I have tried everything to move up the ladder: high school diploma, bacherlor's degree, master's degree, trying (and failing) to become a professional, computer literacy, fluency in Spanish, thousands of resumes sent out, temp agencies, virtual franchises, self-employment, home businesses, free-lance, taking any job that I could get, the internet. It all failed and instead of climbing the ladder, I've fallen off of it.
The answers to the last two questions are related. A worker-cooperative democratizes the workplace AND the ownership of capital at the community level. This is why a collaborative effort to create new jobs in worker-cooperatives is essential for transition from capitalism toward a "new economy". Creating new jobs is how Mondragon does it every day on a micro-economic scale. This same "trickle-up" approach is most likely how the rest of us will achieve similar results on a macro or global scale.
Seven years later, Capitalism has turned into Communism. Private businesses are now fully controlled by our Government, who has the power to decide which businesses are essential to stay open or close over a planned-demic. 7 years ago, by expanding unemployment for 90 weeks, our unemployment stayed at 10%. That wasn't from Capitalism, that was the Obama administration decision.
Wow amazing how prescient this is. Elizabeth Cohen is so on the mark with forces that affected the election and Wolff's diagnosis and discussion of Capitalism and it's issues is much needed. Thank you for sharing SU!
90% of Mondragon profits are committed to creating new jobs. Every member-enterprise and every worker-member within the Mondragon network must agree to this "contract of association". This feature of the Mondragon system might seem reminiscent of Roosevelt's "New Deal". But since it is installed democratically and voluntarily from the bottom up, not imposed legislatively from the top down, it's also far more permanent.
Elizabeth F. Cohen's remarks were eerily prescient of the Trump phenomenon. Her commentary seemed rather economically naïve, however, since she treated the social conditions she noted as a problem that must be addressed before the economic conditions can be, despite those economic conditions being the basis upon which the social conditions derive their power. Even worse, she recommends that a regulatory hierarchy exist for the purposes of ensuring this "social democracy" (a peculiar choice of words) despite how that directly conflicts with the objective and goal of a democratic and nonhierarchical economy. If Cohen is serious about addressing those social conditions, reorganizing the economic base upon which they rest is instrumental to accomplishing it. Postponing it not only delays achieving any such social amelioration, it _precludes_ any fundamental change of the nature that I suspect Cohen desires. It's just this sort of creeping identity politics which rots class politics from within, and Cohen-perhaps unwittingly-is contributing to that process. Other than that, this lecture was overall great, particularly Richard Wolff's contributions to it. If only he was given more time, and an opportunity to respond to Cohen's oblique criticisms, he could have rebutted such a faulty analysis and more rigorously answered the questions asked to him.
Not only is there no longer any reason for the owners of the means of production to raise wages, there is no longer any reason for them to employ anyone at all.
work was never what people did FOR each other, it was what people did WITH each other, or more exactly in the context of one another's needs Capitalism made it totally unnatural
lol i love how wolff looks like he was just gently woken from a snooze in a dumpster. This is also the best thing he has done, he balances his ire with a compelling presentation really well.
"Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution " by the late Prof. Antony Sutton ! Sutton was a professor at Stanford and a member of the Hoover Institute UNTIL he published this book .
that's essentially the same as suicide, only much slower and also enjoyable - but only for a short while. when you read the essay "Socialism and the Soul of Man", you'll how much we can enjoy life much more now that we've conquered a lot of the problems human kind had in the past. The past didn't have a lot of the technologies we have today; so never lose hope; we actually are not enjoying all the technological innovations.
If white people can't be SUPREME as they expect they get suicidal. This is the societal expectations, to a similar degree the lies of capitalism come gone to roost when people conned into believing the "all you have to do is work hard" find themselves trapped by debt and responsibilities and take what they see as the only way out.
winco is not a worker co-op it is has an esop, employee stock ownership program. it gives employees part “ownership” in the company by offering them shares. not the same as a co-op
Do you think there is a recovery? There is $800 BILLION in credit card debt. There is $1 TRILLION in student loan debt. There are 50 MILLION Americans using food stamps. There are 50 MILLION Americans who lack health insurance. 50% of all full-time U.S. jobs pay slave wages. The true unemployment rate is 20% Young people have a 50% unemployment rate. The employment rate is 60%. In the last 12 months 90% of all jobs created are part-time jobs.
Im searching for an answer to my question. Im a high school dropout so excuse my ignorance but,isn't it capital that Marx would redistribute? Then wouldn't Marxism need capitalism? To replenish the capital it redistributes?
If a workplace were to be run democratically if resources were needed for a given job the difference is that the workers would decide on how to procure the capital needed amongst themselves instead of having a capitalist (the owner) dictate to the workers how things are to happen
Thats not what capitalism is. Capitalism isnt defined as utilizing capital, all economic structures use capital. Capitalism is about the relationship of labor and distribution. A feudal serf used capital to till a field, but you wouldn't say a feudal lord was a boss or a serf was an employee. The relationship between employers and wage laborers is what defines capitalism as distinct from previous economic orders. Also Marxism isn't about redistribution of anything, its an analytical framework. You are thinking of socialism which is about giving ownership of the means of production (including capital goods) to the workers who actually do the labor. Capitalism is just a term, its the relationships of the society in which economies function that determine different economic orders. By your logic slavery, feudalism, soviet communism, village societies and corvefe labor are all capitalism because they use capital.
"Can democracy cure capitalism?" This is actually not a very good question, as capitalism is fundamentally flawed. A better question might be: Can democracy displace and replace capitalism? Over time this might be possible, but only if the new system deliberately reproduces itself by creating new jobs.
Employees wo believe their employers are cheating them out of part of their wages have an obligation to offer their time and talent to other employers, or to go into business for themselves. If they don't want to do that, they need to quit complaining.
I’m honestly not surprised someone close to 80 years old with a PhD has 1.6 million dollars (best google estimate for Prof Wolff). Also he didn’t say anything about the individuals hoarding wealth? Unless you interpreted his comments about capitalist owners taking most of the profits as him telling students not to horde money.
In the 1990's I worked at a job that paid a stinking $250 a week take-home. Meanwhile my boss drove to work in his Lexus. After 3 years on-the-job there I quit in disgust.
20% of the world population is stupefied by poverty. 65% of the population are the unthinking proletariat easily distracted by games and pastimes and gadgets. 10% of the population are socially aware and class conscious but utterly without power. That leaves the 5% who are wealthy and powerful and control the world and cannot be displaced. - George Orwell
So, you found one example of a successful co-op. If you are slow-witted enough to believe that the people at the top are getting dramatically more perks than the people on the bottom -- try eating in the executive dinning room once.
I would say capitalism has been good to Richard. Bet you anything he drives a nice car, lives in a nice house, has quality healthcare, and has money in the bank. Hey Richard, ever gone hungry? You look well fed to me.
The USSR didn't crumble because of it's ideology, it crumbled because it went belly up broke... we knew as far back as the early 1970's that the USSR didn't have much time left before it went bankrupt... the Russian Ruble was worthless compared to other forms of currency and wasn't accepted anywhere other than in the Soviet Block countries... the last time Russia was a 'wealthy nation' was back in the mid 19th century...
Richard Wolff is a writer of fiction. He has never written a paper on economics that has advanced the field or even been submitted for peer review. He has a PhD, but had never produced any new economic theory. Between 1958 and 1962, 45 million people starved to death in China as the result of the largest socialist experiment in history. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping was eager to adopt capitalist methods and reforms in order to stimulate economic growth and restore confidence in the party. According to official World Bank figures, the percentage of extremely poor people in China in 1981 stood at 88.3%. By 2015 only 0.7% of the Chinese population was living in extreme poverty. In this period, the number of poor people in China fell from 878 million to less than ten million. In 2018 China had 680 billionaires. The party identifies among its core tasks the advancement of the fundamental interest of the greatest majority of Chinese people. Deng, who famously said poverty is not socialism, interpreted this to mean that it was okay if some people needed to get rich to improve the livelihoods of the masses. Since the introduction of his reforms, more than 700 million people have been lifted out of poverty in China. Maybe we should have a wealth tax in this country and give it to the poor, like Liberia, Central African Republic, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger. All of which have an average annual income less than $1,000. Great Chinese Famine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine China's Economic Success Proves the Power of Capitalism www.forbes.com/sites/rainerzitelmann/2019/07/08/chinas-economic-success-proves-the-power-of-capitalism/#340c8053b9d7 Why Communist China Is Home to So Many Billionaires fortune.com/2018/11/29/communist-china-billionaires-jack-ma/
What are you talking about? Wolff’s book Contending Economic Theories is published by MIT and have been used in the economics department throughout America. I'm a master's student myself and still required to read that book of his. Btw 99% of economists who teach in Universities don't produce any new theory; most of them don't even have publication records as Wolff has.
@@LeonWagg You're right. "99% of economists who teach in Universities don't produce any new theory" and those are the economists that no one ever hears about. Wolff is a capitalist who makes a living by writing books. He is one of the capitalists that he talks about who doesn't do any of the physical work , but reaps the profits. Does he distribute his book profits to the people who actually print and bind his books (my daddy was a book binder), to the drivers who distribute them or the the book store clerks that sell them? You're a masters student (I only have a bachelors myself). Tell me what YOU think is wrong with capitalism because I'm a capitalist (philosophically). I agree there are, and have been disparages in capitalism, particularly with labor, but many have been addressed. Even so, capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than communism (or socialism) ever did. Between 1958 and 1962, 45 million people starved to death in China as the result of the largest socialist experiment in history. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping was eager to adopt capitalist methods and reforms in order to stimulate economic growth and restore confidence in the party. According to official World Bank figures, the percentage of extremely poor people in China in 1981 stood at 88.3%. By 2015 only 0.7% of the Chinese population was living in extreme poverty. In this period, the number of poor people in China fell from 878 million to less than ten million. China has over 600 billionaires, maybe over 700 now.
@@buckygoldstein9256 what you're saying is ridiculous. problem is he never set up the distribution network. I don't think that he has much wealth to distribute. that's just funny to compare that with Amazon profits .
@@rbl777 Ridiculous? I'm not sure what you want to debate Wolff or Amazon. I have a friend who went to Czechoslovakia to visit their family in the "old country". This was when Czechoslovakia was still part of the USSR. They wanted to bring back some family positions like a clock and personal art work that had been in the family since before they the Czechs became communist. They weren't allowed to remove these "personal" possessions because they were now property of the State. As for Dr. Wolff, he is clearly a capitalist publishing his books. These books are in fact his property and he receives the profits from these books. He doesn't share those profits with the workers that actually produce those books beyond their capitalist salary. If you think Wolff is that respected please give me one paper he wrote that is recognized as being pivotal to the development of economic theory. John Nash, on the other hand, won the Nobel Prize in Economic and published these notable papers: 1) Equilibrium Points in N-person Games - 1950 2) The Bargaining Problem -1950 3) Non-cooperative Games - 1951 4) Two-person Cooperative Games - 1953 Dr. Nash developed modern game theory. That was his contribution to Economic Science. What has Dr. Wolff done except profit from rehashing a clearly failed economic theory? Failed theory? Yes, we can see it just this week when Mr. Putin is threatening to invade the Ukraine because all those former communist countries have all moved away from Russia and toward capitalism and the west (and are joining NATO). The last thing Putin wants is for the Ukraine to move to capitalism, which is the direction that they are moving. Of course Russia in not capitalist, they are an oligarchy (maybe dictatorship would b e a better description). As for Amazon, well I'm not sure just what to say. They employ 1.25 million people paying more than minimum wage and all those employees are all free to leave and get better jobs or start their own entrepreneurial business as they see fit. Anyone of them could do what Jeff Bezos has done, that is if they have the ambition to get off their asses and do it. What was it Tom Edison said? "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration".
@@rbl777 One more thing about communism (socialism). Putin's net worth (the man raised under Soviet Communism) is estimated to be worth between $70 billion and $200 billion. At the high end of that estimate he clearly eclipses Bezos. At the low end he would only be the 13th wealthiest person in the world. What has Mr. Putin ever produced? Imagine if any president in the U.S. was worth that much and acquired it after becoming president. I guess that tells you what a person growing up under communism (socialism) strives to attain.
Communists are hilarious. They think FDR was such a great guy. He was magic. Haha, It's sort of why I have trouble liking communists, even though when given the reigns of power we might do similar-looking things. But that's why you wanna go anarchy, none of that pesky filial piety.
Ramzi Kawa no they don’t. FDR was a racist centrist that only did the economic things he did was because he was bullied by the communist and socialist parties
![Understanding Marxism: Q&A with Richard D. Wolff [June 2019]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eU-AkeOyiOQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
I have tried everything to move up the ladder: high school diploma, bacherlor's degree, master's degree, trying (and failing) to become a professional, computer literacy, fluency in Spanish, thousands of resumes sent out, temp agencies, virtual franchises, self-employment, home businesses, free-lance, taking any job that I could get, the internet. It all failed and instead of climbing the ladder, I've fallen off of it.
Jesus keeps track / sounds like my life somewhat
Really, I have no degree and I’m pulling in 30k a month from home.
Sounds like you had your ladder against the wrong tree.
@@yfhm6275 so what do you do, house painting?
Start your own business
I am sorry. You made a valiant effort
The answers to the last two questions are related. A worker-cooperative democratizes the workplace AND the ownership of capital at the community level. This is why a collaborative effort to create new jobs in worker-cooperatives is essential for transition from capitalism toward a "new economy". Creating new jobs is how Mondragon does it every day on a micro-economic scale. This same "trickle-up" approach is most likely how the rest of us will achieve similar results on a macro or global scale.
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Seven years later, Capitalism has turned into Communism. Private businesses are now fully controlled by our Government, who has the power to decide which businesses are essential to stay open or close over a planned-demic.
7 years ago, by expanding unemployment for 90 weeks, our unemployment stayed at 10%. That wasn't from Capitalism, that was the Obama administration decision.
Elizabeth Cohen as always behind the damn curve
Wow amazing how prescient this is. Elizabeth Cohen is so on the mark with forces that affected the election and Wolff's diagnosis and discussion of Capitalism and it's issues is much needed. Thank you for sharing SU!
90% of Mondragon profits are committed to creating new jobs. Every member-enterprise and every worker-member within the Mondragon network must agree to this "contract of association". This feature of the Mondragon system might seem reminiscent of Roosevelt's "New Deal". But since it is installed democratically and voluntarily from the bottom up, not imposed legislatively from the top down, it's also far more permanent.
The Spanish Catholic Church started that in the thirties...?
Love watching these in hindsight.
Elizabeth F. Cohen's remarks were eerily prescient of the Trump phenomenon. Her commentary seemed rather economically naïve, however, since she treated the social conditions she noted as a problem that must be addressed before the economic conditions can be, despite those economic conditions being the basis upon which the social conditions derive their power. Even worse, she recommends that a regulatory hierarchy exist for the purposes of ensuring this "social democracy" (a peculiar choice of words) despite how that directly conflicts with the objective and goal of a democratic and nonhierarchical economy.
If Cohen is serious about addressing those social conditions, reorganizing the economic base upon which they rest is instrumental to accomplishing it. Postponing it not only delays achieving any such social amelioration, it _precludes_ any fundamental change of the nature that I suspect Cohen desires. It's just this sort of creeping identity politics which rots class politics from within, and Cohen-perhaps unwittingly-is contributing to that process.
Other than that, this lecture was overall great, particularly Richard Wolff's contributions to it. If only he was given more time, and an opportunity to respond to Cohen's oblique criticisms, he could have rebutted such a faulty analysis and more rigorously answered the questions asked to him.
she qualifies as a mouthpiece for the corporate Democrats
Not only is there no longer any reason for the owners of the means of production to raise wages, there is no longer any reason for them to employ anyone at all.
work was never what people did FOR each other, it was what people did WITH each other, or more exactly in the context of one another's needs Capitalism made it totally unnatural
lol i love how wolff looks like he was just gently woken from a snooze in a dumpster. This is also the best thing he has done, he balances his ire with a compelling presentation really well.
''i love how wolff looks like he was just gently woken from a snooze in a dumpster.'' I'M STEALING THAT ONE G
thank you Richard
There can’t be any bargaining this time. Follow through to socialism.
"Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution " by the late Prof. Antony Sutton ! Sutton was a professor at Stanford and a member of the Hoover Institute UNTIL he published this book .
Your great MR. Wolff
Thank you Professor Wolff 👍🏼😎
American Crystal is a privately held family farm that supports tariffs against cheaper Mexican sugar. Republicans in ND love socialism for the rich.
they turned to drugs and drinking to help forget the problems...
that's essentially the same as suicide, only much slower and also enjoyable - but only for a short while.
when you read the essay "Socialism and the Soul of Man", you'll how much we can enjoy life much more now that we've conquered a lot of the problems human kind had in the past. The past didn't have a lot of the technologies we have today; so never lose hope; we actually are not enjoying all the technological innovations.
If white people can't be SUPREME as they expect they get suicidal. This is the societal expectations, to a similar degree the lies of capitalism come gone to roost when people conned into believing the "all you have to do is work hard" find themselves trapped by debt and responsibilities and take what they see as the only way out.
Biggest example of a worker co-op in the USA: Winco foods
winco is not a worker co-op it is has an esop, employee stock ownership program. it gives employees part “ownership” in the company by offering them shares. not the same as a co-op
Could you imagine what our government would be doing with all that money now a days.
Do you think there is a recovery? There is $800 BILLION in credit card debt. There is $1 TRILLION in student loan debt. There are 50 MILLION Americans using food stamps. There are 50 MILLION Americans who lack health insurance. 50% of all full-time U.S. jobs pay slave wages. The true unemployment rate is 20% Young people have a 50% unemployment rate. The employment rate is 60%. In the last 12 months 90% of all jobs created are part-time jobs.
Wolff 2024. I know, he wouldn't stoop to it. But he is so fantastic.
Wolff in sheep's clothing.
Excellent! Shared ;)
When we have money think our money disappears, when we don't get meney think our money appears again. It's economy theory.
Wolff never mentions the fact that people who disagree with how the business is run have the right to go into business for themselves!
So what he mentions when he talks about coops huh?
Richard Wolff is brilliant. The time has come to break the taboo.
i love what you do.
A middle of the road idea can arise. If you want change. Tax the rich and corps. To establish wages and benefits that r realistic.
44.15 the lady who unties her hair, if you read this and interested in going out, let me know :D
Capitalism's only virtue is that Communism is worse. -A old saying.
Wolf sounds like burny sanders
Return to equality
He's dangerous yet reckless
Im searching for an answer to my question. Im a high school dropout so excuse my ignorance but,isn't it capital that Marx would redistribute? Then wouldn't Marxism need capitalism? To replenish the capital it redistributes?
If a workplace were to be run democratically if resources were needed for a given job the difference is that the workers would decide on how to procure the capital needed amongst themselves instead of having a capitalist (the owner) dictate to the workers how things are to happen
Hope that helps :)
@@coleburkhardt8961 I mean it helps make my point,yes. That workplace is seeking capital making it a capital venture. I.E. capitalism
Thats not what capitalism is. Capitalism isnt defined as utilizing capital, all economic structures use capital. Capitalism is about the relationship of labor and distribution. A feudal serf used capital to till a field, but you wouldn't say a feudal lord was a boss or a serf was an employee.
The relationship between employers and wage laborers is what defines capitalism as distinct from previous economic orders.
Also Marxism isn't about redistribution of anything, its an analytical framework. You are thinking of socialism which is about giving ownership of the means of production (including capital goods) to the workers who actually do the labor. Capitalism is just a term, its the relationships of the society in which economies function that determine different economic orders.
By your logic slavery, feudalism, soviet communism, village societies and corvefe labor are all capitalism because they use capital.
"Can democracy cure capitalism?" This is actually not a very good question, as capitalism is fundamentally flawed. A better question might be: Can democracy displace and replace capitalism? Over time this might be possible, but only if the new system deliberately reproduces itself by creating new jobs.
How is this procedure followed again?!! From the formation???
How is socialism working for you?
Employees wo believe their employers are cheating them out of part of their wages have an obligation to offer their time and talent to other employers, or to go into business for themselves. If they don't want to do that, they need to quit complaining.
Communism, everyone.
You must admit. Its pretty ironic to watch a millionaire that was paid to be there tell the group that paid him that they shouldn't horde wealth.
I’m honestly not surprised someone close to 80 years old with a PhD has 1.6 million dollars (best google estimate for Prof Wolff). Also he didn’t say anything about the individuals hoarding wealth? Unless you interpreted his comments about capitalist owners taking most of the profits as him telling students not to horde money.
In the 1990's I worked at a job that paid a stinking $250 a week take-home. Meanwhile my boss drove to work in his Lexus. After 3 years on-the-job there I quit in disgust.
Why does youtube keep recommending this Bolshevik!?
Let's see co-op. I remember the cars make in Russia during the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s being a total piece of #$%^.
coz they were focused on military. your argument doesn't prove anything
20% of the world population is stupefied by poverty. 65% of the population are the unthinking proletariat easily distracted by games and pastimes and gadgets. 10% of the population are socially aware and class conscious but utterly without power. That leaves the 5% who are wealthy and powerful and control the world and cannot be displaced. - George Orwell
So, you found one example of a successful co-op. If you are slow-witted enough to believe that the people at the top are getting dramatically more perks than the people on the bottom -- try eating in the executive dinning room once.
I would say capitalism has been good to Richard. Bet you anything he drives a nice car, lives in a nice house, has quality healthcare, and has money in the bank. Hey Richard, ever gone hungry? You look well fed to me.
bail out big Corp. gimme a break
D:
The USSR didn't crumble because of it's ideology, it crumbled because it went belly up broke... we knew as far back as the early 1970's that the USSR didn't have much time left before it went bankrupt... the Russian Ruble was worthless compared to other forms of currency and wasn't accepted anywhere other than in the Soviet Block countries... the last time Russia was a 'wealthy nation' was back in the mid 19th century...
Richard Wolff is a writer of fiction. He has never written a paper on economics that has advanced the field or even been submitted for peer review. He has a PhD, but had never produced any new economic theory.
Between 1958 and 1962, 45 million people starved to death in China as the result of the largest socialist experiment in history.
In 1978, Deng Xiaoping was eager to adopt capitalist methods and reforms in order to stimulate economic growth and restore confidence in the party.
According to official World Bank figures, the percentage of extremely poor people in China in 1981 stood at 88.3%. By 2015 only 0.7% of the Chinese population was living in extreme poverty. In this period, the number of poor people in China fell from 878 million to less than ten million.
In 2018 China had 680 billionaires. The party identifies among its core tasks the advancement of the fundamental interest of the greatest majority of Chinese people. Deng, who famously said poverty is not socialism, interpreted this to mean that it was okay if some people needed to get rich to improve the livelihoods of the masses. Since the introduction of his reforms, more than 700 million people have been lifted out of poverty in China.
Maybe we should have a wealth tax in this country and give it to the poor, like Liberia, Central African Republic, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger. All of which have an average annual income less than $1,000.
Great Chinese Famine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
China's Economic Success Proves the Power of Capitalism
www.forbes.com/sites/rainerzitelmann/2019/07/08/chinas-economic-success-proves-the-power-of-capitalism/#340c8053b9d7
Why Communist China Is Home to So Many Billionaires
fortune.com/2018/11/29/communist-china-billionaires-jack-ma/
What are you talking about? Wolff’s book Contending Economic Theories is published by MIT and have been used in the economics department throughout America. I'm a master's student myself and still required to read that book of his. Btw 99% of economists who teach in Universities don't produce any new theory; most of them don't even have publication records as Wolff has.
@@LeonWagg You're right. "99% of economists who teach in Universities don't produce any new theory" and those are the economists that no one ever hears about. Wolff is a capitalist who makes a living by writing books. He is one of the capitalists that he talks about who doesn't do any of the physical work , but reaps the profits. Does he distribute his book profits to the people who actually print and bind his books (my daddy was a book binder), to the drivers who distribute them or the the book store clerks that sell them?
You're a masters student (I only have a bachelors myself). Tell me what YOU think is wrong with capitalism because I'm a capitalist (philosophically). I agree there are, and have been disparages in capitalism, particularly with labor, but many have been addressed. Even so, capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than communism (or socialism) ever did. Between 1958 and 1962, 45 million people starved to death in China as the result of the largest socialist experiment in history. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping was eager to adopt capitalist methods and reforms in order to stimulate economic growth and restore confidence in the party.
According to official World Bank figures, the percentage of extremely poor people in China in 1981 stood at 88.3%. By 2015 only 0.7% of the Chinese population was living in extreme poverty. In this period, the number of poor people in China fell from 878 million to less than ten million. China has over 600 billionaires, maybe over 700 now.
@@buckygoldstein9256 what you're saying is ridiculous. problem is he never set up the distribution network. I don't think that he has much wealth to distribute. that's just funny to compare that with Amazon profits .
@@rbl777 Ridiculous? I'm not sure what you want to debate Wolff or Amazon. I have a friend who went to Czechoslovakia to visit their family in the "old country". This was when Czechoslovakia was still part of the USSR. They wanted to bring back some family positions like a clock and personal art work that had been in the family since before they the Czechs became communist. They weren't allowed to remove these "personal" possessions because they were now property of the State. As for Dr. Wolff, he is clearly a capitalist publishing his books. These books are in fact his property and he receives the profits from these books. He doesn't share those profits with the workers that actually produce those books beyond their capitalist salary. If you think Wolff is that respected please give me one paper he wrote that is recognized as being pivotal to the development of economic theory.
John Nash, on the other hand, won the Nobel Prize in Economic and published these notable papers:
1) Equilibrium Points in N-person Games - 1950
2) The Bargaining Problem -1950
3) Non-cooperative Games - 1951
4) Two-person Cooperative Games - 1953
Dr. Nash developed modern game theory. That was his contribution to Economic Science. What has Dr. Wolff done except profit from rehashing a clearly failed economic theory? Failed theory? Yes, we can see it just this week when Mr. Putin is threatening to invade the Ukraine because all those former communist countries have all moved away from Russia and toward capitalism and the west (and are joining NATO). The last thing Putin wants is for the Ukraine to move to capitalism, which is the direction that they are moving. Of course Russia in not capitalist, they are an oligarchy (maybe dictatorship would b e a better description).
As for Amazon, well I'm not sure just what to say. They employ 1.25 million people paying more than minimum wage and all those employees are all free to leave and get better jobs or start their own entrepreneurial business as they see fit. Anyone of them could do what Jeff Bezos has done, that is if they have the ambition to get off their asses and do it. What was it Tom Edison said? "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration".
@@rbl777 One more thing about communism (socialism). Putin's net worth (the man raised under Soviet Communism) is estimated to be worth between $70 billion and $200 billion. At the high end of that estimate he clearly eclipses Bezos. At the low end he would only be the 13th wealthiest person in the world. What has Mr. Putin ever produced? Imagine if any president in the U.S. was worth that much and acquired it after becoming president. I guess that tells you what a person growing up under communism (socialism) strives to attain.
Communists are hilarious. They think FDR was such a great guy. He was magic. Haha, It's sort of why I have trouble liking communists, even though when given the reigns of power we might do similar-looking things. But that's why you wanna go anarchy, none of that pesky filial piety.
Ramzi Kawa no they don’t. FDR was a racist centrist that only did the economic things he did was because he was bullied by the communist and socialist parties