Global Capitalism: Capitalism Turns to the Authoritarian State [July 2023]

Welcome Friends to another edition of global capitalism a bi-monthly presentation brought to you by democracy at work the organization I work with and the left forum two organizations that work together a great deal and that together bring these presentations to you I'm particularly proud that we're bringing it to you as we normally do on the second Wednesday of every other month because we're back on schedule democracy at work particular has had a very difficult spring of this year Growing Pains erupted into serious internal organizational difficulties I am very happy to tell you that we are over them now we're back we're back on schedule uh we are able now to do all we've done before and we will be rolling out new activities I think you will find exciting if you wish more information just go to our website newly designed by the way democracy at work dot info is where you go and you will see what some of the new directions and new initiatives that we are rolling out and we'll continue to do in the weeks ahead today's presentation is about a historical change of extraordinary importance we're living through it we will be living through it for quite a while it's nothing less than a shift of modern capitalism from a tendency in most cases to shy away from endorsing and supporting a powerful authoritarian state the shift is now to embrace that to welcome an authoritarian state to push it to be if anything more authoritarian what do I mean is part of what I will begin but what it implies for all of us is what I will concentrate on to begin let's be clear about what we mean by capitalism it is that particular economic system different from slavery different from feudalism different from a variety of other economic systems and the key difference is the way capitalism organizes production the production of the goods and services upon which every modern society depends indeed every past Society did as well capitalism organizes it as follows a very small group of people quite a small minority are called employers they're the ones who decide exclusively what each workplace will produce what technology it will use where the production will take place and what will be done with the outcome on the other side of every workplace is the big majority those people are called employees they do the overwhelming bulk of the work the actual production of goods and services but they are excluded from the decisions what to produce how to produce where to produce and what to do with the net output those decisions made by the employers explain of course why they are politically in the driver's seat in capitalist societies why they are the ones that become wealthy whereas the employees in general don't etc etc you are all familiar since you all live as I do in capitalist systems and why do I focus on the relationships of people in production because that's the key difference feudalism didn't have employers and employees employers didn't exist in feudalism nobody hired workers the relationship was completely different the Lord and the surf were bound together by religious obligations personal obligations slavery was different yet again there we didn't have employers and employees either we had Masters and slaves and the slaves were the property of the Masters as were all the other inputs to production what the systems do have in common though is that small group at the top employers funeral Lords Masters and a vast Army of people underneath them doing the bulk of the work slaves serfs and employees now in modern capitalism particularly that in the West we refer to it often with the adjective private capitalism and I want to begin by talking about how private capitalism is turning more and more to an authoritarian State and my focus is going to be on the United States because of its leadership and importance in the world of private capitalism and all the word private means is that the capitalists the employers are not operatives of a state they don't hold a position in a government they are not a state official of any kind they are private individuals who undertake privately run owned production and they have been for most of the history of capitalism Leary of authoritarian States they were not interested in them they wanted the state to be weak distant and mostly to leave the private capitalist alone they used a French phrase leave me alone let's say fair to describe the kind of capitalism they endure endorsed and private capitalism has been the norm in the United States western Europe Japan the old centers of capitalism over the last century or two why then might they today be turning to an authoritarian state what do I mean by an authoritarian state I mean a state that is not only allowed but welcomed to intervene in the economy in all kinds of ways that used to be taboo that used to be opposed by private capitalists far from opposing it now most of them welcome it yes there are groups that still are leery about this and don't want it it's not Universal but the shift is unmistakable and I'm only going to have time to give you some examples of the shift as it's going on one way to understand it is to recognize that Words which were until recently celebrated are now denounced globalization we were told from the 1960s onward that as corporations expanded around the world they could become more efficient they could get closer to the sources of inputs they needed the natural resources and so on they could take advantage of lower wages to cheapen the prices of things we hear in the United States or Western Europe or Japan consume and so on globalization made capitalism more Dynamic more efficient we were to celebrate it and our political leaders Republican and Democrat alike fell all over themselves cheerleading for globalization and for the other big term neoliberalism whose idea was simply let these companies go around the world don't hold them back don't limit them don't regulate them let them go notice again let's say fair let them go let the private folks do what they want the government should keep out of it and the corporations went they went all over the world particularly to China because the wages there were much lower than in Western Europe North America and Japan and the market in China was growing faster than in Western Europe North America and Japan and if capitalists know anything they know that if you want to succeed in competition you better go where the wages are lowest and the market is growing fastest because that's where you will succeed well the problem is over the last 30 to 40 years as capitalists globalized going to China as well as many other countries and that was true not only of American capitalists but of Western European and Japanese capitalists as well the Chinese managed the process quite differently from the way other countries in Asia Africa and Latin America the so-called Global South how they had managed it the Chinese made sure it would go to the advantage of development in and by China so that by today China has demonstrated that it got a bigger set of gains out of neoliberal globalization than the countries that invented and produced neoliberal globalization a kind of surprise has dawned on the world and why am I telling you this because you'll probably already know it I'm telling you it because the competition from China particularly but also now from its allies particularly the so-called bricks brics Brazil Russia India China and South Africa China and these allies are now a bigger economic Powerhouse than the G7 which is the United States and its allies in Western Europe plus Canada and Japan the brics alliance produces about 33 percent of the world's output the United States and its G7 Alliance produce about 29 percent in many fundamental ways the dominance of the old western centers of capitalism Western Europe North America and Japan is over and they have been and will continue to be replaced by the ascendancy of the brics alliance to give you simply one indication economic growth this year 2023 is expected to be between 0 and 0.2 percent in Europe in the United States it's expected to be between one and two percent in the People's Republic of China it's expected to be between five and five and a half percent inflation in Europe is devastating over 10 percent for the area in the United States it's bad but five percent the inflation rate in the People's Republic of China this year is 0.7 there is no contest why am I telling you this because the United States's reaction and that of Europe as well to the rise of China and the brics has been a major adjustment in the direction of wanting the activity of an authoritarian state in the place of neoliberalism and globalization we are turning to economic nationalism here are some of the signs that I'm sure you've noticed the United States is demonizing China top to bottom reminiscent of the Cold War when that was done to the Soviet Union the United States is punishing selected Chinese companies the United States government is threatening and sanctioning Enterprises and governments around the world that trade with China the United States is forbidding export of private companies private outputs to China particularly in the area of microchips I could go on president Trump hit China with tariffs making every Chinese product more expensive in the United States because you had to pay not only the price of the good but the Tariff tax added by the United States on top of it we have trade Wars the Biden Administration has continued them there is a governmental interference in our economy which would have made earlier Generations totally outraged because it violates the notion that private capitalism is best left alone by a non-interfering non-interview intervening governments well that that's only the beginning of the story the reality is that the United States is Empire the building up of which happened there particularly after the second World War when the United States replaced the Old Colonial Masters in Western Europe and Japan with its new informal Empire we didn't have colonies with a few exceptions but we very similarly managed the United States has hundreds of military bases around the world in a way no other country has no other country comes close we operate an Empire and that Empire is in deep trouble it's shrinking the war the United States went into in Korea ended in a kind of stalemate not a victory the war in Vietnam an attempt to maintain the Empire over there the United States was flat out defeated in Afghanistan again in Iraq basically again much of the pressure leading the United States to be so actively involved in the Ukraine war is also an attempt to hold on to a dominant World position that is in trouble is shrinking like every other Empire in the history of the world this one having been born having grown having evolved is now in Decline and turning to a government is what capitalists here do hoping to slow if not stop in reverse that decline and you know we have internal troubles that are getting worse and worse because we have a real competitor in China because our Empire is shrinking we don't have the kind of wealth growth that other parts of the world do and that means the pie isn't getting larger so that everybody can get a bigger piece those who are rich and Powerful in the United States hold on in a shrinking situation to what they have but if they do if the pie is getting smaller but the people at the top are holding on to what they had then the people who aren't at the top are gonna suffer a diminution a decline in the standard of living the mass of Americans are paying for the costs of a Dying Empire and of a serious competitor economically in China and the brics and here are the forms of that shifting of the burden to the mass of people the inflation which raises the price of everything you buy without raising your income the same amount so you can afford less it's a way of Distributing less goods and services to the mass of people cutting back government supports let's be clear President Biden accepted two years of no increase in the budget for governmental programs for the mass of people well if prices are going up at five percent a year but you haven't allocated five percent increase each of the next two years which is what Biden didn't do well then you are dictating a shrinkage of the quality and quantity of Public Services to the mass of the American people since inflation is already shrinking what they can afford to buy themselves the addition of a government austerity which is what this is a way in which you burden the mass of people for the challenge and you know what that does predictably it causes bitterness anger upset in the mass of people they were told if they work hard and go to school they will enjoy a rising standard of living they aren't they were told they would be able to catch that American Dream they can't afford it and they know it the rents are out of control the prices are out of control the government isn't helping me more I can't pay back my loans I ca the condition of the American working class is in deep trouble and that has allowed demagogic politicians to cash in to find this scapegoat immigrants that's popular as if that was the problem or China as if that was the problem rather than how the United States deals with a competitor that's the serious position we are in and we're getting a divided Society some people know that what has to be done is say to relieve students of their debts to relieve homeowners and others of their debts people know we need more funding so that colleges don't cost what they now do we need all kinds of help to afford higher priced food and shelter we know what we need but we're not yet getting it and that's dividing the country some people want to push for better help for people to get along others want to keep immigrants out of the country those are very different reactions to the same squeeze that the mass of people and you know who's called upon to deal with it a big powerful government all kinds of resources are given build walls along the southern border hire huge numbers of people to harass folks coming across the border push them back as if that will solve our problems which of course it never does our problems are structural they have to do with the way our economy is organized they have nothing to do with the sad poor people trying to come to the United States for the same reasons that people have come here for a century or two it's remarkable to hold on to the Empire we're getting more and more involved in Wars around the world to deal with the social divisions we're giving more and more power to the government our police are funded more and more the police are active in our communities the government now doesn't hesitate to tell you whether you can or cannot have an abortion all kinds of things the government is undertaking to do and yes you hear the voices of the old conservatives who are opposed but they're not stopping the process it's mostly show the reality is the government is getting more and more money that's why we have the enormous deficits in our budget what the government cannot tax because of the political opposition it borrows from the same rich people and corporations who already have the dominant voice in what our government does the inequality here in the United States adds to the social tension and frightened people who have wealth look to the government to protect it so all kinds of people the poor want the government to help them they're in a situation where they don't survive otherwise we have a growing homeless problem we have an enormous problem called food insecurity because our government dare not say the word we all understand better which is called hunger no this is a society torn apart inside that's why our politicians scream at each other that's why nobody listens to the other side there's no time there's no space left it's a society in trouble it's internal tensions and contradictions are making the capitalists who used to keep the government relatively powerless are changing to make it more and more powerful and we may like it or not like it but the process is well underway and it isn't going to stop anytime soon you can see it even in the military busy fighting a war in Ukraine that apparently according to President Biden has made us I quote run out of ammunition is busy provoking China in the South China Sea right where they are over this issue of Taiwan really are we going to fight a war there too are we going to risk it are we going to have a war between Russia and NATO We Are Taking Chances as a government that are extremely dangerous and in a few minutes I'm going to show you that there is a way to understand this process by looking at a very similar process at the end of feudalism but before I do that I want to turn and show that the powerful authoritarian government is also at work in the places in the world where capitalism isn't private but is rather a state activity I'm going to use as my example the other big economic power in the world today the People's Republic of China now here we see a society that is a mixture of private Enterprise private capitalism and why do I call it private capitalism because it's private Enterprises with a small minority of people who own and run it and a large number of people who do the work those who own and run it are called employers and those who do the work are called employees and one hires the other it's the capitalist system whatever else it's called and alongside that private capitalism partly owned and operated by Chinese private individuals and partly owned and operated by Foreign non-chinese Japanese Japanese Western Europe North American and so on alongside the private Enterprises there are State Enterprises Enterprises owned and operated by the Chinese government at one or another of the levels of that government I call them State capitalism why because they again adopt the same employer employee organization of their Enterprises their factories offices and stores they have chosen to do that and for that reason I call them capitalists because they got that model from the capitalism of the rest of the world now the Chinese call it socialism particularly they call their society socialism with Chinese characteristics here's what they mean that it's a mixture as I've described it of private and state Enterprises and that mixture is overseen is controlled from above by a powerful Communist party and the state government that is ultimately controlled by that party so that's a very interesting model quite different from the United States which doesn't have a large sector called state-owned and operated Enterprises and doesn't have a powerful Communist party and he's only now beginning to support an authoritarian state so the Chinese already have one so they're not in a way turning towards more of it because they already in a sense have it but why are they determined to hold on to it as they clearly are as you can see from the activities of the Chinese government and the leadership of the Communist Party well there are two answers to that question here's the first one the Chinese system has worked spectacularly for them if this is not understood most of the rest of what people are telling you in the media about China will be incomprehensible and since the media don't like to say what I'm about to explain to you that's why so much of it is incomprehensible what enabled the Chinese to develop their own economy into the PowerHouse it is today along the way lifting 800 million people out of poverty and some of the worst poverty the world had ever seen and let's remember 800 million Chinese that's more than the population of the United States and Western Europe combined and they became a Powerhouse and they can match the high-tech industries of the United States unbelievable what did that was their particular model the mixture of private capitalist Enterprises State capitalist Enterprises and a powerful authoritarian government and state coordinating and instructing and supervising and regulating that mixture of private and state Enterprises they're the model for every poor country in the world how do you want to become not poor how do you want to become Big Rich powerful the Chinese are the model of models and that's one of the reasons so many other countries are busy applying for membership in the bricks these days they want to go to where it seems the effort to get out of poverty Works fastest and best I am not endorsing Chinese Society politics civil liberties or the absence thereof I'm talking about economics because we're concerned with the relationship between the capitalist economic system employer employee organization on the one hand and a powerful State on the other I told you there was a second reason for why the authoritarian state is already a fixture in the state capitalisms of the world it's because of the socialism of the 19th and 20th centuries this idea of a society Beyond after capitalism tended to focus on the government socialists tended to be those who felt that the failures and flaws of capitalism could and would and should be offset overtaken overthrown by having a powerful government due for the mass of people what a private capitalism failed to do in other words socialism was Associated as I'm sure many of you still do with a powerful state so if that's what you thought socialism was and you made a revolution like the Chinese did in 1940 the late 1940s culminating in their victory in 1941 then the system you set up has a strong state in the hands of a Communist party that's the logic of what socialism meant in those days so there we have it we have a combination of an already established authoritarian state in the state capitalisms of China and more and more countries like that and we have the turn from a formerly more private capitalism to uh more and more powerful state together with private capitalism there's still a hesitancy in the private capitalist countries of the world like the United States United Kingdom and so on not to let the state do in those countries what it already does in places like China but the authoritarianism that turned towards it in the old private capitalism and the already established authoritarian state in the state capitalist parts of the world tell us what I said to you at the beginning that we are in a historical time when an authoritarian state is becoming the dominant model the dominant Trend the dominant feature of the world we are moving into so given that let me ask the key question will an authoritarian state save capitalism or will it end capitalism now why do I ask this question because I said the question that history presents us with and to make this point I'm gonna spend a few moments showing you how in the end of feudalism the 17th 18th century particularly when feudalism died as a system and gave birth to capitalism as the next system something very similar happened that will allow me to answer this question for capitalism because I can show you what happened when feudalism came to an end feudalism in Europe usually dated to begin around the sixth seventh century after Christ was a very decentralized system you might call it a private feudalism in which Lords were many scattered across the European Countryside each with a few serfs maybe a bunch of serves maybe many serves but there was no State there was no real government the only thing that held Europe together was Loosely the Roman Catholic Church that had come out of the end of slavery Roman slavery as the only kind of big global Global for Europe Institution long story short feudalism for its early centuries was a system in which Lords exploited Serfs but they did so as private Enterprises which is what each feudal manner was but as the system evolved as it grew it became full of internal contradictions bitterness is on the part of Serfs at the dictatorial position over them that the Lord's exercised anger by the serfs when the Lords needed more and squeezed the serfs so they had to work harder and keep less of what they produced giving more in payments to the Lord payments by the way that were called rents that squeezing for rent is not a new phenomenon and what did the Lords do when predictably the squeezing of the peasants produced a reaction bitterness anger which erupted in peasant rebellions The Peasants after all were many the Lords were few and that's very dangerous if the few are rich and powerful and use their power to squeeze the many and what the frightened feudal Lords did is here we go turned to government they made one of their number one of the feudal Lords one of the big ones into something higher yet they called that big Lord a king that's the origin of monarchy and the King was to be given the extra power the taxes the shares of other Lords to be powerful enough to squelch to control to block to stop the Revolutions of serfs From Below in other words feudalism evolved a powerful authoritarian state to cope with the desire for the system to survive to avoid the blowing up of the Lord's surf feudal system of production that's why if you read about the 17th and 18th century in Europe you read about things called absolute States the Louise in France the Kings this and that in Britain and the kings and queens all over Europe these were powerful states a kind of authoritarianism of the state that was created out of feudalism's evolution as an attempt to save this system from its own internal explosions and they fought each other because the British Monarchy competed with the French and they both competed with the austro-hungarian or the Prussian or the Italian and on and on rather like the competition between the United States and China with the Europeans watching in the wings and the Japanese too competition weakened the authoritarian States so they were less able to control the revolution inside what finally defeated British monarchy French monarchy and so on where eruptions from inside the French Revolution the English revolutions and so on so to answer the question I posed the turning to authoritarian States in feudalism both allowed the system to survive for centuries longer than it could have otherwise and yet those absolute States were also the beginning of the end the Revolutions in England the Revolutions in the United States the Revolutions in France were all directed against the powerful King that absolute State came to stand for everything that people didn't want anymore to continue the American Revolution of 1776 was directed against George III King of England the famous revolution in France in 1789 was directed against Louis the king of France and so on so it turns out that the turn to authoritarianism in feudalism was both a way to save it and a way to end it so the answer to the question I would propose to you is the turn towards authoritarianism going to save capitalism or is it going to end it my proposal to you is to answer with the word it's gonna do both it will keep it going for a while it will solve some problems that might have been explosive if the government hadn't stepped in for example the last two years have been a devastating inflation for the American working class the government stepped in extraordinarily raised interest rates very fast over the last 18 months that's going to lose millions of people their job but it seems to be bringing down inflation it's a problem it gives the government yet more power it makes all kinds of people critical of the government and in the long run that's quite dangerous but it gets them out of the mess of an inflation at least for a while the attempt under Trump to let the private sector deal with the pandemic was such a complete failure that the government had to come in in a massive way freaking the people out by the government mandates and the government controls and the government in but that was the way to cope when it was clear that other countries were coping with covet way better than the United States the death certificate statistics more Americans died that in many countries with a much less developed medical system that's not because our Medical Care isn't all that good it's because the way we organize who gets to access medical care and who doesn't is a big problem we are afraid as a nation to address too much obstacle from private capitalists well then where are we left well we're left with wondering how far the turn to the authoritarian state is gonna go you know the American government has been punishing Chinese companies it's been punishing American companies that do business of various kinds in and with China where will that start why would we expect that the American government won't begin to choose and play favorites among American companies here favoring one region or another one industry or another one company or another okay is the effort of the government to shape family life which is powerful is that going to continue are we going to be told that if you're trans or if you're gay or if or if then you don't get this you do the government is being brought in to block this change to stop to interview wow the government is becoming the play thing for everyone with a special interest to get what they want when they can't get it without the government stepping in no one knows the answers to these questions but we do know that the world is becoming a very dangerous place because nationalism here in the United States adds one of the most powerful countries in the world to the list of countries focused on their National needs and therefore bumping into other countries focusing on theirs introducing frictions for which the answer in the past has been War and in the present also War held back by a fear of nuclear war in which the absurdity of all of this ends us all and we are at that point of fearfulness with a rational Foundation because [Music] capitalism cannot survive otherwise that is the single most important message of this presentation the problems of capitalism especially in its old centers Western Europe North America and Japan are producing conflicts tensions Escape coding bitterness and divisions that threaten the future of capitalism and yet all that's happening is more and more turning to the government to solve the problem which is how we got in to this level of authoritarianism in the first place in other words it's not slowing down and it's not stopping what has this then finally to do with the old question of socialism China calls itself socialist there's no agency in the world that determines who can and cannot call themselves socialists for China they have socialism with Chinese characteristics and that means in China a mixture of state and private capitalist Enterprises overseeing supervised controlled and regulated by a powerful authoritarian State and Communist Party right now that is the rising economic system of the world the focus of the global South the vast majority of people in the world look there now every poor country planning an economic development program now has two places to go for help they used to have to go to the West Western Europe North America and Japan they can go there there are some resources from for them there but they can also go to China and the brics and more of them are going in that second Direction now then I'll go again the first and visits by Janet Yellen to this or that part of the world or by Mr blinken or anybody else are not going to change that they're window dressing in a process far enough along that we've been we can be confident it's not going to change anytime soon well there are we stuck there is that what we have is the United States in fact more and more moving in the direction of a capitalism with an authoritarian state are we moving in a direction that might have a merger in which the big capitalist corporations and the government become intertwined there is a name for that because we had in the 20th century the beginning of efforts in that direction when German capitalism collapsed in the Great Depression they turned in an authoritarian way to the government of Adolf Hitler who gave us a good lesson in how far authoritarianism can go in merging the top cap private capitalists the crops and the Titans and the others in Germany with the German government fascism is the name for that merger Mussolini did something similar in Italy Franco did something similar in Spain we are now doing something similar the merging of big business and the government the WikiLeaks of the Twitter files showed us how closely the Twitter Executives and government agencies worked as to what Twitter would and wouldn't allow the public of the United States but who's controlling it's not the Twitter it's not the government it's Twitter and the government working together that is the direction in which we are going is the only socialism then we can imagine something like what we're seeing and if so doesn't that support the idea that socialism is not something Progressive people are going to be drawn to I think the answer and it's very important to that question is no because socialism is not exhausted as an idea or as a tradition by a celebration of a powerful state did socialists do that yes in the conditions of the 19th second half of the 19th and the 20th century socialism came to mean for most people a powerful state offsetting the harsh edges of private capitalism and in some cases like the Soviet Union taking over private capitalism to reduce its harsh edges but that was never the only meaning of the term socialism here's another one becoming more and more important in response to everything I have said about the turn toward authoritarian States there's a socialism that says that turn happening because of the internal contradictions and problems of capitalism would not have to make that turn if those problems and contradictions of capitalism it's inequality it's instability which it crashes every few years it's neglect of the environment its damage to human relationships we wouldn't have those problems and therefore have to turn or try to turn to an authoritarian state if we dealt with those problems in a different way and this strain of socialism says what it means and here it is we have to say these socialists change the organization of production we have to go back to the basics if capitalism is the relationship between employer minority and exploited majority employees if it has that structure in common with the Lord and the surf and the master and the slave then that's the problem that the solution to the difficulties the inequalities of capitalism is to not allow that basic structure to continue if a tiny minority runs the business of course they will take the bulk of the prophets for themselves they'll become the rich and the employee who doesn't get a cut of the profit won't be able to do likewise and there we have the division between the rich and the poor in capitalism the capitalist way of reproducing inequality which we know more and see more around us now than perhaps in the history of capitalism you want to get rid of that get rid of the employer employee structure substitute an old idea of socialism that the workplace should be a democratic Collective every person at a workplace has an equal vote democracy in the workplace not just democracy where we live so we can choose the mayor the congressperson the president democracy in the workplace so we can choose what to produce how to produce where to produce and weaken together decide what we're going to do with the fruits of our labor are we going to give a lot of them to the two or three people at the top the Elon musks of this world or are we going to say we all help to produce the output we all get a reasonable share not some people sending Rockets to the Moon or to the bottom of the ocean when other people cannot feed themselves send their kids to school Etc no no no no Democratic workers together wouldn't divide the wealth that way we wouldn't have anything like the inequality we have now yeah there are solutions that don't require you to stay with the private capitalism we had before or to make the turn with that capitalism to authoritarian States now those are not the only options a return to some other theories and strains and tendencies inside socialism particularly the one that has to do with dealing with the workplace the factory the office the store to democratize it in order to break the power that is wielded by that employer minority a final thought that reiterates something I have said before once upon a time we believed many of us our ancestors that you needed to have a king somebody who was constantly in touch with God and who ruled over us as his subjects because if we did away with the King the society would fall apart it wouldn't have a leader it wouldn't have a guide it wouldn't have somebody talking to God well at a certain point most of us in most countries got rid of the kings and queens the few that are left are mostly figureheads ceremonials no real power we got rid of kings and guess what Society didn't fall apart civilization didn't unravel we didn't all die in a terrible fire well the kings and queens we thought we got rid of fooled us they changed their names and reappeared somewhere else and now we have them trapped here's their new name CEO inside the Enterprise they are the king they have an unchecked power they can do pretty much whatever they want without impacting excuse me with enormous impact on the employees but the employees have no power over them they don't elect them they can't recall them in fact if they say boo the CEO can have them fired you think there are unions who protect where there are unions that have a hard time protecting and in the private sector where our CEOs are six percent of American employees are members of a union the other 94 percent have no Union to protect them we got rid of the Kings and our political lives didn't fall apart we can get rid of the Kings inside our workplaces and our workplaces will not fall apart and they will produce as good or better than they did before but we will not have many of the worst problems of this society that come directly out of the employer employee organization of capitalism capitalism and private Enterprises but capitalism also in state Enterprises and the question remains for all of us in the private capitalist economies that are still that and in the state capitalist economies what about that socialist demand for the democratization of the workplace my guess is the very success of what the Chinese have achieved in Economic Development is producing A working class in China which like the working class in Western Europe North America and Japan will experience the contradictions that afflict a system structured the way capitalism has and they will ReDiscover the old socialist idea that the best solution to the problems of capitalism private or state are to question to challenge and to go beyond imagining that we have to organize the production process with a minority running the show and a majority doing the work it is coming to the fore as a central question and the process of moving to Evermore authoritarian States may allow the capitalism a bit more life but it also brings that capitalism as it brought feudalism before closer and closer to the demands it cannot meet and that will mean it has to give birth to a new different and better system thank you very much for your attention I hope you will watch with me the evolution of this authoritarian turn in capitalism and that we will together be able to explore the Alternatives I ended with as the best way forward for the human race at this time thank you

Channel: Democracy At Work

Views: 197,936

Keywords: Richard Wolff, democracy, work, labor, economy, economics, inequality, justice, capitalism, capital, socialism, wealth, income, wages, poverty, yt:cc=on

Id: w0c5Gfh2ZWY

Length: 58min 55sec (3535 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 12 2023

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