We Can-And Must-Reform Capitalism.
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- Опубликовано: 8 июн 2024
- Fred Block says capitalism is not an unchanging monolith-which means we can make it better
One of the Right’s greatest successes has been claiming that their definition of capitalism is as radically laissez-faire is fixed. It’s time to challenge that.
That’s the argument of Fred Block, Professor of Sociology at UC Davis and author of the forthcoming book, Capitalism: The Future of an Illusion (University of California Press).
Block’s book challenges the view on both left and right that capitalism is a fixed system. Instead, he argues, markets are social institutions, which means they can be constructed not just in the current neoliberal mode, but in more social democratic forms. Block’s book shows how the type of capitalism that thrived in the West after World War II can be revived, pointing to the success of the Scandinavian model and the way in which the public sector can help drive private sector innovation.
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Reagan renamed capitalism as democracy and re-introduced 1920s style corporatism calling it Reaganomics.
Yes, Reagan-Bush Jr. destroyed capitalism while waving its flag in everyone's faces. Basically made the system so corrupt it can't function as real capitalism.
Reagan accelerated a process already underway. William Clinton did even more to cement the influence of corporate socialism by signing the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Deregulation of the financial sector added a renewed dimension to monopoly privilege that has always plagued the U.S. economy and society.
Oh, it's all Reagan's fault now, is it? Poor, hard working Democrat millionaires, struggling along in their million dollar exclusive mansions sipping chardonnay while the rest of us live in minimum wage luxury on SNAP benefits and subsidized housing. I can imagine how hard it must be for Leftist fat cats, it being so hard to get good peons to scrape barnacles from the bottoms of their yachts. They must think all the tax peasants must be complete idiots.
Having spent a lot of time in China…this is exactly what is happening. And Sweden’s presence is obvious there.
How did all of you watch this video and take away that as a conclusion? Did you actually listen to this lecture?...
Actually, all the changes happened under Reaganomics in the 80s, which was the return to corporatism.
You are actually very correct
The rise of citizens United ensured the corporate kleptocracy would take root we r slaves to the Davos man & maga’s who believe they r fighting an enemy r welcoming the true enemy to establish a serfdom
Corporatism is a product of capitalism, so why is capitalism not to be blamed for corporatism?
Seems like pro capitalists want it both ways... They claim 'the capitalist incentive is a good thing', but then add 'except for government officials and corporatists'.
Since about 1970, the American worker has seen his wages decline while productivity of labor increases. Your share of the pie is being made smaller so rapidly that even though the pie is getting bigger rapidly, you are still losing out. The middle class is disappearing without anyone seeming to notice.The houses are there, but they were built at a time when corporations paid much more tax than they do now, and received much less welfare.
Drake Koefoed it’s sort of a contradiction that wages have gone down but if you look around, people have so much more stuff. It looks like we traded our homes for a bunch of trinkets
@@soulfuzz368 "We" didn't "trade" anything. "We" got took whether we liked it or not. And no, it wasn't the people running the businesses who done it. It's the Leftist assholes who keep claiming we need more and more and more "capitalist reforms." More for them, less for us. We'll have nothing, and we'd better be happy about it.
@@soulfuzz368 it is not a contradiction. People are struggling.
Enough with blaming individuals and not seeing the system as corrupt.
@@SamuraiKage-iv3ow the system is made up of individuals. Strong and effective people can thrive in any system. Nothing you are saying is wrong, but what does it get you? Your revolution isn’t coming my friend.
@@soulfuzz368 The system sure changed after the Great Depression of 1929. You forget that we humans are not only individuals but also social beings. What makes a person Strong and effective has everything to do with how they were brought up and the system they were brought up under. How well did Blacks, born in the South during the Jim Crow Era, do??????
Always with us has been the ideological differences over the just balance between human rights and property rights. In the world's social democracies, there has been a resurgence of those who see the defense of property rights as superior. What has never been fully resolved is the just distinction between private and public property.
Our systems of law and taxation have from the beginning heavily favored entrench "rentier" privilege over the production of goods and delivery of services. Human ingenuity and innovation has been able to mitigate this problem by the process Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction." That rentier privilege was as the root of inequality and systemic instability was first detailed in the writings of the French political economists Francois Quesnay and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot. When they used the phrase "laissez-faire, laissez-aller, laissez-passer" they were calling to law the prevented monopolies, what Henry George later called "a fair field with no favors." What these political economists understood was that the source of rentier privilege and monopoly power was the gross under-taxation of rents and the over-taxation of income earned producing goods and delivering services.
The path to a full employment society, one without the destructive consequences of income and wealth concentration was detailed in the writings of Henry George. Among a long list of thoughtful persons convinced that Henry George had come to the right conclusions were Leo Tolstoy, Sun Yat Sen, Philip Snowden, John Dewey and Adolph Damascke. The strength of rentier interests prevented meaningful legislation from being passed. A number of those who had acquired enormous fortunes built on their monopoly privileges smartly endowed and recruited sympathetic professors to chair departments of economics at leading universities around the world. This part of the story was detailed in a 1994 book titled "The Corruption of Economics," co-authored by British author Fred Harrison, and professors of economics Mason Gaffney and Kris Feder.
Edward J. Dodson, M.L.A.
Director
School of Cooperative Individualism
www.cooperative-individualism.org
Edward Dodson
One of the better contributions to this conversation!
I like the Host's question at 8:20 that the rules themselves have become commodities, recognizing that in a free market everything is for sale. Unfortunately the guest didn't really answer. Or the answer was "more regulation" which ignores the point of the question in that the regulations are what is bought and sold in a free market. Regulations are just undone or not enforced.
I think that is a uniquely, but not exclusively, American situation.
Great insight.
The biggest problem with capitalism in its current American form is it leaves the poor 'out in the cold', so to speak, it's also disastrous on the environment. A program like the Green New Deal, albeit far less radical would fix it at least a little bit.
On the inequality front, an expansion of existing welfare programs such that every poor household would get them would work wonders by alleviating the fears of not being able to make ends meet . Because right now, the welfare system is far too beaurocratic and some of the people who need it the most don't qualify for welfare.
Oh ho ho! The entitlements industry is "too bureaucratic?" What an insight. I wonder why that is.
@@DrCruel and why isn’t the corporatist bureaucracy “too big” to service their needs as opposed to working effectively and efficiently in their favor ?
@@paulray494 The purpose of corporate socialism is to service the personal interests of government apparatchiks and the corporate elite. They work very effectively and efficiently to that end, both by keeping working people poor and dependent and preventing outsiders from interfering with their serfdom.
@@DrCruel why am I being tutored ? what did I say that would lead you to believe I don’t understand that ? my statement is an indictment, not an embracing of the current environment. “this” is not working.
@@paulray494 "This" is working exactly as designed. Humanity is being domesticated for the use of a limousine Left elite. The problem the present system solves is how to gain the benefits of the Enlightenment and keep workers motivated without letting them keep the fruits of their labor. The ultimate irony is that the kleptocratic nature of this system is then blamed on "free market trade" and too much individual freedom, with the only remedy being even more taxes, more government power and less personal freedom.
Socialism in action.
Working to make others rich is an insane idea at its core. The idea of work must be redetermined altogether and the idea of what it means to be productive FOR YOURSELF & your family has to be reevaluated. Going to a business you don’t own or a factory or an office to the detriment of yourself & your family to earn a wage is an insane concept to me personally. I’d much rather build a great home and family life without working as a cog in a wheel that belongs to another person.
When the gov't is subsidizing Industries and granting favors to Corporations that isn't Capitalism.
I think we need two things were government is concerned. A government that will tax corporations and then use those taxes for upgrading infrastructure. If you have someone putting solar energy on their roof, but the electric grid around it isn’t upgraded, then the solar panels won’t benefit the grid. And if a power company invests in upgrading their infrastructure and training people for the new tech, then the government should give them a tax break for that investment. This is just one example... the US also needs to invest in high speed rail, or some other version of high speed electric public transport systems. And the second important thing is making education free in all public schools... and investing in the education infrastructure. So better taxing to invest in infrastructure, better tax breaks for companies that upgrade infrastructure and retrain people, don’t make people go into massive debt to get an education, by making education free and invest in the education infrastructure.
Henry George covered this fully. We've had the answer for 150 years. Are we looking for answers ... or for something else? If the latter, what?
We need to shift taxes from labour and capital onto land. We need to change part of our bureaucracy. That's all. Why aren't we celebrating our good luck?
Getting people to accept the moral principle that nature is our commons and not to be owned by individuals has proven to be extremely difficult for those of us who have studied and come to embrace the teachings of Henry George.
That would make food rise in prices to the degree its unpayable for normal people. Because who needs land? Farmers and food production needs the most by far. If that would have to fund the whole country it would be completely impossible. This is something that would only have worked 150 years ago.
@@TellusJD Yours is a common view, but utterly incomplete. No one can opt out of the land market. That's as true today as 150 yrs ago. Look around at the housing crisis today. We need land simply to accommodate our 3-dimensionality, we can't collapse down to 1 dimension if we can't pay our rent. Farming is part of the picture, but only part of it. Farmers effectively maintain small food bearing land monopolies for each of us. Energy companies maintain small energy bearing monopolies for each of us. etc.
I am not an economics expert, but I am thinking: wouldn't it be a good idea to decouple the residential housing economy from the rest of the economy so that the countries economic power/energy is not being wasted so much on residential property? In recent times the fraction of Australia's economy that has been siphoned into residential property is ridiculous, and I'm sure you have the same problem in America... We are wasting so much energy on rent/mortgages that the intelligent people of the young generations cannot focus on more productive things. Landlords are not contributing to society either...
Would love to hear an expert response to this
Rentier Capitalism and Michael Hudson
This is also due partly to inflationary policies, I believe. When a currency loses value, investors look for ways to preserve their wealth. Real estate is a hard asset, so people buy houses.
you must start by getting democracy. when you have the power to act, we can talk about what needs to be done.
Al Loomis the people who want democracy the most, would be the most disgusted by what the people would vote for.
The chardonnay socialists who have made the world what it is today do not want more democracy. They actually want a great deal less democracy and a great deal more of the global take. And they're going to get it too.
The United States is a Republic (even with a Senate like the ancient roman republic) ruled by an Oligarchy, as prescribed by the Constitution, the Constitution was specifically written to prevent Democracy, rule by mobs lead by populists and demagogues, to ensure Oligarchy by land and slave owning rich white men, but it has been more democratic (small d) for short periods of time when the ruling elites were pressured by populist radical progressive movements like the labor union movement and Communists before World War II and the anti Vietnam War and African American Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s
Capitalism motivates people. Greed is good, yada yada yada. But capitalism's endgame is all for me, none for you, so for society, if capitalism wins, it's game over. Capitalism needs intervention. The playing field needs to be leveled from time to time, just to keep the game going.
Capitalism is a zero sum game: my loss is your gain(/win) = my gain(/win) is your loss. That incentivises amoral behaviour as people seek to _game_ the system in order that they win, rather than suffering losses. That foments a dog-eat-dog ethic, which does NOT make for cohesive communities. You can't sustain a "hail fellow well met" attitude towards others if you suspect or fear they're out to erode your gains (aka erode your very means of ongoing survival). It's a sick system that Marx long ago correctly discerned had the ingredients of its own demised baked into it (and for those of a certain knee-jerk bias, no I'm not a commie. Marx got plenty wrong, but this he nailed). That's what we're witnessing now. Kansas is going bye-byes, and no amount of tinkering or adjustments will reverse history's course.
Never thought about buying the rules. What a great idea!
Read *Liberal Fascism* by Jonah Goldberg to see what's going on. It isn't a mysterious and tragic accident.
Much of what we are experiencing is the Southern Strategy on steroids. If we had the ethnic demographics of the 1950s, we would be more inclined to do what the Scandinavians are doing. Race is our political, social, and economic blindspot that we think we've checked but haven't. We turn ourselves into pretzels trying to avoid this foundational truth, which is our Achilles' heel.
Well said. Collectivistic policies only have a _chance_ of working when a group is culturally/ethnically similar and not too large either. Small groups, geographic regions, families, religions, and even private businesses can have a collectivist approach to life because the size of the group is manageable and comprised of people of a common background, who have "skin in the game" where the individual's well being coincides with the group's and vice-versa. With a large, highly diverse society the laws cannot be so liberal because not everyone is willing to be responsible for themselves and their communities, many are parasitic- always looking to take and give nothing in return.
Real Engineers would become great economist
nice conversation.
Very true about lack of productivity and college/university education problem in North America
Oh god. There are many countries in the world without businesses. Why not just move to one?
Can you reform a crocodile ?
@@user-pz6si3tq8y Exactly. Let's get rid of capitalism.
Don't get rid of it. Rather tame it or turn it in to handbags.
@@kiwitrainguy How about we tame the rich elite or turn them into handbags?
Regarding the article, "We welcome the robots." "If you do not have a state that facilitates transformation, your society will start to experience resistance to innovation." Sure, that’s what fascism is for, to break through that resistance.
this man is lenin
Agreed. Pablem
Capitalism is a best that cant be tamed
17:24 listen again
Father Coughlin 12:57
I think it can be easy to become cynical & uncommitted in this current climate. But I also think that America is in the process of refinement- clarifying where the meeting place & compromises will be once this process arrives at a reasonable conclusion. I think Americans are smart & resilient- regardless of their ideologies, and will meet the challenge..as they always have. The digital economy - I believe, has people inadvertently voting against themselves. That data speaks for them, to the government, in a way that their words & votes do not.
How about instead of reform we do revolution and socialism instead.
yeah, lets do that.
With current situation and technologies revolutions leads to nuclear war. Maybe posadists will be happy, but rest of us is not.
Get the corporate lobbiests out of politics.
Get the media to be balanced in their reporting.
Give each party their full budget for elections.
Build a few more prisons for corrupt officials.
That would do for a start.
This was recorded too low for me to hear
ikr, turn the volume to the max!
Here in Finland we have several AOCs, exact copies...!
I think that capitalism cannot be reformed, but must be banished. Capitalism depends on exploitation and the commodification of everything. We will get to peace and justice when we build enterprises around caring and cooperation for human needs.
I agree
Absolutely, our world cannot carry on with greed.
You are too young to understand anything, go back to school get some education, get your facts and definitions straight. What you are blabering about is a straight road to communism......
Nonsense. Equality is a Communist failure.
@Google Reviews Yawn. Capitalism is here to stay. I would only care about people who are going to make you rich.
We can reform it... into socialism... and we should.
@lies you Tell you are dumb of you think it wont.
America needs to heed these words. It's a national disgrace and a tragedy that criminal opportunists have been allowed to profit from the dismantling of social capital.
No shit. What else did you expect from socialist progressives? Didn't any of you notice how rich they were getting?
@@DrCruel What brand works for you? Call them what you will, it's deeds, not words that matter.
@@pauljmeyer1 The same methods for dealing with any other kind of rodent works for socialists too. Just stop feeding them.
@@DrCruel We're on a slippery slope if we're dealing with metaphors. Do you or do you not acknowledge Civil Society, Social Capital, and Essential Services that are not for profit, you might include National Defence which supports, with taxpayers' money, The Military-Industrial Complex. I might add just how 'Socialistic' a nation becomes when threatened with war.
@@pauljmeyer1 Every successful endeavor is for profit. Hiding the profit mechanism behind a wall of bureaucracy doesn't make it disappear. Socialism is a lie. TANSTAAFL.
This was ridiculous. The transformative history telling and motivated reasoning that this man does arguing intent from outcomes and so many other fallacies are all present in this conversation.
If I hear people talk about "changing" capitalism I know exactly they do not know anything about it in the first place especially young people from US or western Europe who really didnt even bother to check the facts and definitions and thus are really gullible to pseudointelectuals talking about "bad capitalism" The best teacher of capitalism is the lack of it - meaning when you get under the communism boot you will finally undestand what capitalism really is (and this is were the west is heading right now not even realisisng the danger). For those of you who are into intellectual discussion rather then empty ranting...... capitalism and free market were defined by Adam Smith and if you did not read "Wealth of nations" you really should not listen to videos like that in the first place because you are not equipped in tools to protect you from pro-social and procommunistic ideas. Real capitalism presupposes free access to market so that competition can florish. The root of all evil lurking in our present is the LACK OF FREE ACCESS to markets - high capital entering bareers, regulations which prefer big corporations and discriminate small businesses, shady agreements between polititians and big capital or even big corporations influencing the creation of law which prevents law enforcers to hold big capital accountablle for all their misbehaviour - best example is us health industry which is sold to the public as "bad capitalism " while in reality it became a criminal cartell of health providers, health insurance companies and of course the government - there is no place for competition here - small players are stricktly held outside the circle. Finance and big banks are an even better example...... The biggest lie is they sold to all of you that what we have now is capitalism and you swallowed this without even thinking because you dont even know the full and unabridged definition of capitalism. ONce my professor said that selling the definition of the concept of the free markets invisible hand to western students is the most difficult task because unlike their counterparts from east countries students they never experienced the VISIBLE hand of communistic bureaucrats. And while you are all arguing about meaningless gender issues and other crap, your freedom as it was understood in the XIX century is slowly being taken awayh with (o tempora o mores) your concent.
I agree, there is always room in any market for more than one supplier and more than one customer.
lets look at Rojava, Zapatistas and the indegenous in Cherán.. we already tried reforming capitalism and those in power roll it all back....this isnt hard. your analyses are weak and dont take into account intersecting issues INHERENT in capitalist society. the capitalist mode of production is inherently anti-democratic. lets look at networks of worker co-ops and throw out the old schools and capitalist corporations.
Stockholm Syndrome.
Tell it to stop killing the chances of human survival first
The idea that efficiency and productivity are always desirable is not true.
Most people do not know the difference between the two.
I require further explanation about that one.
@@kiwitrainguy ok, a current example is Gates’ patented roundup resistant wheat. This wheat tolerates roundup and is very productive because it will be insect resistant. However the edible wheat products will contain roundup which reduces the nutritional value if the wheat
@@kiwitrainguy ok, an example is Gates’ patented roundup resistant wheat is very productive. This wheat tolerates roundup and is very productive because it will be insect resistant. However the edible wheat products will contain roundup which reduces the nutritional value of the wheat. Productivity is measured as yield per acre . To get a true value you need to measure productivity in term of nutrient productivity but that is not done. Also roundup is carcinogenic so you need to count workdays lost in the hospital and subtract that from the productivity of Gates wheat. What happens is the cost of the cancer therapy gets added to the GDP for which more is better. So the reform of capitalism is complicated, we need a new paradigm (not communism) that will somehow account for the interconnected nature off all life. The knowledge of indigenous peoples is a good starting point; hope this makes sense
@@xqt39a Ah, thank you. I didn't realise you were referring to agricultural products. Having worked all my life for employers the aim is always to maximise both efficiency and productivity.
how do you “reform” a cancer ? FBA1
We can - and must - rid the world of capitalism. otherwise we're fucked!
Yikes
We don't need capitalism because we don't need market economics. Let us leave that horror in the dark ages behind us and move to collaborative, cooperative economies of local scale, with land ownership returning to Gaia awaiting reasonable essential leases. Sorry, but we are way past tinkering with capitalism. It is intrinsically exploitation..
pass the municipality, the police, the firefighters under the status of public company's shares wich are purchased and sold on the market.and the trust will return!
vain efforts
Live the pleasure brutal that the Material in its confusion gives to pleasures, and most devious of pleasures. Thinking Superior. Go ahead cheat in life. God doesn't care.
These speakers are not well educated in America.
Capitalism is a great servant,
But a terrible master.
The majority in canadia keep saying capitalism is the problem, Canada is far from a capitalist country as everything is centralised in one way or another by federal or provincial government
Yes, but here in Canada we have the economic religion of American capitalism infecting the brains of a lot of uneducated people, and making them think we need to do away with great things like health care. End capitalism now, because there are too many stupid people not realizing how detrimental this infection can be.
@@nevadataylor people will always exploit when it comes to money. I’m Ontario one can only buy spirits from the LCBO “liquor control board of Ontario” it’s government capitalism.
No. We've tried many times to reform capitalism. We need to ditch it altogether.
So, without capitalism how are you going to get people to show up at work to produce the goods that we all need to survive?
lol all you every really have is capitalism. Socialism is a Titanic scheme where the ship will sink every time. Socialism is such a farce it will always fail and a regression back to the mean, or natural norm, will happen, which is capitalism.
Capitalism does not need to be ditched but it does need to be tamed, to be brought under control. Like a wild horse it is running rampant at the present time but if brought under the correct reigns it can be of great service to all people.
We’re not even close to a capitalistic system…closer to a fascist state.