Is Capitalism Actually Reducing Poverty? (with Richard Wolff)

Professor Richard Wolff of the New School joins us to answer this question. You’ve probably heard that “capitalism has reduced global poverty by 90 percent.” It’s a line frequently parroted by capitalism’s most enthusiastic promoters. But there’s a problem with those claims: they’re either misleading or outright false. Wolff breaks it down.

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Thank you to Richard Wolff and his organization Democracy at Work for helping to make this video possible!

[MartyTuro]

Capitalism is when iPhone

Socialism is when no iPhone -PragerU

[Agos]

“Socialism is when you subscribe to the Gravel Institute. The more you subscribe to the Gravel Institute the more socialist it is” - Richard Wolff

[MoonatikYT]

When they say "reducing poverty", they mean "turning rural peasants into wage-labourers". That's it.

[wanderingkernel]

"Socialism is when Vezela"
- Dennis Prager

[Over-Boy]

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it's whether we provide enough for those who have little." - F.D.R

[ToddWSmith]

Richard D. Wolff is like Dennis Prager's evil twin, which of course actually means he's the good twin by definition

[Zaekyr]

If capitalism, as a system, is so great why do large banks and corporations need bailouts? Why in such a supposedly stable system do governments need to pass specific laws to support free trade?

[wormyrocks]

The animation in this is just stunning.

[completelyordinary]

“Socialism is when the government does stuff and it’s more socialism the more stuff it does, and if it does a real lot of stuff, it’s communism”
- Richard Wolff

[Spamhard]

I'm always reminded of an old cinema job i had for much of the early and mid 2000s. When i first started we were earning about £6 an hr and a ticket cost around £3-4 depending on concessions. As the years went by those ticket prices crept up, and not long before my job there ended, we were getting just over £7 an hr, but ticket prices had increased to £12-15 (sometimes nearly £20!). I worked as a projectionist in the later years, but then they decided to replace *all* the film projectors with digital projectors. They needed no man power to run, less maintenance, and required no film handling or heavy deliveries. They swore these projectors would save the company millions in running costs, and kicked out all projectionists (6 of us in total). While claiming these changes would save them money, the ticket prices still soared each year, and the workers wages barely changed in the space of a decade, while they cut jobs to run as few staff as they could, giving empoyees twice the work for the same wages.

[alima]

I was expecting videos on the different grades and types of gravel, but this is a pleasant surprise

[SirDeathDark]

The algorithm is when people comment stuff, and the more stuff people comment, the more algorithmier it is.

[atticusthegamingllama]

"Socialism is when the government does stuff. And I'm stuff." - Karl "Cultural" Marx

[fg]

Always remember when talking about poverty, we never mean that we have to produce more, so that one day we finally can feed and house everyone and to do so we need the innovative power ofcapitalism. We always mean, these people don't have enough money to buy stuff and no means of getting some.
Isn't this weird? We don't have a problem of producing enough food or raw materials to build houses, electricity lines etc. all the stuff that makes modern life easy. That would be childs play and only a task of coordinating time, workers and materials in short: a technical challenge. With capitalism we somehow have a different problem, there never seems to be enough money to undertake these tasks.

[stephaniecarrow]

Prof Wolff + the Gravel Institute = a great team!

[mateo-nici]

it’s the “socialism is when the government does stuff” guy!! anyways, the animation is stunning and the video is great

[dankuser]

Wonder why we’ve had so many economic recessions recently.

Maybe it’s our economic system.

[andersonandrew]

The rich see’s economic crises as a garage sale, that’s why investing right now will be the best decision

[tnate]

It's also important to point out that capitalism profits from poverty. From payday loans to low wage jobs, capitalists exploit the poor.

One question, sir: Do you really have a broccoli floret for a nose?

[andrewrobinson]

Socialism is when the government watches the movie “The Stuff”.