Richard Wolff on Capitalism

[anansi133]

here's the nutshell version:


1) from 1820 to to the 1970s, wages go up, productivity goes up.

2)Since 1970, productivity continues to rise, but buying power stays flat.
a) Even in the great depression, wages went down, but so did prices. That's not happening this time.

3)Result? Profit! it costs less to make things, but the entrpeneur class gets to pocket the difference.

4) One consequence of that, is there's lots of money for them to sink into the political system.
b) CEOs begin to think that they are geniuses, and award themselves huge

bonuses... which don't stop when the company does badly.

5) On the wage earner's end, there are two responses:
a) we begin to borrow at an unprecidented scale.
b) we work more hours than any other industrialized country.

So, if you are a business that's big enough to matter, the last 40 years have been great, and there's no reason to want to change things. But if you are working for one of these companies, you are working harder and are deeper in debt than at other time in history.

Fast forward to 1:10:46, here and he begins to talk about ways to make things better.