Economic Update: Escape from Labor in Capitalism (2016.12.15)

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1. There are some things that we Americans can do to protect ourselves from a criminally agressive government and our paid employees who increasingly behave as if we are their property to use or dispose of as they wish. The first thing to do is to cease paying them our money. Each year via the IRS we donate $3 trillion. We can redirect those funds to our local communities for health care for all, mimimum housing guaranteed so that no one is ever homeless, for free education, and infrastructure that supports our worker owned cooperatives. We can use it to create local food supplies so that we are never at risk of having a catastrophe forcing droves of hungry people in search of food out into our neighborhoods. We can create a justice system that is fair, and a policing system that doesn't fine us every time we turn around or imprison us for private profits.
   
   Another vital issue is the use of land and natural resources. We all must have these things to live and the earth kindly provides them to us for free. We must stop allowing the hoarders, the predatory capitalists among us to deny us the use of them unless we pay them or work for them. If we want truly free people around us that have a sense of community and who will come together in a crises to support and help us then we will have to insist that a free and a fair share of the land and resources of the country are the human right of each of us and the homeland security of all of us. You don't get crazy uprisings of a population that has the assurance of a steady platform upon which to build their lives and which is a haven for them in the midst of social storms.
   
   The government is now over run with predatory criminals who believe that they have superior power over us and may treat us as their chattel - we must show them who is boss in this Land Of The Free and stop providing them with the very weapons they can use against us. Don't pay taxes, and make land and resources into the human right of each of us. Those things will give us the power and stability to make a better social community for all.
2. A.O. Hirschman, Was a guy who, long ago, was a US Government agent who acted as the IMF to help create the countries around the Panama Canal. We orchestrated that, so as to have and get Sovereign approval and legal title. He wrote a little book in which he discusses the organizing of labor and also observed what happens when labor is reduced or sporadic. People get lazy they injure themselves and execute poorly. Maintaining the skills to build and repair houses is very important. These were once very high paying jobs. The pneumatic nail gun has significantly sped up and made easier the building of houses. What failed to keep up was the idea of property. Who owns the house the laborer builds? If all structural laborers were to receive perpetual rent or even rent for 5 or ten years as a part of having participated in building a near permanent structure then a more equitable allocation of income would occur. The 3D printer will decimate the skills necessary to make things by hand. The irony is that part of the "Surfer" illusion used to sell the laboring class on having a good job is the playing of golf which is based on elite hand made equipment.
3. I created what I thought might be a helpful graphic to visualize the: Annual Military Spending <-- that's the title. But it does not show up here. I posted a comment with the link but it does not show up in the comments, unless I am signed in. I am leaving the link out to see if that is what is causing the problem.
4. I found it difficult to listen to this podcast due to cognitive dissonance. Some observations, I feel, are correct and empirically supported but the populist "fairness" arguments (such as paid parental leave and minimum wage activism) are pushed over by a stiff breeze. Perhaps a response podcast is in order.
5. We are not cooperating Professor Lawler... that's it... We are done. We are not complying with this economy and it's slave wages. And I have been on extended stays in the South of France and lived in Athens, Greece for 2.5 years...:)
6. If he ever wanted to retire from economics, he could get a job as a book narrator for Audible
7. This is so amazing...I'm a sociologist. I totaly agree, This systeem is based on separation, not cohesion
8. To be fair, budgets do not define military power, Russians for example get so much more bang per buck spent that their military budget is effectively larger than that of US
9. Thank you as always to the team and professor Wolff. Enlightening as usual!!
   ironically during the last update someone complained about the introduction and I defended the need to have it first.
   however I must say....I like that It wasn't here this time.... regardless of my defending it's importance. When sharing these discussions with new listeners....I think they may be more inclined to follow through if it isn't in the front.
   well done.
   I'll be passing this one along.
   happy holidays to all. ✌🌎💚
10. Thank you, Re Streamed via Pirateradio 95.5 fm boulder free radio org
    HOWL FOREVER. Effect Positive Social Change. foSSill FUELS KILL crispycritter
11. Good... Everybody quit their Jobs Tomorrow! :) ... Having them by the Balls is the only way to get wages up... and we've had a wage compensation problem since the 1980's.... Time to All stop.
12. The Venus Project has gone nowhere.
    Worker cooperative/ownership still leads to 9 - 5...
    add automation / hours reduced-freedom would necessarily
    cause a new concept of 'money' aka a new medium of exchange.
    
    We can all hold hands singing kumbaya in the new collective society
    however
    the gray ponytails at Columbia University
    forgot one key element in this kumbaya fantasy land...Human Nature
13. The Russians are coming!The Russians are coming!
    What a bizarre country we live in.
14. your talk regarding defense spending remind me of this article that I read. http://www.alternet.org/local-peace-economy/we-need-new-kind-anti-war-movement
    
    If we could merge the coop movement, with the antiwar movement, perhaps we could form new alliances.
15. Most all of the 'Bottom Half of American Workers' are faced with a Constant Background Static of Insecurity, Depression, and a Crisis of Identity..! The Never Ending Onslaught of Advertisers, 'oh so cleverly' pushing them to 'Buy More and Be More', breeds a constant state of 'Anxiety'.. And you can certainly respell that negative state as 'Any exit'..!
16. The language of fantasy could be very powerful and persuasive if is done right. At the moment the masses are brainwashed under the spell of capitalism, we need a powerful fantasy/vision to counter their spell to free us from the rigid ideological mind of capitalism and open our eyes and minds to possibilities.
17. aww... i like the rambling in the beginning, but i'm also a fan of head noise. wonderful lecture as usual
18. Let them eat Big Macs. America looking more and more like pre-revolution France every day!!
19. I might be misremembering, but isn't Eisenhower the general who ramped up the military industrial complex? That's like Truman, who warned against the dangers of CIA influence after he created it.
20. Would be nice to hear alternative ways of handling legions of alienated, greedy monkeys we all are. We got to a point when our culture is bigger obstacle to sanity than technology. Current system would implode without generous supply of super-desperate human beings.