Why capitalism has failed ...

monosharp

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7382297202053077236&hl=en

Interesting talk by Richard Wolff, an American economist.

Makes sense to me

nyarlothothep

I like the bit where he talks of workers owning the means of production and being more productive for it. Its an historical fact and this is the way it should go across all levels of society.

monosharp

But things won't change and people won't listen because at the end of the day, people put up with the few elite making millions off the backs of others because they dream of being those elite.

Greed breeds greed and people refuse to change.

Flamed Diving

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I like the bit where he talks of workers owning the means of production and being more productive for it. Its an historical fact and this is the way it should go across all levels of society.

Private ownership. aka shareholders. Yup, its the way to go alright.

nyarlothothep

hmmm, yes social inertia is a problem, however people do change, societies have shifted radically in the past 200 years to become more egalitarian. For example if the majority of people were inherently domineering then the civil rights movement in America would have failed completely, but this isn't the case, granted there is still institutional racism but progress has been made as a result of it. Hence social attitudes are malleable.

The way I see it the presence of the elite is an historical problem. The concept of an end of history is beyond the absurd. Humanity is a work in progress as I see it. I believe there is a weak link between rising prosperity due to technological advancement and education with increased calls for social justice. In addition to environmental pressures I think our survival depends on a sustainable system based on concepts of equality and empathy, as opposed to what we've have now which is basically continuous growth/profit with social externalities ignored which inevitably blew up.

Human nature is extremely contentious but its interesting culturally that its equated to being greedy or elitist, almost as if we have a collective psychological problem with nature itself, which seems evident if you look at the literature/films etc that society produces (though thats another matter).

silverharp

I cant say I found it very informative, the first half as just a long winded way of saying things used to be good for US workers since the 70's incomes have stagnated, nothing new there , everyone knows that.
He didnt deal with the anti big gov. arguments, he seemed to imply that the arguments were so obvious that everyone could predict that big gov. causes problems.
Any finally that the trendy IT startup business model is the way to go, that has a very limited application