The Contradictions of Capitalism

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1. Dr Wolff nails it as usual.
2. Richard wolff u r my guru 👍🏼 I advise all of you folk indeed to read Thom Hartmann's book [ The Crash Of 2016 ] to figure out to what extent Capitalism has long been hijacking you dull unaware American Citizens !
3. This conversation is analogous to a thought I had many years ago... The bad part is that the solutions are for the most part systemic: need for higher efficiency of recycling, lower the amount of consumption of basically all products, solving the population and energy problem...
   
   Basically very few actions can be done at individual level.
4. Capitalism now a days is like smoking. The idea that it will satisfy your needs is more enticing than the act itself. Sure, the act is pleasurable and satisfies, but it always kills you just a little bit more each time you smoke a boagie. You have to convince yourself that it's a good thing that you need, in order to rationalize the action.
5. If a business man wants to cut costs by automating the process of production and firing workers wouldn't he be able to sell his product at a lower price thus benefiting the poor? Why is saving money a bad thing?
6. Very good observation planet is limited, you may want to see why capitalism has no future according Indian yogi; http://beforeitsnews.com/economics-and-politics/2016/10/how-do-we-know-for-sure-capitalism-will-be-finished-2488493.html
7. Prof. Wolff speaks slowly, simply, and clearly. Maybe he could explain to dumb redneck Donald Trump supporters that the USA is a capitalist country. They think the USA is communist, has a president who is a communist, and that a communist is hiding under each of their beds.
8. This guy (who I know is a Marxist) actually sounds like most libertarians, especially when talking about central banking. Too bad his solution is probably "more government intervention," because that always works out well.
9. This man is a fool, we don't live in a pure capitalist system, with the government's heavy involvement in the economy we shouldn't be blaming capitalism, we should blame the government with their sup-prime housing loans. this video is gross and I am ashamed to have watched it.
10. liked before I even watched.... Wolff is the man
11. Capitalism is NOT the problem. Corporatism and Central Banks having the power to issue money, IS the real problem.
12. Imagine... Hillary is now a millionaire many times over. What part of capitalism or human productivity is she a member of? Got it, corruption and the lying it requires. I keep toying with the idea that all lies in some manner contribute to communism. Communism is never corrupt because lying is honorable and essential to the deception required to sell communism to the public and thus all who think they support communism just like Hillary. Communism's purpose is the instillation of the elite by any means including distraction, murder and deception into the matrix of control and the security it provides. The actual physical earning of wealth by non-party subjects is prohibited unless it fits properly into the communist power matrix via deception, murder or other methods consistent with competition with no moral content.
    
    It would be my observation that Donald Trump has played this game a lot but he has done something very different, very different because he cares about good people. By that I means he has played the game very well but he has stood above the crowd playing the same game while caring for good people. People stay away from game players as Hillary, Chelsea, and Bill can verify but Trump has generally always cared about how he treats people. He has a moral code that is far more consistent with human needs. There can be no other explanation of his success.
    
    I am a farmer and had the privilege of dealing with and honest cattle dealer. Norvel Reed, Sr. became a very successful cattle dealer and millionaire back when a million dollars was very meaningful. Nobody I am aware of, begrudged his success. Cheap people like Hillary treat people poorly because they don't know what is important and for this reason they don't know how to treat people. Honesty stands paramount and in the long run dishonesty is nearly always revealed. This is Hillary's problem.
    
    Trump's problem is living and working in a corrupt business environment. He must be strong and tell those trying to take advantage of him to go away in no uncertain terms. Clintons have been nasty from beginning to end as Chelsea confirms with her comments about her family always being attacked. Hillary type of people twist and distort every Trump action no matter how insignificant and irrelevant to prove Trumps unworthiness because they themselves feel unworthy. If she cannot intimidate Trump, her history suggest much stronger measures.
    
    If you want evidence of this, it is why Hillary has gone stale. There is no spontaneity in her delivery. It is all scripted. She cannot allow her inner emotions free rein as Trump does and is faulted for. At the root is deep unhappiness she has not resolve. I have to ask if the words "Thank you" have ever passed from her lips. Money and power have been her mantra.
    
    The external evidence also supports Trump. Of all the people and businesses he is supposed to have jilted, none have come forward to make this accusation. And guess what? Now the power and money of the Clintons and company will pay someone to come forward. The Clintons have no thought process that is not within a box and must steal good ideas from others like Hillary has been doing since the campaign began, stealing from Trump while maligning him at every apparent indiscretion!
    
    Is Trump the man we need? Certainly! Without question! He is the first genuine thinker since Reagan and John Kennedy. Reagan they tried to assassinate and they did assassinate JFK. It is the "solution" of people whose minds are stuck in boxes. My mother always said, "God helps those who help themselves." She also said, "He [she] looks like the east end of a horse going west." God help us if Hillary should be elected! It will most likely put the communist Chinese or the New World Order in charge of the US. They are those people who think in boxes with solutions that stifle man's mind with thoughts only of control and wealth accumulation. They are unimaginative ends because they do not know what is important.
13. I think this notion that the differences between Clinton and Trump are but a "distraction", if not some cleverly conceived conspiracy of capitalist barons, is a silly and unsubstantiated one that shows the worst of that vulgar strand of pop Marxianism that ultimately turns many a young socialist into an embittered centrist.
14. Innovative creativity.
15. Marx dreamed of the human right (one that actually exist) and the ai technology will make it true.
16. The very basis of capitalism is competition. Competition is completely or nearly lacking in every important area of our economy: food, medicine, clothing, housing. All of this is controlled by a nearly exclusive small club of the hyper-wealthy, and they in turn share with those 10% or so of workers who represent the professional class they need to keep control and innovate enough to keep their profits churning. If small entrepreneurs actually could compete on a level playing field, then you would see real innovation, real wealth distribution and a more democratic capitalism. You would also see a more socialist capitalism. The two are not mutually exclusive.
    As a concept, there is nothing wrong with the idea of capitalism. But capitalism is NOT a form of government. It is an economic system, and like all economic systems, it tends to become dominated by the few, the wealthy, the corrupt. That's when government OF, BY and FOR the people is supposed to protect the rest of society. We do not need corporate predators among us; we individually do that quite well ourselves.
    Our founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, actually wrote of the dangers of corporate control and were concerned that at some point corporate power would become a serious problem. Well, they were right. It HAS become a serious problem and it is effecting the lives of the majority of Americans negatively. If a corporation wants higher profits, then it must cut labor costs. If a corporation want even more profit, it must share those with few individuals. If a corporation wants lower taxes, it must corrupt government so it need not pay its fair share. This is the way people and human institutions always act. It is also why, in the end, capitalism and communism are really just mirror images of each other. Both give the control of the wealth to only a handful of people and the rest are used as fodder.
    That's precisely why people need laws, and corporations need regulations. Both are just laws saying you must do this and not THAT. And you can't do THAT because it hurts people. How much simpler does one have to make things before you clowns that do not share in this wealth train stop believing all the propaganda the wealthy put in front of you?
17. I agree that capitalism is destroying the biosphere and creating artificial want, but does Prof. Wolff have specific proposals? Somehow our economic system is still functioning. It has worked reasonably well at times and very poorly at other times, but It has not completely collapsed since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Coming up with something better is going to be an enormous challenge with risks of its own.
18. This Marxist professor, who does not have 1 percent of the mundane knowledge of the world and like most of the academics are full of themselves by judging society and those people who live and are a part of that society, is wrong calling the economies of the world, in particular the United States of America, a capitalist country. We're not capitalist. We are not a free-market system. We are not a system of free enterprise. We are, instead, a mixed economy, where government often intervenes with good intentions and good reasons but usually yield bad results. In a free and capitalist society, we would not have many of the problems that government has set up. Just look at what the mother welfare state, Sweden and the welfare state here has done in America. Wherever the welfare state has followed, so has complete disintegration of the family. Sweden can deal with it but not us I say! Welfare has done what slavery could not: disintegrate the black family to its root and entirety!!! I can go on! Secondly, it's because workers, in particular the non skilled and even the migrants, are paid little for their remedial and low level labor that we get some of our best food so cheaply. Fruits from South America, strawberries and almonds from Mexican migrants working the fields, and even bananas from Honduras. Also, remember it was Ford who started welfare capitalist, aka the idea of workers getting a minimum amount of hourly income and even health benefits! It was only afterwards that government decided, to this day even, force down everyone's throats. My point is simply do not be fooled, unless you're some progressive, then in that case continue listening to your Marxist toady.
19. Even overlooking the conceptual misconceptions of this discussion, the main theme of it was put to rest in 'The Ultimate Resource' by Julian Lincoln Simon decades ago.
20. A lot of the defenders of capitalism in the comments are a few decades behind the times.