Kind: captions
Language: en
slaves produce a surplus which the
master gets surfs produce a surplus
which the Lord gets employees produce a
surplus which the employer gets it's
very simple these are
exploitative class structures because
one class produces a surplus
appropriated distributed by another
group of people not the ones who
produced it which creates hostility
enmity Envy anger resentment and all of
the problems you can lump under the
heading class
struggle the following is a conversation
with Richard
wolf one of the top Marxist economists
and philosophers in the world this is a
heavy Topic in general and for me
personally given my family history in
the Soviet Union in Russia and in
Ukraine today the words Marxism
socialism and communism are used to
attack and to divide much more than to
understand and to
learn with this podcast I seek the
latter I believe we need to study the
ideas of Karl Marx as well as their
various implementations throughout the
20th and the 21st centuries and in
general we need to both steal man and to
consider seriously that the ideas we
demonize and to challenge the ideas we
dogmatically accept as true even when
doing so is unpleasant and at times
dangerous this is the Lex Freedman
podcast to support it please check out
our sponsors in the description and now
dear friends here's Richard wolf let's
start with a basic question but maybe
not so basic after all what is Marxism
what are the defining characteristics of
uh Marxism as an economic and political
Theory and ideology well the simplest
way to begin a definition would be to
say it's the tradition that takes its
founding inspiration from The Works of
uh KL
Marx um but
because these ideas that he put forward
spread as fast as they did and as
globally as they did literally it's 140
years since Marx died and in that time
his ideas have become major types of
thinking in every country on the earth
um if you know much about the great
ideas of human history um that's an
extraordinary spread in an
extraordinarily short period of
historical time and what that has meant
that speed of spread and that Geographic
diversity is that the marxian ideas
interacted with very different cultural
histories religious histories and
economic conditions so the end result
was that the ideas were interpreted
differently in different places at
different
times and therefore Marxism as a kind of
first flush definition is the totality
of all these very different ways of
Coming to Terms uh with it for the first
roughly 40 50 years um Marxism was a
tradition of thinking critically about
capitalism Marx himself that's all he
really did he never wrote a book about
communism he never wrote a book really
about socialism either his comments were
occasional fragmentary dispersed what he
was really interested in was a critical
analysis of capitalism and that's what
Marxism was more or less in its first 40
or 50
years um the
only qualification of what I just said
was something that happened in Paris for
a few weeks uh in
1871 there was a collapse of the French
government uh consequent upon losing a
war to bismar Germany
and in the result was something called
the Paris commune the working class of
Paris rose up basically took over the
function of running the Parisian economy
and the Parisian society and Marx's
people people influenced by Marx were
very active uh in that commune in the
leadership of the commune and Marx
wasn't that far away he was in London uh
these things were happening in Paris you
know that's an easy transport even then
and for a short time very
short Marxism had a different quality in
addition to being a critique of
capitalism it
became a theory of how to organize
Society differently before that had only
been implicit now it became explicit
what is the leadership of the Paris
commune going to do and why and in what
order
in other words governing organizing a
society but since it only lasted a few
weeks the French army regrouped uh and
under the leadership of people who were
very opposed to Marx they marched back
into Paris took over killed a large
number of the of the communards as they
were called and deported them to islands
in the Pacific that the that were part
of the French Empire at the
time the really big change happens in
Russia in
1917 now you have a group of marxists L
in trosy all the rest who are in this
bizarre position to seize a moment once
again a war like in
France uh disorganizes the government
throws the government into a very bad
reputation because it is the government
that loses World War I to withdraw as
you know uh breast Lov and all of that
and the government collapses and the
Army revolts and in that situation a
very small political party Russian
Social Democratic Workers Party um
splits under the pressures of all of
this into the Bolshevik and menic
divisions lenon trosy and the others are
in the Bolshevik division and to make a
long story short he's an exile uh his
position Lenin's position makes him gets
him deported because he says Russian
workers should not be killing German
Workers I mean this is a war of
capitalists who are dividing the world
up into colonies and Russian working
people have no don't should not kill and
should not die for such a thing as you
can expect they arrest him and they
throw him out interestingly in the
United States the the comparable leader
at that time of the Socialist Party here
as you know there was no Communist party
at this point that comes later um the
head of the Socialist Party a very
important American figure named Eugene
Victor Debs makes exactly the same
argument to the the Americans should not
fight in the war uh he's independ he has
nothing to do with Lon I don't even know
if they knew of each other but uh he
does it on his own he gets arrested and
put in jail
here in the United States by the way
runs for president from jail and does
very well really very well it's
remarkable um and he's the inspiration
for Bernie Sanders if you if you see the
the
link um although he had much more
courage politically than than Bernie has
that's really interesting I'd love to
return to that link maybe later yes
history Rhymes yes the complicated story
anyway what the importance in terms of
Marxism is that now
this seizure of Power by a group of
marxists that is a group of people
inspired by Marx developing what you
might call a Russian uh even though
there were differences among the
Russians too but a Russian
interpretation this now has to be
transformed from a critique of
capitalism into a plan at least what are
you going to do in the Soviet Union and
a lot of this was then trial and error
Marx never laid any of this out probably
wouldn't have been all that relevant if
he had because it was 50 years earlier
in another country Etc so what begins to
happen and you can see how this happens
then more later in China and Cuba and
Vietnam and Korea and so on is that you
have kind of a
bation much of Marxism remains chiefly
the critique of capitalism ISM but
another part of it
becomes a set and they differ from one
to the other a set of Notions of what an
alternative post capitalist Society
ought to look like how it ought to work
and there's lots of disagreement about
it lots of
confusion um and I would say that that's
still where it is that you have a
tradition now that has these two major
Wings critique of capitalism
notion of the alternative and then a
variety of each of those and that would
be the framework in which I would answer
that's what Marxism is about its basic
idea if you had to have one is that
Human Society can do better than
capitalism and it ought to try and then
we can start to talk about what we mean
by capitalism
fine so we'll look at the critique of
capitalism on one side but maybe maybe
stepping back what do you think Marx
would say if he just looked at the
different implementations of the ideas
of Marxism throughout the 20th century
where his ideas that were implicit were
made
explicit
um would uh would he shake his head
would he enjoy some of the parts of the
implementations like what how do you
think he would analyze it well he had a
great sense of humor I don't know if you
had a chance to take a look at his
writing but yeah an extraordinary sense
of humor so my guess is he would deploy
his humor in answering this question too
he would say some of them are inspiring
some of the interpretations of his work
and he's very pleased with those others
are horrifying and he wishes somehow he
could erase the connection between those
things and the lineage they claim from
him which he
would uh there's a German word I don't
know if these Lang if you speak the
other languages there's a wonderful
German word called
f and it's stronger than the word refuse
it's if if you want to refuse something
but with real strong
emphasis is a German way of saying I I
don't want to have anything to do with
that and he would talk then you know in
philosophical terms because remember he
was a student of philosophy he wrote his
doctoral thesis on Ancient Greek
philosophy and all the rest he would wax
philosophical and say
you know that that the ideas you put out
are a little bit like having a child you
have a lot of influence but the child is
his own or her own person and will find
his or her own way and these ideas once
they're out there go their own way and
as you said there's a particular way
that this idea spread the speed at which
it spread throughout the world made it
even less able to be sort of
stabilized and connected back to the
origins of where the idea came from the
only people who ever really tried that
were the Russians After the Revolution
because they occupied a position for a
while not very long but they occupied a
position for a while in which I mean he
was exalted right they had been all
these people criticizing capitalism for
a long time even the marxists ever since
midcentury and these were the first guys
who pulled it off they made it and so
that there was a kind of presumption
around the world their interpretation
must be kind of the right one because
look they they did it and so for a while
they could enunciate their
interpretation and it came to be widly
grasped as something which by the way
gets called in the literature official
Marxism the very idea that you would put
that adjective in front of Marxism or
Soviet Marxism or Russian more there
were these words that who where the
adjective was meant to somehow say kind
of this is the cannon you can depart
from it but this is the cannon before
the Russian Revolution there was no such
thing and by the
1960s it was already disp it was gone
but for a short time know 30 40 years it
was a kind of and the irony is
particularly here in the United States
where the taboo against Marxism kicks in
right after World War II is so total in
this country that I for example through
most of my adult life have had to spend
a ridiculous amount of my time simply
explaining to American
audiences that the Marxism they take as
canonical is that old Soviet Marxism
which wasn't the Canon before 1917 and
hasn't been since at least the
1960s but they don't know it's not that
they're stupid and it's not that they're
ignorant it's that well the ignorance
may be but I mean it's not a mental
problem it it's the taboo shut it down
and so all of the reopening that in a
way recaptures what went before and
develops it in New Direction they just
don't know they nevertheless it's a
serious attempt at making the implicit
ideas explicit the the
Russians the the Soviets at the
beginning of the 20th century made a
serious attempt at saying okay beyond
the critique of capitalism how do we
actually build a system like this and so
in that
sense not at a high level but at a
detailed level it's interesting to look
at those particular uh schools maybe
right because for example let me just to
take your point one step further you
really cannot understand the Cuban
Revolution the Chinese Revolution uh
Vietnamese and and the others because
each of them is a kind
of response let's call it to the way the
Soviets did it are you going to do it
that way well yes and no is the answer
this we will do that way but that we're
not going to do and the differences are
huge but you could find a thread I can
do that for you if you want in which all
of them are in a way
reacting to The Originals yes very much
so like maybe most of rock music is
reacting to The Beetles and the stones
that's something like
that can you speak to the unique
elements of the various schools of that
Soviet Marxism so we got leninism trism
stalinism maybe even let's expand out to
uh maoism so um maybe I could speak to
sort of leninism
and then please tell me if I'm saying
dumb things there's a I think for Lenin
there was an idea that there could be a
small so of Vanguard party like a small
controlling entity that's like wise and
is able to do the central planning
decisions then for um stalinism one
interesting so Stalin's implementation
of all of this one interesting
characteristic is to move away from
International aspect of the ideal of
Marxism to uh make it all about Nation
nationalism the strength of nation and
then um so maoism is it's it's different
in that it's focused on uh Agriculture
and
Rural um and then trism I don't know
except that it's anti- Stalin right I
mean I don't even know if there's unique
sort of philosophical elets there anyway
can you maybe from those or something
else speak to different unique elements
that are interesting to think about
about implementation of Marxism in the
real world probably the best way to get
in into this is to describe something
that happened in Marxism that then
shapes the answer to your
question in the early days of Marx's
writings and you know he his life spans
the 19th centuries born in 1818 dies in
1883 so literally he lives the 19th
century and you might I mean to make
things simple you might look at the
first half of the first two-thirds of
his life as
overwhelmingly Gathering Together the
precursors to his own work Marx was
unusually scholarly in the sense that
partly because he didn't work a regular
job and partly because he was an exile
in London most of his adult life he
worked in the library I mean he had a
lot of time he got subsidized a little
bit by Engles whose family were
manufacturers and you might say the
first half to two-thirds of his life are
about the critique of
capitalism and that was what in a broad
sense the audience for his work Western
Europe more or less uh was interested in
that's what they wanted and he gave that
to them he wasn't the only one but he
was very very effective at it um by the
last third of his
life he and the other producers of a
anti- capitalist movement people like
the chartists in England that's a whole
another movement um the anarchists of
various kinds like prudon in France or
katkin or bakunin in Russia and so on uh
you you P all these together and there
was a shift in what the
audience let's call it a mixture
of militant Working Class People on the
one hand and critical or radical
intelligencia on the other they now
wanted a different question they were
persuaded by the analysis they were
agreeable that capitalism was uh a phase
they would like to do better than and
the question became how do we do this
not anymore should we why should we you
could we maybe fix capitalism no they
had gotten to the point the system has
to be fundamentally
changed but they got they didn't go you
might imagine they didn't go and say
well what will that new system looks
like they didn't go that way what they
did was ask the question
how could we get Beyond capitalism it
seems so powerful it seems to have
captured people's minds people's daily
lives and so on um and the focus of the
conversation became this was already by
the last third of the 19th century the
question of the agency the mechanism
whereby we would get Beyond and again
make a long story short the conversation
focused on seizing the
government see before that it wasn't
that the government was not a major
interest if you read Marx's Capital the
great work of his maturity three volumes
there's almost nothing in there the
state I mean he mentions it but he's
interested in the details of how
capitalism Works Factory by factory
store by store office what's the
structure the government's secondary for
him but there's also humans within that
capitalist system of there's the working
class right it's it's about struggle but
he's interested in each in the work
think of it almost mechanically like the
workplace in the workplace there some
people who do this and other people who
do that and they accept this division of
authority and they accept this division
of what's going on here particularly
because he believed that the core
economic objective of capitalism was to
maximize something called profit which
his analysis located right there in the
workings of the Enterprise not the
government was not the the the key
factor here and he was looking at ideas
of value yes how much is the how much
value does the labor of the individual
workers provide and that means how do we
reward the workers in an ethical way so
those are the questions of uh right well
we'll get that yeah okay okay but the
government was not part of that picture
okay so it's very significant that
towards the end of the 19th century Marx
is still alive when this begins but it
it really gets going after he dies is
this debate among
marxists about the role of the state
they all agree nearly all of them agree
that you have to get the state the
working class has to get the state
because they see the state as the
ultimate guarantor of capitalism when
things get really out of hand the
capitalist calls the police police or he
calls the army or both of them and so
the government is in a sense this key
institution captured in Marx's Lang
Marxist Language by the Bourgeois by the
by the other side the
capitalist and yet vulnerable because of
suffrage if suffrage is universal or
nearly so if everybody gets a vote which
in a way capitalism brings to Bear part
of it's rejection of feudalism in the
French American Revolution is to create
a place where elected represented so the
the government being subject to suffrage
creates the notion aha here's how we're
gonna we have to seize the state and
then the the that gets agreed upon but
there's a big split as to how to do it
one side says you go with the election
you you you mobilize the voter
that gets to be called reformism within
Marxism and the other side is
Revolution don't do that this system if
I may quote Bernie again is rigged uh
you can't get there they they've long
ago learned how to manipulate uh
parliaments they buy the politicians and
all that and therefore Revolution is
going to be the way to do it
Revolution gets a very big boost because
the Russians they did it that way they
didn't do I mean they fought in the Duma
in the in the parliament but they didn't
and that this focus on the state I would
argue goes Way Beyond what The Debaters
at the time uh and if you're interested
in the great names there was a great
theorist of the the role of the state in
a reformist strategy to get power uh in
Germany named Edward Bernstein
very important his opponents in Germany
were Carl kowsky and Rosa Luxembourg the
two other huge figures in Marxism at the
time and they wrote the articles that
everybody reads but it was a much
broader uh debate by the way that debate
still goes on reformism versus
Revolution and in in terms not all that
different I mean it's adjusted to
history but in terms that AR different
can you comment uh on where you lean in
terms of the mechanism of progress
Reformation versus I'd rather tell you
the historical story over and over and
over again in most cases the reformists
have always won because Revolution is
frightening is scary is
dangerous um and so most of the time
when you get to the point where it's
even a relevant discussion not a
abstract thing for conferences but a
real strategic issue
the reformists have won I mean
and I give you an example from the
United States in the Great Depression of
the
1930s you had an extraordinary shift to
the left in the United States the
greatest shift to the left in the
country's history before or since
nothing like it suddenly you created a
vast left wi composed of the labor
movement which went crazy in 1930 we we
organized more people into unions in the
1930 than at any time before or any time
since it is the explosion and at the
same time the explosion of two socialist
parties and the Communist party that
became very powerful and they all worked
together creating a very powerful
leftist presence in this country they
debated in a strategically real way
reform or revolution the reformers were
the Union people by and large and the
the Communists were the revolutionaries
by and large because they were
affiliated with the Communist
International with Russia and all of
that and in between you might say the
two socialist parties one that was trist
and inspiration and the other one more
moderate Western European kind of
socialism and they had this intense
debate and they ended up the reformists
won that debate there was no revolution
in the 19 30s here uh but there was a
reform that achieved unspeakably great
successes which is why it was as strong
and remains as strong as it does because
it achieved in in a few years in the
1930s starting around
19323 Social Security in this country we
had never had that before it's the same
one we have now unemployment insurance
never existed before that you have till
today minimum wage for the first time
time still have that today and a federal
program of employment that hired 15
million people I mean these were
unspeakable gifts if you like to the
working class so that's the 30s and the
40s 30s not much in the 40s anymore but
in the 30s and here's the best part it
was paid for by taxes on corporations
and the rich so when people today say
well you can tax the Corp the the joke
is I have to teach American history to
Americans
uh because it has been erased from
Consciousness we'll return to that but
first let's let's take a stroll back to
the beginning of the 20th century with
the Russians with the Russians so their
interpretation goes like
this everybody was right the state is
crucial we were right we were the
revolutionaries we seized the state here
in Russia now we have the state and
socialism is when the working class
captures the state either by reform a
revolution and then uses its power over
the state to make the transition from
capitalism to the better thing we're
going
toward and again make a long story short
in the interest of time what happens
which is not unusual in human history is
that the
means becomes the end in other words
Lenin who's crystal clear before he you
know he doesn't live very long he dies
in 23 so he's only in power from 17 say
at 22 but that time he has his brain
trouble 1923 by the way not at age 23
just people who are listening 1923 yeah
he's only there for four or five years
uh he's very clear he even says and I've
done work on I've published so I mean I
know this stuff he says in a famous
speech Let's Not fool ourselves we have
captured the state but we don't have
socialism we have to create that we have
to move towards that
um with Stalin you know Lenin dies and
there's a fight between Stalin and
trosky trosky loses the fight he's
exiled he goes to Mexico Stalin is now
alone in power and does all the things
he's famous or inFAMOUS for um and by
the end of the 20s
Stalin makes a decision I mean not him
it's not that he makes it alone but
things have evolved in Russia so that
they do the following they declare that
they are socialism in other words
socialism
becomes when you capture the state not
when the state capture has enabled you
to do XYZ other things no no the state
itself once you have it is socialism so
when a socialist cap the state that's
socialism exactly and H that's exactly
right and I feel like that's
definitionally confusing well it
shouldn't be because I give get an
example yeah if you go to many parts of
the United States today and you ask
people what's socialism they'll tell you
they'll look you right in the face and
they'll say the post
office and you you know when I first
heard this as a young man what the post
office it took me a while to understand
the post office Amtrak the Tennessee all
the examples in the United States where
the government runs something this is
socialism see capitalism is if the
government doesn't run it if a private
individual who's not a a government
official runs it well then it's
capitalism if the government takes it
then it's socialism so what is wrong
with that reasoning so the idea I think
there's nothing wrong with it's a way of
looking at the world it's just got
nothing to do with marks well there's
Marx there's Marxism let's try to pull
this apart so what
role uh does central planning have in
Marxism so Marxism is
concerned with the class
struggle with respecting the working
class right
what is the connection between that
struggle and Central planning that is
often Central planning is often
associated with Marxism right so
centralized power doing Russia did that
allocation so that's a that's that has
to do with a very specific set of
implementations initiated by the Soviet
Union has nothing to do with Marx how
else can you do I don't think you can
find yes anywhere in Marx's writing
anything about Central planning or any
other kind of planning again
fundamentally then uh Marx Marx's work
it has to do with um with factories with
workers with with the Bourgeois with and
and the uh the exploitation of of the
working class exact you still have to
take that leap what is beyond capitalism
right so maybe we should turn to that
exp focus on that okay yes what okay
we've already looked historically at
several attempts to go beyond capitalism
how else can we go beyond capitalism let
me push a little further they didn't
succeed in my judgment as a Marxist and
I'm now going to tell you why they
didn't succeed because they
didn't understand as well as they could
have or should have what Marxist was
trying to do I think I would have been
like them if I had lived at their time
under their circum this is not a
critique of them but it's a different
way of understanding what's going on all
right so give you an example most of my
adult life I have taught marxian
economics I'm a professor of Economics
I've been that all my life I'm a
graduate of American
universities as it happens I'm a
graduate of what in this country passes
for its best
universities that's another conversation
you and I can have so I went to Harvard
then I went to Stanford and I finished
at Yale I'm like a poster boy for Elite
Education they tried very hard by the
way I had I I spent 10 years of my life
in the ivy league 20 semesters one after
the other no break mhm in those 20
semesters 19 of them never mentioned a
word about
Marxism that is no critique of
capitalism was offered to me ever with
one one professor in Stanford in the one
semester I studied with him he gave me
plenty to read but nobody else so that's
really interesting you you've mentioned
that in the past and that's very true
which makes you a very interesting
figure to hold your
ground
intellectually through this idea space
where just
people don't really even talk about it
no um perhaps we can discuss
historically why that is but never Le
that's the case so moxian economics did
KL Marx come up in conversation as a
kind of
dismissal the best example yeah he came
up only as an object of dismissal for
give you an example the major textbook
in economics that I was taught with and
that be was for many years the canonical
book it isn't quite anymore um was a a
book authored by a professor of
Economics at MIT named Paul Samuelson
and people kind of you know a whole
generation or two were trained on his
textbook if you open the cover of his
textbook he has a tree and you know and
the tree is Adam Smith and David Ricardo
at the at the root and then the the
different branches of it he's trying to
give you an idea as a student of how the
thing developed and it's a tree and
everybody on it is the Bourgeois and
then there's this one little branch that
goes off like this and sort of starts
heading back down that's Carl Marx in
other words he had to have it complete
cuz he's not a complete Faker but beyond
that no there was no nothing in the book
gives you two
paragraphs of an approach but that's
Cold War I mean that that's really
that's really neither here that that's
the craziness yeah that's the Cold War
in this country my professors were
afraid anyway let me get to the to the
core of it what I think will help
Marx was interested in the relationship
of people in the process of production
that he's interested in the factory the
office the store what goes on and by
that he means what are the
relationships among the people that come
together in a
workplace and what he analyzes is that
there is something going on there that
has not been adequately
understood and that has not been
adequately addressed as an object
needing
transformation and what does he mean the
answer is exploitation which he defines
mathematically in the following
way whenever in a society any society
you organize people such adults not the
children not the sick but you know
healthy
adults in the following way a big block
of them a clear majority work that is
they use their brains and their muscles
to transform nature a tree into a chair
a sheep into a Woolen sweater whatever
in in every human Community marks argues
there are the people who do that work
but they always produce more chairs more
sweaters more hamburgers than they
themselves consume whatever their
standard of living does have to be low
could be medium can be high but they
always produce more than they themselves
consume that more by the way ger Marx
when he writes this uses the German word
me mehr which is the English equivalent
of more it's the more that more got
badly translated into the word
Surplus shouldn't have been but it was
by by the way by German and English
people doing the translations what's the
difference between more and surplus is
there a nuan yeah because Surplus has a
notion of its discretionary it's sort of
extra he's not taking a he's not making
a judgment that it's extra it's a simple
math equation yes very simple oneus the
other yes
xus X is the total output Y is the
consumption by the producer therefore x
- y equals s the Surplus exactly exactly
now markx
argues the qu the minute you understand
this you will ask the following question
who gets the
Surplus who gets this extra stuff that
is made but not consumed by those who
made it and Marx's answer is therein
lies one of the great Shapers of any
society how is that organized for
example who gets it what are they asked
if anything to do with it in in exchange
for getting it what's their social role
for example here we go now if you get
this and you get the core of it anyway
um and I don't charge much
um the workers themselves could get it
less than lawyers right that's right uh
the workers themselves could get it yes
that's the closest marks comes to a
definition of communism communism would
would be if the workers who produce the
Surplus together decide what to do with
it so this has to do not just with who
gets it but more importantly who gets to
decide who gets it well who gets it and
who gets to decide what to do with it
right because you can't decide it if you
don't have disposition over it so the
the lot this the logic of the word
sequence it's produced it's Marx uses
the word approp prated in other words
whose property who who gets to decide if
you like what happens all that property
ever meant is who gets to decide and
who's excluded that's a clean definition
of communism for right and that's the by
the way it's not just clean the only one
so what's uh can we just Linger on the
definition of exploitation in that
context easy becomes very easy there
exploitation exists if and when the
Surplus that's produced
is taken and distributed by people other
than those who produced it slaves
produce a surplus which the master gets
surfs produce a surplus which the Lord
gets employees produce a surplus which
the employer gets it's very simple these
are
exploitative class structures because
one class produces a surplus
appropriated dis distributed by another
group of people not the ones who
produced it which creates hostility
enmity Envy anger resentment and all of
the problems you can lump under the
heading class struggle I use a metaphor
simple metaphorical story you have two
children let's assume and you take them
to Central Park a few blocks from here
it's a nice day and the children are
playing and in comes of those men with a
ice cream truck comes by Dingle Ling
lingling your children see the ice cream
daddy get me an ice cream so you walk
over you take some money and you get two
ice cream cones and you give them to one
of the
children the other one begins to scream
and yell and howl obviously what's the
issue and you realize you've just made a
terrible mistake so you order the one
you gave the two ice cream cones to give
one of those to yourself sister or your
brother or whatever it
is and that that's how you solve the
problem until a psychologist comes along
and says you know you didn't fix it by
what you just did you should never have
done that in the first
place my response so you understand all
of the efforts to deal with inequality
in economic political cultural these are
all giving the ice cream comb back to
the kid you should you should never do
this in the first place there a
reallocation of resources creates
bitterness in the populace look at AR
we've this country is tearing itself
apart now in a way that I have never
seen in my life and I've lived here all
my life and I've worked here all my
life it's tearing itself apart and it's
tearing itself apart basically over the
redivision the
redistribution of wealth having so badly
distributed in the F but that's all in
marks and notice as I explained to you
what is going on in this tension filled
production scene in the office the
factory the store I don't have to say a
word about the government I'm not
interested in the government the
government's really a a very secondary
matter to this core question and here
comes the big point if you make a
revolution and all you do is remove the
private exploiter and substitute a
government official without changing the
relationship you you can call yourself a
Marxist all day long but you're not
getting the point of the Marxism the
point was not who the exploiter is but
the exploitation per se you got to
change the organization of the workplace
so there isn't a group that makes all
the decisions and gets the Surplus V Vis
A another one that produces it if you do
that you will destroy the whole project
you will not only will you not achieve
what you set out to get but you'll so
misunderstand it that you the Germans
again have a phrase is get Chief it goes
crooked it it doesn't go right the
project gets off the rails because it
can't uh it can't understand either what
its objective should have been and
therefore it doesn't understand how and
why it's missing its objective it just
knows that this is not what it had hoped
for mean there's a lot lot of
fascinating questions here so one one
is to what degree so there's human
nature to what degree does
communism uh a lack of exploitation of
the working class naturally emerge if
you leave two people together in a room
and come back a year later if you leave
five people together in a room if you
leave a 100 people and a thousand people
it seems that humans form hierarchy
uh naturally so the the clever the
charismatic uh the sexy the the muscular
the powerful what however you define
that uh starts start you know becoming a
leader and start to do um maybe
exploitation in a non- negative sense a
more generic sense starts to become an
employer not in a capitalist sense but
just as a human here you go do this and
in exchange I will give you this just
because comes the leadership role right
uh so the question is yes okay it would
be nice the idea sort of of Communism
would be nice to to um nice in theory
but it doesn't work in practice because
of human nature because of human nature
that's thank you so what C what can we
say about leveraging human nature to
achieve some of these ends there's so
many ways of
responding in no particular order here
here are some of them
um the history of the human race as best
I can tell is a history in which a
succession of social forms forms of
society
arise and as they do
they rule out some kinds of human
behavior on the grounds that they are
socially disruptive and
unacceptable the argument isn't really
then is there a need or an instinct is
there some human
nature that makes people want to do this
well whatever that is this has to be
repressed or else we don't have a
society you know and Freud helps us to
understand that that repression is going
on all the time and it has consequences
it's not a finished project you repress
it it's gone it doesn't work like that
so for example when you get a bunch of
people together at some point they may
develop animosities towards one another
that lead them to want the other person
or persons to disappear to be dead to be
gone but we don't permit you to do that
we just
don't every economic system that has
ever
existed has included people who defend
it on the grounds that it is the only
system consistent with human nature and
that every effort to go beyond it has to
fail because it contradicts human nature
I can show you endless documents of
every tribal Society I've ever studied
every
anthropological community that has ever
been studied slavery wherever it's
existed I can show you endless documents
in which the Defenders of those system
not all of them of course but many
Defenders used that argument to
naturalize a system is a way to hold on
to it to prevent it from going to to
counter the argument that every system
is born every system evolves and then
every system dies and therefore
capitalism since it was born and since
it's been developing we all know at the
next stage of capitalism is what can
infer you're if you're saying the burden
is on the people who think it isn't
going okay so it doesn't mean they're
wrong but what you're saying is if we
look at history you're deeply suspicious
of the argument this is going against
human nature because we keep using that
for basically everything including toxic
relationship toxic systems destructive
systems that said uh well let me just
ask a million different questions so so
one what about the the argument that
sort of the
employer uh the capitalist takes on risk
so the yeah versus the employee who's
just there doing the labor the the
capitalist is actually putting up a lot
of
risk what's uh uh are they not in sort
of aggregating this organization and
taking this giant effort hiring a lot of
people aren't they taking on risk that
this is going to be a giant failure so
first of all there's
risk almost in everything you undertake
any project that begins now and in the
future that takes a risk that between
now and that future something's going to
happen that makes it not work out I mean
I got into a cab before I came here
today in order to do this with you yes I
took a risk I could the cab could have
been an accident lightning could have
hit us a bear could have eaten my left
foot who the hell knows shouldn't I
reward you for the risk you took no hold
it a second let's do this step by step
so everybody's taking a risk I always
found it Wonder beautiful you talk about
risk and then you imagine it's only some
of us who take a risk let's go with the
worker in the with the capitalist that
worker he moved his family from Michigan
to Pennsylvania to take that job he had
he made a decision to have children they
are teenagers they're now in school at a
time when their friendships are crucial
to their development you're going to
yank them out of the school because his
job is gone he took an enormous risk to
do that job every day to foro all the
other things he could have done he was
taking a risk that this job would be
here tomorrow next month next year he
bought a house which Americans only do
with mortgages which means he's now
stuck he has to make a monthly pay if
you make a mistake you
capitalist he he's the one who's going
to you're a capitalist you got a lot of
money otherwise you wouldn't be in that
position you got you've got a cushion he
doesn't if you in investigate you'll see
that in every business I've ever been in
and I've been involved in a lot of them
so you you think it's possible to
actually measure risk or is your basic
argument is there's risk involved in a
in a lot of both the working class and
the bouro the capitalist right and it's
diff work the worker would never come
and say cuz he's been taught right um
I want this payment a wage for the work
I do and I want this page this payment
for the risk I take well there's some
level of communication like that you you
have acknowledgement of dangerous jobs
but that's probably built into the
salary all those kinds of things you you
UND but you're not incorporating the
full spectrum of risk you don't believe
that this country is now being literally
transformed From Below by an army of
workers who work at Amazon uh fast food
joints you know what their complaint is
it's killing us we get paid shit and
it's killing us there is no relationship
except in the minds of the Defenders of
capitalism between the ugliness the
difficulty the danger of labor on the
one hand and the wage let me give you
just a couple of examples cuz this is my
this my job this my life what I do right
the median income of a child care worker
in the United States right now as we
speak is $111.22 an hour median so 50%
make less 50% make more the median
income for car park
attendant is several dollars per hour
higher than that what does the car park
attendant do he stares at your car for
many hours to make sure that nobody
comes and grabs it mhm maybe he Parks it
and he moves it around to get it in and
out by any measure that I know of that
makes any rational sense being in charge
of of toddlers two three four year olds
who are at the key moment of mental
formation the first five years to do to
give that a lower salary than you give
the guy who watches your car come on I
know how to explain it gender explained
all kinds of issues the the car park
people are are males and the they
childcare people are females and that
that in our culture is a very big marker
of what but the one who said only the
economics professor nobody else says
this stuff because in economic I don't
know if you were familiar with our
profession but we have something which
we call marginal product this is a this
is a fantas I I was a mathematician
before I became an economist I loved
mathematics I I specialized in
mathematics so I know mathematics pretty
well what economists do is is silly is
childish but they think it's mathematics
it's very sophisticate it is but think
for a minute what it means to suggest
that you can identify the marginal
product of a factor of production like a
worker
in in the textbook when when it's taught
I've taught this stuff I hold my nose
but I teach it then I explain to
students what I've just taught you is
horeshit but I first I teach it what is
the marginal product if it might be
useful to say the notion is if you take
away one worker right now from the pile
what will be the diminution of the
output that's the marginal product of
that worker measured by the amount of
the output that diminishes
output of the raw product of the product
usually in real terms so physical not
not the value you could do a value but
it's really more the physical you're I
mean I there is a transformation thing
we'll I'd love to talk to you about
about value it's so interesting what
isue I'd be glad to talk to you about
value and price and all of that but I
just want to get to
the Hegel who is Marx's teacher has a
famous line you can't step in this in
the same river twice
and the argument is you and the river
have changed between the first and the
second time so it's a different you and
it's a different you can choose not to
pay attention to that just you can't
claim you're not doing that you can't
claim that you can actually do that
because you can't there is no way to do
that oh so the the the meaning that you
can't just remove a worker and have a
clean mathematical calculation of the
effect that it has on the output that's
right because too many other things are
going on too many things are changing
and you cannot assume much as you want
to that the outcome on the output side
is uniquely determined by the change you
made on the input side can't do that
even in the even in the average it's
it's not going to work out you can take
look mathematics is full of abstractions
you can abstract you can say as as we do
in economics kerus parbus you know
everything else held constant but you
have to know what you just did you held
everything you know why you do that
because you can't do that in the real
world that's not possible you better
account for that otherwise you're
mistaking the abstraction from the messy
reality you abstracted from to get the
abstraction as a quick tangent if we
somehow went through a thought
experiment or an actual experiment of
removing every single Economist from the
world would be better off or worse off
much better off okay economics and I'm
you know I'm talking about myself see
economics got we're going to ship ship
all the economist to Mars and see how
well Works off no but the serious part
of this is that
economics you know it's really about
capitalism economics as a discipline is
born with capital there was no such
thing when I teach I teach courses at
the University for example call history
of economic thought right and I begin
the students with Aristotle and Plato
and I say you know they talked about
really interesting things but they never
called it economics there was no it NE
it made no sense to people to
abstract something as Central to daily
life as economics broadly defin it made
no sense that's a creation much much
later that's capitalism that did that
created the feel of so when I give them
Plato and Aristotle I have to give them
particular
passages by the way footnote cuz you're
audience will like it Plato and
Aristotle talked about markets because
they lived at a time in ancient Greece
when Market relations were beginning to
intrude upon these societies so they
were both interested in this phenoma
that we're not just producing goods and
then Distributing among us we're doing
it in a quidd proquo you know I'll give
you three oranges you give me two shirts
a market exchange and both Aristotle and
Plato hated markets denounced them and
for the same reason they destroy social
cohesion they destroy Community they
make some people rich and other people
poor and they set us against each other
and it's terrible and here's what that's
they agreed on that here's what they
disagreed on one of them said okay there
can be no
markets that was Plato Aristotle comes
back and says no no no no no no too late
for that the disruption caused it in
society by getting rid of this
institution that has crawled in amongst
us would be too devastating so we can't
do that but what we can do is control it
regulate it get from the market what it
does reasonably well and prevent it from
doing the destructive things it does so
badly so the the fundamentally the
destructive thing of a market is it's
the engine of capitalism and so it
creates exploitation of the worker it
facil I wouldn't create that's too
facilitates it facilitates it and it is
an institution that Plato and Aristotle
feel is a terrible danger to community
is there which by the way is a way of
thinking about it that exists right now
all over the world look the medieval
Catholic church had a Doctrine the
prohibition of
usury you know and this was that God
said M if there's a person who needs to
borrow from you then that's a person in
need and the good Christian thing to do
is to help
him to demand an interest payment rather
than to help your fellow man is God
hates you for that that's a sin Jesus is
crying all the way to wherever it is he
goes but would Jesus be crying when you
try to scale that system so that has to
do with the intimate human interaction
the idea of markets is you're
able uh to create a system that involves
thousands millions of humans and there
be some level of um safe self regulating
fairness there might be but it's hard to
imagine that charging interest would be
the way to do that I wonder what so I
guess suppose suppose you were
interested in having uh uh suppose you
took us your problem we have a set of
funds that can be loaned
out people don't want to consume it they
they're ready to lend it
okay to whom should they lend it well we
could say in our
society um we're going to run this the
way professors in institutions like MIT
work this MH they write up a project
they send the project in to some
government off office where it is looked
at against other projects and this
office in the government decides we're
going to fund this one and that one
because they're more needed in our
society we we're in Greater need of
solving this problem than that problem
and so we're going to lend money to
people working on this problem more
readily or more money than we lend over
here because we're going to but instead
what we do is who can pay the highest
interest rate
whoa what what what do you do it why why
what ethics would justify you do it it's
like a market in general something is in
shortage all markets are about how to
handle shortage that's one basic way to
understand
it and so if if the demand is greater
than the suppl