Crises of Capitalism

I find this video to be fascinating. What do you guys think?

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That made me think, I'l be back...

Exactly, this is why at the end Harvey argues we have a duty to change our mode of thinking.

I think meny people want to make this better, but are afraid of change, are convinced that this is best system or dont want to be a "commie"
As long as world is running ok, leaders wont probably do a single thing about it. And it would be hard considering economy is so global right now. I would say that as our generation gets into these posititions we could make some head way (for we generaly are more progressive than many mid-age conservative people)

It only takes people two things: Realize that they can do something about it & being open minded, yet it is so hard...

Its easy to say typing in computer hamburger in your fatty mouth while billions are starving to death bechose of this very system we are in.

Dont take "typing in computer hamburger in your fatty mouth"- part personaly nor as insult, I hope you get the point.

Oh please stop with your nonsence for fucks sake... -.-'' First of all this is aint capitalism vs. communism crap nor I deny the industrial boom etc. You do have to note that improoved technology & loans greatly contributed to technological revolution.

What I'm saying is that way things are is not neccesarily "bad" but they can be hell of alot better. You think africans are starving bechose they dont have food available? No. Its bechose they have no money to buy some. And thats fucked up. You cannot deny that way things are now doesnt have major holes in it, despite all the wealth it has given to many people.


PS. Dude, I have respect for your inteligence despite our opposing political view points.

Corporations would surely setup stores if that would be profitable in the area, othervise fair enough

Corruption has not that much to do with wealth of an society as you might think


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Anyway you are bringing up a good point, but this is not all the governments in 3rd world countries. I might be naive for believing that screwing the people does not have THAT big of an effect on the way things are in certain countries (That is if you are screwed a little bit witch means no big difference for individual and would people get screwed a big time on regular bases there would be uprising of some sort) But like I said I might be little too naive.

But what I can definitely say is that government and corporations are two very different things. While corporations provide people with goods to consume (and work) government should provide people with means to purchase these goods (Any where from giving corporations to build stores to providing its people with some income via. social security, work or option to sell their goods on local markets etc. etc.)
And in majority of the cases this works just fine, yet 1/3 of the world is starving and over half of the world lives in poverty. So where is the problem? Big international corporations burn hundreds of tons of food every year because its cheaper to just burn it than store it. Is it that given place is not making enough income to make investment? Are people too poor to afford your food, or is the currency of that given place too inflated that it could not compete with locals? Look this issue can be taken lightly since suffering is remote and far from us, yet I believe as people who have this luxuries I think we have -I wouldn't say "duty", but something of that sort- to help the one who is less well off. As much as we can afford that is.

I find this issue to be corporations fault. Not saying that I'm blaming them, they do have to make profit after all. Some one has to be bigger person here in west as we have the power to help, but also change so this problem could go away/could be minimized.

A few things to note. You're basically ignoring Cali's point of share farmers. They can't afford stuff because they don't work for profit, they farm their land. If they were integrated into the market system and producing wealth or even selling their goods in a market they would have the means to acquire goods or subsistence or whatever they wanted. So is the answer to have corporations give stuff away for free? What incentive does a corporation have to do that? Corporations would loose money off that equation which would hurt their value and hurt their investors. Remember corporations are publicly owned, so you're not really hurting the rich fat cats, you'd be hurting the guy who has his life savings in that corporations stock. Surely the government can buy up surplus's (which only exist because of price controls set up by them anyway) and distribute them as they see fit (do some reading on our dairy stores, you'd be surprised at the massive amount of cheese our government has been forced to acquire as a result of subsidizing American dairy farmers) but no body is calling for them to distribute that to needy countries across the globe.


Okay, so on to the video. In the beginning he talks about 5 or 6 topics (I only wrote down the three I took offense to) people discuss about the crisis. He acknowledges them as valid despite the fact a few of them would seem to undermine basic Marxist principle.

His 2nd point (Institutional failures) is indirect conflict with Marxism. If the economy failed because institutions failed and people were asleep on the wheel, how would giving a select few complete control over the economy alleviate that? Is the assertion that Marxist economists know better then capitalist ones, and that under Marxism these same problems wouldn't exist the argument? To me that seems a little presumptuous, and as noted in other threads, command based economies have throughout history proven to be ineffective.

His fifth point, similar to the 2nd talks about regulators, and that the economy failed because of too much regulation. So the solution to too much regulation is more regulation? Again, it seems a basic fault in logic.

Finally, and tertiary to the other points, he points to False theory (his third point), In particular the failure of Austrian economics and Hayek. Now I myself am an economic liberal, and take much more stock in Keynes then Hayek, but at the same time there is a sensible Austrian argument that says this happened because of too much regulation and that it wasn't a fail in Austrian policy. Basic Austrian economics, for those of you not well versed, is the freest market possible. You can't really simultaneously argue that the problem was over regulation and the failure of institutions, and that this represents a failure of free markets.

Moving on to the substantive points of his argument he attacks the excessive power of finance capital. He argues that wages have decreased and that credit has taken its place. In turn this policy leads to debt in order for individuals to continue lifestyles they may have grown accustomed to. While that may be the case, it doesn't really point to a Marxist answer to the problem. True, capitalism may sidestep issues, but in my mind that's where limited government intervention a la Keynesian economics comes into play.

Finally towards the latter stages of the argument he, as most Marxists do, puts a greater emphasis on the laborer and the industrial process. The fact is advanced capitalist countries are no longer industrial based. There are far more financiers then workers these days, so while we can't ignore the problems of the worker, why should we place greater importance on him then a numerically superior sect of society? The answer is because back in the 1850s when Marx was writing, all you had were workers and owners, so Marxists only see the world in those terms. Things have changed, and focusing and elevating factory workers relative to their counterparts (because let's face it, they are nothing more then unskilled workers) is counter productive to a healthy economy.

PS - I friggin love these whiteboard things. I had to watch it twice to figure out what he was saying because I was so captivated by all the drawing.

So your first few points are just nonsense because he basically says “While there maybe some truth to all these theories, I am going to make one that is not related to these.” So all this crap about his point of view being incompatible with the others is just a waste of time.

Also he is not arguing that Capitalism need to be thrown out all together. You need to stop obsessing about the fact he takes a mild Marxist perspective, because he so obviously is not arguing for a full blown Marxist economy. The basic thesis is that there is a root problem with Capitalism, and that is the overpowering of finance Capital. To put it into Starcraft language, finance capital is op. (Sorry I just had too.) Then he goes on to say this happens because there needs to be financial ingenuity to overcome these barriers capitalism places in front of its self thereby powering the financers etc. He is not arguing the labour needs to be emphasized more than finance, because that is what lead to the crisis in the 1970s as he stated, there just needs to be a balance. You should also note that at the end he states that he doesn’t have a solution; he just knows the nature of the problem. Which is why there needs to be and open debate and discussion and a change in our mode of thinking.

I lost a ton of respect for you because of this post. I expected so much more from you than “CAPITALISM IS GOOD AND SOCIALISM IS BAD, LOLOLOL!"

That's fair, it was just in my notes so I felt the need to address it. When I jotted that down I figured he'd make a more command economy heavy argument, and obviously that never materialized. I think it's still useful to note however, for someone who might take that argument here and try to make it.

Again, I will admit that I took this under the frame of thinking it was going to be a full blown Marxist argument, so the notes I took related to that idea. However, I don't really see the finance Capital bit as being a problem, and I don't really think he did an adequate job as labeling it as such. The barriers aren't necessarily overcame strictly by the financiers, but by anyone who runs a successful business. Semantics in definition aside, there is a difference between a creditor and a business owner. The problems arise when people who are extremely good at negating these barriers are being given too much free reign to do so.

One of the few things Obama has done right is in coining (or popularizing, as I'm sure he didn't think of it) the term moral hazard in relation to the economy. It flows naturally from the externalities argument in economics that there are certain human ambitions that the market cannot on itself control. While there is a fine line between stiffing innovation and limiting corporate greed, I think there is a place for the gov't to come in and regulate certain things.

I would want to add that 23 000 americans die every year bechose they cannot afford hospitals. And as private corporations they are all about making money, so they feed patients full of pills and who knows how many have died bechose of that etc.

There is just some industries that HAVE TO be run by goverment. Hell there is over 200 private prisons in states.