• About
  • Documentary Films
  • Index
  • Nota bene
  • Protect and Serve
  • Readings

Lumpenproletariat

~ free speech

Lumpenproletariat

Tag Archives: Dr. David Harvey

Capitalism: A Six-Part Series (2015) Directed by Ilan Ziv

19 Fri Feb 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Documentary Film, Dr. Karl Marx (1818-1883), Education, History of Economic Theory, International Trade, Marxian Theory (Marxism), Open Economy Macroeconomics, Political Economy

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

2015, accumulation of capital, accumulation of debt, Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703-1759), Ayn Rand (1905-1982), Bolshevik Revolution, Capitalism: A Six-Part Series, comparative advantage, David Hume (1711-1776), division of labour, documentary, Dr. David Graeber, Dr. David Harvey, Dr. Karl Marx, Dr. Michael Hudson, Dr. Thomas Piketty, Dr. Tristram Hunt, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Dr. Yanis Varoufakis, enclosure, fictitious capital, Flashpoints, free trade, Hernán Cortés (1485 - c. 1547), Ilan Ziv, IMF, immiseration thesis, International Monetary Fund, Karl Marx Was Right, KPFA, Kris Welch, Mary Gabriel M.A., October Revolution, Opium Wars, Pacifica Radio Network, Saturday Morning Talkies, structural adjustment, The Communist Manifesto, the credit system, the money form, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, transcript, triangular trade, UpFront, World Bank

"ProjectCensored" by Project Censored - This image has been downloaded from the website of Project Censored at www.projectcensored.org.. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ProjectCensored.png#/media/File:ProjectCensored.pngLUMPENPROLETARIAT—Free speech radio KPFA is currently holding its on-air 2016 Winter Fund Drive.  In order to encourage support for the first listener-sponsored free speech radio station and network in the nation, perhaps the planet, audio excerpts from cutting edge documentary films are often featured.  One such film is poised to be an invaluable resource for helping the general public understand the capitalist mode of production, which engulfs us all.  It presents a wide breadth of information and analyses about economics. [1]

Capitalism: A Six-Part Series (2015) was directed by Ilan Ziv and released through Icarus Films. [2]  Capitalism is celebrated as much as it is misunderstood by its proponents.  This enlightening documentary series is required viewing for all students, citizens, migrant workers, and economic refugees, as it encourages a clearer understanding of capitalism and the social relation at its core known as capital, and, therefore, more informed public decision-making toward the healthiest economic outcomes for society.

Messina

Capitalism: A Six-Part Series (2015) directed by Ilan Ziv

***

ICARUS FILMS—Capitalism has been the engine of unprecedented economic growth and social transformation. With the fall of the communist states and the triumph of “neo- liberalism,” capitalism is by far the world’s dominant ideology. But how much do we understand about how it originated, and what makes it work?

CAPITALISM is an ambitious and accessible six-part documentary series that looks at both the history of ideas and the social forces that have shaped the capitalist world.

Blending interviews with some of the world’s great historians, economists, anthropologists, and social critics (view the complete list of participants), with on-the-ground footage shot in twenty-two countries, CAPITALISM questions the myth of the unfettered free market, explores the nature of debt and commodities, and retraces some of the great economic debates of the last 200 years.

Each fifty-two minute episode is designed to stand alone, making these ideal for classroom use or as an additional resource for students:

Episode 1: Adam Smith, The Birth of the Free Market
Capitalism is much more complex than the vision Adam Smith laid out in The Wealth of Nations. Indeed, it predates Smith by centuries and took root in the practices of colonialism and the slave trade.

Episode 2: The Wealth of Nations: A New Gospel?
Adam Smith was both economist and moral philosopher. But his work on morality is largely forgotten, leading to tragic distortions that have shaped our global economic system.

Episode 3: Ricardo and Malthus: Did You Say Freedom?
The roots of today’s global trade agreements lie in the work of stockbroker David Ricardo and demographer Thomas Malthus. Together, they would restructure society in the image of the market.

Episode 4: What If Marx Was Right?
Have we gotten Marx wrong by focusing on the Communist Manifesto instead of on his critique of how capitalism works – a critique that is relevant and as penetrating as ever?

Episode 5: Keynes vs Hayek: A Fake Debate?
The ideological divide between the philosophies of John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek has dominated economics for nearly a century. Is it time for the pendulum to swing back to Keynes? Or do we need a whole new approach that goes beyond this dualism?

Episode 6: Karl Polanyi, The Human Factor
An exploration of the life and work of Karl Polanyi, who sought to reintegrate society and economy. Could the commodification of labour and money ultimately be as disastrous as floods, drought and earthquakes?

CAPITALISM is an impressive series that makes economics accessible through an interdisciplinary approach that explores the work of great thinkers, while embedding economics in specific social, political, and historical contexts. The series can be watched as a whole, but each episode also stands alone.

The series features some of the world’s top economists, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists, including Thomas Piketty, Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Nicholas Phillipson, Kari Polanyi Levitt, David Graeber, and Abraham Rotstein. View the complete list of storytellers.

“A captivating epic… a major contribution to economic and social reflection.” —Le Monde (France)

“Brings clarity to confusion, makes complexities accessible, and produces a clear narrative of a system that seems opaque to most people.” —Journal du Dimanche (France)

“Masterly… is going to revolutionize our vision of the economic world.” —La Vie (France)

“In first look CAPITALISM seems like the economics class you should have skipped…. but in a second look CAPITALISM is the seminar that you must take in the second semester … the point of view is very different and surprising, the result is an impressive, visually rich series.” —Israel HaYom (Israel)

“Should not be missed! Combines highly educational explanations of concepts, economic history and contemporary life, to create a series of documentaries, each of which it is difficult to stop watching!” —Alternatives Economiques (France)

“10 Stars! A truly captivating series that delves into history, philosophy, investigates four corners of the planet, and stimulates the viewer with a re-examination of the basic concepts that define our lives.” —Globes (Israel)

The series was chosen as one of the ten best programs in France in 2014.

Learn more at ICARUS FILMS.

***

Notes on CAPITALISM: A Six-Part Series

[Notes on Episode 1: Adam Smith, The Birth of the Free Market by Messina]

[On Adam Smith]

[David Hume]

[Amazon…rubber found by foreign resource extractors…indigenous Maijuna people, then, are enslaved and proletarianised…]

[Dr. David Graeber]

[On the barter myth]

[Romero Rios (c. 18:49)]

[Amazon…rubber found by foreign resource extractors…indigenous Maijuna people, then, are enslaved and proletarianised…]

[(c. 19:07)  Robert Boyer, economist, on the “actors who invented capitalism”]

[transforming indigenous communities, which were previously self-sufficient, into homo economicus, i.e., the process of proletarianisation]

[(c. 19:55) On the “discovery of the Americas”, which was important for the development of science and capitalism as well as the interrelations between them.]

[Yuval Noah Harari, historian]

[SNIP]

 

***

Notes on CAPITALISM: A Six-Part Series

EPISODE 4:  What if Marx was right?  [episode summary by Icarus Films]

“Paradoxically, we can’t really learn that much about socialism or communism or the future from Marx. We can learn a great deal about how capital works.” —Marx historian David Harvey

When the communist systems of the 20th century crumbled, many thought that was the end for Karl Marx as a serious thinker too. But the last few years have seen a reawakening of interest in Marx’s work – in particular for his analysis of the nature of capital and the forces it unleashes.

film still

Concentrating on commodification, alienation, and the fetishization of money and credit, WHAT IF MARX WAS RIGHT argues that Marx is more relevant now than he has been in nearly a century. Have we gotten Marx wrong by focusing on the Communist Manifesto instead of on his still-cogent critique of how capitalism works?

Featuring former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, small farm activist Vandana Shiva, economist Thomas Piketty and Marx experts Mary Gabriel and David Harvey, among others.

Episode 4: What if Marx Was Right?

*

[Working draft transcript of actual free speech radio broadcasts by Messina for Lumpenproletariat, Icarus Films, and KPFA/Pacifica Radio]

Episode 4:  What if Marx Was Right?

NARRATOR:  [3] “We were told that capitalism is the product of big thinkers and big ideas.  But is it true?  How did ideas shape our lives?  What is their relation to reality?  Can they help us understand today’s economic crisis, let alone the future of capitalism?

“[Audio of disciplined Chinese schoolchildren training and chanting in unison]  Dawn in Nanjing, China’s last surviving communist commune.  On the surface, a time warp, complete with revolutionary posters and radio news piped into the main square.  But the community claims it rediscovered Marxist values, as a defence to China’s roaring capitalism.

“In London’s financial center, Marx is unexpectedly being rediscovered here as well.”

DR. TRISTRAM HUNT: “And all of Marx’s and Engels’ warnings over the dangers of monopoly capitalism and concentrated finance have come to pass.” [4]

NARRATOR:  “And we thought he was gone forever.”

MARY GABRIEL, M.A.:  “With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism, that system of government was consigned to the dustbin of history.  And Marx was thrown out along with it.”

NARRATOR:  “So, is it possible that we’ve misread Marx?  Is it possible that his insight into 19th century capitalism has more relevance now than in past decades?  Karl Marx, housed in Trier, Germany, besieged by Chinese tourists.”

MARY GABRIEL, M.A.:  “Karl Marx was born in 1818 in the Rhineland, which is the westernmost province of Prussia.  It was an interesting part of the greater Germany because it had been occupied by Napolean.  And, so, it had been initiated in the ideas of the French Enlightenment.  And that was a milieu in which he was raised.”

NARRATOR:  “I can feel no regret, wrote a young woman to her loved one.  I shut my eyes very tightly, once again I lay close to your heart, drunk with love and joy.  A romantic love letter, like so many others.  The innocence of the early 19th century in a provincial German town.  The only difference is that the man the letter is addressed to was Karl Marx.”

MARY GABRIEL, M.A.:  “In Trier, he met Jenny von Westphalen.  She was quite a catch for Marx because he was the son of a Jewish lawyer and was, by such, a social outcast.  She was the daughter of a Prussian baron.”

DR. DAVID HARVEY:  “So, he got educated in Trier.  And, then, he went to Berlin.  I guess the expectation was that he’d go to college and be a good boy and learn law or something like that.  He was, politically, very much engaged because there was always this kind of question of:  After the French Revolution, would there be a sort of liberal democracy?  What’s going to happen to the autocratic regimes in Germany?  And so on.  So, he was kind of mixed up in all of that.”

NARRATOR:  “More than a century later, the romantic student from Trier had been transformed into the menace of western governments and capitalist countries.

[Santa Claus/Marx cartoon omitted by scribe]

“Marx had become a bogeyman, the conspirator behind every social demand.

[Santa Claus/Marx cartoon omitted by scribe]

“The reason for this radical transformation from a promising young student into a dangerous revolutionary can be found in the basement of the Trier museum, kept in a safe.  [snip]

“In that year, Europe erupted in popular revolts.  It was the moment that Marx had been waiting for after years of agitating for radical political reforms.

“A spectre is haunting Europe, opens The Communist Manifesto, the spectre of communism.  All the powers of Europe have entered into holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.”

MARY GABRIEL, M.A.:  “Unfortunately for Marx, he was always late in all of his writing.  And he didn’t publish The Communist Manifesto until after the 1848 revolts had begun.  So, he couldn’t take credit for those.  And, in fact, The Communist Manifesto was sort of lost in the revolution.  And it was only rediscovered later.”

NARRATOR:  “The story behind The Communist Manifesto did not begin at the 1848 Revolution, but in Paris five years earlier when Marx met Friedrich Engels, the revolutionary son of a wealthy industrialist.”

MARY GABRIEL, M.A.:  “They met at a Paris cafe, that was known worldwide as being a place where chess masters matched wits.  Marx and Engels spent ten days and ten nights talking.  And, at the end of that time, they came out feeling that they were completely in agreement on all things.  And a beautiful relationship was born.”

DR. DAVID HARVEY:  “Marx meeting Engels was, I think, a crucial moment.  He met somebody who was actually engaged in, or working in, the factories of Manchester and, therefore, could talk to Marx about the labour process.”

NARRATOR:  “They are worse slaves than the negros in America, wrote Engels, for they are more sharply watched.  And, yet, it is demanded of them that they shall live like human beings, shall think and feel like men.  This they can do only under glowing hatred towards their oppressors, which degrades them as machines.”

MARY GABRIEL, M.A.:  “Marx went to Manchester with Engels, for a little trip, in 1845.  He saw the people who were living in the most degraded conditions, who were building this industrial future by working in the factories.

“He saw the families that had been torn apart by the factory work, the mothers who had to give their infants opium in the morning, so they could go off to work and assume that the children were going to be drugged all day and they wouldn’t have to be cared for.  For a man like Marx, a social and political theorist, and an economic theorist, to go there would be to walk right into the laboratory of humanity, of industrial humanity.”

NARRATOR:  “While, in 1848, The Communist Manifesto was ignored, in 1917, it was the blueprint for the Bolshevik Revolution and its global ambition.”

VINTAGE USA PROPAGANDA FILM:  “You ever hear of Karl Marx?  In his mind, communism was born more than a hundred years ago.”

NARRATOR:  “Marx has now been transformed into a global threat.”

VINTAGE USA PROPAGANDA FILM:  “This is the Kremlin, a citadel of Russian communism.  Looking closer we see a public display of giant portraits of communist leaders.  Here was a new face.  But in the background was an old one—Karl Marx.”

MARY GABRIEL, M.A.:  “The Marx, that people in the 20th century, and in the 21st century, ran away from was Marx of The Communist Manifesto.  That’s the person, that, I think, capitalist governments and democracies and western governments, held up as the person who was responsible for communism and its atrocities in the 20th century.”

NARRATOR:  “So, maybe, we got it all wrong.  We focused so much on the revolutionary message of The Communist Manifesto and ignored the bulk of the document, which analysed the real revolution, that Marx wrote about—capitalism.

DR. TRISTRAM HUNT:  “Ladies and gentlemen, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the first to chart the uncompromising, unrelenting, compulsively iconoclastic nature of capitalism.  It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties, that bound man to his natural superiors and has left no other remaining nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payments.

“And it was Marx who revealed how capitalism would crush languages, cultures, traditions, even nations in its wake.  In one word, it creates a world after its own image, he wrote. [snip?]

“I would like to suggest to you that Marx has rarely seemed more relevant.  ‘Marx’s Stock Resurges on A 150-Year Tip’ was how The New York Times, The New York Times, marked the 150th Anniversary of the publication of The Communist Manifesto, a text, which more than any other, as they put it, ‘recognized the unstoppable wealth-creating power of capitalism, predicted it would conquer the world, and warned that this inevitable globalization of national economies and cultures would have divisive and painful consequences’. ”

NARRATOR:  “After the publication of The Communist Manifesto, Marx was expelled from continental Europe.  He was once again a refugee, this time arriving in London in 1849.”

MARY GABRIEL, M.A.:  “Imagine Dean Street in 1850, the year Karl Marx and his family moved into this Soho neighborhood.  The streets were teeming with refugees, people who had fled failed revolts on the Continent.  They arrived in this country, some with only the clothes on their backs, many not even speaking the language.

“Marx and his family were among the lucky.  But all they had—three adults and three children—were two rooms and an attic.  And, in those cramped quarters, Marx tried to make sense of what he had just experienced and what he saw in the streets around him.”

NARRATOR:  “And, next door, a brand new exhibition opened right at the time Marx began writing Das Kapital, an exhibition celebrating the achievements of the industrial revolution.”

MARY GABRIEL, M.A.:  “It was a triumph of industry.  Man’s greatest achievements were on display.  And, so, this was the dawn of a new era.  King Capitalism was on the throne.  And, yet, Marx, up in his garret, was busily scribbling why this system would never work.  Yes, it produced wonders.  But it would also produce great destruction.”

DR. DAVID HARVEY:  “I teach Marx.  And a question I always ask is:  What can we learn from Marx?  And what do we have to do for ourselves?  And I think that that’s a very important question to ask because very frequently, in the past, people have read their Marx and then sort of, I don’t know, plunked reality into it and, then, said:  Ah! Here’s the answer!  I don’t think you can do that.  I think there’s only a limited set of things we can learn from Marx.

“Paradoxically, we can’t really learn that much about socialism or communism or the future from Marx.  We can learn a great deal about how capital works.”

NARRATOR:  “The wealth of societies, in which capital modes of production prevail, presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities.  Our investigation must, therefore, begin with the analysis of a commodity.  —Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume 1.

[Audio of 1950s-ish idyllic home life omitted by scribe]

“A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside of us, a thing, that by its properties, satisfies human wants.  —Das Kapital.

[Audio of 1950s-ish idyllic home life omitted by scribe]

DR. DAVID HARVEY:  “Now, what Marx does in Volume 1 of Capital is have a little section called The Fetishization of Commodities.  And what it, basically, means is that our daily experience doesn’t actually give us all of the information we need to understand how the system is working.

“Our daily experience is we take some money and we buy a commodity.  We take it home.  That’s our daily experience.  But that doesn’t tell you anything about the labour, that went into the commodity.  It doesn’t tell you anything about why it is that this commodity costs twice as much as that commodity.  And Marx is kind of saying:  The market system disguises all of those social relations.”

NARRATOR:  “There are many different commodities with different use-values.  But they have only one common property left, that of labour itself.  —Das Kapital.

DR. DAVID HARVEY:  “The Industrial Revolution, which we conventionally date from around 1780 was founded upon the creation of a factory system with large-scale machinery and, of course, a labour process, that was very different from that which artisans, in making there cabinets and so on, engaged in.

“This conversion and this rise of capitalism, from 1780 onwards, was for Marx a crucial transformation.”

NARRATOR:  “The worker is related to the product of labour, as to an alien object.  The more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects, which he creates, the poorer he himself, his inner world, becomes.  —Karl Marx

“This iPad worker, who has asked for his identity to be hidden, has been given a camera to film his life outside the factory.  Once these workers were peasants, with a connection to the land and its products.  Now, they are part of an assembly line.  Alienation, argued Marx, is built into the manufacturing process of commodities.”

DR. DAVID HARVEY:  “To Marx, it’s the idea of living labour, which is so crucial, which distinguishes him very much from the classical political economists, who saw labour, as a fact of production.  They call it a factor of production.  It’s a thing.”

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

***

UPDATE [28 FEB 2016]—Gonzo:  Thanks to KPFA’s Kris Welch for mentioning Lumpenproletariat.org and reading from our website during the last nine minutes of her Saturday Morning Talkies broadcast for Saturday, 27 FEB 2016 (c. 1:51:55).  It was through KPFA that I found out about the University of Missouri-Kansas City and other radical, heterodox economics departments; so, to KPFA I am indebted.  And it is with KPFA/Pacifica Radio, first and foremost, that I endeavour to share what I have learned about heterodox economics, political economy, and life under the capitalist mode of production. [5]

Gonzonian regressions aside, here is a list of radio broadcasts featuring excerpts of Ilan Ziv‘s Capitalism: A Six-Part Series for those interested in listening and, thereby, learning more about the capitalist mode of production, but are unable to afford purchasing or getting a copy of the Six-Part Series as a thank-you gift for donating to KPFA. [6]

  • Fund Drive Special: Capitalism, 4 MAR 2016, 15:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast features two excerpts (c. 5:00; c. 21:00) from Episode 1: Adam Smith, The Birth of the Free Market.  (N.B.: KPFA usually removes audio archives of Fund Drive special programming, such as this one, two weeks after initial radio transmission.)
  • Special Programming: Capitalism Special, 4 MAR 2016, 11:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included four excerpts (c. 4:00; c. 22:00; c. 37:00; c. 47:00) from Episode 2: The Wealth of Nations: A New Gospel?  The four excerpts broadcast during this hour were based on the same selected, edited, excerpts, as broadcast on UpFront (for 3 MAR 2016, 07:00 PDT, see notes below).  (N.B.: KPFA usually removes audio archives of Fund Drive special programming, such as this one, two weeks after initial radio transmission.)
  • Hard Knock Radio, 3 MAR 2016, 16:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast was a re-run of the Hard Knock Radio broadcast for 22 FEB 2016.  (See notes below.  Excerpt start times have shifted because the News Headlines are new.)  The first two excerpts (c. 10:12; c. 24:48) from Episode 3: Ricardo and Malthus: Did You Say Freedom? addressed the work of David Ricardo (1772 – 1823) and Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 – 1834) and the consequent implications for modern institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank, and featured analyses from Dr. Michael Hudson, et al.  This radio broadcast also included an excerpt (c. 49:54) from Episode 4: What If Marx Was Right?  (N.B.: Hard Knock Radio usually removes audio archives two weeks after initial radio transmission.)
  • UpFront, 3 MAR 2016, 07:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included four excerpts (c. 10:16; c. 26:16; c. 37:23; c. 48:05 ) from Episode 2: The Wealth of Nations: A New Gospel?, on the obfuscated aspects of Adam Smith‘s work (1723 – 1790), particularly his foundational text, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which informs his more famous Wealth of Nations (1776).  For example, in the first excerpt (c. 10:16) Dr. Noam Chomsky reminded us that, rather than uncritically accepting the division of labour, Adam Smith “points out that division of labour is monstrous” because it “turns people into creatures as stupid and ignorant as a person can possibly be because a person just becomes a machine.  That’s a terrible attack on fundamental human rights.  And, therefore, [Adam Smith] says, in any civilised society, the government’s gonna have to intervene to prevent division of labour.”  Similarly, another distortion made by most economics textbooks, ascribes an Ayn Randian Virtue of Selfishness to Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, which is antithetical to Smith’s actual moral philosophy.  “Self-interest, his second most quoted principle, suffered a similar fate [as did Smith’s analysis of the division of labour].”  Adam Smith’s conception of self-interest was corrupted by historical revisionists to serve the aims of capital at the expense of the working classes and the general welfare.  In the second excerpt (c. 21:18), the complex aspects of Adam Smith’s notion of self-interest are parsed and expanded beyond the narrow Ayn Randian Virtue of Selfishness predicated upon illusory perceptions.  These false perceptions fail to see the interconnected and interdependent nature of human social relations.  Indeed, Ayn Rand is cited in the documentary film, as promoting a 21st century “philosophy of self-interest”, which helped fuel the Reagan and Thatcher political revolutions.  This right-wing backlash overturned the previously established social contracts in the USA and the UK, largely based on Keynesian state interventions and regulations, which recognised the reality of human interdependence.  Another distortion of Smith’s philosophy made by his misguided proponents regards the so-called invisible hand of the free market.  Indeed, your author, having read The Wealth of Nations several times, can assure readers that Smith uses the actual phrase “invisible hand” maybe two or three times in the entire tome.  When Smith’s proponents cite Smith’s concept of the invisible hand, it’s invariably taken out of context.  As Noam Chomsky points out:  “Adam Smith was concerned that, if there was free movement of capital and free import of goods, he said England will suffer because British capitalists will invest abroad, and they’ll import from abroad, and that’ll harm the English economy.  Adam Smith, then, gave an argument—and not a very good argument—but his argument was that English investors will prefer to invest in England because of what some called a home bias.  They’ll have a preference for investing close by.  And, therefore, as if by an invisible hand, England will be saved from the menace of free capital movement and the free imports.  That’s invisible hand.  What’s that gotta do with the Cato Institute or modern enthusiasm about free capital flow and having U.S. corporations invest in China, so they can send stuff back here to sell cheap, exploiting Chinese workers?  That’s not Adam Smith.”  In the third excerpt (c. 37:23), the distortions and obfuscations of Adam Smith’s work are shown to have contributed to the Global Financial Crisis (c. 2008).  During a 2009 Congressional hearing on the Global Financial Crisis, Ayn Rand disciple, Alan Greenspan (then-Chair of the Federal Reserve System, the USA’s central bank), had to answer for the failure of his neoclassical invisible hand assumptions, by which he promoted financial deregulation:  “I found a flaw in the model, that defines how the world works, so to speak.” (Cf. The Flaw (2011))  In the fourth excerpt (c. 48:05), the intellectual foundations of slavery are explored, which are also the intellectual foundations for neoclassical economics and the central assumptions justifying capitalist modes of production.  “One of the first to identify the intellectual foundations, on which slavery was built—the ability to separate economic logic from social and human reality [a central requirement for neoclassical economics, but not heterodox economics]—was a contemporary of Adam Smith, a former slave, and a philosopher, too.”  His name was Anton Wilhelm Amo (1703-1759).  Unfortunately, his ideas were, literally, burned and obfuscated, whilst a revisionist take on Adam Smith’s ideas were touted as gospel.
  • Special Programming: Capitalism, 2 MAR 2016, 11:00 PDT.  Notes pending.  Hour-long broadcast.  (N.B.: KPFA usually removes audio archives of Fund Drive special programming, such as this one, two weeks after initial radio transmission.)
  • Letters and Politics, “Capitalism: The Six-Part Series“, 2 MAR 2016, 10:00 PDT.  Notes pending.  Hour-long broadcast.
  • Flashpoints, 1 MAR 2016, 17:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included excerpts from Episode 1: Adam Smith, The Birth of the Free Market.  Notes pending.
  • Uprising, 1 MAR 2016, 08:00 PDT.  Notes pending.  Hour-long broadcast.
  • Against the Grain, 29 FEB 2016, 12:00 PDT.  Notes pending.  Hour-long broadcast.
  • Saturday Morning Talkies, 27 FEB 2016, 09:00 PDT.  Notes pending.  Hour-long broadcast.
  • Special Programming: Capitalism, 26 FEB 2016, 11:00 PDT.  Notes pending.  Hour-long broadcast.  (N.B.: KPFA usually removes audio archives of Fund Drive special programming, such as this one, two weeks after initial radio transmission.)
  • UpFront, 25 FEB 2016, 07:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included four excerpts (c. 8:12; c. 24:55; c. 36:25; c. 46:05) from Episode 6: Karl Polanyi, The Human Factor.  The first excerpt (c. 8:12) features Dr. Michael Hudson on Karl Polanyi (The Great Transformation) and history of economic thought.  The second excerpt features Dr. Yanis Varoufakis and Dr. Michael Hudson (UMKC) on ancient economic history and ancient economic planning, such as land redistribution and debt annulment, the clean slate.  Dr. Hudson.  The third excerpt features Dr. Yanis Varoufakis and Dr. Michael Hudson (UMKC) on ancient economic history, clean slate, land redistribution, and debt annulment.  Dr. Hudson emphasised that most ancient transactions were governed by the state or the church, which gave the issuers of the currency monetary sovereignty.  This is a central concept in MMT (or modern money theory or modern monetary theory), which is taught at the heterodox economics department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City:  The issuer of a given currency has monetary sovereignty.  This meant that debts of the poor could be forgiven periodically to correct societal imbalances, which may develop over time.  The trouble came when most debts in society were owed to private banks.  Private debt wasn’t as easily forgiven, as debt controlled by a church or a crown.  The narrator raises several fascinating questions.  When did debt become a purely economic issue?  Dr. Yanis Varoufakis reminded us that economic desperation could lead societies down a path like that of Nazi Germany, or other fascist outcomes.  The fourth excerpt features Dr. David Graeber on the traditional supremacy of debt.
  • Letters and Politics, 24 FEB 2016, 10:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included two extended excerpts (c. 7:19; c. 21:22) from Episode 1: Adam Smith, The Birth of the Free Market, featuring David Graeber, et al., on the myth of the barter economy, reciprocity, and more.  In this first extended clip (c. 7:19), Dr. David Graeber challenged the standard narrative about the origins of capitalism by placing them centuries before the industrial revolution, in the context of colonialism and slavery.  Dr. Graeber argues that Hernán Cortés, the Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition, which led to the demise of the Aztec Empire, drove his troops into debt via his company store.  Rather than offer debt forgiveness, Cortés gave indebted troops a “ten year moratorium” and sent them out to colonise and pillage the Americas in order to repay their debts.  So, their outrage, argued Dr. Graeber, combined with virtually “unlimited power turned them into monsters.”  In this process of Spaniard looting of natural resources, the extraction of silver from the Americas flooded into Spain, driving demand for English wool, “which made raising sheep more profitable.”  English peasants were, then, “displaced to make room for more sheep.  The process was called enclosure.” (c. 15:55)  In this narrative of early capitalist modes of production, we clearly see how wealth accumulation in one part of the world led to the displacement, poverty, and immiseration of working classes in another part of the world.  This riveting narrative emphasises the interconnectedness of global capital and the serious consequences resulting from the decisions of capitalists driven purely by profit motive commanding capital flows.  In the second extended excerpt (c. 21:22), the origins of capitalism were placed in the context of the slave trade and its importance in creating early global markets, which are “disembodied from society”.  Early private enterprises engaged in “triangular trade” “contributed to the emergence of a market economy”.  Triangular trade was “increasingly dependent on black slavery”, but Adam Smith’s canonical narrative chose to “turn a blind eye to slavery”.  Slave plantations were profit-driven enterprises and functioned in every way, as capitalist enterprises with the sole exception of utilising slave labour instead of wage labour.  Thus, “a strong case can be made that capitalism actually started in the 16th century with the colonisation of the Caribbean and Latin America.” (c. 30:00)  This radio broadcast also included two excerpts (c. 34:30; c. 45:21) from Episode 4: What If Marx Was Right?  The first excerpt (c. 34:30) contextualised the life and times of Dr. Karl Marx and his pivotal friendship with Friedrich Engels.  The second excerpt (c. 45:21) fleshed out the concepts introduced earlier in the historical accounts of colonialism and slavery.  Dr. David Harvey explained that the accumulation of capital is always accompanied by the accumulation of debt.  The money form exists in tandem with the credit system, which leads to the fetish of commodities and a dialectical relationship between commodities and human behaviour.  Long-held values, morals, and ethics are obliterated by the fetish of commodities.  Actor Angelina Jolie and her publicised case of breast cancer is cited as an example.  Today, genes are patented, whereas in the past such notions would’ve seemed absurd to the prevailing norms of yore.  Such are the revolutionary forces unleashed by capitalist modes of production, as Dr. Karl Marx brilliantly observed long ago.
  • Uprising, 23 FEB 2016, 08:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included two excerpts (c. 10:04; c. 29:05) from Episode 3: Ricardo and Malthus: Did You Say Freedom?, featuring Dr. Michael Hudson (UMKC), Dr. David Graeber, et al., and addressing the IMF and the World Bank.  This radio broadcast also included an excerpt (c. 44:48) from Episode 4: What If Marx Was Right?, featuring Dr. David Harvey (CUNY), et al., on the fetishism of commodities.
  • Hard Knock Radio, “Capitalism 101“, 22 FEB 2016, 16:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included two excerpts (c. 9:25; c. 24:00) from Episode 3: Ricardo and Malthus: Did You Say Freedom?, which addressed implications for modern institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank and featured clips from Dr. Michael Hudson (UMKC), et al.  This radio broadcast also included an excerpt (c. 49:21) from Episode 4: What If Marx Was Right?  (N.B.: Hard Knock Radio usually removes audio archives two weeks after initial radio transmission.)
  • UpFront, 19 FEB 2016, 07:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included two excerpts (c. 8:40; c. 25:27) from Episode 3: Ricardo and Malthus: Did You Say Freedom?, featuring Dr. Michael Hudson (UMKC), Dr. David Graeber, et al., and addressing David Ricardo‘s notion of comparative advantage, the origins of free trade dogma, the Opium Wars, colonialism, imperialism, and consequent implications for contemporary working classes and institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank.  This broadcast also included two excerpts (c. 37:56; c. 45:18) from Episode 4: What If Marx Was Right?, featuring Dr. David Harvey (CUNY).
  • Flashpoints, 18 FEB 2016, 17:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included an excerpt (c. 21:38) from Episode 4: What If Marx Was Right?, featuring Dr. David Harvey (CUNY).
  • Letters and Politics, 18 FEB 2016, 10:00 PDT.  This hour-long radio broadcast included two excerpts (c. 18:45; c. 30:54) from Episode 4: What If Marx Was Right?, featuring clips from Dr. David Harvey (CUNY) discussing fictitious capital. This broadcast also included an excerpt (c. 41:36) from Episode 5: Keynes vs Hayek: A Fake Debate?

Messina

***

[1] And, most impressively, it is very consistent with my university training as an economics major at one of the world’s finest, radical, heterodox economics departments, University of Missouri-Kansas City.

“Where is the best new economics now being done?  UMKC.”  —James K. Galbraith

[2]  Previously it had only been made available to educational institutions for $498.  Currently, it can be acquired at an extremely discounted price with a donation to KPFA/Pacifica Radio.

[3]  This particular audio excerpt was transcribed from the Flashpoints (94.1 FM, KPFA, Berkeley, CA) broadcast for Thursday, 18 FEB 2016, c. 21:38, hosted by Dennis Bernstein.

[4]  For an extended video clip of this soundbite, see “Tristram Hunt: Marx Was Clear About the Consequences of Capitalism”, by IQ Squared on YouTube:

Or for those with true grit, or an insatiable hunger for knowledge, consider the entire debate, entitled “Karl Marx Was Right“:

[5]  But it’s not easy.  Perhaps one is married with children, and still trying to persevere with a dignified measure of civic engagement, and not just shrivelling up under the pressure of putting food on the table and being there for loved ones uninterested in, or wary of, civic engagement.  But we keep on pushing in whatever capacity we can, hoping to build bridges with other people of conscience interested in truths, however brutal or emancipatory, rather than endless escapism and frivolity.

[6]  All others with means, please consider supporting free speech radio in all of its manifestations and permutations.  It cannot be understated that democracy cannot function without an informed electorate.  And there is truly nothing more informative in the public realm than honest listener-sponsored free speech radio and broadcast media.

***

[19 FEB 2016]

[Last modified 20:05 PDT  26 SEP 2016]

Save

Save

Save

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

Why We Can’t Afford the Rich: A Conversation with Dr. Andrew Sayer

22 Tue Dec 2015

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Political Economy, Social Theory

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Against the Grain, class war from above, Dr. David Harvey, Emmanuel Saez, finance, financialisation, Gar Alperovitz, global labour movement, globalisation, Henry George (1839-1897), Interwar Period, KPFA, Marxian economics, Milton Friedman, New Deal, Pacifica Radio Network, Professor Andrew Sayer, rentier capitalism, The Moral Significance of Class, Thomas Piketty, transcript, unearned income, University of Lancaster (UK), Why We Can't Afford the Rich, worker co-ops, worker self-directed enterprises, WWII

We Can't Afford the Rich by Andrew SayerLUMPENPROLETARIAT—In an encore broadcast, author and professor, Andrew Sayer [1] has joined free speech radio’s Against the Grain to discuss his 2014 book, Why We Can’t Afford the Rich.  Host Sasha Lilley guides Professor Sayer through a thoughtful discussion including the accumulation of wealth “without contributing to the production of goods and services”, or “unearned income”.  “You can get money simply by virtue of power stemming from control of assets,” emphasised Dr. Sayer, responding to questions about the dreaded rentier class.  Listen (or download) here.

Messina

***

AGAINST THE GRAIN—[22 DEC 2015]  “Today on Against the Grain:  Are the rich wealth creators, as we commonly hear?  Should we be grateful to investors and entrepreneurs, as they like to be called, for generating jobs and greasing the wheels of the economy?  Or is the source of their massive wealth the rest of us?  I’m Sasha Lilley.  In this encore broadcast, I’ll speak with scholar Andrew Sayer about rentiers, capitalists, and why we can no longer afford the rich.  That’s following these news headlines.”

[News Headlines omitted by stenographer]  (c. 6:28)

“From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California, this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.

“The world’s richest 85 people own as much as the poorest half of the world’s population.  That is as much as 3.5 billion people.  46% of the world’s wealth is owned by just one percent of the world’s population.  In the United States, the top 1% owns 35% of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 40% owns just 0.2%.

“Yet, as Andrew Sayer asserts, it’s not a mystery how the rich have become so rich.  My guest, today, argues that, despite their self-description as wealth creators, the rich are, in fact, wealth extractors.  In his book called Why We Can’t Afford the Rich (published by the University of Chicago Press), Sayer argues that the richer people are, the more their wealth comes from purely unearned sources, from property and finance, not to mention production.  His other books include The Moral Significance of Class.  And he teaches social theory and political economy at the University of Lancaster.  And he joins me now from the UK.

“Andrew Sayer, let me start by asking you, if you will, to describe the degree of inequality in our respective countries.  That is, in the US and UK.”

DR. ANDREW SAYER:  “Actually, the US and the UK have some similarities here.  And, as Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez and people like that have shown over the last century, there’s been a dramatic series of changes in the degree of inequality, especially as regards the rich and super-rich.

“And one century ago, just after the First World War, the top 1% received about 20%, or nearly 20%, of total income.  That fell in the Inter-War Period.  And in the UK fell down to about 6% of total income.  But since then—and, again, the US is the same—the rich have bounded back with the top 1% taking about 12%, now, of total income.  And more in the US.  So, the rich have made a huge come back.  And it’s, largely, at the expense of the bottom 99%, but, particularly, the bottom 90%.”  (c. 8:58)

SASHA LILLEY:  “So, how do you define the rich?  Now, you just used the term 1%, something, that came out of the Occupy Movement.  But the top 10%?  Would we consider them rich as well?  How do you define the rich?”

DR. ANDREW SAYER:  “Well, as regards the UK, looking at the last hundred years, actually, the top 1% versus the 99% has been a key dividing line because whenever the top 1% have enlarged their share of total income the 99% have lost out.  And it could have been different.  It could have been the top 5% gaining at the expense of the bottom 95% or something much more complicated.  But throughout the last hundred years, at least in the UK, there’s been a kind of hinge point around 99%.

“So, I would say the 99%, definitely, are the rich.  But the amount of variation within the top 1% is, of course, far greater than anywhere else.  They can be people with multi-billions, like Bill Gates, or people who are just getting in to the top 1% with incomes—well, in the US, just trying, roughly, to convert from pounds to dollars—they’d be getting a household income of about $250,000 to $300,000 dollars a year.

“There’s a matter of degree in it.  The richer you are, the more of the problem it is for various reasons, which we can, no doubt, talk about.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “So, you’ve been giving us a rough sense of how we should think about the rich:  Who are they?  Whether it’s as a percentage of the population  Whether it is by income or wealth.  But I wonder if you could describe for us—who are the rich?—because, of course, the image we tend to get in the mainstream media is of celebrities, high-flying movie stars, and so on.  Are they the rich?  Or is the rich a broader group than that?”  (c. 11:02)

DR. ANDREW SAYER: “It’s not celebrities in the media, like sports stars and television and film stars.  Even someone like Steven Spielberg or Oprah Winfrey, they don’t get anywhere near the top.  They’re certainly super-rich.  But most of the super-rich we, ordinary people, haven’t even heard of.

“Okay, there are a few exceptions like Bill Gates and Donald Trump and so on, and Warren Buffett.  But most of them are known only to a few business insiders.  So, in Britain, most people haven’t heard of the top 10.  And most of them are foreign, Russian, and so on, super-rich people who  control businesses we haven’t heard of in many cases.

“The richer they are, the more their income tends to be associated with finance and real estate and the more of it is what I would call unearned income.  But, no doubt, we can talk about what that is later.”  (c. 12:03)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Sure.  One of the things, that we’ve heard about in this country is very high salaries going to, say, people in the medical profession.  And that is one group of people who are making a substantial amount.  But it sounds like what you’re saying is that, within the spectrum of the rich, those people, people, say, making $400-, $500,000 dollars a year—obviously, a lot of money—would be dwarfed by people who are on the top echelons of the 1%, so to speak, whose income or, more significantly, wealth would be substantially more.”

DR. ANDREW SAYER: “Absolutely.  Certainly, key medical consultants and other people who have very specialist skills, but also power that goes with that, can leverage themselves very high salaries.  There’s no doubt about that.  But they tend to be in the bottom half of the top 1%, if you see what I mean.  But, to get into the top half, you really need other sources of income, like financial securities and the income, which they give you, bonds and shares, derivatives, and so on, and also property, capital gains, and such.

“Any get-rich book will tell you that the best way to get rich is not simply by working hard.  And, in fact, maybe you don’t need to work hard.  It’s by getting access to financial assets, which will yield you lots of unearned income.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “Right.  And we will be talking a lot more about that.  In fact, that’s sort of the centerpiece of your book:  How are the rich rich?  But before we get to that, let me ask you:  How do the rich spend their money?  Because that has a significant role, not just simply as an individual question—how a certain person may spend the money, that they have—but it actually has a societal impact.”

DR. ANDREW SAYER: “Yeah.  Well, if you’re a billionaire, then it’s very difficult to spend all your income.  At least, it is hard to spend it on things you’ll actually get to use in a typical year.  For example, you may have four of five houses in different parts of the world.  And you’re unlikely to be able to stay in any of them for more than a short period.  But the more you get, the less you can use them, the less point in having them.  And maybe a couple of private jets would be useful.  But any more than that is a complete waste.  And, likewise, trying to get a bigger yacht than the next billionaire will take several hundred million, perhaps.  But, if you’re a billionaire, that’s not making much impression on your wealth.  So, what they do with most of their wealth is just reinvest it and seeking further sources of capital gains.  The might invest in property, not in order to live, but just to take advantage of the inflation of its value.

“So, once you get into the multi-millions, it becomes harder and harder to spend on things, which you’ll actually use.  In other words, it’s money beyond purpose, in a way.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “Andrew Sayer is my guest.  He’s the author of Why We Can’t Afford the Rich.  You’re listening to Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  And I’m Sasha Lilley.

“So, then the question, which you touched—you mentioned the rich have not always been as rich, as they are now; and if you look at the early part of the 20th century, the rich were quite rich.  That, then, changed in mid-century and, then, has become concentrated again at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century.  So, can you tell us, then, why the rich are as rich as they are now?  What has happened?”  (c. 15:54)

DR. ANDREW SAYER: “In the 1920s, the Interwar Period, labour grew in strength.  And the political franchisement of labour meant that it had more influence.  It was more possible to tax the rich and to reduce their share, their huge share, of the national income and, also, to reduce their wealth.  Particularly with the New Deal and the Second World War, that changed economies and changed attitudes as well.

“So, for people to sacrifice themselves for the country and the war, they expected a better life when they returned from the war.  And the shift in power towards labour, particularly with the reconstruction after the war made a huge difference as well.  And we experienced in the UK, and in the US, in the late 1940s through the 1960s very high rates of marginal taxation, which young people today would scarcely believe—over 80% and over 90%, even in the US.  So, very high earners were very highly taxed.  And, yet, capitalism was very successful in that period from the late ’40s to about the very early 1970s.  That was the most successful period of capitalism, in fact.

“But capitalism also got into trouble in the sense that globalisation meant that industry could run away from well-paid labour in countries like ours to East Asia and so on.  That weakened trade unions and labour organisations.  And, also, rates of profit in rich countries were also falling in productive industries.  And, as David Harvey has argued, capital started looking for other outlets, particularly in property and in financial assets.

“And, with the liberalisation of finance in the 1970s, that gave them free rein to do so.  And, so, you had a shift away from productive capitalism, after the Second World War, and, starting in the 1970s, late 1970s, towards what I would call a rentier capitalism, in which simply controlling assets is the key way to get income, rather than investing considerably in productive investments.”  (c. 18:30)

“[transcript pending]”  (c.52:47)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Well, let’s talk about—since you’re saying these things are all tied together—the political implications of thinking about how to reduce the power of the rich.  You write that certain concrete steps a ways toward reining that power in.  What would those steps look like?”

DR. ANDREW SAYER: “Well, with rent, I would have kind of land value taxes, which have been advocated, not only by the Left, but actually by some figures on the right, like Henry George, of course.  And even Milton Friedman said a land value tax is the least bad tax.

“So, you tax away those free lunches, if you like, and return them to the public, who, effectively, paid for them.  And, where interest is concerned, that’s tied to credit, I think credit needs to be brought under democratic control, not totally, but to a significant extent, so that it is used for funding necessary productive investment, particularly in the foreseeable future with a huge emphasis upon sustainable energy—sustainable ways of living.

“As regards other forms of unearned income, I think ensuring that employees and users of products and services should be the key stakeholders, not absentee shareholders.  I mean it’s absurd that shareholders are almost the only stakeholders.  I can buy some shares in Monsanto or whatever; and the money that I pay doesn’t go to Monsanto.  It goes to the previous owner of those shares.  I’m not invested in the company at all.  But I, then, get a bit of power over what happens to Monsanto if I buy a lot.  And I get this unearned income in the form of capital gains and trading shares and dividends and so on.

“I should not be a stakeholder.  It should the employees and key users or representatives of users, as a question of justice.  But it’s also functional for the economy.  That way you’re more likely to get an economy, that’s serving the public, rather than providing a kind of disservice.”  (c. 55:13)

“And I think it’s very important that, with that, people like Gar Alperovitz have argued we need much more cooperatively organised economic organisations.  So, there, the workers really are the primary stakeholders.  And one of the attractive things about them, in a no-growth future, is that they can survive without  constantly expanding.  And they can stay at one level.

“And that will, actually, probably, mean that there’d be less competition.  And I think we need less mobility of capital.  Competition can be a good thing.  It can raise standards.  And, then, should be retained in many sectors.  But there can be competition between competing cooperatives. And, internationally, competition is a very mixed bag, in terms of its benefits.

“So, we don’t really need to re-think economies, rather than just assuming that business as usual is the only possibility.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “Well, I’m afraid we’re entirely out of time.  Andrew Sayer, thank you so much for your time.”

DR. ANDREW SAYER: “Thank you.  I’ve enjoyed it.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “I’ve been speaking with Andrew Sayer.  He’s the author of Why We Can’t Afford the Rich, published by the University of Chicago Press.  You can find a link to that book on our website, AgainstTheGrain.org.  He teaches social theory and political economy at Lancaster University in the UK.  I’m Sasha Lilley.  You’ve been listening to Against the Grain.  Thanks for listening.  And, please, tune in again next time.”

Learn more at AGAINST THE GRAIN.

[Transcript by Messina]

***

Also see AgainstTheGrain.org.

***

[1]  Andrew Sayer is professor of social theory and political economy at Lancaster University, UK.  His books include Radical Political Economy: A Critique, The Moral Significance of Class, and Why Things Matter to People: Social Science, Values and Ethical Life.

***

[Last modified  10:50 PDT  25 DEC 2015]

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

Celebrating Consumerism? The Commodity Form as an Emancipatory Force

26 Tue May 2015

Posted by ztnh in History, Macroeconomic Analysis, Open Economy Macroeconomics, Political Economy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abby Martin, Against the Grain, Against Thrift, Capital, Celebrating Consumption, communism, Dr. David Harvey, Dr. James Livingston, Dr. John Maynard Keynes, Dr. Karl Marx, exchange value, Frankfurt School, free speech radio, Joan Robinson, job guarantee programme, Keynes, Keynesianism, KPFA, Marxian economics, Marxism, MMT, Modern Money Theory, Post-Keynesianism, Robert Brenner, socialism, transcript, use value

kpfa-free-speech-take-it-back-logo-121199LUMPENPROLETARIAT—Rutgers University Professor of History, Dr. James Livingston, is the author of Against Thrift: Why Consumer Culture is Good for the Economy, the Environment, and Your Soul (Basic Books, 2011) as well as op-eds for Wired, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Christian Science Monitor.  In his book, Against Thrift, Dr. Livingston presented various controversial arguments.  Today, on free speech radio, Against the Grain (KPFA, 94.1 FM, Berkeley, CA, Pacifica Radio) broadcast a discussion with Dr. Livingston.  Listen here. [1]

Dr. Livingston challenges his readers/radio listeners to reconceptualise the commodity form as a force with emancipatory effects for humanity.  Dr. Livingston raises some interesting questions.  And, perhaps, his zeal in advocating for the power of consumerism for socioeconomic wellbeing adversely overpowers, as when he seems to advocate for marketing to children, despite its attendant perils of branding and corporations building lifetime cognitive associations in children carrying forward into adult fetishism of corporate logos and identities.

Dr. Livingston described various theories of capitalist crisis and emphasised one problem with the capitalist mode of production, in particular:

“I’m with the pro-capitalist theorists of the last century, the guys who invented the Federal Reserve, in saying:  No, it’s not these four Ms, although there’s enough truth in each, it seems to me, to warrant a careful study of these claims.  The real problem is surplus capital. [2]  That is, the real problem is the distribution of income:  Too much capital seeking too few productive outlets.  That’s the cause of the recent crisis, just as it was the cause of the Great Depression.”

This is, essentially, a Post-Keynesian argument describing low aggregate demand, or low consumer spending.  However, as Dr. Hyman Minsky (1919-1996), Dr. L.R. Wray (b. 1953) [3], and other Post-Keynesian economists have shown, Dr. John Maynard Keynes’ (1883-1941) ideas came to be distorted by others’ attempts to reconcile Keynes’ work with the extant (neo)classical economic orthodoxy or to mathematically model Dr. Keynes’ concepts as with the IS-LM model.  Joan Robinson (1903-1983), a colleague of Dr. Keynes, called these theorists who introduced Keynes’ ideas (in modified form) to the world as the Bastard Keynesians [4] because they bastardised, or debased, Keynes’ main arguments.  (Bastard Keynesians are also known, more neutrally, as the Textbook Keynesians because of their predominance in economic textbooks of the mid-20th century.)  Whereas Dr. Keynes argued for government intervention to increase consumer spending and capitalist investment as a means to stimulate economic activity, Bastard/Textbook Keynesians focused their policy prescriptions upon incentives aimed at capitalist investors, propagandised today as the job creators.  This shifted focus away from Keynes’ advocacy for public spending for job guarantee programmes, as developed during the USA’s New Deal, under the influence of Keynes’ ideas. [5]

Post-Keynesian analysis recognises that firms and corporations have no incentive to invest when aggregate demand is low.  Dr. Livingston understands this and, so, argues for a reconceptualisation of consumerism.  However, as the interviewer suggests, this approach may apply only narrowly to the already well-off middle class.  One important aspect, which Dr. Livingston seems to overlook is Modern Money Theory (MMT) as well as the economically viable, but ignored, concept of a government job guarantee. [6]

—Messina

***

AGAINST THE GRAIN—Could spending be virtuous and thrift bad? Left-wing economic and cultural historian James Livingston thinks so. He suggests — taking on the 19th century Populists, the Frankfurt School, and current economic orthodoxy along the way — that consumption is good for social justice and the environment. Livingston argues that, in place of austerity and frugality, investment should be socialized, wages increased, and the workweek.

Learn more at AGAINST THE GRAIN.

***

AGAINST THE GRAIN—”Today on Against the Grain:  Could spending be virtuous and thrift bad?  Left-wing economic and cultural historian James Livingston thinks so.  He suggests—taking on the 19th century Populists, the Frankfurt School, and current economic orthodoxy along the way—that consumption is good for social justice and the environment.  I’m Sasha Lilley.  We’ll hear my conversation with Livingston after these news headlines.”

[SNIP]

[This is a rush transcript. This transcript is currently under construction.]

[SNIP]

SASHA LILLEY:  From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California, this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.  Both, before and after the financial meltdown, the conventional wisdom about Americans has been the same: We spend too much, save too little, consume too many resources, are manipulated by advertisers, and buy a lot of junk, that ends up in massive landfills.  James Livingston wants to upend your thinking on those assumptions entirely and argue the opposite, that frugality is bad and consumption is good.  No, he doesn’t work for Madison Avenue, but, rather, is a left-wing economic and cultural historian.  He teaches at Rutgers.  And he’s written a polemic called, Against Thrift: Why Consumer Culture is Good for the Economy, the Environment, and Your Soul.”

[SNIP]

[This is a rush transcript. This transcript is currently under construction.]

[SNIP]

LILLEY:  [SNIP]  “What about this question of consumption and resources, consumption and—”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Yeah.”

LILLEY:  “—the environment.  All around us, we see the ravages of the environment.  And you make the point that humans have always been involved in shaping the environment, that we’re not some interlopers from outside.”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Right.”

LILLEY:  “And, even if we assume that’s all true—and you have me there; I agree—what about this destruction of resources by consumer capitalism?”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  (c. 48:26) “Yeah.  Well, I think that you’re absolutely right, that this is the most controversial claim in the book. [chuckles]  I can’t seem to convince anybody, not even you.  When I say, not even you, I mean it’s pretty clear that you’ve read the book very, very carefully.

“My primary example in my chapter where I talk about the environment is the food revolution.  It seems to me, since the 1970s, consumer boycotts of that industrialised food chain have changed the way we produce food, distribute food, consume food, and prepare food.  And I think that, as an environmental achievement, can’t be exaggerated.  I think that’s an extraordinary achievement.  So, that’s one way to put it.

“The other way to put it is:  If consumers have the requisite income and the proper facilities, they typically do two things:  First, they buy vehicles with better mileage, if they can, if they have the requisite income, and if the things are available.  They did it in the 1970s in an overnight switch to Japanese cars, which were, both, better built and had better mileage than American-built cars.  But I live in New York City.  If people have clean, reliable mass transit, not only will they use it, but they will use it by the millions every day.  And it will be a whole lot less destructive of the environment.

“So, in that sense, we need to rethink all of our transportation planning priorities.  And this is nothing new to you; I’m sure.  But I think consumers can lead the way and have led the way.  I mean they certainly have led the way in New York City.  Nobody drives.  I mean I own a car; but I don’t drive a whole lot.

“So, those are two examples, it seems to me, that environmental integrity can be delivered by empowered consumers.”

LILLEY:  “But that seems to run up against this issue, which is sort of an open question throughout the book around social power.  I mean consumer boycotts have worked in specific cases.  But they’re very hard to apply across the board.”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Yes.”

LILLEY:  “I mean there’s lots of controversy how effective consumer boycotts are.”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Right.”

LILLEY:  “I think the consensus seems to be that they’re not very effective.  There’s some phenomenal examples.  But they stand out as times when people put a great deal of effort into something.”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “M-hm.”

LILLEY:  “But, you know, there’s so questions around the environment and green-washing and people thinking they’re buying something that is environmentally sound.  And, then, just the scale of the problem versus—”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Yeah.”

LILLEY:  “—the impact of consumers, it’s hard to imagine that consumers, by themselves—we haven’t seen it around climate change in any big way that this is what it’s gonna take to reverse it.  And, although I think it’s interesting that you focus on the ways that the Left and others have fetishised the workplace as virtuous consumption or not virtuous, but certainly there is something about collective power in these different places, the work place is for one.”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Yeah.”

LILLEY:  “And collective power seems to be a key, yet unflagged, element in all of this when we’re talking about redistributing income and all of that.  I mean how do you see that.”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Well, I think it’s a very good point that one of the reasons that we have fetishised the workplace is that it is easier to organise people in workplaces than it is to organise consumers.  Consumer boycotts are difficult to accomplish.  But it did get done in the 1950s and 1960s by the Civil Rights Movement.  So, I think we do have historical examples whereby consumer culture can be turned to the benefit of progressive causes.

“I think Michael Pollan has a good answer to your deeper question.  And that is consumers, in the absence of wielding some leverage over producers, like for example, if consumers want better mileage in their cars, well, how do they get that if the producers aren’t—you know—if they think that lower mileage cars are more profitable and, therefore, they’re gonna produce those?

“So, yeah, the question is:  How do you concentrate social power, if you’re talking about consumers?  I think Pollan has a good answer.  And that is:  This food revolution, of which he writes so eloquently, is a way of redescribing and reconstructing a relationship between consumers and producers.  It’s putting them in closer touch and teaching—not to the extent we would like, so far—but teaching producers that it’s to their benefit to produce more healthily, to distribute less expensively, and so on and so forth.

“I think his next book will demonstrate this new relationship between producers and consumers.”

LILLEY:  “But, not just sort of throw around a left-wing sneer—”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Right. [chuckles]”

LILLEY:  “—but isn’t a lot of this really about the middle class?  I mean so many Americans now are living on the edge of poverty.”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Right.”

LILLEY:  “And they already spend all the money that they have, you know, because they need to to get by.  So, they don’t have discretionary income to say:  Well, I’m gonna put it here or I’m gonna put it there.  So, is this really, in some way, an argument limited to just one portion of society?”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “I should hope not.  Um, uh, I hope you’re wrong about that because part of the redistribution of income effect, that I argue for in the book is that if we place more income in the hands of people who are now just getting by, who live at or below the poverty line, if we can place more income in their hands, then they will have more choices when it comes to food.  And the boutique stores, you know, the Trader Joe’s, the Whole Foods, all of those places—will move into those poorer neighbourhoods where they can turn a profit, where they can actually market their brand of health food and healthier food for the poorer people as well as the middle class people.

“Paul Campbell’s book on obesity, it seems to me, speaks directly to this, that income redistribution is really the first step towards addressing what he calls the obesity myth.  He doesn’t think it’s an epidemic.  But I guess the rest of us have a little bit more doubt about it.  But income is the key to that.  And, so, without income redistribution, this food revolution, that Pollan describes so well, can’t be completed.”

LILLEY:  “When we think about abundance, shouldn’t we really be thinking about ways to expand public abundance, generally, rather than private abundance?”  (c. 55:10)

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Yeah.”

LILLEY:  “Although, you’re talking about these policy-wide ways of redistributing income, consumption seems still, by and large, to be a private thing in your book.  Correct me, if I’m wrong.”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Well, I think that that’s a fair reading of the book.  But, again, I would hope that one of the policy implications here is that we have to rethink transportation planning priorities, so, that instead of simply giving consumers better choices when it comes to the cars that they buy and commute with, we have to give consumers, commuters, better choices of mass transit.  I don’t think there’s any way around that.  We’re not going to be able to reduce our carbon footprint, as we now see it, in the absence of vaster, greater public spending on public transportation.”

LILLEY:  “James Livingston has been my guest.  He is Professor of History at Rutgers University and the author of Against Thrift: Why Consumer Culture is Good for the Economy, the Environment, and Your Soul.  That’s published by Basic Books.  And you can find a link to it on our website, AgainstTheGrain.org.  James, thank you so much for joining me.”

DR. LIVINGSTON:  “Well, thank you for having me, Sasha.  It was a pleasure.”

[All transcription by Messina]

***

[1]  “Celebrating Consumption“, Against The Grain, May 26, 2015, https://kpfa.org/episode/against-the-grain-may-26-2015/

[2]  N.B.:  Economics is a controversial field of study with contending theories vying for dominance in the academic and popular spheres of influence.  Two of the dominant categories of economic theory (Neoclassical and Keynesian) describe capital as plant and equipment (cf. fixed capital) or financial/money capital (cf. circulating capital).  In both cases, they convey the basic notion of capital, which is of an initial outlay (or investment), which yields a greater return later.  For example, an initial outlay of money capital will generate a greater amount of money later.  This is thought of as using money to make more money.  Or an initial outlay of plant and equipment, will pay for itself and generate greater returns later.  This is thought of as using tools and equipment to make more money.

However, simply thinking of capital as plant and equipment or financial capital obscures the social relations inherent in capitalist social relations.  Another major dominant category of economic theory is Marxian economics.  Marx wrote three important volumes on capital, capitalist relations, and the capitalist mode of production.  Unfortunately, it is largely left out, or censored, from most economics departments.

In the more accurate Marxian sense, capital is a social relation.  It is the constant extraction of surplus value from living labour (as opposed to dead labour, which is embodied in commodities or goods manufactured/produced through the application of living labour).  Workers are exploited through the capitalist mode of production and its wage labour social relations.  Under the capitalist mode of production (as opposed to slavery, feudal or other modes), workers are proletarianised (forced onto the grid, as it were).  Workers are a class of people with nothing of value by which to earn a living other than their capacity to work.  This makes workers dependent upon the asymmetrical power dynamics of the wage-labour social relations, whereby the capitalist owner of the means of production will never hire a worker, unless she can exploit the worker.  That is, unless she can make more money off of the worker than the worker is paid in wages.  By definition, the wage-labour social relation is a predatory one.  This is capital.  It is the theft, or appropriation, of the value produced by labour through society’s deification of property rights and capitalist ownership of the means of production.  Over time, class consciousness has eroded, especially in the USA, such that workers (even in most unions) do not perceive the inherently predatory nature of wage labour or how capital is extracted from labour.

[3]  Dr. L.R. Wray was a student of Dr. Hyman Minsky.  Dr. Wray was also one of my economics professors at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

[4]  Cf. Turgeon, Lynn (1996). Bastard Keynesianism: The Evolution of Economic Thinking and Policy-Making Since World War II. Praeger. ISBN 978-0313300240.

[5]  Also consider, for example:

  • Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, http://www.cfeps.org/
  • Levy Institute of Economics at Bard College, http://www.levyinstitute.org/topics/job-guarantee
  • Raúl Carillo, “Your Government Owes You a Job: The federal government can easily afford a job guarantee program, becoming our nation’s employer of last resort”, The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/article/179476/your-government-owes-you-job.
  • New Economic Perspectives, http://neweconomicperspectives.org/tag/job-guarantee
  • M.S., “Should the government guarantee work for everybody?“, The Economist, January 7, 2014, http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/01/jobs
  • Ned Resnikoff, “Nearly half of all Americans support job guarantee“, MSNBC, January 13, 2014, http://www.msnbc.com/all/guaranteed-job-everyone
  • Pavlina R. Tcherneva, “The Job Guarantee: Delivering the benefits that Basic Income only promises, A Response to Guy Standing”, Pavlina-Tcherneva.net, http://pavlina-tcherneva.net/TchernevaBIGvsJG.pdf
  • Michael J. Murray and Mathew Forstater, editors, The Job Guarantee: Toward True Full Employment (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013).

[6]  Ibid.

***

[Last modified 04:54 PDT  27 MAY 2015]

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
%d bloggers like this: