Welcome friends to another edition of Economic Update a weekly program devoted
to the economic dimensions of our lives our jobs our incomes our debts and those
facing our kids as well I'm your host Richard Wolff I've been a
Professor of Economics all my adult life and I currently teach at the new school
University in New York City. Before jumping into the large number of
economic updates I have arranged for you today I wanted to make a couple of our
usual announcements for those of you who might want to watch this program either
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info and the other one is our D Wolff with two F's com. Okay so with that
behind us let's get into the updates one of the big items this last week was the
passage in Congress of a bill apply sanctions to Russia we have
applied sanctions to Russia for a while now this is another bill that applies
another bunch of them for another period of time there's two comments I have to
make about the economics of sanctions the first is that they don't work in
other words we have much experience with sanctions let me give you the grossest
one shortly following the arrival of Fidel Castro to power in Cuba back in
1959 the United States sponsored a failed invasion to overthrow in when
that didn't work the United States applied sanctions and for the next
half-century actually a bit more than that those sanctions were always
justified on the grounds that they would bring Cuba around would end mr. Castro's
regime and so on did none of those things
the Cubans found ways to get around the sanctions as the Russians have and as
the Russians will one of the consequences of leaving most industrial
production in the hands of private enterprises is that it has become very
easy for governments suffering sanctions to find more than a few companies are
willing to make a little extra profit by wiggling around the sanctions and so
they don't work they are mostly a political theater designed to persuade
whoever they want to that they're being tough and going after the bad guy but in
terms of what they really do it's fake and so let me give you a concrete
example it turns out that also this last week the United States Treasury
Department that's mr. Trump's Treasury Department levied a two million dollar
fine on a company for violating the sanctions against Russia the company in
question was Exxon Mobil that's right the biggest oil company in the world a
two million dollar fine for violating sanctions let me remind
what the annual revenue is of ExxonMobil in 2016
216 billion that's with a B and they got a fine of 2 million that's as if you did
something really bad and the government finds you and came to you and said right
in your face you must pay this fine 3 cents right now or we will be mighty
angry and you would fish into your pocket giggling at every point and give
them the three pennies that's what 2 million is to the Exxon
Mobil Corporation but the story gets better who was the head CEO of Exxon
during the time that it violated this sanctions put by the US government
against Russia well a mr. Rex Tillerson you know him he was made by mr. Trump to
be the current Secretary of State so let me be sure you all get it we have a
Secretary of State who as far as we can tell is in no danger of losing his
position who was the CEO at the time that the government mr. Tillison now
serves finds his company for violating the law it takes your breath away
doesn't it who's above the law not just mr. Trump in his own mind all of these
folks aren't they and meanwhile they play the theater of sanctions the next
update has to do with medical news oh no not again the insurance bill fights in
the Congress that use up our headlines I want to talk about other things that are
falling kind of below the radar and in this program we like to bring them right
up above the radar I'm right within its purview there's a long-standing question
about whether health care doctors hospitals medical device and drug makers
and the insurance companies whether they should be private or public
in most of the advanced countries of the world they are either public or they are
public-private partnerships we we in America tilt the bill all the way over
to the private or nearly so of course in a rational society this question of
whether anything whether it's medical cares or public parks or the police or
you name it should be handled by private enterprises or by the government or to
be discussed and decided democratically in terms of the populations belief of
which is the better way to get the service provided but we have in America
big private enterprises with lots of money among the biggest and with the
most other Koch brothers and they spend an awful lot of money trying to get rid
of any risk of competition from government enterprises they want to have
it all for themselves as private enterprises and so I want to talk a
little bit about some examples we're leaving things to the private
enterprise is so inefficient so ineffective so immoral that I don't
think it would last five minutes in an open public democratic discussion and
decision as to whether this should be done privately or publicly here's an
example the McKesson Corporation you may not know about it but it's the largest
distributor of drugs in the United States the CEO of that company John
Hamre gren has been in the news this last week why one of the things McKesson
distributes our opioid drugs painkillers that are now causing unbelievable death
and destruction across the United States keep in mind the following statistic 90
Americans die every day from opioid overdoses 90 every day well the McKesson
Corporation distributes those to and it is required by law to report any
suspicious provisions any suspicious number of such drugs being dispensed by
a doctor or a pharmacy to whom they distribute drugs they didn't do a real
good job of that back in 2008 they were fined 13 million dollars for not doing
that properly they promised to do better then they were found guilty again
between 2008 and 2013 and so this last January they were required to pay
another fine a hundred and fifty million dollars on Jan you in January of 2017
they clearly didn't get the message and we suffer the results by the way mr.
hammer Glen the CEO over the last 10 years has taken home somewhere between
five and six hundred million dollars as one clever reporter mentioned mr. hammer
Glen could have paid out of his own pocket
the fines levied against the company and it wouldn't have made a difference to
his lifestyle one little bit leaving the distribution of drugs in private hands
under us revelation of this sort that I've just provided seems to me beyond
inappropriate and becoming downright immoral this is not a good thing to
leave to private enterprise because the profits from distributing opioids
clearly dominated other considerations for mr. hammer gren and his company
another example also in the week this last week by the way if you want more
details on the McKesson Corporation go to the New York Times of July 23 if you
want this next example more details the towel gene corporation CA LG en e it's
the New York Times of July 26th they were subjected to a big fine 280
million dollars for promoting drugs as cancer cures that were not approved by
the FBI for such things in other words to make a lot of more
money by having a lot more people particularly desperate people who are
suffering from cancer put their hopes and more importantly their cash to work
or that of their insurers on these unproven unapproved drugs they got into
trouble they made billions and they paid a 280 million dollar five leading drug
production and distribution in the hands of privates doesn't look real good does
it third example comes from England the Bhoots
corporation it's the largest public pharmacy it distributes beauty and
health aids all over Europe has about excuse me all over Britain and Ireland
has over 2,500 stores there it is by the way a subsidiary of Walgreens
corporation which is an American company doing pretty much the same thing well it
has been charging over $40.00 for the treatment of what is called the
morning-after pill if you have unwanted or unprotected sex and you want to
prevent conception you can take this pill doing it a few days immediately
afterwards and it prevents conception they make this pill available in their
upscale pharmacies at over $40 treatment whereas other companies in England that
do the same thing but smaller chains typically charge less than half and so
women in Britain have begun to complain loudly and the British government gets
these complaints that people who desperately need this pill are having to
pay extortionate amounts of money in one of their pharmacy chains and they want
the government to look into that that sort of thing works in England for those
of you who may not aware of it being here in the United
States where we don't have this thing boots tried to hold on they did a clever
thing they got or maybe they were just lucky to get a conservative women's
group to say that nothing should be done because sometimes can you imagine this
pill is provided to women who have not gotten parental consent or are under age
what that has to do with the price you charge I will leave to your imagination
I can't quite see it other than as a way for boots to find some justification for
the absurdly high price they charge but it failed in England partly because of
the power of women's groups and the fact that the Labour Party joined in Boots
has now apologized for the overcharge and we'll see kind of what happens but
again it raises the question if there are laws in England which there are in
the UK about what drugs can and cannot be provided to whom and by the way they
the pharmacist has to ask certain questions of anybody who buys
contraception in England that's part of the law but if the law provides that
boots must do this then it is not appropriate for boots to make some
policy decision which just happens to boost its profits to go the other way
last point the National Health Service in Great Britain distributes the exact
same drugs for free all over England the women who go to these stores either have
not got the time or the access to a clinic and so they're being gouged by
the private distributor you wanted a better example of how the public does a
better job than the private clearly the public distributed for free because they
don't have to pay very much since they buy the drugs in bulk and therefore get
the best price next update Consumer Reports magazine very useful
service telling consumers what to watch out for it has an interesting story in
the August 2 thousand 17 issue it turns out that the
big cable providers cable TV in the United States and specifically the
article mentions Comcast and spectrum which are two of the biggest get among
the lowest scores of anybody who scores for Consumer Reports that is they get
more complaints about bad service than anybody else or almost anybody else
really low scores and Consumer Reports speculates in their article what the
reason is three-quarters of Americans it turns out have access to only one
broadband provider who can provide speeds in excess of 25 Mbps in other
words the reason that they get so many complaints is that their service is
lousy and their rates are too high and that's because they have an effective
monopoly on speedy service in three-quarters of America but this has
led to an interesting and creative response it talks just to the public
private issue it turns out that some municipalities not happy with their
citizens being subjected to this monopoly ripoff have gone into providing
this service themselves the Consumer Reports magazine credits citynet in
Santa Monica California and EPB - Chattanooga in that part of Tennessee
and it turns out upon research that 500 municipalities across America either
provide this service themselves or do so in partnership with private companies
but of course the private companies are busy they have filed all kinds of
lawsuits to prevent towns from offering any competition in the way of public
provision of these services and they have also used their lobbying efforts to
get almost 25 states across America to throw obstacles in the way of
communities cities and towns within those states from doing what Chattanooga
and Santa Monica have done to undo the monopoly next time you hear
the senators from various states and they're doing it more and more talk
about being opposed to monopolies check out whether they did anything against
the monopoly of your cable provider next short item I just wanted you to know
that the latest study of what CEOs of big corporations earn indicate that on
average they earn 271 times what the average workers in their companies earn
that's up from 30 or 40 times 50 years ago 271 times it takes your breath away
it has increased over recent decades far more than what has been done for average
workers pay that is CEOs pay is risen much faster than average workers and you
might be interested to know that CEOs pay has written risen much faster than
the profits of the companies that they lead they don't pay their workers and
they take more from themselves as increases than their companies earn nice
job if you can get it and here are the two top winners this last year mark lor
lor e he works at walmart his pay last year 244 million dollars and I did the
math for you it works out to five million dollars a week 52 weeks a year
or as many weeks as he actually shows up so you consider your pay each week and
then you think about mock lore at Walmart he's number one number two
sundar pichai I hope I'm pronouncing his name right but I don't really care
he works at Google or what it's now called alphabet and he made 200 million
a year and that works out to roughly four million dollars per week there's no
further comment I need make you can make your own okay we turn now to a final
story which is connected to last week's in
view of John Summa a professor at the University of Vermont who is being
kicked out because he questions the mainstream orthodoxy from a left
perspective this story has to do with economics as it's taught at the
University of Utah that's right Utah it turns out that some years ago
can you imagine Utah University hired in its Economics Department a long star
alongside a whole big bunch of professors who teach conventional
mainstream economics a few who teach it from my mock seein or a critical or a
heterogeneous it's these different words I use this day in anyway from a
dissenting perspective it hired a few and they have been there for quite a
while and a few others have been hired alongside all the conventional material
that is also taught but my Ike was drawn to an editorial in the Deseret News a
leading newspaper in Utah which admitted the editorial did that Utah University
is one of the few universities in America that allows any dissenting
Marxist perspectives to be taught but even though they are very few Deseret
editorial deseret news as editorial applauded the formation of a new
Institute the Echo's Institute at the University of Utah with money from the
Echolls family and hence the name and then I really found it interesting
ten million dollars from the Koch brothers foundation to establish a
special Institute whose job apparently is to counteract to offset to balance
whatever word you like the awful influence of a few dissenting Marxist
scholars all with the requisite credential
teaching in the Utah University economics department in most other
countries the idea is if you teach economics it is useful to open to
students the array of differing perspectives those that celebrate
capitalism and those that are skeptical or critical those that use mainstream
traditions but also those that explore leaving non mainstream traditions partly
this is to give students a sense of the diversity that has always been part of
economics partly it's to sharpen their mental ability to look at economic
issues using multiple toolboxes not just one etc all the logical pedagogical
arguments those are discarded here in the United States in the vast majority
of universities who exclude especially in economics with which I am familiar
they exclude dissenters in a way that is somewhere between absurd and silly it is
so lopsided and one-sided that it produces in the United States a
population that is barely literate in mainstream economics and has no exposure
to dissenting perspectives it is a rigidly enforced orthodoxy there
are a few schools and our exceptions famous ones the University of
Massachusetts the University American University in Washington and others and
Utah was among them and that seems to have been too much for the Koch brothers
and other conservatives who have now funded a school alongside the Economics
Department to monitor them to counter them to undo them this is hysteria
masking itself as a reasonable behavior but of course with a private enterprise
system that allows billions of dollar to be accumulated in the hands of a few
individuals they can be as lopsided and one-sided as parochial and narrow-minded
as they wish and make what kinds of things happen just like that because
they have the money it's another price you pay you might
think you live in a democratic society where we democratically decide how we
want our children to be educated we make at least a little effort in that
direction in our public primary and secondary schools which are after all
subject to democratic pressures in the cities and towns where they're located
but when it comes to higher education it is kind of an open season because we do
not fund our colleges and public colleges and universities adequately
they're desperate for funds they turn to the private sector and for those of you
who believe that private companies and private individuals give money to
universities without wanting something in return
without exerting pressure on those universities to do what they want well
you are indulging a level of naive naivete that defies anything I can say
you really need to rethink your position the people donating the money have no
ambiguity whatsoever in making sure they get a return on what they donate and the
Koch brothers and the other conservatives that funded the new
Institute at Utah which you can read about in the Deseret News whenever you
want to in Utah is a perfect example well we've come to the end of the first
half of this program please remember the websites are DeWulf
with - let's calm and democracy at work dot info they will provide you with all
sorts of supplementary materials we will take a short back
short break scuze me and we will be right back please stay with us
we get rather okay
Hey
right here there
so same time next week well of course put away a few bucks feel
like a million bucks for free tips to help you save go to feed the food all
right you know this isn't any fun to talk about but we should okay
so who's gonna do what I'll pack the dead batteries great I'll only put what
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to do all this for us thanks pal well I think we couldn't be any less prepared
I'm pranking guys talk to your kids about who to call where to meet what to
pack visit ready.gov slash kids for tips and information
Oh checking your fantasies no just my 401k statement hmm all right suppose you
find the money for that I just been saving a little every month I can't seem
to save anything well what about all this what about the money you're
spending what money it's gone before and get my
hands on it I got a pizza for it Todd hey can somebody spot me when it comes
to financial stability don't get left behind
it's 547 get tools and tips for saving at feed the pig org when some people
struggle with their mortgage payments they become frozen
but the people who take action are far more likely to get the most positive
outcome call this free government program for the option that's right for
you welcome back friends to the second half of this economic update program
today the second half is going to be devoted to one huge topic the topic is
socialism it is something that needs the conversation and it needs discussion and
it needs the date but before I get into it I have to explain why it needs those
things basically I offer two reasons first a whole bevy of recent polls here
in the United States indicates that particularly younger people folks age 35
and younger when asked the question which do you prefer capitalism or
socialism are giving an answer that is surprising many across the United States
namely huge numbers sometimes majorities are saying they prefer socialism when
you explore that further and I have done that personally as well as looked at the
literature it turns out that it's probably fair to say that voting that
way in a poll is a reflection more of people's dissatisfaction with the
capitalism they live in then it is a clear preference for something else
because when you talk with large numbers of young people which I do in my classes
as well as in my public speaking it's quite clear that they're not very clear
about what socialism is what it has been where it comes from where it's going and
so in the interests of responding to the growing interest I want to talk about it
on this program the second reason has to do with the fact that here in the United
States unlike in most other parts of the world for the last 50 years there has
been a deeply repressive taboo on discussing socialism in a reasonable way
what are its strengths what are its weaknesses what are its achievements one
of the things it did that we want to avoid just the kind of reasonable
balanced that you would give to any topic that
seemed to you or me to be important we haven't been able to do that we have
been in a cold war for most of that time our enemy we were told was the Soviet
Union it was socialist and therefore it was socialism and everything having to
do with socialism had to be poo-pooed put down denounced as horrific and evil
and awful as if we were in the middle of a life-threatening conflict and had no
time or interest in a balanced assessment we were fighting for our
lives or at least that's what the thought leaders of this country wanted
us to believe and so we didn't have a conversation they had it everywhere else
pretty much but not here and so we've had a generation of people unexposed to
what socialism is unaware that over the last 50 years like everything else
socialism has changed capitalism certainly has and socialism too but you
wouldn't know much about it if you weren't allowed to read the books to
have the teachers who could teach it to you and to have a national public debate
so in the interests of catching up with 50 lost years let's talk about socialism
and let's do it on this program and hopefully in lots of other venues as
well well the first thing it's a bit strange about the word socialism is why
we use it it has at least for the last century been the major alternative to
capitalism the major critic of capitalism in most countries of the
world there are socialist parties who are important and often are win the
elections and become the government's in those countries it's been true in
virtually every country of Europe for example but many other parts of the
world as well so socialism is a regular normal part of the lives of people in
those countries and there is no evidence to suggest that they're worse off than
we are because they've had such a conversation
and a good bit of evidence to the opposite in any case why socialism while
the word social what we are all part of the society as opposed to a particular
economic system called capitalism why do that why you word it that way I think
the answer lies in understanding a little bit more about capitalism the
very thing socialism is critical of because capitalism hasn't had one
meaning either and capitalism hasn't stayed the same either so let's go
through very briefly how capitalism has been differently understood in the past
and also in the present so for example some people see capitalism as a
particular way of organizing production so that some people will call them
employers that's a relatively small group or in charge they make all the key
decisions of what they're going to produce and how they're going to produce
it it where they're going to produce it and if they make money from doing so if
they produce something that sells well well then they decide what to do with
the profits meanwhile the vast majority of people who work in the enterprises
that employers run are called employees they come to work 9:00 to 5:00
five days a week more or less do what they're told and at the end of the day
go home they leave behind whatever it is they help to produce because that
belongs in a capitalist system to the employer it belongs to the minority even
though it was produced by the majority okay that's the way capitalism works and
that differentiates it from other systems slavery for example is a way of
organizing production but they're the two key players or masters and slaves
and we know enough about that system to know that it's different from capitalism
because in capitalism there are no masters and there are no slaves
that's outlawed by law in most capital countries including our own likewise
capitalism is different in the way it organizes production from feudalism
there we have lords and serfs they are not masters and slaves nobody owns
anybody in feudalism but it's a different system capitalism is employers
and employees and there are other systems for example there have been
economic systems where everybody is self-employed no employer employee
because each of us man and woman adult is working on our own for our selves
that was kind of the vision of America that Thomas Jefferson had in mind in the
early days of the United States it's not what happened but it is what he
preferred and then there are still other systems we can call them communal for
lack of a better term excuse me that's when a tribe or a village or an extended
family organizes production kind of equally everybody having a particular
role to play and a particular voice in making decisions some people call it
collectivist some people call it communal some people call it communist
it's a variety of terms but it's clearly different from the employer-employee
system so that's basically what capitalism has often been defined at but
it's not the only definition if you pick up an American newspaper today you will
actually see capitalism defined very differently it will be defined in terms
of markets and private property or even private enterprises for these people the
definition they want you to focus on is how goods get distributed by markets by
market exchange I get some of that because I give you something equivalent
money or some other object and they want to focus on whether things are owned
privately or publicly I don't want to get into a debate about what the best
definition is I've done that on other times I just want you to have all of
that in your mind why because it helps me to explain the varieties of terms
socialism has taken so for example some socialists just to pick up on what we
just said think of socialism as not markets but
instead government planning and not private enterprise and private property
but instead the public the government owns the means of production so for them
they got a nice dichotomy a nice split capitalism is private enterprise in
markets and socialism is government planning and government owning and
operating enterprises that's neat and that's kind of the way the bait the
debate played out in the twentieth century but the twentieth century is
over we are now almost a fifth into the next century and we need to understand
that the interest and the definitions of capitalism and socialism are shifting
and that's part of what this program is about but let's continue talking about
our topic socialism many socialism's focusing on
what capitalists said they were namely private enterprise and markets have
stressed in their critiques of capitalism that if you leave the economy
to private enterprise and markets you get lots of outcomes that are not good
at least not good for the majority of the people and that what socialism means
here we go is that you bring the government in to correct to offset to
limit the beared outcomes of leaving the economy to private enterprises and
markets that's why governments have been brought in to regulate industries to
limit industries to control industries that are privately owned and operated so
for many people socialism simply means the government is brought in many people
that I encounter in the United States believe that for them socialism is when
the government limits the wage you pay you can't pay below a certain minimum
wage or you can't charge an interest rate above
a certain amount or you have to install mechanisms that clean the air that you
pump into the atmosphere that we all breathe and so on any government coming
in to limit or control private enterprise is seen as socialism then the
extreme form of that is when the government doesn't just regulate or
doesn't just control the government takes over markets are no longer how you
distribute goods the government tells you what to do with the goods after you
produce them who to pass them to and who will pass things to you government
planning not markets and then the government doesn't just regulate private
enterprises it literally takes them over it runs them as government enterprises
and of course the two great examples that people point to other Soviet Union
and China as people who were communists that is their kind of socialism took the
full measure of the government coming in whereas the kinds of social isms you had
still had in France or Germany or Italy or Scandinavia has the government with a
big regulatory role but not literally taking things over the way they did in
Russia and China so socialism has often meant in the minds of socialists that
they're making for a more humane capitalism a gentler capitalism there
was a popular phrase in the twentieth century capitalism with a human face and
the idea of the socialist was what we want is the efficiency they thought
capitalism had the privacy and the private property that they thought
capitalism add but with enough government control to minimize the bad
results that they were convinced did flow and would flow if you let the
economy simply go fully privatized in terms of ownership of property and
market exchange but there were always other socialists who didn't agree
neither with the moderate socialists of West
Europe for example nor with the communists of Russia and China these
were people who felt that socialism wasn't just the government doing things
whether that was more or less wasn't of great interest in it they felt there was
something much more central much more important that they as socialists
focused on and that had to do with how production was organized in other words
for them socialism meant not organizing with employers or employees in their
view that kind of system that kind of capitalism shared awful qualities with
feudalism and slavery and the awful qualities were basically that the
minority at the top masters lords and now employers could and would use their
economic power to control the political and cultural life of the society and be
fundamentally undemocratic in the workplace where the minority controls
master Lord employer and therefore in also in the broader society using their
wealth and power to control the broader society so they can stay in control of
the enterprises that they dominate so for these socialists socialism means an
alternative economic system of production the end of employer versus
employee and the substitution of a democratic socialized ownership and
operation of enterprises that means the workers or the community or an alliance
of workers and residents of a community together democratically own and operate
the production in their society for them that's socialism and therefore there's a
struggle among socialists between those who think this fundamental change of the
organization of production is key and those who think no no let the
capitalists run their enterprises just have the government come in and limit
control what they do to get rid of the bad
results no socialists don't like each other often debate with each other and
that's fine they are a different way of interpreting socialism and there's every
right and reason that they should argue and debate and if you're not familiar
with that debate well that it's about the fifty years we haven't add a
conversation we haven't been able in our society to be free enough to talk openly
and honestly about these questions and so we have to catch up now using the end
of the Cold War for that enhancement of our freedom of discussion and debate
that we should never have been deprived of in the first place now let me make it
real clear what I'm saying here it by using examples I'm going to start with
slavery slavery is an economic system is as existed for centuries in various
parts of the world including of course here in the United States wherever
slavery arrived in experienced what every economic system has always
experienced any that we've ever had there were people who loved it and
welcomed it and there were people who were critical of it the system survived
as long as those who loved it what kind of a majority in shaping public opinion
and in shaping the society and if and when those who didn't like it became
numerous and became influential well then that system began to disappear
every economic system we have had the communal the tribal the self-employment
the slave the feudal every one of them was born evolved over time and died the
burden is on anyone who's watching or listening to this program to imagine
that the latest one capitalism had a birth had an evolution but unlike every
other system will not die my guess is it will and that's just a guess based on
what every other system has done well let's go back to slavery why am I
talking about it because slavery had its detractors slavery had its critics
slavery had its dissident we know about that because when slavery
was ended both here in the United States in Britain and Europe and Asia Africa
Latin America it was a kind of notion that people had that it was good
riddance the human being shouldn't be the slaves of one another so there's a
kind of a residue of hostility so it's easy for me to show you and to explain
that slavery always had its critics who eventually helped that system to go on
and pass away but throughout the lives of his slave system you had again two
kinds of critics one set of critics said you know the slaves should be treated
better they're not being fed properly they're not being clothed properly they
don't have good places to live their families are being wrecked by their
owners selling different members of the family to other we want slaves to be
much better treated you might call these people reformists they wanted to reform
slavery to make it work better they wanted slavery with a more human face
then there were others who said to the first group are you nuts the problem
here isn't how well the employed steeped master treats the slave the problem is
we shouldn't have slavery we and we must do that because if all you do is get the
master to treat the slave a bit better then what's to prevent the master the
next chance he has from withdrawing whatever it is you've made him do nicely
and going back to what he did before there's no real security for the slave
not to be what a slave is at the mercy of the master and therefore the issue is
free the slave those two people those who wanted to reform slavery and those
who wanted to revolt against slavery and make a transition to another system is
the history of the struggle over slavery and a history that we now know was
eventually decided in favor of the revolutionaries because we don't have
slavery hardly at all anymore
now the parallel the reason I tell you the story about slavery is with
capitalism socialists can be easily divided into those who favor reform and
those who want something more what are the Reformers want they want the
government to come in and make for capitalism and more human-faced make
sure workers don't get less than a certain amount make sure where they work
is healthy and safe make sure that the tax system does a little bit to prevent
extreme inequalities of income that's what socialists or reforming socialists
or what in America is called Democratic so that's what they've wanted they
basically okay with capitalism but they want it to be reformed and then there
are others who say wait a bit stop even if you get the reforms if you leave the
capitalists in charge which is what you're basically saying they can and
will try to take back those reforms and you'll be in an endless struggle you get
a few you lose them you try again you lose
what has to be done is to change the organization of production no more
employers and employees well what would be the alternative well we know what it
is with slavery it was every person is equally free and in the critique of
capitalism of those socialists who want to go beyond reform the argument is
everybody is both an employer and an employee
no more dividing people between the one or the other it's like saying to the
slave you are now a master you want our slave then the words have no meaning
anymore you are free nobody owns you nobody can
tell you what to do anymore than you can tell them and it all has to be worked
out among free people well the argument of the socialist is no more employer
telling the worker what to do when to do it how to do it where to do it and then
taking the results of the workers work and acting as if it were all yours no no
no whatever the different people who
participate in production - they are all members of a team they are all equal and
they equally beside what is to be do be produced how its to be produced where
it's to be produced and what is to be done with the profit that all of them
together have worked to produce and the short answer for what we call that kind
of a system is worker coops and it's important to identify the this idea of
the Socialists with the worker co-op because worker coops are something that
an awful lot of people listening or watching this program all they know
about it's not some very distant foreign thing it's as American as apple pie for
example how do I know that because there are co-ops all over the United States in
every one of the 50 states in most communities one or another activity is
run as a co-op there are churches that run as a co-op there are grocery stores
that one is a co-op of the consumers there are businesses that are already
run as worker cooperatives we talk about some of them on this program the
socialism that existed in the 20th century the dominant socialism the
socialism identified with Russia and China Soviet Russia and the People's
Republic of China focused on the big picture what we might call the
macroeconomic perspective of socialism government ownership government planning
we now have a century of experience with that we see its strengths and there are
some and we see its weaknesses and there are plenty of those too and we've
learned and socialists are learning too and one of the conclusions drawn more
and more by socialists which is how socialism is changing has to do with
focusing more on the micro level the level of production the individual store
or office or factory and saying that's the root of
the problem and that's the solution area let us transform how we work how adults
spend most of their lives five out of seven days a week most of the adult
years of their lives they're at work in an office a store or a factory if that
were run democratically if that were run equally where everybody has a voice in
making all the big decisions we would change as human beings the community
would change the vision of socialism of going doing something better was always
lurking in this idea this is a way to say look it made sense to say to slavery
whatever you accomplished as a slave society we can preserve all or most of
it and yet do better by making people free and the end of feudalism came when
people said we can preserve the thousand years of feudal Europe its achievements
technically culturally but we can do better by saying nobody is a lord and a
serf anymore none of that the serfs are freed that's what the French Revolution
did and so the Socialists are now arguing and the point of here is not for
you to be persuaded the point is for you to understand the argument and then we
can have a debate and discussion and change it and that's all a healthy
society should do but the Socialists of today the emerging socialism is one that
says if we want to overcome the problems capitalism bequeaths us we hold on to
what capitalism achieved its successes and their planning but we also recognize
its flaws and its failures and we go to the root of that problem and we change
the relationship in production employer-employee is too close that
master slave and Lord serf and we have to see it and we have to
make the change. Thank you for your attention. I want to thank all of you for
being partners which is what we want all of you to be to share what we do on this
program with others to point them to the websites I want to thank a longtime
partner of ours Truthout.org that remarkable independent source of news
and analysis and I want to say and I mean it that I look forward to speaking
with you again next week
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