Wolff Responds: Ukraine War Reshapes World Politics

this is Richard Wolff from democracy at work with another wolf response this one is about the Ukraine war but in terms of how it is reshaping World politics I believe it is doing that and I believe it is doing that in a way pretty much the opposite of what most outlets in the West would have us believe let me explain much of the public discourse in the west and by the West I mean the United States and Western Europe and a few other allies but mostly the United States and Western Europe and Eastern Europe too for that matter there is a story in which the Ukraine war is isolating Russia in other words there is a kind of notion that the globe as a whole the world is scolding or punishing or isolating Russia because Russia invaded Ukraine Etc I want to argue that something very different is actually going on and it is ironic but the best way I can think of to describe what's going on is that the United States is being isolated it is isolating itself by the positions it has taken let me show you how this works since the Russians invaded Ukraine the United States has denounced that often with words like unprovoked or dictatorial or authoritarian or all the usual kinds of words for something you don't like and something that is bad and it has called on the World to Rally around this idea and that Russia is the bad guy here and we are all supposed to isolate the bad guy uh to punish the bad guy for the bad thing they did but what has actually happened the United States doesn't want to engage in a nuclear war with Russia I assume that needs no explanation the United States might have liked to have a land War a non-nuclear war with Russia but that's a very risky bet you can't control what the Russians do so any kind of war with troops and guns and planes is kind of out of the question plus it would put a strain on the alliance between the United States and Europe because Europe would be where that war was fought again and they don't want that and Ukraine is not an issue that they would want to fight that war about in all likelihood especially with the risk of nuclear war so what the United States came up with was a sanctions War an economic War to isolate Russia and to crush to destroy to weaken and all those words were used Russia as a way to bring it to to withdraw from Ukraine more or less this project of isolating Russia weakening it economically with all the sanctions that were mostly geared to destroying the market for Russian oil and gas has failed I mean there is lots of pretense around it I'm an economist I look at the numbers didn't work why it turns out that Russia had other places to sell its oil and gas India China and pretty much the rest of the world and so it found new markets to replace the old ones that were the object of the sanctions the Russian ruble crashed a little bit right after the invasion but has come back and is basically functioning like there was no war going on pretty much maintaining for most of the time it's normal pre-invasion values crushing Russia in terms of its exports didn't work crushing Russia in terms of the ruble crushing Russia in terms of its overall economic performance it didn't happen it was supposed to happen quickly it hasn't happened at all but now I want to take this point as another step what has happened has been a really profound speed up in what was already underway before the Russians invaded But has really accelerated the process and that is a coming together of Russia China India Brazil South Africa and now another list of 10 or 20 more economies eager to join that first group called The Bricks and they're doing things that are not isolating Russia they're creating a whole new world currency which will which already does compete with the US dollar for most of the last 75 years the US dollar was the dominant currency in the world no real competitor now it has a competitor and who's behind it a block of of people in the world that are much much larger many times the size of Western Europe and the United States and they are a powerful economic Force as well and a powerful political force and with Russia and China included a powerful nuclear force a huge part of the world has looked at the Ukraine conflict and decided if they were before allies of the West they are now worrying that they may have bet on the wrong horse and they're quickly shifting over joining the bricks or applying to do so agreeing to do their business not only in U.S dollars but in Chinese Yuan or perhaps a new currency that comes out of this new alliance where the United States and Europe were on top the colonial powers that rule the world as in the good old days of the British Empire or in the more modern form of the American hegemony that's what the Ukraine war has exposed as being no longer the case that's why the Ukraine war is changing World politics and there's no polite way to get around that it is a situation excuse me in which the old dominant power of Western Europe all of Europe and the United States is shrinking in its position its power relative to the emerging alternative this war has unified the rest of the world while shrinking the power when I began this brief discussion and drove home that the plan of the West led by the United States to the Russian economy as the strategy to solve the Ukraine war that didn't work and the whole world is watching what isn't working meanwhile Russia and China's political economic cultural footprint gets bigger and bigger and the whole world is adjusting denying this is not going to make it go away if conversations like this strike you as valuable please help us spread these videos to your friends your neighbors your co-workers if you'd like to be informed about all of the things we do such as this go to our website democracy at work dot info and there sign up for our mailing list or otherwise let us connect to you so you're aware of what we're doing and of course if you can support us financially that will be 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Channel: RichardDWolff

Views: 100,398

Keywords: Democracy at Work, Occupy the Economy, The Sickness is The System, Understanding Marxism, Understanding Socialism, capitalism, socialism, Marx, economy, economics, capital, corporations, capitalists, labor, work, wealth, inequality, justice, economic democracy, economic justice, exploitation

Id: c_9DdJGr6Po

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Sat May 13 2023