Ten Questions for Richard Wolff… on January 15, 2014:
[…see also: Staying Focused on Designing A Future… On Not Getting Divided… where partial transcripts of The Waking Up Radio Show are located.]
Here are some quotes from the two Richard Wolff interviews (January 14th and 15th, 2014) which inspired this blog:
“My father was appalled when he sent me to school at the poor quality of the education. He believed that you read great minds because that’s how you develop your intellectual capacity…”
“We’re experiencing the longest recession since the Great Depression because the private sector is unwilling to hire…”
“Small business is utterly dependent on the 500 – 1000 big businesses [which constitute the ‘private sector’… and which are global…]”
“The workforce participation rate [the percentage of ‘working-age adults’ who ‘work’] is less than 58%…]”
“A minority of our people produce the goods and services that we all consume…”
“The growth of capitalism and widening inequality go hand in hand…”
“The Chinese economy grew by 90% in six years, while we have lost six years of output…”
“We’ve lost six years of output – trillions lost each year – and we have millions out of work and unutilized capacity… that amount of wealth could have rebuilt our cities…”
“We’re in a period of long-term decline because the rest of the world is demanding a greater share… we cannot expect to deal with this major shift [people in ‘peripheries’ demanding more money…] by mere tinkering with ‘the system’…”
“Starting small is the normal way for a business to start… but big societal changes are needed to support them…”
“‘Democracy’ in the U.S. meant voting for a politician. If it’s a value we have, then the workplace should be organized democratically…”
“If you want an economic system to serve its people you have to put those people in charge of the enterprises. For example auto workers would have left the plants in Detroit, and they would have distributed profits more equitably.”
“If workers make the decisions they have a different way of understanding threats and responding to them…”
“When you have workers be both workers and their own employer there are competitive disadvantages and advantages relative to capitalist enterprises.”
After listening to two recent interviews…
(…although I heard his recommendations for “fixing the system…” often in 2013…
…a spiel which constitutes a shift from his 2012 pitch in at least two respects:
…back then he was focusing on internal U.S. dynamics related to people here taking on too much debt [this was discussed in Unpacking ‘Democracy’…] (rather than ‘power’s conscious efforts to drive down wages…) to explain economic crisis…
…today he’s ‘corrected’ his pitch by acknowledging that ‘power’ is global and that it plans…
…back then he was attacking Wallerstein without mentioning him…
…today he’s simply trying to simultaneously incorporate and defuse… deflect our attention from Wallerstein’s message (again… without mentioning him…) [Wallerstein is straightforward and honest about the capacity of ‘the system’ to generate profits… – see “Wallerstein’s ‘Heads Up!’” in “Occupying Our Commons”])
…with economist Richard Wolff promoting his most recent work on how to ‘save’ capitalism… or ‘the system’… or ‘prevent system decline’ (he calls his efforts different things at different times… consistent only in never defining them…)
…and given that he’s speaking locally and there will likely be a chance for him to respond to questions… I’ve composed a few… (and these are terse in the extreme but we’ll be expanding on this theme in the page I’m developing: Founding & Realizing A Test Site – not modeled on ‘democracy’… but on freedom – Premised On “Leisure IS Happiness…)
1. Where does ‘wealth’ come from?
2. Who controls the resources of the earth?
3. Do you propose to alter this existing imbalance (bias) in the ownership and / or control of these resources?
4. Does not this imbalance continuously compound and so reproduce itself?
5. You admit that so-called ‘economic growth’ leads to growing inequality. Do you also admit that it leads to ecosystem collapses… ocean death… contaminated water… particulate matter in our air… resource-wars… the erosion of our health…? And if so, given that the privatization trends that produce this contamination and destruction are entrenched and growing… why do you premise your analysis on the need to produce ‘economic growth’? What is your unit of analysis? Who do you serve… the U.S. state… or the earth? Is ‘power’ global? (Ok… these are several inter-laced questions…)
6. Given increasing privatization… and given shrinking resources due to over-consumption (increasing privatization…) reducing the need for ‘hand labor’… and given increasing use of automation technology to replace the need for people… i.e. given that the rapidly falling ‘workforce participation rate’ is not a temporary ‘downturn’ but reflects deep structural trends which result in less need for our ‘work’… how do you propose to ‘manage’ we ‘structurally displaced’ people? Do you acknowledge these trends? If so… how do you propose to address them? Are you concerned about all people or just U.S. ‘citizens’ (if them….) Are you proposing ‘socialism’? If so, where? in the U.S. or globally? How do you define it? If this is your goal… how do you think we should get there?
7. If you would ‘employ’ us in so-called ‘democratic businesses’… where would the wealth you would use to ‘pay’ us come from?
8. If your father wanted you to “develop your intellectual capacity”… isn’t that what all of us should be allowed to do… just as you do? Do you really think people struggling to survive can do this? Don’t we deserve this too?
9. Why should we want a ‘share’ of our enslavement?
All Richard Wolff is really saying is that he wants to lock the existing imbalance in place by defusing our growing determination to recreate society itself by ending privatization and building a world in which we grant ourselves full… self-determining… access to ourselves… and our gifts.
10. In short… he wants us to settle (again…) will anyone ask him: “why?”
Richard Wolf is a good example of how pundits stride shamelessly into extreme illogic… and use speed of delivery… and quick-shifts-in-subject… to confuse and off-balance his listeners. He blasted from one set of conflicting statements to the next at breakneck pace… never allowing us time to get a good look at what he was saying and so to probe… before blowing on.
Authentic discussion of ‘the economy’ – straightforward… honest… terms carefully defined… based in the earth – advances our understanding. The opposite is intended to make us feel stupid. Wolff often uses patronizing expressions like, “let me try to explain it to you in simple terms…” and “for folks who don’t understand I’ll try to explain…”
So… please do… explain it to us Professor… explain all of it… especially the last bit….
If struggling to survive… if never having time to grow our gifts and become soul-size… as we’re meant to… isn’t good enough for you… why… in the midst of plenty… in the midst of abundance born of our blood and love… after millennia of unrequited service… how on earth can you imagine… that our continuing in harness… is all that we deserve?
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(Continuing examination of “what is ‘democracy’…” can be found at: Founding & Realizing A Test Site – not modeled on ‘democracy’… but on freedom – Premised On “Leisure IS Happiness…
(See also: “Reclaiming Our Stolen Gifts… Our Leadership… To Establish A Future Based On Distributed Generation” and You Know How I Know 'Localization' or 'Democratic Economics' Is A Con? and Conversation with Joel McIver)
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