooperatives, the risk would certainly be priced in.
There are many more people willing to take risk and having good ideas, than the count of those who can financially afford to take risk. That invalidates your argument. The opportunity for taking risk isn't distributed fairly.
Competition is the problem though; cohabitation should be the goal, not a "winner" in a market.
@@ConnoisseurOfExistence I’m simply pointing out the “theft” analysis on value and surplus of labor fundamentally discounts risk as a relevant consideration. I don’t think the uneven distribution of opportunity in anyway explains away the gap in any Marxist’s analysis over the importance of risk in any economic activity.
I do agree however, that there is a legitimate area of discussion over the distribution of opportunity.
@@cesarvarela Wouldn't be better to compete through games and sports for your own pleasure, rather than be forced to compete for survival?
Wouldn't you be more free and happier if your survival didn't *depend* on competition?
@@naaro_____ competition is the most natural trait in our existence. Humans will never be without it.
4:50 why doesn’t he include income taxes?
This is an oversimplification
It is a shortly presented core thing.
Uf capitalism was a bar that needed to be rescued
This guy is so angry. If only he was dictator of the world and could rearrange every aspect of everyones lives in every country, city, town and village on the planet, then we would have nothing to feel sad about 😆
not quite sure if it's just me but this guy is somewhat hard to understand. it's like he's talking a lot without saying a whole bunch of anything. how does that surplus that workers create go to the rich in modern times? he didn't seem to actually explain this fact and its ramifications.
The gov't is secondary? It sets the rules for the "organization of the workplace." Geez...
They have to produce more, otherwise they'd be worthless to employ. If I'm not a net gain for my boss then he'd be mad to hire me
Durrr... The problem arises when in a town of 10,000 a town can only support so many fast food joints. You want to start up another... then you need to leave town for a bigger town. This is the ponzi scheme which requires population growth.. through immigration in mostly..
Result ? overpopulated, polluted world, but who gives a fk yeah ?
Doesn’t matter how much you produce, in order for a capitalist to maximize profits for their shareholders they have to pay you the least amount possible for your labor. Kind of the whole point. 😂
This guy doesn't understand that workers are exchanging their labor for wages with another person that's skill is access to capital and organization.
Don't presume to understand what this guy does or doesn't know based on a you tube clip
I think the most important part of the capitalist system is making those responsible for decisions benefit when they make a surplus and suffer when they have a deficit.
This whole argument leaves out the loss part, most businesses fail. This means that the employees were being paid more than they were producing, the net result of their labor was a deficit and they were rewarded for it.
"20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years."
Workers's cooperatives are known to be the most resilient businesses. That's because workers want to keep the jobs and their communities, so they shrink their salaries in crisis times. On the other hand, private employers just lay people off, close the shop, or move the production to another country. Check Mondragon or Emilia Romagna's eco-system of cooperatives.
@@ljubog one isn't more resilient than the other, they're just resilient in different ways.
Cutting employees and moving production abroad to weather a storm is being resilient.
Workers co-ops are less vulnerable in one sense, its difficult for them to obtain debt so they're less likely to be in debt, in times of crisis you can cut back everything except debt servicing.
Who needs who more and which party gets to reap the benifits
Interventionism is a disaster that we are currently experiencing in Argentina I hope that USA will never becomes socialist...
lol
Lenin baited with the same ideas and then switched to a dictatorship. Happens every time.
It's not tearing itself apart because of capitalism. You should have this guy on with Yaron.
The extra does go to the workers: the factory owner opens up another factory therefore employing more people. He also buys a Ferrari, and so the Ferrari employees get to have jobs too. Employees don't necessarily know the best way to use the surplus but the employer does sure know how to build something from nothing, so he has proven that he can make good choices.
Extremely basic generalisation based on a the assumption of an ever expanding market. Besides, the Ferrari is not the best use over all of all available resources - materials, brainpower.
@@CFox.7 Maybe but it's fun to drive
@@Clyman974 I dont get supercars. So low to the ground, cant open them up anywhere due to speed cameras. On top of that I date girls with brains who aint impressed by cars. Besides, that new super affordable roadster by Tesla will cream all them all on the strip. Whats the point ?
@@cesarvarela plenty of good looking girls with brains.
@@CFox.7 @C Fox Some people like them, some people don't, it doesn't have to please everyone to exist. Also some people buy cars to actually drive them and have fun, not to impress girls
His first assumption is off enough to form the wrong conclusion.
Without partnering up, we are left out in the wild to fend for ourselves and the situation is far from good. There is no excess in 99% of cases.
A small portion of people create excess and most do not. And to make matters worse, it’s very difficult to know where you fall on that spectrum. It’s not a simple calculation. Value is best measured by price but even that’s not perfect, and if it was, how do you allocate the price to the various participants indirectly and directly involved with the product or service?
And if you’re on the wrong end of the excess or shortage spectrum, life is dangerous.
The employer/employee relationship significantly reduces this risk for employees and the employer gets the return for lowering this risk.
Communism says, lower the risk for me, but if I happen to be on the good side of the spectrum, I still want to keep the excess. That doesn’t work. If you want the excess, then bet on yourself, quit your job, and open up your own business. You’ll quickly learn how hard it truly is to create the excess he makes sound so easy.
Capitalism has its flaws for sure. But you’re going to have to do better than this. We need something better than capitalism, not dumber, and until then, I’ll stick with capitalism.
There is so much wrong with this I honestly don’t know where to begin. Given the blatant inequality in our society as well as the ecological devastation seen around the world any human being with half of a brain can see that promoting and/or maintaining a system of infinite growth while being on a finite planet is problematic to say the least.
watching/listening from Maldives 🏝️
Why would anyone want to even create anything new if a goverment official will dominate something you created.?
The workers are not producing 100% of the product by themselves. Why would they get 100% of the surplus?
They are compensated for their portion of the labor. There are many more inputs than labor in the making of a product.
Much respect for the professor and Lex .
However as many people have noted .This discussion is not relevant to todays problems.
The main question not addressed is .
What political/ economic system will save the Aspirations and Hope for a better future for all Working Peoples in 2022 !!
With AI and fantastic productivity in most countries now , and with an educated and informed population, what Laws must be enacted to Redistribute this increased a wealth fairly !!
The Gap between classes is increasing and with it violence , homelessness, drug addiction and poverty .
Freedom by itself is vague and is not the answer . Redistribute Now !!!!
It's important to follow this clip with a healthy dose of Thomas Sowell writings
Lex, how can you not see that this man is a dolt? Why are you wasting your time? Smh
Anarchosyndicalism is a synthesis.
It’s also possible that workers produce less than they consume. In fact that was the case in communist China state owned factories.
I always find that when people ask why the surplus isn’t distributed amongst the workers, why don’t the workers make a business? They have the skills and labour, so why not form their own competing business where they get the dividends due to their invested capital? Apparently making a successful business at be harder than that.
Wealth distribution being badly done in this country does not take into account the fact that wealth is not a fixed pie. It's constantly growing as we create new avenues of wealth in the digital age. Just look at this country's GDP in the 1950's and compare it to today. We're a much bigger, much wealthier country from the value creation that has taken place by new industries forming new businesses that no one could have imagined in Marx's time. The tech industry is a prime example.
Kradzione nikogo jeszcze w życiu nie uszczęśliwiło i nie uszczęśliwi a za wszystko co robimy w naszym życiu
ponosimy odpowiedzialność w taki czy też inny sposób , prędzej lub później .
Morał : chamskie cwaniactwo tak naprawdę nikomu się nie opłaca .
The issue which no Marxist, including Marx, has been able to resolve is how you replace/alter those relationships. Marx himself writes that economic relationships are a function of the production technology of an age NOT its political frameworks (which operate as a "superstructure" beholden to the economics). In this way, Marx's persuasive analysis of history and economics in Das Kapital predict the failure of his political programme in The Communist Manifesto - unfortunately Lenin and Mao didn't pick this up!
Yeah sure. Russia went from a backwards farm the size of a country, to winning the space race and china went from one of the poorest countries (11th poorest in 1949), a hundred years of humiliation with other countries waging war against them to sell drugs to their people to being the second world power and probably the first in the next decade or so.
Huge failures.
Marxism has been proven to be false. Marx based his claim for "exploitation" on the labor theory of value. We know for a fact that the labor theory of value is false. One example for this is that different types of gasoline sell for different prices, despite taking the same exact amount of labor to produce. According to the labor theory of value, there should be no price differences in such a case. Marx just borrowed from classical economists. We have moved past this silly claim that is based on the labor theory of value. It's unfortunate that anyone would try to defend Marxism, not just because it is demonstrably false, but also because of the millions of deaths it has caused.
My advice to Wolff: start your marxist company structure! If its so good it will be a big succes and all the good workers will come to you. Good luck!
However I think he will find out about Prices law and see that most of the people want to do as less as possible. They need stimulation to create wealth.
The worker trades his labor willingly. All gains or losses are the employers to have. The workers labor is traded for an agreed upon compensation. Workers can leave individually or as a group and attempt to produce without the employers direction. It is a free market and labor is the workers commodity.
It can’t be a free market to trade labor if one side is always under the threat of homelessness
The other side is under the threat of closing the doors if there isn’t a “surplus”
In a free market with scarce resources that have alternative uses the prices are used to dictate what goed where in the market snd the people decide what the price is based off of what they will pay for that product or service
The owners of the business bears all of the risk. The worker produces, but they don't acquire the resources to produce (material, machinery, ...) They are a spoke on a wheel getting payment for their piece of effort. It's not that complicated.
CEOs getting paid $Ms, why? For the most part they have a rare talent to run a business and make it grow. Not all, but in general.
Really? Do I have to point out the obvious here? Any idea how many business owners have hard times? Basically it not being worth it over a good career? But if by chance it does work out its exploitation? Go do your own thing then. It’s not like you aren’t free to do so. You should make the case where resources can be hoarded or owned in ways that makes it impossible for new contenders to enter. But I bet that wouldn’t sell as many books or shows or whatever you do to make a buck right?
It's exploitation from the moment you pay your worker a wage instead of all the value he/she produced. You know you don't pay him/her all they produce, because what would it be your reason to employ him/her in the first place? Freedom to go do your own thing is there to various degrees - we don't live in a paper world of classical economics textbooks. We are born into class positions, into the world of violently defended privileges, into a certain historical moment. There is vertical social mobility, yes, you can be born a worker and become a capitalist, but it is still capitalism, and it is still exploitative. On the other hand, you can have an entrepreneurial drive and business idea, and develop it with a group of co-worker-owners in an cooperative. A cooperative can recognize your business idea as your starting share in the cooperative firm, why not, if it's that good. They can democratically decide to give you bonuses for a time, or a life long pension... Whatever they want if they decide it democratically. There is nothing in the workplace democracy that is against business idea, innovation, industriousness, recognizing people's needs... It's only without exploitation.
Is it also exploitation if the worker has agreed to give the "more" to someone else? It seems to me that wage workers agree to give up the surplus of their work to their employer _before_ they do the work, i.e. _they_ decide how the surplus is distributed. The worker is not forced to give up the surplus. In exchange for giving up the surplus, the worker gets to be paid _before_ the owner. The owner takes the risk of losing his entire capital, but he also gets the benefit of keeping all the surplus. Is this relationship exploitative?
Worker agrees to sell his skills and time to the highest bidder. That's all. There is nothing about the surplus or agreeing to give something to someone else. Plain and simple. If the workers' skills and time are valued highly, he gets paid more. What's hard to understand?
--
Cohen the Barbarian
Workers are "free" to choose to whom they sell they labour power. But the fact that they have to do it is the problem, and it is historical, and it's political. In the times (and places) of high unemployment, you feel "lucky", even happy for a day or three, to get a job, yes, but that doesn't mean there is no exploitation going on (it actually worsens during high unemployment).
People need to get some of their owns ideas down on paper and try put them into action. Ideas that result in something being produced that the populace needs or wants then try to produce on a mass scale by taking on risk, shelling out the cash for plant & machines and/or hiring the labour needed. Still think profits should be shared equally with those employed? We are a thick lot in North America pushing wealth re-distribution in a capitalist environment - everyone is free and able to turn a buck with some semblance intellect,motivation and work ethic
Yes, worker owned cooperatives plan, risk, produce, sell in the market conditions already today (and for hundred+ years) They also decide on their pay, and what on what principles shall they distribute the pay. They also decide on hiring, or rather accepting, new people to their work organization.
Substitute “bank” where “rich” because aggregate of money flows are steered from appropriated funds from production. Class is simple, who controls the bank, controls those flows and diverts with power ungranted by producers.
It tears itself of wealth from by central misuse of authority- so command economics is the same with exploiter whether of whom with exploitation external from producers, misallocates and destroys the bigger objective in the process of seeking good when greed subsumes it!
I think we need less 'high-level' ideas and more specific implementations. If forming a C-corp, raising funds, and hiring employees is wrong, how does he propose new ventures get off the ground? What specifically does the cap table look like? How are individuals compensated? I am very excited about the prospect of DAOs experimenting with these types of questions. To equate profits with exploration is an oversimplification.
He's not saying its wrong by current standards. He went on to say that even if you remove the business owner exploiters ( exploitation in itself not a bad word ) there are others in the system that will rule the workers - see communism.
Agreed this is all just high level bs
@@rohilbansal Thanks for sharing!
wow what A clear nice example ... great gob Richard . ..
Great guest.... at first I was repulsed, but it was worth it to listen. His view represents soooooo many people, and he really clearly states it, which makes it easy to see why this ideology goes so sideways so fast. It seems reasonable but they completely exclude the people actually creating wealth from deserving any of the "surplus", as though the so called exploited can actually create a surplus on their own. Having worked for other people my entire life I have gained a deep respect for entrepreneurs and business leaders, and am truly grateful for people that excel at creating the wealth from which I benefit so much.
There is no doubt a limit to how much surplus anyone person should reasinably have, but throw all the farmers in jail, and starve while congratulating the expoited masses on their collective emancipation... is just not a reasonable alternative.
I would love to hear an honest well reasoned alternative though.... so hopefully conversations like this one can flourish, because it will eventually help us all land somewhere that works for all humanity.
Unfortunately without the more you don't have a job
Imagine being this guy’s age and still believing in this discredited drivel.
How can the rich steal when the poor do not have the money to steal?
The problem isn’t that the child shares his/her ice cream, but that the parent orders her/him to. If I give my child a bag of apples or peaches and I say, hand these out to your brothers, sisters, cousins and neighbors and see how happy thst makes them- no foul.
No, the problem is not that the parent "orders" the child to share. Children often need to be taught to share. The problem is that the parent was lazy and unthoughtful, handing both ice creams to one child, assuming that that child would share without being taught about sharing or that the child is emotionally mature enough to know the concept of sharing and thinking about other people.
Oversimplification. The workers could not have made the surplus without the employers up front contribution (machine he supplied for them to produce with etc etc).
No, he only bought the machines from other capitalist whose workers produced the machines. Who is redundant in this story?
Tipping Point
So what happens when the people producing the surplus are too busy producing surplus to do anything with the surplus? They have production skills but that doesn't necessarily translate to skills in sales or production management and I would argue relegates their time to production.
Managers and salespeople are also workers
Well done for this interview Lex 👌🏾
This guy just uses to much words to describe a simple idea … I get agitated waiting for him to reach his point. Respect to lex lol
Definitely anti-reasoning system that incentivizes need over ability. It doesn't take a lot of thought to understand why this fails.
Someone should tell Richard Wolff to go live in North Korea if he loves marxism so much
Poison
This guy spends too much time on college campuses, not in the real world.
By "very simple" I think he means "overly simplified".
Generalist
I think the fact that he doesn’t acknowledge the government impact in the poor decisions that it makes ( like devaluing money as an example) says he doesn’t understand the problem. He needs to listen to some Milton Friedman asap.
If we just continue to give more money and power to the rich and powerful, everything will be fine.
This is what we've been doing in America since the 80s, and it is working splendidly.
I know you are saying this in jest but it actually has worked out very well. We are still the most powerful country in the world with the most allies. The civil strife at the bottom means very little geopolitically
@@SeanDezoysa I wonder if you'll feel the same way in a couple of decades when it's predicted that China will have the largest economy in the world.
If you are still a capitalist after listening to this debate, you need to get your brain checked.
QBSLC
You can't be a Musk simp AND claim you're in favor of workers' rights Lex. Those are opposites that cancel each other out.
WHAT A LOVELY GUEST. THIS IS GREAT TO PUSH THE MINDS OF THE COMMUNITY.
there are some close minded folks in the chat but let’s be real, this dude spits facts all day
First time actually agreed and enjoyed hearing Wolfe speak. But I suppose it's no suprise since we're on the precipice of the fold. #Hierarchies
Guy has interesting talk, but overall, very outdated.
Richard wolf is a modern DaVinci whether or not anyone else sees him that way
If anybody is genuinely interested in learning about worker co-ops, then you can watch this brilliant video by Unlearning economics here: th-cam.com/video/yZHYiz60R5Q/w-d-xo.html
One of the best episodes yet!