Wolff Responds: 'The Unspoken Economic Realities Of Elections' Pt. 3 September 4, 2024

Today's "Wolff Responds", Professor Wolff continues his discussion from last week on the lack of an honest discussion by both Vice President Harris and Former President Trump on the state of the economy.

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[patriciacvener]

What I don't understand is, why are we still putting up with this. Here's one answer: the better remunerated upper employee class (lawyers, doctors, full professors, etc) note how much better off they are than the rest of us and are thankful that their masters have included them. Instead of being mature humans, they are happy to be "cared for" (fairly comfortably) by the employee class.

[nicollaney]

Our poetic system isn’t exactly a democracy and average people don’t exactly have equal say as wealthy people because of the flood and lax campaign finance system that allows unlimited money to influence, politicians, and that system has pretty much legalized bribery and those wealthy people have been able to get away with legally, bribing politicians and other officials to shape the laws and regulations to benefit them at the expensive everyone else.

[losangelesnefastvs]

4:45 "Hi. I'm calling about your expired insurance..."

[Darkmatter]

His point is that employees SHOULD be given a share of the business, so they have a skin in the game. That is what Huawei is doing. The founder of the company has .83 % of the shares (not a publicly traded company) and the employees have the other 99%. That's why Huawei, despite all the efforts by the US government to destroy it, is succeeding and making progress at breakneck speed. It is virtually unstoppable now.

[nouvang]

I say leave it the way it is. Everyone has a chance to learn and build their own corporation. Everyone has a chance to build their own corporation. Corporation raise, fall, and new croporation are born. You might be the next light to help build the world.

[fatcatdog]

I admire Professor Wolff .. wish he would lighten up on me a lil. Bit ….I have a small carpentry business.. me and 2 employees..
not all bosses oppress the workers. 😢

[charlesmclemore]

They don’t change the system because they use the same system.

[whenderson]

How is it democracy when people have a vote once in 4 Y while big business has access to government rep 365 D of the Y.

[Ronna]

I am currently researching and trying to understand Marx, socialism, and communism and have listened to several of his interviews, presentations, and debates at this point. His abrasiveness, perpetually condescending and angry tone, his refusal during debates to say one kind word to his opponents who are also experts and scholars (contrasted with many of debaters that have started out acknowledging his expertise and thanking him for appearing) is extremely off-putting. Perhaps its frustrating to spend a lifetime trying to persuade people of what he so firmly believes is a better way to organize society, I get it. But he also confirms some of the stereotypes about those who espouse, in essence, an "eat the rich" philosophy. Nothing but bitterness, envy, resentment....To those of us who have never considered anything beyond capitalism, it is already difficult to wrap our minds around a different way of thinking. Wolff is an expert in this field, and what he has to say is valuable. But I wonder how much more successful he would have been if he didn't sound like a bitter, resentful, angry old man in spite of being one of the lucky few on this planet: living in the USA, having received what is arguably the most elite education a person can have, and doing something meaningful and purposeful with his life.

[jamesruscheinski]

focus on God free will sovereignty for divine central authority unity

[Nemesisnxt]

Just so all the followers know, if you are an employee and want to me an employer, you can. You can absolutely do that. It takes hard work and lots of risk, but you can do it. Entrepreneurs do it all the time. Some fail, some succeed.

[fps]

It's not the business owner fault. It's the government fault for their high taxes, permits, low minimum wage, high social costs, etc. Please be clear and don't blame the business entrepreneurs who put their money and gamble into this economic system.

[jdcjr]

There's something to be said for being consciously simple-minded.

[taramaclaird]

Will you start the new political party that will change this?

[Nemesisnxt]

It’s un-dem-o-crat-ic because it’s pr-i-vate. If you want to start and run a dem-o-crat-ic company, nothing is stopping you. 😂

[MrNelsonThall]

So Mr. Wolff. As an investor in a business. If I own 51% of the capital stock. And my partner has 49% of the capital stock. You are asking me to include labourers who have no “skin in the game” to be involved in the decision-making. So if for instance my 1, 000 labourers select a leader and I allow him to sit on the Board of Directors now making a Board of three persons. You think that that makes it more democratic. American Capitalism is totally democratic because the Board of Directors is made of those who have “skin in the game.” Your Marxist argument is actually non-democratic. The votes should be with people who believe in the company enough to invest their money and purchase voting stock. A fair example of what you would like is for example, let’s allow non-Americans to vote in Federal Elections. Otherwise by your standards there is no democracy. What you are proposing is idiocy because it is totally impractical. Even the labourers would not go for it if all of a sudden they came into some money and started a company. They would not form a majority of their Board with non-investors. C’mon how impractical your thoughts are. Yes I think that Capitalism needs tweaking but not your way.

[marvinmartian]

It was very funny when the phone rang and you had agreif moment of ADD

[o]

Democratisation of the workplace does very little in an world-economy, that is organised capitalistically. It only leads to a) the egoism of the collegues of one enterprise over the other. b) isn't efficient enough in most cases. c) leads to increased self-exploitation.
I'm not against it in the slightest, but in Germany we have so called "Betriebsräte" (worker's councils), that represent the workers in cooperation and have decision making power in some cases. They do an admirable job ensuring safety standards, the enforcement of contracts and make it harder for companies to lay off workers and close factories without consideration of the workers. But that's it. They're bound by a double loyalty towards the workers they represent and the company they have a responsibilty towards. This means Betriebsräte also play a considerable part in ensuring peace between employer and employee. Their shared responisibiilty leads to a shared taking blame for layoffs, rationalisations etc. Anger that otherwise would be directed towards the CEO or the system as a whole. It's origins go back to a law of the Kaiserreich that was put in place to ensure the complacancy of the German working class in the war effort. Basically the unions agreed to legalisation and cooperation in exchange for peace within the factories. Since then the law was adjusted somewhat, but the essence stays the same: workers are allowed to fight some of the most egregious outgrows of the paternal factory system in exchange less militancy within the factory within the strict boundaries of the law.
Looking at the phenomenon of the employee owned enterprises, we clearly see, that they have their value in some branches of industries. For example software development or some services. It would be a myth if one would characterise them as antisystemic or anticapitalistic. They survive because they are more efficient or more profitable than companies with a different organisational structure. They have certain advantages within certain branches. However they don't have them in others. The organisational form of the enterprise, including property relations are determined by the system and not the other way around. We clearly see that with the tendency (with many countertendencies) of capitalism to abolish slavery and feudal relations. These systems of control were characterised by long/eternal contracts. Indentured labor was part of early capitalism, but there were good reasons to move to a more profitable form of employment over time. Today we see a certain tendency towards gig employment or self employment. Companies have different forms of corparate culture. Different nations have different forms of organisation of the relationship between government and industry (See Chandler US-monopolies, German cartells, British federations). In many innovative sectors of the economy we have corporate structures, that defy classical understanding of one CEO at the top and an exclusive strategic and operative management below that. Strategic networks, mergers and acquistions, frequent buying and selling of parts of companies, irregular institutional and conractual relationships are commonplace within modern capitalism.
These issues are issues, that should haunt socialists as well. Democracy is a great thing, but it doesn't solve the issue of which parts of industry should be merged into one company and which should be split up. It doesn't solve the issue which people should have a say in which decision. The employees of a certain company might for example decide to throttle oil production due to wheather conditions. The raffineries might interpret this move as laziness on the part of the employees of the oil producers to increase their individual leisure time and in turn cut down on their effort as well. This kind of friction could affect a whole Socialist economy whithout some government oversight regardless of whether the internal structure of the individual companies is democratic or hierarchical. But government oversight comes with a cost attached to it too. First if a socialist government set quotas, that mediate the interest of the general society with the interests of the particular employees of a company then we certainly have an uneasy relationship with friction as well, that is the contradicition of the employee as an individual, the employee as an employee of a particular factory and the employee as a member of the wider general society, nationally and internationally. A contradiction that only a certain material abundance could solve reliably. For example scientists discover a new method that would improve productivity. However this method comes at the cost deskilled labor and enducing more fatigue. As an individual I would like to stick to the old method of doing things. Some of my coworkers might agree with me, some not depending on how many are affected by the change of the production method. The whole of society would see in my wish to stick to the old method of production a selfish act. On which level is there a democratic decision about the production method? How is this conflict resolved fairly. When is a democratic decision an overreach and a fascistic overreach of the general society into the life of the individual. Democracy itself doesn't have an answer to these questions.
That being said I'm all for the determinate negation of the current institutional arrangement of the capitalist mode of production. However before we can do this, we have to pay attention to the tendencies of modern capitalism and the different appearances of the relations of production. It's not enough to look at the most abstract observations of hierarchical structures. It's not enough to mention some sucessful examples of employee owned enterprises. We don't fight under the same conditions as Marx did. Our capitalism isn't the family owned factory with the paternalisitic owner at the top. The conditions of our struggle are the result of past class struggles as well as the unfolding and development of a global capitalism. The institution of organised labor, its parties as well as its unions and "Betriebsräte" are as much of an obstacle as an achievement ( the dialectics of democratic decisionmaking vs. beurocracy and technocracy included) to the struggle. The differentiation of the instititutional forms of capital is as much a chance to more autonomy and individuality as much as it is a challange to the traditional modes of collective organising of a unified working class. Our ability to shape the future, our ability to advance self-determination is dependent on our ability to navigate these contradictions consciously. Democratisation of the workplace cannot mean anything other than to empower the indiviual within their pursuit to consciously shape their environment to their subjective liking through collective and cooperative means. It cannot be percieved by the abstract notion of "one person one vote" or other formal or "objective"/external measures. But at this point, is it really democracy anymore? Marx famously doesn't really talk much about communism as true democracy. For him communism is synonymous with the association of free people.

[TrojansFirst]

Might as well vote for Trump since it doesn't matter.

[josephabbenda]

Are you still doing your loser talks in the basement of that church with losers?