I accept that this video was quite intense for some people without an economics background. I was kind of hoping that for those people, it's the type of video where a week, a month, or even a year down the line something clicks and you 'get' it. (And obviously you then watch the video again, increasing that sweet, sweet view counter). The view of capital as a political claim to the income generated by society is one that doesn't come naturally, in my experience. On Natalie's videos: to be honest, I wasn't that interested in hammering home the point about why she was being inconsistent. Perhaps this was a mistake, but the point was really just to provide a fuller analysis of capitalism and I ended up realising the disconnects in her argument so I noted them. To explain, the first and most obvious is that her conclusion is fully focused on consumption inequality even though she (correctly) notes most of the problems with capitalist production in the first video. Redistribution does nothing to address these, or at least she doesn't say why it would. Secondly, consider the Singer example. She says she disagrees with Singer that people should become hedge fund managers then give away their money. But she then says capitalism creates wealth efficiently but that we need to redistribute it. Singer's argument is the absolute apex of that view! He states it provacatively with the hedge fund example but ultimately if you don't change the structure of the economy you're going to left with a lot of the core issues created by capitalist production, which she acknowledges at some points yet ignores in her conclusions. Thanks for watching everyone 💕
I don't have any economic background, so I've approached your video with the method of basically rewriting the script but in the form of notes. Seems to be working so far.
My economics knowledge is nothing more than what can be learnt from the internet, but it was pretty obvious to me what you meant by Contrapoints’ inconsistency. You laid it out plainly so the conclusion was clear enough.
I don't have economics background and I'm not a native speaker, but I think I got your main point. I've been thinking about the concept of "claim to wealth" for half a day now after watching and it seems to be an excellent tool for explaining a lot of things. I have just one terminology question - would you use the term "capital" as a universal term for the claim to wealth under any system, or is it a specific kind of claim to wealth that exists under capitalism? I.e. could we talk about "redistributing capital" to create a socialist system where each worker's/society member's claim to a share of created wealth is also "capital", the claim of feudal lords to what was produced on their land was "capital", etc; or is it only a claim to wealth in a system where that claim is concentrated into the hands of individuals who control production units which are defined as legal entities, and who are meant to use their claim not to meet their or anyone else's needs or even to maintain a luxurious living standard/ secure one's bloodline or whatever, but mainly just to take the claim and amplify it into infinity? I've been trying to apply this new tool and I thought of the following: 1. We can ask in any economic system, who has the claim to majority of the wealth generated by society - is it a minority or a majority of the people, is it their only role (are wealth "claimants" a separate class from wealth "creators") and does this role enable hoarding? (Possibility of hoarding is important, because there are some roles where a passive claim to wealth is more or less recognized in most modern societies, but these roles don't let you hoard wealth - like children, elderly, etc - the right wing likes to conflate these things and blur our vision with it). In capitalism and feudalism the claim to wealth belongs to a select few, who are a separate class and can hoard a lot more than they need. In socialism and in ancient communal societies the claim to wealth belongs/belonged to the majority (ideally everyone), who are/were also the creators of the wealth and significant hoarding isn't/wasn't really possible, because it would at one point infringe the claims of others, and you cannot technically do it alone (ref Ibn Khaldun), bc if others have a claim to enough wealth to survive without being a resource, then they won't come and create surplus for you to hoard, lol. 2. This explains eloquently why charity model doesn't work - it may temporarily redistribute some stuff, but doesn't sustainably redistribute the claim. 3. What does this say about authoritarian systems? Well, in authoritarianism, any systemic claim to wealth is always precarious, because it is "given" by an authority that controls everything. In the Soviet union people might have had a right to housing, healthcare, etc, but had no real control over that claim - the claim could be rescinded arbitrarily at any time, for any arbitrarily specified group of people. So it was kind of like a charity model with extra steps, lol. In capitalist authoritarian systems the capitalists' claim to wealth depends on whether they individually manage to stay in favour with the authoritarian ruler (see modern Russia for example) - so it's also precarious. 4. The "means testing" approach to welfare is basically the system trying to avoid meaningfully redistributing any claim to wealth. In my country there's universal healthcare, but only to people who consistently pay a certain amount of social tax, disabled people have to periodically prove their disability hasn't disappeared, etc - all these systems of checking and controlling are expensive to keep up, but their purpose is not really to save money, their purpose is to avoid giving the people a real claim to even a little shred of wealth... ... and so on. Sorry for using your comment section to organise my thoughts :D
I think that the idea of capital as leverage over the terms of redistribution is really useful. It highlights the fact that capitalists are not productive. In this way it's a good counterpoint to the argument, that capitalists "provide" the capital workers use to create wealth.
Jesus Christ is the only hope in this world no other gods will lead you to heaven There is no security or hope with out Jesus Christ in this world come and repent of all sins today Today is the day of salvation come to the loving savior Today repent and do not go to hell Come to Jesus Christ today Jesus Christ is only way to heaven Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void Heaven and hell is real cone to the loving savior today Today is the day of salvation tomorrow might be to late come to the loving savior today Holy Spirit Can give you peace guidance and purpose and the Lord will John 3:16-21 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. Mark 1.15 15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Hebrews 11:6 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Jesus
I really appreciate this channel and this series in particular. Criticizing Breadtube's arguments, but more to strengthen the overall critique of Capitalism and to get things more correct.
I find a few of his jabs at all three of the other RUclipsrs unnecessarily sarcastic and self-aggrandizing. When he stuck to the mission of explaining the economics behind the ideas, he was better. He was a little more charitable to Natalie, acknowledging she was simplifying for her audience.
@@mjacton but honestly, Natalie IS the best one. You can tell she knows more about economics than she leads on as he says. She doesn't reiterate leftist talking points, and she does have issue with communism as well as capitalism. She simplifies because she knows more than the others. The others are simplistic because they do not have greater knowledge to simplify.
I am aware of the implied humor in your comment but I find it relevant to point out: that this is indeed constructive criticism, which I view as a clear strength of the left, not not "infighting", which is something that holds us back and is to much detriment to the leftist project as a whole.
One of the good things about Contrapoints is that even when you disagree with Natalie, you can always say that she's intellectually honest and does her work, and admits where she has gaps in her understanding to a fault.
She's not intellectually honest whatsoever. The videos she made on race is token bait material. Loves saying socioeconomics and redlining is the cause for black failure but doesn't realize it wasn't just blacks who were redlined. Also compared Jewish authors like Abigail Shrier to Mein Kampf. That's okay because TERFs. Claims to love Marxism but never read Marx's stance on prostitution or Jews, and hates TERFs despite not knowing who Magnus Hirschfeld is and who funds trans ideology.
@@blacktigerpaw1 I'm sorry, but I don't understand your point about Marxism and prostitution. Just because you agree generally about something, does not mean you necessarily agree with everything the author said or think. I Mean, I agree that Newton was a great scientist of his time, that does not mean that I have to agree with everything he said or did? Furthermore, your point about redlining not affecting Black people only, is moot to say the least. It does not in any way refute her points, as it is commonly known that redlining affected mostly black people. So they were the ones suffering the most from it.
@@blacktigerpaw1 I don't think "Socioeconomics and redlining is the cause of black failure." And "Black people weren't the only people who were redlined" Are mutually exclusive. Unless you are talking about some other problem with the logic? And the context in which that is said matters as well. Also what are you talking about with "...not knowing who Magnus Hirschfeld is and who funds trans ideology."?
@@greenknight421 notice a key chud judo move here - the idea that if something isn't brought up and centered, the person hasn't read it or doesn't know the argument. Another chud judo move is to make some bizarre pepe-silva yarn chart connection between two things and then go "OH YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT {thing the chud essentially made up} - do you even study this shit lmao" which is insidious because it sort of masquerades as being read on the topic.
Unlearning Economics: "Economists have a habit of using a lot of fancy mathematics to gain relatively little insight." Me, a psychologist: "Haha, yeah, those economists surely are a bunch, aren't they!" _looks around nervously while slowly backing out of the room_ "Well, that's absolutely a total idiosyncrasy of economics, whereas all other social sciences are of course well-founded, theoretically strong fields and always use appropriate methods for their data and models. Anyway, gotta be going, kthxbye" _runs like lightning_
Psych is a bit different I believe since most Math being used are for statistical interpretation of group differenes, not complete mathematical models on how the mind works (maybe except with cognitive psych)
@Keirem Sileg I believe ubiquitous is way overstated. I'm not an expert just a psych student but I remember my cogpsych lesson was full of contradicting theories. There have been attempts to standardize things from models which many fields could agree on, Laird's 2017 paper on the standard model of the mind is an interesting entry point. But as you can read there it's a far way from bein ubiguitous, even though advances are being made
@Keirem Sileg I apologize, I misunderstood what you said. I thought you meant that cognitive models are completely modeling the mind, I misunderstood the term ubiquitous (as in whole). Thank you very much for your professional insights :) What I meant by advances being made was referring to a standard model of the mind. There are efforts to create one, at least to see where there are agreements with the different disciplines. More information on this was in the paper "A Standard Model of the Mind: Toward a Common Computational Framework across Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Robotics" I am aware that efforts to model the mind are old :)
*blocks your exit at the speed of darkness* Now I tell ya what…. I like ya and I wantcha….. *hands you a pen and paper to write your white paper that will contribute jack shit to academia* Now we can do this the easy way. Or we can do this the hard way. The choice is yours.
I think one of the reasons that Abigail and Natalie often fall flat with their videos on economics is that it always feels like they're prescribing some sort of vague nationalization to every problem. Something that I've seen very little of on RUclips is constructive and well-communicated work on potential alternative systems to capitalism. Maybe we could get a video series on alternative systems, e.g. an episode on Schweickart's Economic Democracy.
@@tilt9808 'some type of Marxist solution' doesn't help to specify anything, lol. Marx wrote extensive critique of capitalism but died before formulating anything beside sketch of proletariat revolution and all concrete plans of actions are invention of his followers, varying wildly between individual ideologues.
personally i would have added a little animation person: "hmm, what things should i make?" capitalist: "move to a factory and make widgets. you have no other choice" person: "oh. okay." video is pointing out that the decision to make widgets is not politically neutral and a better distribution of widgets doesnt solve the underlying problem
In short: passive capital is a problem because; 1: It grows exponentially and therefore makes the playing field gradually more uneven (Piketty) 2: It makes money without adding much to economic growth or production (Piketty) 3: It creates a tension between being a productive worker and a well-rounded human being (Adam Smith) 4: It creates a tension between the public and the state in economic downturns (e.g. evictions are met with state and police force) 5: Capital is not politically neutral. It is a form of ownership that is protected by the state (as explained in 4) and has a tendency to gradually expand (to ideas and even the environment). We should therefore ask ourselves what the boundaries of capital should be, and if we should redistribute.
As an economist, I loved the video. My views on capital are the same, growing up in Mexico this came naturally to me midway through my career but it was great to see the way you built up the argument. Really admirable to see all the effort you put into making this topic as accessible as possible, yet economics seems to have one of the analytical mindsets most difficult to acquire for the general population. Keep up the great work!
I have so much to learn. Even though I followed along with the arguments and conclusions of this video, I think I would have a difficult time reiterating them in a conversation.
If you're willing to take the time and really want to read and research, he put his sources in the description. Videos like these are kinda like Wikipedia in that they collate a bunch of sources, and you can always go to the references to get more context and comprehension.
@@elizarodrigez1992 I did find a few of hid sources on audiobook, which is great for me. It's not easy to focus my attention on economics though. So important and yet!
Same, Adam. It's interesting to me how much of the world is operated in ways too boring for most people to focus their attention on them. You mention economics, but are foreign policy and diplomatic negotiations any less dull? Or infrastructure? Or the nuanced, stamp collecting parts of science or history? A huge segment of the human experience is dominated by the boring, which gives great power to those able to tolerate the boring. And that seems to be true even outside of the Industrial Revolution that (I find this interesting) both socialists and conservatives blame for making jobs dull and smashing diverse humans into harshly conformist societies.
I would say, Capital does not equal the sum of your stuff, rather Capital is power. Economics and political power are inseparable, two sides of the same coin
@@aronchai All economic decisions are bound by political ideology. Austerity, welfare, these are all underpinned by how you perceive the world and the role of government. utilitarianism vs individualism
@Mac Kaste Yeah nice fantasy you have there, patents are monopolized by corporations. There is 0 incentive for creativity or innovation in Capitalism. I recommend you this talk. Cheers! Copyright vs. Community ruclips.net/video/eginMQBWII4/видео.html
I would love it if you started a series describing the economics associated with different political systems, providing your own perspective on the long-term effects they might have, but also which one you support, why, and how to implement such a system. I would also be interested in hearing how this would differ depending on the country in question. How would one strive for a more equal economic system in Eastern European, Post-Soviet, corrupt and poor countries, where people have been pushed to the right in different ways compared with Germany, the UK or the USA, which I mostly hear about.
Seconding this! As an SE Asian I was always subconsciously aware that the first worlder-centric econ discussion didn't fully apply to where I live and the systems and policies that work for them might not work for my country at all. Lefttube needs more discussion about the more "left behind" countries.
If you're interested in reading something about the problems of post-communist transformation and how that led to a political shift towards authoritarian right, I'd be happy to share my perspective (PM me). I'm from Poland, I was born in 1990 and in my free time I'm writing posts debunking neoliberal myths pertaining to capitalism in the former Eastern Bloc. I've been writing them in Polish, but I'd be happy to translate some essentials and bullet points.
I believe this title will draw a lot of people in who were expecting a takedown, hopefully that can be good way to reach across to people outside the bubble. The downside is that the already converted don't always click on these videos, thinking it's going to be 30 mins of a sneering economics grad misunderstanding the whole arguments presented by bread tube and cry about how fantastic the free market is. I'm glad I took the jump and clicked !!
@@dannyboy4682 It's sad that you pretty much described how echo chambers form. Right wingers will come because they think the video will agree with them, left wingers will stay away because they will think the video disagrees with them.
@@leonardofranzinribeiro4220 you just accurately described my feelings while I was contemplating clicking on this video. Here's to getting out of the echo chamber, comrades!
As a bachelor student of economics, I have thought many times about making a video exactly like this, so needless to say I fucking love it. Everything is accurate to the field of economics, and showing the parts that are actually interesting and worth of discussion, even managing to not be repetitive in its contents (like so much of economics is). Although it might be less approachable than say the videos of Natalie Wynn, whom I still love dearly, it gives a realistic view of how economists actually think (though I might be in a minority). This is going to be my new favorite channel and I'm going to recommend it to everyone, I'm in love.
I think you could've expanded a bit on inequality and Marx's m-c-m' circuit, I've always understood it as elaborating that inequality isn't just a consequence of capitalism, but is essential to how capitalism produces wealth; the apparent trade-off between equity and efficiency is largely (though, not entirely) the result of capitalism. I think this would've meshed well with the point about how capital itself is, 'bargaining power'. Anyway, great video as always.
Well, it's not entirely true that the inequality must create the efficiency, and that they are synonymous. For example: It's actually pretty easy to have a very nuanced argument about Worker Owned Companies, as well as governments getting majority votes at a company board, and maintaining an ownership of Capital. We can bring this up, because Norway has 84% of its publicly traded companies' capital being owned by the Norwegian Government. This could be a recipe for graft, but serious accounting, audits, and penalties for it, make it so it rarely happens. The government uses its ownership both to focus on the long term health and utility of a company (such as settling for a more regular, but smaller, profit margin. And also long-term investment, which is less common in other capitalist countries). The other function, is that because it owns shares, it also owns the profitable returns of those shares. By making a profit from its owned capital, it can maintain higher state budgets, at a lower total tax rate for the residents of Norway. This gets funneled into the social safety net, as well as into education systems, which further increase the labor value (as well as incomes) of the residents. Were they to take this a step further, worker ownership stakes that end up as majorities, both give employees operating power which is handled by the employees who are doing it, and distribute profits to the workers whose labor drives the company. In both cases of worker and government ownership, having a big enough share of the boardroom votes (most voting shares, typically), makes it so the company follows the wants of the workers, or the government. Really, they will follow whoever the majority stakeholder is, and it's that point to keep in mind. Because effectively, if a worker ownership collective owns 50%+1 of a company, they have total control of that company. They don't have to listen to the Bourgeoisie capitalists, they can make working conditions whatever they decide. They retain the generated wealth of their labor. They effectively have majority ownership of every machine, every building, every asset that they deal with. And this all naturally results in a reversed distribution of wealth, putting a lot more in the hands of the productive class, and flipping the distribution dynamic when taxes also come into play. That's why Norway has the highest upward class mobility rate of any nation. And it's how a system can actually be both fully socialist in nature, while also simultaneously being fully capitalistic. It took an extremely specific set of circumstances, and political organizing to make it happen, but it was ultimately the best possible outcome. And it means that Norway can be fully socialist while also interacting fully in a Capitalist global economy, and without the United States trying to replace its leadership via Coup.
Why is it I'm learning about Ibn Khaldun now only two and a half years after I graduated with a degree in economics? Then again, looking back at it, we never read *any* of the actual important thinkers in economics. Smith, Ricardo, Hayek, Keynes, were not discussed in my classes, and forget Marx, the chair of the program had to have at least one "Venezuela" in each class and only one, *one* had ever recommended reading Marx unironically. I mean for fuck's sake, one of my professors gave the same straw man argument of socialism as "everyone gets the same salary". In case it isn't obvious, I think the education of economics (in my experience) was severely lacking.
You didn't learn about Smith or Keynes????? I took a level economics before I went to university, and we at least learnt who Smith and Keynes were lol and what they generally thought about economics, and their influence.
many economics courses seem to be a kind of self-reproducing celebration of capitalism, I suspect at least stemming from Mccarthyite era red scare nonsense. if professors during that era wouldn't teach marx or would dismiss him and discourage reading him, and then their students went on to be professors, I would imagine this educational background would result in a sizable chunk of those former students-turned-professors also harbouring those views on marx. though the combination of a resurgence in interest toward heterodox schools over the last decade or so alongside exceptionally easy access to information may have chipped away at that somewhat
@@PristianoPenaldoSUIIII I don't doubt that for a second. Especially considering one of my professors didn't even believe in Macroeconomics, and the chair was a dollar-store Chicago Boy (different South American country, different Illinois-based university).
I love this channel because i keep going into the videos expecting the usual "your wrong im right 😌" response video but every time its acctually just "you missed something there bud heres a better argument c:"
Can't believe I thought it was Adam Smith smh. I'm so silly sometimes. You only heavily implied it was Smith and even put a picture of him on the screen, and here's my jumping to conclusions
He scored a few great goals at Leeds and then was quite decent at United. But to think of him as some sort of founding father of economics is a stretch, really.
What's even weirder is that Adam Smith himself would probably laugh at someone for claiming that he had founded anything. Given how influential the physiocrats were at the time he was writing (Turgot's longest work of political economy was first published in book form the same year 'The Wealth of Nations' was), how they were responsible for creating the categories with which Adam Smith and subsequent pol. Econ reasoned and how similar the politics of Adam Smith and them were, the idea that Smith invented even laissez faire policy (notice that laissez faire is a French phrase not an English one) much less economics itself is just an outright myth.
@@post-modernneo-marxist8102 Smith was very direct in the fact that he had fruitful conversations with the Physiocrats when he was in France but deeply disagreed with them and probably saw them as more of a continuation of "political-arithmetic," which he generally did not like. Moreover, per Meeks who is quite compelling on this, the core of his theory was worked out by around 1755 before he really interacted with any of them. He definitely thought he was doing something somewhat new, in the sense that he thought of himself as working out a positive program in a Humean system, the "Science of Man." In that sense he was the Hegel to Hume's Kant. He died before finishing it though, and, as he had the vast majority of his papers destroyed, we only have completed sections in the Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiment, and probably a good chunk of the not totally worked out ligaments of the system in the notes from his Lectures on Jurisprudence. There are a few empirical claims here that are iffy, I don't think there is much reason to believe that Smith got his categories from the Physiocrats, that comes from assumptions based on how late WN appeared instead of actually looking at what Smith was doing before he even went to France. What he was doing was drawing on some of the same wells, specially Montesquieu, Rousseau (and perhaps through him Fletcher), and Newton, as the French. Smith's politics, as much as they can be parsed out and then translated from Whig Britain to Ancien Regime France, were not particularly aligned with the physiocrats, though they themselves were not totally monolithic. Meanwhile on matters of economics Smith is more clearly utterly opposed to them, they have some overlap on policy prescriptions, but Smith spends a rather long chapter Book IV Chapter 9, arguing against it. More importantly though, the entire basis of Smith's work in the Wealth of Nations is to be found in his first sentence, value comes from labour, not land. Smith's entire system is totally opposed to the Physiocrats. Which gets to somewhere I agree with you, Smith was not the founder of laissez faire, which makes sense because he argues against it in a number of situations in the Wealth of Nations. Smith was much closer in spirit to Marx, as a philosophical (humean as opposed to hegelian) analyst of how economies work across history (see especially Book III), while the Physiocrats are much closer to something like contemporary academic economics. On a similar note Smith's most direct economic influence was none other the Hume himself, especially Hume's arguments on specie flow and the demographics of ancient as opposed to contemporary societies. If Smith isn't the founder of economics because he got some of his views from elsewhere, it's because of Hume and not the Physiocrats. Attributing the creation of a discipline to any one individual is a heuristic, not really a truth in itself as there are always prior figures doing work in a direction. Thus Smith seems like a very reasonable choice for founder of modern Political-Economy, it's less a myth and more an ultimately subject value judgement.
Of course there is a lot of variation in this number due to print size, translation, which books are included, etc., but my bible is 758 pages, not including appendices, so the original book was almost as long as the bible already.
The span of this variation becomes apparent with the bible version I possess having 1395 pages, not including appendices, making it longer than both of Pikettys works.
I was on a walk today and out of nowhere thought about how good your content is and how much it has taught me. So you can’t imagine how happy I was to see your content pop up on my subscription feed! Your content is one of the best out there and you are an absolute legend for making it!
Definitely correct about economics and mathematics. As a graduate, found that it was often used when not needed just to make economics seem more of a technical science rather than the social science that it actually is. Allot of my class mates dropped out as a result, I didn't but it was torture especially in my last semester!
thank you for your work! This stuff is a valuable contribution to the ecosystem. The greatest thing that can happen to me politically is seeing my political commentators critiqued in such a respectful but diligent manner. It keeps me cautious and mindful that not every work produced by these folks is a flawless masterpiece.
Damn. When I joked after reading Piketty's volumes of Capital that I'm now a better economist than 50% of American economists, I gotta say I wasn't expecting to be right.
"'rockstar economist', a term nobody should use about any economist ever" as someone who has lived under the prime ministership of John Key, that made me laugh
"Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing" by Josh Ryan-Collins Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century Classics in leftist and reformist economics, such as Marx's 'das Kapital' (www.marxists.org) or Henry George's "Progress and Poverty" www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm There's a growing niche of Georgist videos and youtube channels. Donald Shoup's "High Cost of Free Parking" regarding the economics of allocating land for free parking. There's a Vox video on youtube named after the book. Other than that, you're better off delving into traditional academic economics textbooks. Don't get stuck in the weeds when it comes to the mathematical and graphical illustrations used in most college-level textbooks. There's textbooks in specialized areas of economic study. Urban economics, transportation economics, economic development, public finance, natural resource economics, etc.
"The political power that certain groups use to exercise control over resources is not a consequence of Capital, as Piketty fears. It is Capital." -A guy who makes me moan in pleasure
@dontcare Thank you! I have some videos coming out soon with some other lefties and then I plan on reaching out to The Serfs and Thought Slime. Appreciate the support!
I did a video called "A Short Glossary of Anarchist Terms" in which I briefly discussed capitalism in some of the ways you wish Contrapoints had in her series. I provide a coherent definition of what capitalism is, by describing its origins in the late 15th/early 16th century Dutch Republic and describing it as a system in which private control of the means of production manifests through the presence of specific institutions (corporations, stock markets, reserve banks, investment banks) and governmental protections (i.e. state enforcement of business contracts and private property rights). If you'd like to have a chat sometime with someone on the far left who has a more academic approach to this stuff than the typical breadtuber, just let me know, I'd be keen.
Good vid but I'm gonna be that guy who says "that isn't what commodity fetishism means" It's a nitpick, but when you are talking about being the guy who did all the reading, it's probably good not to mix up "Kapital" and "Theory of the Leisure Class"
naw, "commodity fetishism" is a slightly vaguer concept about how we think of stuff produced and traded as sort of having it's own independent life. It's not about things being fancy, it applies to regular stuff like corn and pencils and stuff. It's more that we think of "the economy" as a pile of things rather than in the way they are produced and exchanged. Marx talks about it in chapter 1 of "Kapital" but he never explicity uses the term "comoddity fetishism." I'm not really doing it justice here. but the term "fetish" is being used in the sense of "a religious icon" rather than like "a sexual proclivity" "Conspicuous Consumption" is about sending signals of social status by doing extravagant displays of spending, like buying super expensive golden pizzas. The book "theory of the leasure class" by Veblen goes into it a great deal.
@@square_waves8263 thank you! I think I see what you mean, the golden pizza might be a fetishised commodity but no more so than any other commodity right?
Yeah sorta, I mean the whole thing with fetishism at least in "Kapital" (I haven't read a lot of Marx, just the first bit of Kapital and Communist Manifesto) Is that it's a small part of a bigger argument about how the whole "comoddity" concept is weird and isn't just a natural and normal way to distribute stuff that has existed forever. He's also building up the whole "Labor theory of value" bit and criticizing the idea that because we sell something, say a 1lb sack of flour for $5 that the $5 is somehow an intrinsic quality of the flour and not a byproduct of the relationship of flour production to the other social relationships that exist in the world. The idea of "commodity fetishism" is very general and has more to do with just commodities in general than any specific comoddity.
@@square_waves8263 That’s not what commodity fetichism is, though. Commodity fetichism refers to the fact that objects are not commodities (and hence have value) of their own. Rather, they only become commodities when they are produced for exchange by individual, private producers. Basically, with commodity fetichism Marx explains how value is the objectified labor of private, independent producers. In othee words, value is a fetichistic category because it assigns properties to an object that it does not have of its iwn (that’s the original meaning of fetiche, an object that is attributed properties that it does not have by nature). It is a critique of the most fundamental category of political economy: the commodity. It doesn’t have anything to do with consummerism.
Really appreciate this series. You've done and excellent job and as someone who is proficient in the world of political philosophy, seeing leftist content from someone who is a master at economics is very refreshing: a voice that is much needed in this space. Bang up job. I've learned so much from your videos!!
It's a reformulation of Capital Volume 3 and the problem of transformation. The capitalist's capital relative to the system's total capital is the proportion of surplus value allocated to the capitalist, this is also why prices are not directly values under capitalism.
So, in brief, if I understand. The Capital that Capitalists own is their bargaining power to enforce claims over the resources of society (what gets made and who gets it and how much). They use that Capital, their bargaining power, to acquire ever greater amounts of Capital, which allows them to act as the state authority. That bargaining power is the violence used to enforce those claims and is carried out by the enforcers of the state. So Capitalism IS the violence that is needed to make Capitalism work.
gotta admit, i got pretty lost in this one even after 2 viewings. this might be because im not an economist myself so when you disgressed i had to spend a lot of brain power just to keep up and i did totally forget that this was a criticism of natalie, so when we came back to her i kinda forgot what you were talking about initially then i had to play catch up again lol if i may, id like to take a crack at summarizing your video in good faith so i can be slapped down if i missed something: you watched natalie's videos on capitalism and realized she didnt do much to explain how it works, so you took the opportunity to do just that in this video. then when you swivel back to her you point out that several of her assumed solutions amount to neoliberalism. ultimately, you want breadtubers to do a better job defining capitalism and in order to effectively critique it? despite how much i struggle to keep up with your videos i find them incredibly interesting and very much worth being confused over. thanks very much for your continued work. and i really appreciate all the simpsons jokes!
This seems about right, but for a specific explanation of what thing Natalie assumed that amounted to neoliberalism, it was that basically the production of wealth as it's been operating for thousands of years (since the agricultural revolution, pre-capitalism) is this exploitative process that would need to be reworked in order to be less exploitative. And natalie didn't address this in her video, instead basically just saying "we need to take the wealth being created (in this exploitative process) and spread it around better)" instead of talking about how the wealth is made needing to change, too.
I believe his agrument is that the main issue with capitalism is that the capitalists get a certain amount of the wealth created only because everyone believes they have a claim on it. This claim is also enforced with violence if necessary. Natalie and Singer only go so far as "those capitalists need to share their wealth", while Unlearend economics goes further by questioning whether those capitalists even have a claim to that wealth to begin with. It's not their wealth... At least, that's what I stuck with me after watching this late at night
@@alexanderreusens7633 not conflicting with the summary but with the conclusion drawn - to an extent, the capitalist does have a claim to a portion of the wealth if they do their job properly - e.g. a CEO who actually does their job is indeed entitled to a portion of the revenue. The capitalist’s job is to ensure stability for those using the capital - if somebody else decides they want to use the means of production, the capitalist’s job is to ensure that conflicting claims do not interfere with production. They also have an implicit responsibility to help keep the capital in usable condition, because that’s what their political control is predicated on - if the physical aspect of the capital becomes unusable, there is no value to their political capital over it. The issue then becomes ensuring that portion of the revenue is proportionate to the actual contribution, which is seldom the case, as the capitalist controls the means of production through their political capital. It’s extremely easy to be greedy, and since the capitalist controls the capital, it is difficult to prosecute a case against them/extremely easy for them to use their political capital to obfuscate their leeching. It’s kinda the Animal Farm situation, where the organizers become leeches simply due to having the organizational/political power to become leeches. TL;DR - I have a rambling rant with no clear purpose
So basically, any reforms or contesting as of capitalism fail because when a person gets enough power to contest capitalism, they themselves can control how they want the operation of reforming or destroying capitalism, and is guaranteed to become greedy and abuse their power?
@@brendanmccabe8373 Or Mises, Hayek that is suddenly important again when failed neolibs/libertarians needs to convince themselves that capitalism is not real capitalism.
@@brendanmccabe8373 Gtfo with that common leftist talking point where you're like "A is b I am very smart". The free market allows opportunity for everyone to rise up as long as they put in hard work. The people who want a rigidly regulated economy want to oppress economic freedoms in the name of "security".
Superb, we need some Georgist ideas in the discussion. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of Natalie, Shaun, Abigail, and a whole load of other breadtubers, and I do respect Marx, but have long felt that there is a badly overlooked aspect of 19th Century classical economic thought, that could seriously help us out of the neoclassical cul-de-sac we've been languishing in for over 100 years. I do hope you are going to be doing an episode on how we ended up stuck with neoclassical economics in the first place, how it differs from classical economics, and the disastrous consequences of abandoning the value difference between Land and Capital, that would really make my day :-)
I feel like Natalie's video is more like an insight on how capitalism is perceived and affects us in our daily lives, including the fact that most of us, despite feeling that it's wrong, lack the knowledge, energy and ressources to fully understand it and fight it. I see it more as what capitalism does to our minds and morals. I think its an interesting perspective to study, but it is sad that "breadtube" videos lack so much of more technical and concrete videos like yours ; it is necessary to want to improve our world, but to do it we must first truly understand how it works, not only on a philosophical/emotional level.
Yeah she is excellent on the philosophical points but to be honest it feels by the 2nd video like she was backed into having to present an economic argument and wasn't really that confident in doing so. This is a bit speculative, though, so I wasn't about to put it in the video. I could be wrong.
Excellent video but it seems like an odd choice to use “Photograph” when “Rockstar” is right there... and they even released that sea shanty remix recently!
I actually largely agree with what you've said, but I wonder if there is a reason Natalie does not make a suggestion for more radical changes in the distribution of capital. Given that a core target audience for her videos are those on or susceptible to falling to the alt-right, I think it's likely she deliberately lowballs her pitch for a remedy. By offering the viewer a solution not too far removed from what is likely to be their existing belief system, she can prime them to be more receptive to more radical leftist ideas later.
^^ yeah, i think natalie’s videos are more about challenging existing perspectives rather than pushing solutions. her 2-part series in particular is pretty vague, and as a leftist i wouldn’t point to it as anything but an introductory piece
Contrapoints brought me in with socially progressive content. Her anti-capitalist videos were the very last ones I watched on her channel. I had never even thought to question capitalism before. Its introductory, like you said, but an important introduction for me.
"a core target audience for her videos are those on or susceptible to falling to the alt-right" - someone's going to have to explain to me how a trans youtuber heavily focused on visual spectacle is catering to right wing, traditionally masculine tipping to the other end of the scale.
Great video man! The idea of capital being an ownership of an asset rather than an accumulation of numbers really clicked a lot of things together in my brain.
At the end of the video you talked about criticizing economists. I hope that one of them is Thomas Sowell since he's among the most famous of current right wing economists and I have not seen anyone really take a good crack at him from the left. Great videos so far.
Am I right in thinking that the conclusion here is that capitalism isn't just the ownership of the means of production (that makes capitalists rich and therefore able to influence politics), but rather it is both economic ownership and political power together that is capitalism? So political power defends the right to minority economic ownership, and economic power keeps capitalists in power politically? Or, the issue is that people believe capitalists have a political or ethical right to what they claim to own economically? Unless I I got that wrong?
Yes, it does involve both economic and political power. This is what capitalist political governments do is to look out for the interest of the capitalist class. Workers and minorities did win a few crumbs with demands but those crumbs always get taken back eventually, hence the privatizations of public services. The political right wants to privatize Social Security and Medicare while giving more tax cuts for the wealthy elites and corporations. But they will never cut the military budget.
There is a really interesting and instructive analysis of more of these topics in Chomsky's book The Consequences of Capitalism. Well worth a read/listen.
@@TychonAchae *Links a think tank funded by billionaires to counteract an argument that is demonstrated across a variety of statistics* Hmmm, don't know who to trust here.
@@MrMalimer - The think tank is non-partisan, non-profit, and receives funding from a wide variety of sources. Including the US government. Also, criticisms of Picketty's book (And the premises they are based on) have been replicated across a wide variety of sources. So no, his argument has not been "demonstrated across a variety of statistics." If anything, the opposite. Do you mouthbreathers actually have ANY actual arguments other than knee jerk scripted, "tHeY'rE FuNdEd bY BiLlIoNaIrEs" without actually checking if they actually are, or know how to fact check empirical claims? Because you sound like just every other type of credulous ideologue suffering from confirmation bias and committing genetic fallacies to handwave away criticisms.
@@TychonAchae The argument partway through that paper that the rich are only earning so much more money bc their taxes have been cut, and if you look at pretax income their income hasn't grown as much so what's the big deal, is just galaxy-brain missing the point. Also if a thinktank makes an effort to stay in the centre of US politics it is technically nonpartisan, but at the same time it's strongly biased towards the centre of US politics.
@@TychonAchae sorry I'm still thinking about this bad paper They spend like 4 paragraphs talking about how growth at lower incomes after WW2 was due to strong economic growth and the expansion of the welfare state, whereas since the 80s that hasn't been the case so incomes grew much faster for the rich, as they normally do when things don't change. Which is fine but then they act as though this context contradicts Piketty even though it's exactly the point of his work…
If Yanis were here, he'd point out that piketty makes the same mistake as most economists today when they assume that capital=wealth: they forget that money exists. If you read Smith all the way through, I think he makes the same argument as mason does, that it's bargaining power and politics all the way down.
naw, I don't think that's the case. I've read Smith all the way through, well Wealth of Nations at least, but he says in the book: "Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of capital. But whatever industry might acquire, if parsimony did not save and store up, the capital would never be the greater"
@@square_waves8263 If you've read it all the way through, you'll know what the influence of the "masters" in manipulating the economy to their own ends is a strong and continuing theme in Wealth of Nations that appears in many chapters. I'll take back the extent of my initial implication, it's not as strong as in Mason, but it is still a continuing and ever present theme. He points it out far too much to encapsulate it in a small quote here.
oh yeah, absolutely. I mean smith definitely isn't the liberatarian type he gets made out to be. I mean there are even some good choice quotes to pull for it, like the whole (paraphrased) "civil law is always for the benefit of the rich against the poor" Or his description of "the commercial system"
@@square_waves8263 "It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer."
@@square_waves8263 "We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people."
UE, homie, you have such a great charm and sense of humour, mark of a great teacher. I'm less than halfway through and thoroughly enjoying your work :)
Please keep educating, you're doing a spectacular job. Breadtube is able to engage their viewers and provoke thought from them but they mostly do so in the affective domain. Your videos pair so well with theirs because of how you expand upon them and elevate the concepts to the cognitive domain. Was this why you chose to scrutinize their videos in particular?
I will point out that the graph at 25:35 has a broken axis- look at the axis and you'll see that it's a decrease from 27% to 24% over 50 years. Less significant than the graph makes it look.
This is…really damn good, especially the “capital as political power” argument. My issue with Natalie’s video is actually a lot more fundamental and has little to do with economics at all - namely, that her entire argument is predicated on ethical hedonism (happiness/pleasure as the highest good) and I don’t think that’s a very productive ethical framework (why not keep everyone unconscious in a dopamine tank?). Also, wouldn’t the /r/neoliberal/“globe emoji” crowd, despite the moniker they picked for themselves, be better identified as ordoliberals in the postwar German tradition?
Yap, the would, but german ordoliberalism was one of the two original strains of neoliberalism anyway (Ludwig Erhard, Rüstow,Karl popper etc.) So ironically they aren't misusing the monicer of neoliberalism after all.
@@ldm8393 It only seems that way because neoliberalism had kind of become a nebulous term. It's what people like Chomsky would call state monopoly capitalism, what the libertarians call cronyism, what conservatives call corporatism, and what laymen call corruption. Most people don't even apply to the ideas espoused by the likes of Friedman anymore.
Keep everyone unconscious in a dopamine tank as opposed to having 600 million people on extreme poverty and many many others struggling to even keep a roof on their heads..... I get the sense that your view on the subject is extremely Privileged. After you've had nothing to eat for a couple of days straight, come back to me and talk about the disadvantages of ethical hedonism.
wow I wasn't expecting your critiques of breadtumers' videos on econ stuff to be this good and nuanced when I just looked at the titles and thumbnails for these video but damn, this was great and very insightful
Love to see in-depth videos like this about the big questions in econ. Although, I am not fully convinced about the link between capitalism and inequality. Does capitalism produce more inequality than other system? I doubt that capitalism in itself always leads to more inequality. After all, during what is known as the golden age of capitalism in the West (50s, 60s, 70s), inequality actually decreased (see graph at 14:32)! I guess it produces more inequality then communal living in a barter based society ... and perhaps even than Feudalism ... but (especially the latter) probably mainly because these doesn't produce much wealth. If everyone gets richer ... it makes sense that there is also more inequality.
Said golden age of capitalism also line up with the postwar consensus, during which the highest degree of government control was exerted over the market. I do agree though that any serious critique of capitalism should start from the premise that Capitalism is the best system *yet*, and suggest from that point how we could do even better. Noone but some Neoreactionaries seriously suggest a return to Feudalism
@@ariearie7953 Golden age of capitalism was highest degree of gov control & highest taxes on the rich & and highest regulation of financial sector. So, it seems that this type of capitalism is the best we've had so far. Still technically capitalism since most production was privately owned.
I looked at the graph at 14:32 and just couldn't understand the rest of the video. It was like I was reading another graph or listening to another video. Good analysis, but the premise is confusing.
Glad I was able to badger you into addressing Piketty. I refuse to use this (assumed) power responsibly. So next do Bataille and the concept of General Economy. :D :D :D
I like guaranteed income lets capitalism do its job while offsetting the negative effects of concentration of wealth, including giving workers more leverage by making it possible for them to walk away.
I see universal basic income not as a solution but as a bandaid to the inequality that capitalism creates because it doesn't fundamentally change anything about how stuff gets made. A small subset of people will still have the power to decide what gets made and how and will still lay claim to a large chunk of the wealth generated by that production. If you truly want to eliminate the concentration of wealth then you'd need to uproot the system that concentrates wealth by design.
@@guy-sl3kr THat is one way to go about it. Another way is to allow the tree (Capitalism) to grow anyway With its ever present and complex root system; there to physically support the tree while also, being the means by which the tree leaches great piles of sustenance (capital) from the land (labor) itself. Left to its own devices that sustinace (capital) becomes a great quantity of leaves and fruit (Wealth) kept away from the ground. Eventually the land (labor) beneath has nothing left. its soil depleted. Without sustenance The tree withers shrinks as does its roots. The shruncken roots loose their grip on what soil remains and then falls to the ground as what is lest of the soil falls away. OR FRom time to time (maybe every year or so) you SHAKE LOOSE the Leaves and Fruit (taxation) letting it fall to the land to decompose into its component bits. (UBI) Thereby not only renewing the soil (labor) that exists but also adding to it as well. Thus allowing more fertile soil for the tree to continue leaching these distributed nutrients (capital) and concentrating them back into into sweet fruits and useful leaves over and over again.
Love the content! I'd love some more graphics please! I have a hard time following your train of thought, but with some pictures or graphics it can reinforce what your saying! Great video, just had rewind a few parts to fully comprehend the material and arguments.
13:04 We can know. It's approximately 6.9 trillionfold in the case of 3.5% annual growth and 1.5 sextillionfold (10²¹) in the case of 5% annual growth.
This connects to something that has _always_ bothered me about e.g. the great depression: nothing material was lost. All the goods, all the machinery that made them remained intact, still wherever they were the day before. It was an imaginary mass psychological problem. What had been lost was just numbers in an account. The problem could have been solved just by adjusting our thinking to a market with less money, but somehow, they all expected the same payments and returns despite the crash. There was nothing physically preventing anyone from honoring their previous commitments and routines so that everything carried on as usual. How could this mass insanity inflict an entire population? The answer can only be ideology or religion.
I like the definition of capitalism as mainly being a claim on resources, but what separates a capitalist from a feudal lord if this is the case? Why is it that capitalists wanted their means of production to expand but feudal lords (in general) only cared about receiving their unearned rent without reinvesting into the means of production from which they take rent from?
Because feudal lords earned most of their money from rent and capitalists earn most of their money from trade. So a lord could only expand through conquest where a capitalists could expand indefinitely
@@haroldsandahl6408 I thought part of the point of the video was that the capitalists use political power to gain an undeserved share of the wealth which is produced by society at large, with only a fraction of their wealth coming from actually using their capital in productive ways. This seems similar to how a lord would just take a rent from the peasants. Obviously capital has been used productively (in industrialization for instance) but it's hard to understand why capitalists rather than the nobility owning the means of production would cause this to happen.
@@evanfarrell8090 I think of it the same only the two believe their income comes from different source. The lord thinks it comes from the land, so acquires more land. That is how he grows, with the size of his holdings. A capitalist grows with his business. The difference is the land will always be there and the business requires support. That support comes in the form of a mobile workforce.
@@evanfarrell8090 I actually think that the distinction between a feudal lord and a capitalist is largely about what system they're in. The source of the feudal lord's wealth was their ownership of the means of production. The source of a capitalist's wealth is also their ownership of the means of production. The distinction is that the prior exists within a broader feudal system and the latter within capitalism. The additions of the market and of wage labor (which feudal labor was not) make a large difference to the workers but functionally very little to the feudalist/capitalist.
@16:00 Re: authoritativeness of numbers for the sake of numbers... one of the first things physicists etc come to understand is: "Where the numbers reflect reality, they are not accurate, and where the numbers are accurate, they do not reflect reality."
this is very very good and i appreciate it so much. had to stop and rewind a lot to understand, but im confident i got it eventually. it’s refreshing to see an “economist”, or rather someone who knows that theyre talking about regarding economics, who is also a leftist. i would appreciate even more examples in the future and being spoken to as if i am at least 50% less clever in order to make these easier to follow! the information is so important. thanks for doing these!!
I really wish a lot of these folks would discuss the problem of equality over long periods of time. It's very easy to raise standards of living/well-being/happiness for people in the present by, ecologically speaking, mortgaging from the future. Whether that's ultra-intensive agriculture that depletes soils, drawing down aquifers faster than they can be replenished, or burning fossil fuels more quickly than natural systems can sequester carbon, all of these things do a great job at short-term improvements to standards of living.
Just want to state how much I appreciate what you've done with this series. As leftists, we are in dire need of solid economic analysis in our discourse.
Thank you for this ! Locating the nexus of capitalism in the political/legal sphere, with the concomitant privileging of property rights to “private” interests, provides more than just powerful analytical lens. You, sir, have located the crux of the biscuit!
Her first video is largely about the problems with capitalist production but her ultimate argument in the 2nd video leaves production in-tact and seeks to redistribute after the fact. She is inconsistent on this point (eg remarks made re: Singer, stuff, and champagne). Redistribution would only solve consumption inequality, not alienation, shitty jobs, advertising, etc.
This is a tangent, but as a psychologist I'm not wild about using 'happiness' as an outcome measure - by some definitions of happy we could just give everyone a bit of mdma everyday if that was the aim. I suspect people are actually referring to a more global concept that we'd usually label as 'wellbeing' or similar and that can be broken down into both concrete objectives (safe housing, keeping everyone fed, that sort of thing) and qualitative experiential measures.
Great job on this man, my favourite kind of video, low on production (contrapoint's theatricality never did much for me) but high quality content that's informative.
I can't wait for a video on alternatives to capitalism. It would be really interesting from an economics point of view, I've already had my fill of moral/philosophical reasons against capitalism from other leftubers. I love your videos by the way, you've hit upon a niche that isn't well covered on youtube rn.
Honestly? That can't actually work. I mean developing hypothetical alternatives to capatalism before it happens. We can try, we can create the base skeleton according to the ideologies and principles we hold... but a "fully-fleshed out alternative model" simply can't exist. Just by the nature that it will never survive actual implementation. It's guaranteed to run into unforeseen circumstances and pitfalls, such that the actual constructed system may bear little resemblance to the academic model. That's true of every theoretical government and system we can produce. Which is why I try and steer clear from a prescriptivist approach. If a society has a prescribed model to rearrange itself into, and refuses to practice the flexibility to abandon parts or tenets of that model... then that society is going to fail in its revolutionary goals.
Great video. "Capital enacts ownership claims on national income, and these claims are ultimately defended by the state" is a really great summarization.
Great video I think its quite common to hear a jumbled mix of neoclassical, Marxist and Keynesian critiques of capitalism. Not that some of the ideas can't be synthesized to some extent. But it is important to understand where the different critiques are coming from and the limitations of critiques from a more neoclassical perspective.
I accept that this video was quite intense for some people without an economics background. I was kind of hoping that for those people, it's the type of video where a week, a month, or even a year down the line something clicks and you 'get' it. (And obviously you then watch the video again, increasing that sweet, sweet view counter). The view of capital as a political claim to the income generated by society is one that doesn't come naturally, in my experience.
On Natalie's videos: to be honest, I wasn't that interested in hammering home the point about why she was being inconsistent. Perhaps this was a mistake, but the point was really just to provide a fuller analysis of capitalism and I ended up realising the disconnects in her argument so I noted them. To explain, the first and most obvious is that her conclusion is fully focused on consumption inequality even though she (correctly) notes most of the problems with capitalist production in the first video. Redistribution does nothing to address these, or at least she doesn't say why it would.
Secondly, consider the Singer example. She says she disagrees with Singer that people should become hedge fund managers then give away their money. But she then says capitalism creates wealth efficiently but that we need to redistribute it. Singer's argument is the absolute apex of that view! He states it provacatively with the hedge fund example but ultimately if you don't change the structure of the economy you're going to left with a lot of the core issues created by capitalist production, which she acknowledges at some points yet ignores in her conclusions.
Thanks for watching everyone 💕
I don't have any economic background, so I've approached your video with the method of basically rewriting the script but in the form of notes. Seems to be working so far.
My economics knowledge is nothing more than what can be learnt from the internet, but it was pretty obvious to me what you meant by Contrapoints’ inconsistency. You laid it out plainly so the conclusion was clear enough.
I don't have economics background and I'm not a native speaker, but I think I got your main point. I've been thinking about the concept of "claim to wealth" for half a day now after watching and it seems to be an excellent tool for explaining a lot of things.
I have just one terminology question - would you use the term "capital" as a universal term for the claim to wealth under any system, or is it a specific kind of claim to wealth that exists under capitalism? I.e. could we talk about "redistributing capital" to create a socialist system where each worker's/society member's claim to a share of created wealth is also "capital", the claim of feudal lords to what was produced on their land was "capital", etc; or is it only a claim to wealth in a system where that claim is concentrated into the hands of individuals who control production units which are defined as legal entities, and who are meant to use their claim not to meet their or anyone else's needs or even to maintain a luxurious living standard/ secure one's bloodline or whatever, but mainly just to take the claim and amplify it into infinity?
I've been trying to apply this new tool and I thought of the following:
1. We can ask in any economic system, who has the claim to majority of the wealth generated by society - is it a minority or a majority of the people, is it their only role (are wealth "claimants" a separate class from wealth "creators") and does this role enable hoarding? (Possibility of hoarding is important, because there are some roles where a passive claim to wealth is more or less recognized in most modern societies, but these roles don't let you hoard wealth - like children, elderly, etc - the right wing likes to conflate these things and blur our vision with it). In capitalism and feudalism the claim to wealth belongs to a select few, who are a separate class and can hoard a lot more than they need. In socialism and in ancient communal societies the claim to wealth belongs/belonged to the majority (ideally everyone), who are/were also the creators of the wealth and significant hoarding isn't/wasn't really possible, because it would at one point infringe the claims of others, and you cannot technically do it alone (ref Ibn Khaldun), bc if others have a claim to enough wealth to survive without being a resource, then they won't come and create surplus for you to hoard, lol.
2. This explains eloquently why charity model doesn't work - it may temporarily redistribute some stuff, but doesn't sustainably redistribute the claim.
3. What does this say about authoritarian systems? Well, in authoritarianism, any systemic claim to wealth is always precarious, because it is "given" by an authority that controls everything. In the Soviet union people might have had a right to housing, healthcare, etc, but had no real control over that claim - the claim could be rescinded arbitrarily at any time, for any arbitrarily specified group of people. So it was kind of like a charity model with extra steps, lol. In capitalist authoritarian systems the capitalists' claim to wealth depends on whether they individually manage to stay in favour with the authoritarian ruler (see modern Russia for example) - so it's also precarious.
4. The "means testing" approach to welfare is basically the system trying to avoid meaningfully redistributing any claim to wealth. In my country there's universal healthcare, but only to people who consistently pay a certain amount of social tax, disabled people have to periodically prove their disability hasn't disappeared, etc - all these systems of checking and controlling are expensive to keep up, but their purpose is not really to save money, their purpose is to avoid giving the people a real claim to even a little shred of wealth...
... and so on.
Sorry for using your comment section to organise my thoughts :D
I think that the idea of capital as leverage over the terms of redistribution is really useful. It highlights the fact that capitalists are not productive. In this way it's a good counterpoint to the argument, that capitalists "provide" the capital workers use to create wealth.
Not hard to follow imo. I think most students (or ex-students) are quite capable to follow, as we are interested in the topic.
I appreciate the "yes and" energy of this genre of video
No one has replied to you? Oh okay allow me to be the first.
“Yes and” energy is the vibe i strive for most in life
I appreciate the excessive intro of this Excessive Intros Production.
arianaaaaa
Jesus Christ is the only hope in this world no other gods will lead you to heaven
There is no security or hope with out Jesus Christ in this world come and repent of all sins today
Today is the day of salvation come to the loving savior Today repent and do not go to hell
Come to Jesus Christ today
Jesus Christ is only way to heaven
Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void
Heaven and hell is real cone to the loving savior today
Today is the day of salvation tomorrow might be to late come to the loving savior today
Holy Spirit Can give you peace guidance and purpose and the Lord will
John 3:16-21
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Mark 1.15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Jesus
I really appreciate this channel and this series in particular. Criticizing Breadtube's arguments, but more to strengthen the overall critique of Capitalism and to get things more correct.
Good faith criticism is the unicorn of the current era. More of this!
I actually read "Capital in the 21st Century" and watched all of Contrapoints videos and I am listening intently! (me, a degenerate)
I find a few of his jabs at all three of the other RUclipsrs unnecessarily sarcastic and self-aggrandizing. When he stuck to the mission of explaining the economics behind the ideas, he was better. He was a little more charitable to Natalie, acknowledging she was simplifying for her audience.
@@mjacton but honestly, Natalie IS the best one. You can tell she knows more about economics than she leads on as he says. She doesn't reiterate leftist talking points, and she does have issue with communism as well as capitalism.
She simplifies because she knows more than the others. The others are simplistic because they do not have greater knowledge to simplify.
@@magnopere It's only good faith if it's from other breadtubers
👏
MORE👏CONSTRUCTIVE 👏LEFTIST👏INFIGHTING👏
I am aware of the implied humor in your comment but I find it relevant to point out: that this is indeed constructive criticism, which I view as a clear strength of the left, not not "infighting", which is something that holds us back and is to much detriment to the leftist project as a whole.
@@fingermand Hence the "constructive," adjective there. It's actually a pretty smart meme.
BreadTube doesn't understand economics, but they enjoy those Patreon paypiggies.
Jajajajajajajaja definitely need this
@@blacktigerpaw1 i think it would be bad if one of them are caught evading taxes
Me 4 minutes ago: Today is the day I will do work and not procrastinate
Me now that Unlearning Economics dropped a new video: Oh.
Trolligarch! I've always interpretted your videos on HABBO hotal as an essay about a weird ancap society. Good to know you're intrested in economics!
After a revolution happens, you'll be one of those people whose existence will be of most value.
Based off your conclusion you reinforced my own beliefs. I knew Picketty was secretly a cat girl and Natalie really lived in France
If she lived in France, she wouldn't let Abigail do her "Hon hon hon" laugh.
Have you not seen Tom Nicholas' most recent video? France doesn't really exist!
@@juliegolick
The French have achieved peak retreating; they've now retreated from existence itself.
@@juliegolick wait so I don't exist?
@@Anelkia I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but apparently you don't :)
One of the good things about Contrapoints is that even when you disagree with Natalie, you can always say that she's intellectually honest and does her work, and admits where she has gaps in her understanding to a fault.
She's not intellectually honest whatsoever. The videos she made on race is token bait material. Loves saying socioeconomics and redlining is the cause for black failure but doesn't realize it wasn't just blacks who were redlined.
Also compared Jewish authors like Abigail Shrier to Mein Kampf. That's okay because TERFs.
Claims to love Marxism but never read Marx's stance on prostitution or Jews, and hates TERFs despite not knowing who Magnus Hirschfeld is and who funds trans ideology.
Here to tell you that Natalie isn't intellectually honest, we have a guy who is being intellectually dishonest
@@blacktigerpaw1 I'm sorry, but I don't understand your point about Marxism and prostitution.
Just because you agree generally about something, does not mean you necessarily agree with everything the author said or think.
I Mean, I agree that Newton was a great scientist of his time, that does not mean that I have to agree with everything he said or did?
Furthermore, your point about redlining not affecting Black people only, is moot to say the least.
It does not in any way refute her points, as it is commonly known that redlining affected mostly black people.
So they were the ones suffering the most from it.
@@blacktigerpaw1 I don't think
"Socioeconomics and redlining is the cause of black failure."
And
"Black people weren't the only people who were redlined"
Are mutually exclusive. Unless you are talking about some other problem with the logic? And the context in which that is said matters as well.
Also what are you talking about with "...not knowing who Magnus Hirschfeld is and who funds trans ideology."?
@@greenknight421 notice a key chud judo move here - the idea that if something isn't brought up and centered, the person hasn't read it or doesn't know the argument. Another chud judo move is to make some bizarre pepe-silva yarn chart connection between two things and then go "OH YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT {thing the chud essentially made up} - do you even study this shit lmao" which is insidious because it sort of masquerades as being read on the topic.
19:27
"Landlords are bloodsuckers." Adam SMITH
"Based !" Karl MARX
@Very Sad corporate neo-feudalism, yayyy!
This dialogue is true. Can confirm. I was there.
Oh my God @@Urmom-gm1oy
Unlearning Economics: "Economists have a habit of using a lot of fancy mathematics to gain relatively little insight."
Me, a psychologist: "Haha, yeah, those economists surely are a bunch, aren't they!" _looks around nervously while slowly backing out of the room_ "Well, that's absolutely a total idiosyncrasy of economics, whereas all other social sciences are of course well-founded, theoretically strong fields and always use appropriate methods for their data and models. Anyway, gotta be going, kthxbye" _runs like lightning_
Psych is a bit different I believe since most Math being used are for statistical interpretation of group differenes, not complete mathematical models on how the mind works (maybe except with cognitive psych)
@Keirem Sileg I believe ubiquitous is way overstated. I'm not an expert just a psych student but I remember my cogpsych lesson was full of contradicting theories. There have been attempts to standardize things from models which many fields could agree on, Laird's 2017 paper on the standard model of the mind is an interesting entry point. But as you can read there it's a far way from bein ubiguitous, even though advances are being made
@Keirem Sileg I apologize, I misunderstood what you said. I thought you meant that cognitive models are completely modeling the mind, I misunderstood the term ubiquitous (as in whole). Thank you very much for your professional insights :)
What I meant by advances being made was referring to a standard model of the mind. There are efforts to create one, at least to see where there are agreements with the different disciplines. More information on this was in the paper "A Standard Model of the Mind: Toward a Common Computational Framework across Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Robotics"
I am aware that efforts to model the mind are old :)
*blocks your exit at the speed of darkness*
Now I tell ya what….
I like ya and I wantcha…..
*hands you a pen and paper to write your white paper that will contribute jack shit to academia*
Now we can do this the easy way.
Or we can do this the hard way.
The choice is yours.
Tom Lehrer's song on Sociology plays in the background
I think one of the reasons that Abigail and Natalie often fall flat with their videos on economics is that it always feels like they're prescribing some sort of vague nationalization to every problem. Something that I've seen very little of on RUclips is constructive and well-communicated work on potential alternative systems to capitalism. Maybe we could get a video series on alternative systems, e.g. an episode on Schweickart's Economic Democracy.
Yes! I second that.
well Abigail is a Marxist so I assume she's just hinting towards some type of Marxist solution which there is a lot written about
@@tilt9808 I'm not actually aware of that many viable ones.
All in favor of this idea, respond to the original comment with "yay" or "nay".
Yay.
@@tilt9808 'some type of Marxist solution' doesn't help to specify anything, lol. Marx wrote extensive critique of capitalism but died before formulating anything beside sketch of proletariat revolution and all concrete plans of actions are invention of his followers, varying wildly between individual ideologues.
I'd like to think I learned something here, but I'm not sure
personally i would have added a little animation
person: "hmm, what things should i make?"
capitalist: "move to a factory and make widgets. you have no other choice"
person: "oh. okay."
video is pointing out that the decision to make widgets is not politically neutral and a better distribution of widgets doesnt solve the underlying problem
@@yrobtsvt I think this made me understand the entire video so much better in just 3 sentences.
In short: passive capital is a problem because;
1: It grows exponentially and therefore makes the playing field gradually more uneven (Piketty)
2: It makes money without adding much to economic growth or production (Piketty)
3: It creates a tension between being a productive worker and a well-rounded human being (Adam Smith)
4: It creates a tension between the public and the state in economic downturns (e.g. evictions are met with state and police force)
5: Capital is not politically neutral. It is a form of ownership that is protected by the state (as explained in 4) and has a tendency to gradually expand (to ideas and even the environment). We should therefore ask ourselves what the boundaries of capital should be, and if we should redistribute.
@@Maxarcc I love you
@@sirin9850 Love u too
As an economist, I loved the video. My views on capital are the same, growing up in Mexico this came naturally to me midway through my career but it was great to see the way you built up the argument. Really admirable to see all the effort you put into making this topic as accessible as possible, yet economics seems to have one of the analytical mindsets most difficult to acquire for the general population. Keep up the great work!
Hey, también sot de México. Tuve un poco de problemas en entender los argumentos por completo. Me podrías ayudar un poco?
@@darion2272 mmm, qué parte no entendiste?
"Leftists don't understand capitalism" - Carl Marx, 1984
This comment belongs in a museum
@@FreyaEinde "Yes, yes it does." - unknown
'LITRUALLY no one knows what capitalism is'
-karl marx
Capitalism is when people do stuff- Karol Marques
@@xa1313 ideal
We 👏 Stan 👏 Ibn Khaldun
HAVE YOU SEEN NATALIE AND PIKETTY IN THE SAME ROOM?? coincidence??!!!1
I have so much to learn. Even though I followed along with the arguments and conclusions of this video, I think I would have a difficult time reiterating them in a conversation.
It's easier when you can write it in a script lol
If you're willing to take the time and really want to read and research, he put his sources in the description. Videos like these are kinda like Wikipedia in that they collate a bunch of sources, and you can always go to the references to get more context and comprehension.
@@elizarodrigez1992 I did find a few of hid sources on audiobook, which is great for me. It's not easy to focus my attention on economics though. So important and yet!
Same, Adam.
It's interesting to me how much of the world is operated in ways too boring for most people to focus their attention on them. You mention economics, but are foreign policy and diplomatic negotiations any less dull? Or infrastructure? Or the nuanced, stamp collecting parts of science or history? A huge segment of the human experience is dominated by the boring, which gives great power to those able to tolerate the boring.
And that seems to be true even outside of the Industrial Revolution that (I find this interesting) both socialists and conservatives blame for making jobs dull and smashing diverse humans into harshly conformist societies.
In a sentence is your point “Capitalism doesn’t reward work, capitalism rewards leverage.”?
I would say, Capital does not equal the sum of your stuff, rather Capital is power.
Economics and political power are inseparable, two sides of the same coin
I hate it here T T
@@thepodium6930 The original field of Political Economy should have never been split into Economics and Political Science
@@aronchai All economic decisions are bound by political ideology. Austerity, welfare, these are all underpinned by how you perceive the world and the role of government. utilitarianism vs individualism
@Mac Kaste Yeah nice fantasy you have there, patents are monopolized by corporations. There is 0 incentive for creativity or innovation in Capitalism. I recommend you this talk. Cheers!
Copyright vs. Community
ruclips.net/video/eginMQBWII4/видео.html
Hehe the 'blame my producer' on 3:23 made me laugh. Your producer did a great job with the intro.
You a socialist?
I would love it if you started a series describing the economics associated with different political systems, providing your own perspective on the long-term effects they might have, but also which one you support, why, and how to implement such a system.
I would also be interested in hearing how this would differ depending on the country in question. How would one strive for a more equal economic system in Eastern European, Post-Soviet, corrupt and poor countries, where people have been pushed to the right in different ways compared with Germany, the UK or the USA, which I mostly hear about.
Seconding this! As an SE Asian I was always subconsciously aware that the first worlder-centric econ discussion didn't fully apply to where I live and the systems and policies that work for them might not work for my country at all. Lefttube needs more discussion about the more "left behind" countries.
@@feelshowdy Explain in more detail what you mean. You are too broad in your statement.
If you're interested in reading something about the problems of post-communist transformation and how that led to a political shift towards authoritarian right, I'd be happy to share my perspective (PM me). I'm from Poland, I was born in 1990 and in my free time I'm writing posts debunking neoliberal myths pertaining to capitalism in the former Eastern Bloc. I've been writing them in Polish, but I'd be happy to translate some essentials and bullet points.
@spider reese ah sure, it's @emnought on instagram
I second this, it would be very nice.
Wow I was expecting some kind of "destroying contrapoints with facts and logic" video but it was actually really insightful and interesting
I believe this title will draw a lot of people in who were expecting a takedown, hopefully that can be good way to reach across to people outside the bubble.
The downside is that the already converted don't always click on these videos, thinking it's going to be 30 mins of a sneering economics grad misunderstanding the whole arguments presented by bread tube and cry about how fantastic the free market is. I'm glad I took the jump and clicked !!
@@dannyboy4682 It's sad that you pretty much described how echo
chambers form. Right wingers will come because they think the video will agree with them, left wingers will stay away because they will think the video disagrees with them.
@@leonardofranzinribeiro4220 I'm not gonna lie, the title did make me tense up a bit before I clicked. But now I'm actually invested.
@@leonardofranzinribeiro4220 you just accurately described my feelings while I was contemplating clicking on this video.
Here's to getting out of the echo chamber, comrades!
@@dannyboy4682 and it did. I see way to many of those at this comment section
As a bachelor student of economics, I have thought many times about making a video exactly like this, so needless to say I fucking love it. Everything is accurate to the field of economics, and showing the parts that are actually interesting and worth of discussion, even managing to not be repetitive in its contents (like so much of economics is). Although it might be less approachable than say the videos of Natalie Wynn, whom I still love dearly, it gives a realistic view of how economists actually think (though I might be in a minority). This is going to be my new favorite channel and I'm going to recommend it to everyone, I'm in love.
I think you could've expanded a bit on inequality and Marx's m-c-m' circuit, I've always understood it as elaborating that inequality isn't just a consequence of capitalism, but is essential to how capitalism produces wealth; the apparent trade-off between equity and efficiency is largely (though, not entirely) the result of capitalism. I think this would've meshed well with the point about how capital itself is, 'bargaining power'. Anyway, great video as always.
Creative decision I think, video has to end somewhere and Marx's theories are well known within this area of the internet.
@@mrbookish6701 hardly well known, lol
Well, it's not entirely true that the inequality must create the efficiency, and that they are synonymous.
For example:
It's actually pretty easy to have a very nuanced argument about Worker Owned Companies, as well as governments getting majority votes at a company board, and maintaining an ownership of Capital.
We can bring this up, because Norway has 84% of its publicly traded companies' capital being owned by the Norwegian Government.
This could be a recipe for graft, but serious accounting, audits, and penalties for it, make it so it rarely happens.
The government uses its ownership both to focus on the long term health and utility of a company (such as settling for a more regular, but smaller, profit margin. And also long-term investment, which is less common in other capitalist countries).
The other function, is that because it owns shares, it also owns the profitable returns of those shares. By making a profit from its owned capital, it can maintain higher state budgets, at a lower total tax rate for the residents of Norway.
This gets funneled into the social safety net, as well as into education systems, which further increase the labor value (as well as incomes) of the residents.
Were they to take this a step further, worker ownership stakes that end up as majorities, both give employees operating power which is handled by the employees who are doing it, and distribute profits to the workers whose labor drives the company.
In both cases of worker and government ownership, having a big enough share of the boardroom votes (most voting shares, typically), makes it so the company follows the wants of the workers, or the government. Really, they will follow whoever the majority stakeholder is, and it's that point to keep in mind.
Because effectively, if a worker ownership collective owns 50%+1 of a company, they have total control of that company. They don't have to listen to the Bourgeoisie capitalists, they can make working conditions whatever they decide. They retain the generated wealth of their labor. They effectively have majority ownership of every machine, every building, every asset that they deal with.
And this all naturally results in a reversed distribution of wealth, putting a lot more in the hands of the productive class, and flipping the distribution dynamic when taxes also come into play.
That's why Norway has the highest upward class mobility rate of any nation.
And it's how a system can actually be both fully socialist in nature, while also simultaneously being fully capitalistic. It took an extremely specific set of circumstances, and political organizing to make it happen, but it was ultimately the best possible outcome. And it means that Norway can be fully socialist while also interacting fully in a Capitalist global economy, and without the United States trying to replace its leadership via Coup.
Welfare capitalism isn’t socialism.
@@LandOfTheFallen it is when the government owns majority equity stakes in a bunch of companies.
“whatever, the point is-i’m right” will forever be the funniest thing i’ve heard in a video essay
Why is it I'm learning about Ibn Khaldun now only two and a half years after I graduated with a degree in economics?
Then again, looking back at it, we never read *any* of the actual important thinkers in economics. Smith, Ricardo, Hayek, Keynes, were not discussed in my classes, and forget Marx, the chair of the program had to have at least one "Venezuela" in each class and only one, *one* had ever recommended reading Marx unironically. I mean for fuck's sake, one of my professors gave the same straw man argument of socialism as "everyone gets the same salary".
In case it isn't obvious, I think the education of economics (in my experience) was severely lacking.
Those people didn't teach you economy as a science, but as a religion.
Market is the only God, and Adam SMITH is its prophet.
The faculty of economics serves capitalist reproduction, not economic sciencr
You didn't learn about Smith or Keynes?????
I took a level economics before I went to university, and we at least learnt who Smith and Keynes were lol and what they generally thought about economics, and their influence.
many economics courses seem to be a kind of self-reproducing celebration of capitalism, I suspect at least stemming from Mccarthyite era red scare nonsense. if professors during that era wouldn't teach marx or would dismiss him and discourage reading him, and then their students went on to be professors, I would imagine this educational background would result in a sizable chunk of those former students-turned-professors also harbouring those views on marx. though the combination of a resurgence in interest toward heterodox schools over the last decade or so alongside exceptionally easy access to information may have chipped away at that somewhat
@@PristianoPenaldoSUIIII I don't doubt that for a second. Especially considering one of my professors didn't even believe in Macroeconomics, and the chair was a dollar-store Chicago Boy (different South American country, different Illinois-based university).
I love this channel because i keep going into the videos expecting the usual "your wrong im right 😌" response video but every time its acctually just "you missed something there bud heres a better argument c:"
Cooperation not competition.
And no stepp on sneks keep on saying "muh humen nechur".
Can't believe I thought it was Adam Smith smh. I'm so silly sometimes. You only heavily implied it was Smith and even put a picture of him on the screen, and here's my jumping to conclusions
He scored a few great goals at Leeds and then was quite decent at United. But to think of him as some sort of founding father of economics is a stretch, really.
What's even weirder is that Adam Smith himself would probably laugh at someone for claiming that he had founded anything. Given how influential the physiocrats were at the time he was writing (Turgot's longest work of political economy was first published in book form the same year 'The Wealth of Nations' was), how they were responsible for creating the categories with which Adam Smith and subsequent pol. Econ reasoned and how similar the politics of Adam Smith and them were, the idea that Smith invented even laissez faire policy (notice that laissez faire is a French phrase not an English one) much less economics itself is just an outright myth.
@@post-modernneo-marxist8102 Smith was very direct in the fact that he had fruitful conversations with the Physiocrats when he was in France but deeply disagreed with them and probably saw them as more of a continuation of "political-arithmetic," which he generally did not like. Moreover, per Meeks who is quite compelling on this, the core of his theory was worked out by around 1755 before he really interacted with any of them. He definitely thought he was doing something somewhat new, in the sense that he thought of himself as working out a positive program in a Humean system, the "Science of Man." In that sense he was the Hegel to Hume's Kant. He died before finishing it though, and, as he had the vast majority of his papers destroyed, we only have completed sections in the Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiment, and probably a good chunk of the not totally worked out ligaments of the system in the notes from his Lectures on Jurisprudence.
There are a few empirical claims here that are iffy, I don't think there is much reason to believe that Smith got his categories from the Physiocrats, that comes from assumptions based on how late WN appeared instead of actually looking at what Smith was doing before he even went to France. What he was doing was drawing on some of the same wells, specially Montesquieu, Rousseau (and perhaps through him Fletcher), and Newton, as the French. Smith's politics, as much as they can be parsed out and then translated from Whig Britain to Ancien Regime France, were not particularly aligned with the physiocrats, though they themselves were not totally monolithic. Meanwhile on matters of economics Smith is more clearly utterly opposed to them, they have some overlap on policy prescriptions, but Smith spends a rather long chapter Book IV Chapter 9, arguing against it. More importantly though, the entire basis of Smith's work in the Wealth of Nations is to be found in his first sentence, value comes from labour, not land. Smith's entire system is totally opposed to the Physiocrats.
Which gets to somewhere I agree with you, Smith was not the founder of laissez faire, which makes sense because he argues against it in a number of situations in the Wealth of Nations. Smith was much closer in spirit to Marx, as a philosophical (humean as opposed to hegelian) analyst of how economies work across history (see especially Book III), while the Physiocrats are much closer to something like contemporary academic economics. On a similar note Smith's most direct economic influence was none other the Hume himself, especially Hume's arguments on specie flow and the demographics of ancient as opposed to contemporary societies. If Smith isn't the founder of economics because he got some of his views from elsewhere, it's because of Hume and not the Physiocrats.
Attributing the creation of a discipline to any one individual is a heuristic, not really a truth in itself as there are always prior figures doing work in a direction. Thus Smith seems like a very reasonable choice for founder of modern Political-Economy, it's less a myth and more an ultimately subject value judgement.
Of course there is a lot of variation in this number due to print size, translation, which books are included, etc., but my bible is 758 pages, not including appendices, so the original book was almost as long as the bible already.
The span of this variation becomes apparent with the bible version I possess having 1395 pages, not including appendices, making it longer than both of Pikettys works.
I was on a walk today and out of nowhere thought about how good your content is and how much it has taught me. So you can’t imagine how happy I was to see your content pop up on my subscription feed! Your content is one of the best out there and you are an absolute legend for making it!
Definitely correct about economics and mathematics. As a graduate, found that it was often used when not needed just to make economics seem more of a technical science rather than the social science that it actually is. Allot of my class mates dropped out as a result, I didn't but it was torture especially in my last semester!
This channel is left-wing Economics Explained, but actually good
EE is centre left, give him that much
Thanks cuz I didn’t know if he was left wing or right win.
Doesn’t really matter what side EE is on, his relationship with accurate information and good faith arguments is tenuous at best.
@@smeeg848 like majority of leftist then
Waiting for you to write Das Kapital 2.
Marx already wrote 3 volumes of Capital
@@abcdef8300 Well, if we count it as Das Kapital 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3, LET'S MAKE THAT SEQUEL HAPPEN
thank you for your work! This stuff is a valuable contribution to the ecosystem.
The greatest thing that can happen to me politically is seeing my political commentators critiqued in such a respectful but diligent manner. It keeps me cautious and mindful that not every work produced by these folks is a flawless masterpiece.
"And yes, I had to look up martial virtues too and I still don't understand."
we appreciate the honesty XD
I think breadtube oversimplify their economic arguments because they tend to be more ideology and philosophy based.
Damn. When I joked after reading Piketty's volumes of Capital that I'm now a better economist than 50% of American economists, I gotta say I wasn't expecting to be right.
"'rockstar economist', a term nobody should use about any economist ever"
as someone who has lived under the prime ministership of John Key, that made me laugh
This helped me immensely, I see this video as more of a economic view to contra points video. Where as she has more of a philosophical view.
"1200 pages is longer than the bible (probably)" You're videos are always informative but often they are also quietly hilarious.
Would you consider putting together a reading list for people who want to better understand contemporary economics?
I second this, especially if theres a spectrum of reading levels from lazy brain to mega nerd
"Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing" by Josh Ryan-Collins
Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century
Classics in leftist and reformist economics, such as Marx's 'das Kapital' (www.marxists.org) or Henry George's "Progress and Poverty" www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm
There's a growing niche of Georgist videos and youtube channels.
Donald Shoup's "High Cost of Free Parking" regarding the economics of allocating land for free parking. There's a Vox video on youtube named after the book.
Other than that, you're better off delving into traditional academic economics textbooks. Don't get stuck in the weeds when it comes to the mathematical and graphical illustrations used in most college-level textbooks.
There's textbooks in specialized areas of economic study. Urban economics, transportation economics, economic development, public finance, natural resource economics, etc.
@@americanhero8606 thank you!
aw man i can’t believe i fell for the old “imply you’re about to say adam smith but instead say ibn khaldun” bit
15:27 "What is Capital?" bookmarking this part because I know I'm going to need to rewatch it several times before maybe getting it
"The political power that certain groups use to exercise control over resources is not a consequence of Capital, as Piketty fears.
It is Capital."
-A guy who makes me moan in pleasure
This type of discussion around the materialist basis of leftist critiques of capitalism is so important! Great work comrade! 👏
quite the constructive comment, very insightful indeed
@dontcare Thank you! I have some videos coming out soon with some other lefties and then I plan on reaching out to The Serfs and Thought Slime. Appreciate the support!
I did a video called "A Short Glossary of Anarchist Terms" in which I briefly discussed capitalism in some of the ways you wish Contrapoints had in her series. I provide a coherent definition of what capitalism is, by describing its origins in the late 15th/early 16th century Dutch Republic and describing it as a system in which private control of the means of production manifests through the presence of specific institutions (corporations, stock markets, reserve banks, investment banks) and governmental protections (i.e. state enforcement of business contracts and private property rights). If you'd like to have a chat sometime with someone on the far left who has a more academic approach to this stuff than the typical breadtuber, just let me know, I'd be keen.
Good vid but I'm gonna be that guy who says "that isn't what commodity fetishism means"
It's a nitpick, but when you are talking about being the guy who did all the reading, it's probably good not to mix up "Kapital" and "Theory of the Leisure Class"
You mean the golden pizza is conspicuous consumption rather than commodity fetishism? Could one not say it’s both?
naw, "commodity fetishism" is a slightly vaguer concept about how we think of stuff produced and traded as sort of having it's own independent life. It's not about things being fancy, it applies to regular stuff like corn and pencils and stuff. It's more that we think of "the economy" as a pile of things rather than in the way they are produced and exchanged. Marx talks about it in chapter 1 of "Kapital" but he never explicity uses the term "comoddity fetishism." I'm not really doing it justice here. but the term "fetish" is being used in the sense of "a religious icon" rather than like "a sexual proclivity"
"Conspicuous Consumption" is about sending signals of social status by doing extravagant displays of spending, like buying super expensive golden pizzas. The book "theory of the leasure class" by Veblen goes into it a great deal.
@@square_waves8263 thank you! I think I see what you mean, the golden pizza might be a fetishised commodity but no more so than any other commodity right?
Yeah sorta, I mean the whole thing with fetishism at least in "Kapital" (I haven't read a lot of Marx, just the first bit of Kapital and Communist Manifesto) Is that it's a small part of a bigger argument about how the whole "comoddity" concept is weird and isn't just a natural and normal way to distribute stuff that has existed forever.
He's also building up the whole "Labor theory of value" bit and criticizing the idea that because we sell something, say a 1lb sack of flour for $5 that the $5 is somehow an intrinsic quality of the flour and not a byproduct of the relationship of flour production to the other social relationships that exist in the world.
The idea of "commodity fetishism" is very general and has more to do with just commodities in general than any specific comoddity.
@@square_waves8263 That’s not what commodity fetichism is, though. Commodity fetichism refers to the fact that objects are not commodities (and hence have value) of their own. Rather, they only become commodities when they are produced for exchange by individual, private producers. Basically, with commodity fetichism Marx explains how value is the objectified labor of private, independent producers. In othee words, value is a fetichistic category because it assigns properties to an object that it does not have of its iwn (that’s the original meaning of fetiche, an object that is attributed properties that it does not have by nature). It is a critique of the most fundamental category of political economy: the commodity. It doesn’t have anything to do with consummerism.
Leftists in 1917: We must destroy capitalism!
Leftists in 2021: What is capitalism?
Really appreciate this series. You've done and excellent job and as someone who is proficient in the world of political philosophy, seeing leftist content from someone who is a master at economics is very refreshing: a voice that is much needed in this space. Bang up job. I've learned so much from your videos!!
The "capital is a claim on national income" thesis is just a reformulation of Friedrich Engels's points from "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific"
It's a reformulation of Capital Volume 3 and the problem of transformation. The capitalist's capital relative to the system's total capital is the proportion of surplus value allocated to the capitalist, this is also why prices are not directly values under capitalism.
So, in brief, if I understand. The Capital that Capitalists own is their bargaining power to enforce claims over the resources of society (what gets made and who gets it and how much). They use that Capital, their bargaining power, to acquire ever greater amounts of Capital, which allows them to act as the state authority. That bargaining power is the violence used to enforce those claims and is carried out by the enforcers of the state. So Capitalism IS the violence that is needed to make Capitalism work.
YESSS YOU HAVE A NEW INTRO THAT MEANS YOURE GONNA MAKE MORE VIDEOS. Please don’t stop! There’s so much economics bullshit! We need you!
gotta admit, i got pretty lost in this one even after 2 viewings. this might be because im not an economist myself so when you disgressed i had to spend a lot of brain power just to keep up and i did totally forget that this was a criticism of natalie, so when we came back to her i kinda forgot what you were talking about initially then i had to play catch up again lol
if i may, id like to take a crack at summarizing your video in good faith so i can be slapped down if i missed something:
you watched natalie's videos on capitalism and realized she didnt do much to explain how it works, so you took the opportunity to do just that in this video. then when you swivel back to her you point out that several of her assumed solutions amount to neoliberalism. ultimately, you want breadtubers to do a better job defining capitalism and in order to effectively critique it?
despite how much i struggle to keep up with your videos i find them incredibly interesting and very much worth being confused over. thanks very much for your continued work. and i really appreciate all the simpsons jokes!
This seems about right, but for a specific explanation of what thing Natalie assumed that amounted to neoliberalism, it was that basically the production of wealth as it's been operating for thousands of years (since the agricultural revolution, pre-capitalism) is this exploitative process that would need to be reworked in order to be less exploitative. And natalie didn't address this in her video, instead basically just saying "we need to take the wealth being created (in this exploitative process) and spread it around better)" instead of talking about how the wealth is made needing to change, too.
I believe his agrument is that the main issue with capitalism is that the capitalists get a certain amount of the wealth created only because everyone believes they have a claim on it. This claim is also enforced with violence if necessary.
Natalie and Singer only go so far as "those capitalists need to share their wealth", while Unlearend economics goes further by questioning whether those capitalists even have a claim to that wealth to begin with. It's not their wealth...
At least, that's what I stuck with me after watching this late at night
@@alexanderreusens7633 not conflicting with the summary but with the conclusion drawn - to an extent, the capitalist does have a claim to a portion of the wealth if they do their job properly - e.g. a CEO who actually does their job is indeed entitled to a portion of the revenue. The capitalist’s job is to ensure stability for those using the capital - if somebody else decides they want to use the means of production, the capitalist’s job is to ensure that conflicting claims do not interfere with production. They also have an implicit responsibility to help keep the capital in usable condition, because that’s what their political control is predicated on - if the physical aspect of the capital becomes unusable, there is no value to their political capital over it.
The issue then becomes ensuring that portion of the revenue is proportionate to the actual contribution, which is seldom the case, as the capitalist controls the means of production through their political capital. It’s extremely easy to be greedy, and since the capitalist controls the capital, it is difficult to prosecute a case against them/extremely easy for them to use their political capital to obfuscate their leeching. It’s kinda the Animal Farm situation, where the organizers become leeches simply due to having the organizational/political power to become leeches.
TL;DR - I have a rambling rant with no clear purpose
So basically, any reforms or contesting as of capitalism fail because when a person gets enough power to contest capitalism, they themselves can control how they want the operation of reforming or destroying capitalism, and is guaranteed to become greedy and abuse their power?
I’d love to say a video debunking them god awful Milton Friedman videos floating around RUclips
Milton Friedbrain
@@DiThi "hmm yes the free market will make racism go away I’m very smart"
@@brendanmccabe8373
Or Mises, Hayek that is suddenly important again when failed neolibs/libertarians needs to convince themselves that capitalism is not real capitalism.
@@brendanmccabe8373 Gtfo with that common leftist talking point where you're like "A is b I am very smart". The free market allows opportunity for everyone to rise up as long as they put in hard work. The people who want a rigidly regulated economy want to oppress economic freedoms in the name of "security".
@@curses6166 when did I say anything close to a is b? Maybe read what I said before trying to Deboonk me
Superb, we need some Georgist ideas in the discussion. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of Natalie, Shaun, Abigail, and a whole load of other breadtubers, and I do respect Marx, but have long felt that there is a badly overlooked aspect of 19th Century classical economic thought, that could seriously help us out of the neoclassical cul-de-sac we've been languishing in for over 100 years. I do hope you are going to be doing an episode on how we ended up stuck with neoclassical economics in the first place, how it differs from classical economics, and the disastrous consequences of abandoning the value difference between Land and Capital, that would really make my day :-)
Thing is, centralisation. How to do it?
Your title sequence is killer 😍 been thinking about this topic considerably over the past few weeks, thanks for voicing your consice ideas!!
natalie has spoken in the past about how she is anti-revolutionary as a solution for the current system. so thats something
so she's a lib, got it
@@anon-vo2fh stop trying to jam people into boxes and just take their arguments for what they are!
I feel like Natalie's video is more like an insight on how capitalism is perceived and affects us in our daily lives, including the fact that most of us, despite feeling that it's wrong, lack the knowledge, energy and ressources to fully understand it and fight it. I see it more as what capitalism does to our minds and morals.
I think its an interesting perspective to study, but it is sad that "breadtube" videos lack so much of more technical and concrete videos like yours ; it is necessary to want to improve our world, but to do it we must first truly understand how it works, not only on a philosophical/emotional level.
Yeah she is excellent on the philosophical points but to be honest it feels by the 2nd video like she was backed into having to present an economic argument and wasn't really that confident in doing so. This is a bit speculative, though, so I wasn't about to put it in the video. I could be wrong.
Excellent video but it seems like an odd choice to use “Photograph” when “Rockstar” is right there... and they even released that sea shanty remix recently!
I considered this but then I couldn't do the 'goodbye' bit
11:50 Missed a fucking GOLDEN opportunity to put in the "Look at this graph" meme....
I actually largely agree with what you've said, but I wonder if there is a reason Natalie does not make a suggestion for more radical changes in the distribution of capital. Given that a core target audience for her videos are those on or susceptible to falling to the alt-right, I think it's likely she deliberately lowballs her pitch for a remedy. By offering the viewer a solution not too far removed from what is likely to be their existing belief system, she can prime them to be more receptive to more radical leftist ideas later.
^^ yeah, i think natalie’s videos are more about challenging existing perspectives rather than pushing solutions. her 2-part series in particular is pretty vague, and as a leftist i wouldn’t point to it as anything but an introductory piece
I like Natalie, but I'm pretty sure she feels nice and comfortable in the situation she's in. As in, she's a liberal.
Nat is a SocDem. Expecting her to support anti-Capitalism is perhaps a bit naive.
Contrapoints brought me in with socially progressive content. Her anti-capitalist videos were the very last ones I watched on her channel. I had never even thought to question capitalism before. Its introductory, like you said, but an important introduction for me.
"a core target audience for her videos are those on or susceptible to falling to the alt-right" - someone's going to have to explain to me how a trans youtuber heavily focused on visual spectacle is catering to right wing, traditionally masculine tipping to the other end of the scale.
Great video man! The idea of capital being an ownership of an asset rather than an accumulation of numbers really clicked a lot of things together in my brain.
At the end of the video you talked about criticizing economists. I hope that one of them is Thomas Sowell since he's among the most famous of current right wing economists and I have not seen anyone really take a good crack at him from the left. Great videos so far.
Yeah he sucks, I'll talk about him one day.
Because he’s a lunatic and his points fall apart on their own
That day has arrived!
Am I right in thinking that the conclusion here is that capitalism isn't just the ownership of the means of production (that makes capitalists rich and therefore able to influence politics), but rather it is both economic ownership and political power together that is capitalism?
So political power defends the right to minority economic ownership, and economic power keeps capitalists in power politically?
Or, the issue is that people believe capitalists have a political or ethical right to what they claim to own economically?
Unless I I got that wrong?
Yes, it does involve both economic and political power. This is what capitalist political governments do is to look out for the interest of the capitalist class. Workers and minorities did win a few crumbs with demands but those crumbs always get taken back eventually, hence the privatizations of public services. The political right wants to privatize Social Security and Medicare while giving more tax cuts for the wealthy elites and corporations. But they will never cut the military budget.
There is a really interesting and instructive analysis of more of these topics in Chomsky's book The Consequences of Capitalism. Well worth a read/listen.
3:43 The dude's name(kaldun or however it's spelled) is literally "sorcerer" in Russian, he was bound to be an impressive cool guy
lol
"Conclusion: Piketty and Contrapoints are the same." Honestly that seems like a win for Contra since Piketty is after all a rock star economist :)
He's not though: itif.org/publications/2018/03/05/sensational-wrong-how-piketty-co-overstate-inequality-america
@@TychonAchae *Links a think tank funded by billionaires to counteract an argument that is demonstrated across a variety of statistics*
Hmmm, don't know who to trust here.
@@MrMalimer - The think tank is non-partisan, non-profit, and receives funding from a wide variety of sources. Including the US government.
Also, criticisms of Picketty's book (And the premises they are based on) have been replicated across a wide variety of sources. So no, his argument has not been "demonstrated across a variety of statistics." If anything, the opposite.
Do you mouthbreathers actually have ANY actual arguments other than knee jerk scripted, "tHeY'rE FuNdEd bY BiLlIoNaIrEs" without actually checking if they actually are, or know how to fact check empirical claims? Because you sound like just every other type of credulous ideologue suffering from confirmation bias and committing genetic fallacies to handwave away criticisms.
@@TychonAchae The argument partway through that paper that the rich are only earning so much more money bc their taxes have been cut, and if you look at pretax income their income hasn't grown as much so what's the big deal, is just galaxy-brain missing the point.
Also if a thinktank makes an effort to stay in the centre of US politics it is technically nonpartisan, but at the same time it's strongly biased towards the centre of US politics.
@@TychonAchae sorry I'm still thinking about this bad paper
They spend like 4 paragraphs talking about how growth at lower incomes after WW2 was due to strong economic growth and the expansion of the welfare state, whereas since the 80s that hasn't been the case so incomes grew much faster for the rich, as they normally do when things don't change. Which is fine but then they act as though this context contradicts Piketty even though it's exactly the point of his work…
3:29 Wealth Creation
11:01 Dynamics of Inequality
15:24 Capital
21:59 conclusion
it's a twenty minute video.
@@jonasdowner I don’t know what you’re trying to say. These timestamps help me.
If Yanis were here, he'd point out that piketty makes the same mistake as most economists today when they assume that capital=wealth: they forget that money exists.
If you read Smith all the way through, I think he makes the same argument as mason does, that it's bargaining power and politics all the way down.
naw, I don't think that's the case. I've read Smith all the way through, well Wealth of Nations at least, but he says in the book:
"Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of capital. But whatever industry might acquire, if parsimony did not save and store up, the capital would never be the greater"
@@square_waves8263 If you've read it all the way through, you'll know what the influence of the "masters" in manipulating the economy to their own ends is a strong and continuing theme in Wealth of Nations that appears in many chapters. I'll take back the extent of my initial implication, it's not as strong as in Mason, but it is still a continuing and ever present theme. He points it out far too much to encapsulate it in a small quote here.
oh yeah, absolutely. I mean smith definitely isn't the liberatarian type he gets made out to be. I mean there are even some good choice quotes to pull for it, like the whole (paraphrased) "civil law is always for the benefit of the rich against the poor"
Or his description of "the commercial system"
@@square_waves8263 "It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer."
@@square_waves8263 "We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people."
Man I love your videos so much
Keep up the good work - reading books and summarising it for us common ppl
UE, homie, you have such a great charm and sense of humour, mark of a great teacher. I'm less than halfway through and thoroughly enjoying your work :)
This channel is a new discovery for me. So glad I found it. I know quality when I see it. Thank you for your hard work. Subscribed!
Please keep educating, you're doing a spectacular job. Breadtube is able to engage their viewers and provoke thought from them but they mostly do so in the affective domain. Your videos pair so well with theirs because of how you expand upon them and elevate the concepts to the cognitive domain.
Was this why you chose to scrutinize their videos in particular?
I will point out that the graph at 25:35 has a broken axis- look at the axis and you'll see that it's a decrease from 27% to 24% over 50 years. Less significant than the graph makes it look.
This is…really damn good, especially the “capital as political power” argument. My issue with Natalie’s video is actually a lot more fundamental and has little to do with economics at all - namely, that her entire argument is predicated on ethical hedonism (happiness/pleasure as the highest good) and I don’t think that’s a very productive ethical framework (why not keep everyone unconscious in a dopamine tank?).
Also, wouldn’t the /r/neoliberal/“globe emoji” crowd, despite the moniker they picked for themselves, be better identified as ordoliberals in the postwar German tradition?
They are, but only because Fabian economics got people by the metaphorical balls.
Yap, the would, but german ordoliberalism was one of the two original strains of neoliberalism anyway (Ludwig Erhard, Rüstow,Karl popper etc.) So ironically they aren't misusing the monicer of neoliberalism after all.
@@ldm8393 It only seems that way because neoliberalism had kind of become a nebulous term. It's what people like Chomsky would call state monopoly capitalism, what the libertarians call cronyism, what conservatives call corporatism, and what laymen call corruption. Most people don't even apply to the ideas espoused by the likes of Friedman anymore.
Keep everyone unconscious in a dopamine tank as opposed to having 600 million people on extreme poverty and many many others struggling to even keep a roof on their heads..... I get the sense that your view on the subject is extremely Privileged.
After you've had nothing to eat for a couple of days straight, come back to me and talk about the disadvantages of ethical hedonism.
@@darion2272 False dichotomy
wow I wasn't expecting your critiques of breadtumers' videos on econ stuff to be this good and nuanced when I just looked at the titles and thumbnails for these video but damn, this was great and very insightful
Love to see in-depth videos like this about the big questions in econ. Although, I am not fully convinced about the link between capitalism and inequality. Does capitalism produce more inequality than other system? I doubt that capitalism in itself always leads to more inequality. After all, during what is known as the golden age of capitalism in the West (50s, 60s, 70s), inequality actually decreased (see graph at 14:32)!
I guess it produces more inequality then communal living in a barter based society ... and perhaps even than Feudalism ... but (especially the latter) probably mainly because these doesn't produce much wealth. If everyone gets richer ... it makes sense that there is also more inequality.
Said golden age of capitalism also line up with the postwar consensus, during which the highest degree of government control was exerted over the market. I do agree though that any serious critique of capitalism should start from the premise that Capitalism is the best system *yet*, and suggest from that point how we could do even better. Noone but some Neoreactionaries seriously suggest a return to Feudalism
@@ariearie7953 Golden age of capitalism was highest degree of gov control & highest taxes on the rich & and highest regulation of financial sector. So, it seems that this type of capitalism is the best we've had so far. Still technically capitalism since most production was privately owned.
I looked at the graph at 14:32 and just couldn't understand the rest of the video. It was like I was reading another graph or listening to another video. Good analysis, but the premise is confusing.
"Inequality decreased during the era where civil rights leaders were being murdered left and right" what are you talking about?
Glad I was able to badger you into addressing Piketty. I refuse to use this (assumed) power responsibly. So next do Bataille and the concept of General Economy. :D :D :D
I like guaranteed income lets capitalism do its job while offsetting the negative effects of concentration of wealth, including giving workers more leverage by making it possible for them to walk away.
I see universal basic income not as a solution but as a bandaid to the inequality that capitalism creates because it doesn't fundamentally change anything about how stuff gets made. A small subset of people will still have the power to decide what gets made and how and will still lay claim to a large chunk of the wealth generated by that production. If you truly want to eliminate the concentration of wealth then you'd need to uproot the system that concentrates wealth by design.
@@guy-sl3kr THat is one way to go about it.
Another way is to allow the tree (Capitalism) to grow anyway
With its ever present and complex root system; there to physically support the tree while also, being the means by which the tree leaches great piles of sustenance (capital) from the land (labor) itself.
Left to its own devices that sustinace (capital) becomes a great quantity of leaves and fruit (Wealth) kept away from the ground.
Eventually the land (labor) beneath has nothing left. its soil depleted.
Without sustenance The tree withers shrinks as does its roots.
The shruncken roots loose their grip on what soil remains and then falls to the ground as what is lest of the soil falls away.
OR
FRom time to time (maybe every year or so) you SHAKE LOOSE the Leaves and Fruit (taxation) letting it fall to the land to decompose into its component bits. (UBI)
Thereby not only renewing the soil (labor) that exists but also adding to it as well.
Thus allowing more fertile soil for the tree to continue leaching these distributed nutrients (capital) and concentrating them back into into sweet fruits and useful leaves over and over again.
Love the content! I'd love some more graphics please! I have a hard time following your train of thought, but with some pictures or graphics it can reinforce what your saying! Great video, just had rewind a few parts to fully comprehend the material and arguments.
13:04 We can know. It's approximately 6.9 trillionfold in the case of 3.5% annual growth and 1.5 sextillionfold (10²¹) in the case of 5% annual growth.
This connects to something that has _always_ bothered me about e.g. the great depression: nothing material was lost. All the goods, all the machinery that made them remained intact, still wherever they were the day before. It was an imaginary mass psychological problem. What had been lost was just numbers in an account. The problem could have been solved just by adjusting our thinking to a market with less money, but somehow, they all expected the same payments and returns despite the crash. There was nothing physically preventing anyone from honoring their previous commitments and routines so that everything carried on as usual. How could this mass insanity inflict an entire population? The answer can only be ideology or religion.
Would you continue to do your job if you didn't get paid anymore?
I like the definition of capitalism as mainly being a claim on resources, but what separates a capitalist from a feudal lord if this is the case? Why is it that capitalists wanted their means of production to expand but feudal lords (in general) only cared about receiving their unearned rent without reinvesting into the means of production from which they take rent from?
Because feudal lords earned most of their money from rent and capitalists earn most of their money from trade. So a lord could only expand through conquest where a capitalists could expand indefinitely
@@haroldsandahl6408 I thought part of the point of the video was that the capitalists use political power to gain an undeserved share of the wealth which is produced by society at large, with only a fraction of their wealth coming from actually using their capital in productive ways. This seems similar to how a lord would just take a rent from the peasants. Obviously capital has been used productively (in industrialization for instance) but it's hard to understand why capitalists rather than the nobility owning the means of production would cause this to happen.
@@evanfarrell8090 I think of it the same only the two believe their income comes from different source. The lord thinks it comes from the land, so acquires more land. That is how he grows, with the size of his holdings. A capitalist grows with his business. The difference is the land will always be there and the business requires support. That support comes in the form of a mobile workforce.
@@haroldsandahl6408 that's a good way of thinking of it thank you
@@evanfarrell8090 I actually think that the distinction between a feudal lord and a capitalist is largely about what system they're in. The source of the feudal lord's wealth was their ownership of the means of production. The source of a capitalist's wealth is also their ownership of the means of production. The distinction is that the prior exists within a broader feudal system and the latter within capitalism. The additions of the market and of wage labor (which feudal labor was not) make a large difference to the workers but functionally very little to the feudalist/capitalist.
@16:00 Re: authoritativeness of numbers for the sake of numbers... one of the first things physicists etc come to understand is: "Where the numbers reflect reality, they are not accurate, and where the numbers are accurate, they do not reflect reality."
The fact that wealth is not created in vacuum by one person and that it needs a society that cooperates, convinced me on the redistribution of wealth.
this is very very good and i appreciate it so much. had to stop and rewind a lot to understand, but im confident i got it eventually. it’s refreshing to see an “economist”, or rather someone who knows that theyre talking about regarding economics, who is also a leftist.
i would appreciate even more examples in the future and being spoken to as if i am at least 50% less clever in order to make these easier to follow! the information is so important.
thanks for doing these!!
Thanks a lot for these videos. As a leftist I hope to better understand how the economy works.
dude the breaking bad audio at 7:10 jumpscared me so hard I was on audio only and just nearly had a heart attack
I really wish a lot of these folks would discuss the problem of equality over long periods of time. It's very easy to raise standards of living/well-being/happiness for people in the present by, ecologically speaking, mortgaging from the future. Whether that's ultra-intensive agriculture that depletes soils, drawing down aquifers faster than they can be replenished, or burning fossil fuels more quickly than natural systems can sequester carbon, all of these things do a great job at short-term improvements to standards of living.
Capitalism is really a moral imposition.
Really good video. You’ve definitely convinced me to learn more about economics in general, thanks!
Just want to state how much I appreciate what you've done with this series. As leftists, we are in dire need of solid economic analysis in our discourse.
It’s always a great day when Unlearning Economics makes a new video! I’m excited to watch.
Youll come to understand martial virtues by watching "The Last Samurai"
Thank you for this ! Locating the nexus of capitalism in the political/legal sphere, with the concomitant privileging of property rights to “private” interests, provides more than just powerful analytical lens. You, sir, have located the crux of the biscuit!
I didn't really get it, could someone give a succinct explanation of why contrapoint's framework lacks coherence?
Her first video is largely about the problems with capitalist production but her ultimate argument in the 2nd video leaves production in-tact and seeks to redistribute after the fact. She is inconsistent on this point (eg remarks made re: Singer, stuff, and champagne). Redistribution would only solve consumption inequality, not alienation, shitty jobs, advertising, etc.
@@unlearningeconomics9021 Ahhh okay yeah I get the point being made. Thanks a lot for the response!
@@blacktigerpaw1 not a him, hasnt been for years
@@marzipan2555 don't bother engaging with the transphobes 🙄
@@unlearningeconomics9021 When people say "Marxist economics" they really are talking about "Fabian economics", more than likely.
This is a tangent, but as a psychologist I'm not wild about using 'happiness' as an outcome measure - by some definitions of happy we could just give everyone a bit of mdma everyday if that was the aim. I suspect people are actually referring to a more global concept that we'd usually label as 'wellbeing' or similar and that can be broken down into both concrete objectives (safe housing, keeping everyone fed, that sort of thing) and qualitative experiential measures.
Great job on this man, my favourite kind of video, low on production (contrapoint's theatricality never did much for me) but high quality content that's informative.
Every time UE pauses to say "The Argument", I keep thinking about "The Expression" from Disco Elysium.
I can't wait for a video on alternatives to capitalism. It would be really interesting from an economics point of view, I've already had my fill of moral/philosophical reasons against capitalism from other leftubers.
I love your videos by the way, you've hit upon a niche that isn't well covered on youtube rn.
Honestly? That can't actually work. I mean developing hypothetical alternatives to capatalism before it happens. We can try, we can create the base skeleton according to the ideologies and principles we hold... but a "fully-fleshed out alternative model" simply can't exist.
Just by the nature that it will never survive actual implementation. It's guaranteed to run into unforeseen circumstances and pitfalls, such that the actual constructed system may bear little resemblance to the academic model.
That's true of every theoretical government and system we can produce. Which is why I try and steer clear from a prescriptivist approach. If a society has a prescribed model to rearrange itself into, and refuses to practice the flexibility to abandon parts or tenets of that model... then that society is going to fail in its revolutionary goals.
And by "abandon", I mean rework.
Great video.
"Capital enacts ownership claims on national income, and these claims are ultimately defended by the state" is a really great summarization.
Vaush recently said he likes how constructive your BreadTube critiques are, and that he expects a lot of good stuff from you.
Vaush bad!
Vaush good!
Great video I think its quite common to hear a jumbled mix of neoclassical, Marxist and Keynesian critiques of capitalism. Not that some of the ideas can't be synthesized to some extent. But it is important to understand where the different critiques are coming from and the limitations of critiques from a more neoclassical perspective.