'Efficient' capitalism doesn't factor in externalities, public costs - Richard Wolff

"All that "externalities" refers to are the costs of capitalist activities that capitalists don't have to count. The way it's handled in economics is there's a distinction between private costs and social costs... Now, there is a way that most people kind of get that these days, even if they're not familiar with the concept. It has to do with environmentalism... Capitalism isn't efficient and it never was because it fails to count the social costs. It only counts the private costs and those are never all of the costs." - Richard Wolff

This is a clip from Economic Update: Externalities & Capitalism's Inefficiencies
[Season 11, Episode 1]
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Learn more about Prof Wolff's NEW BOOK, "The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself," that came out mid-September, on our books page:

"Indeed, his book is so thorough, so comprehensive in its insightful analysis, that it is a practically a one-stop center for anyone who wants to understand why the year 2020 has been such a dumpster fire." - SALON

Check out Prof. Wolff's other books "Understanding Socialism" and "Understanding Marxism"
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[Worthless]

If I could sum up one idea from the video, capitalism is only efficient in the very limited framework it operates in. Once you consider all the other realities of the world it begins to fall apart

[phatdookie]

Living in Alabama, I don't think my family or friends could wrap their head around these concepts. Idk why? Maybe because of decades of indoctrination into capitalism?

[susim]

I''ve been trying to get this concept through to people for decades.

[Kain]

Capitalists: despoiling the Commons for centuries.

[jeffengel]

If you do not count people who get screwed, capitalism is great stuff. Economic mythmaking is about distracting from those people.

[jonhylow]

I can only agree. That`s really an extremely important segment.

[thegarre]

I would agree that most don’t consider social costs. There are however some capitalists who do count the social costs.

[artrock]

The best economic system that has yet to be fully deployed, but should be what the human species aims for, is a resource-based economy. Searching for the "Venus Project" will tell you everything you need to know about how it works and what it would take to get started. It may sound like "sci-fi" but we've had the technical capability to implement all of the ideas for a very long time. The only thing keeping it "locked in the basement" of ideas is human greed/ego. I do believe humans will get to that point, but we still have a lot of growing up to do as a collective before it would even make sense to try it out. Until then, Dr. Wolff has an intermediate solution that can be implemented now.

[abbeyglencircle]

I guess that you have never heard of capitalist commies or capitalist socialist. China and Vietnam are good starting points.

[AcmePotatoPackingPocatello]

Unionize the billionaires cesspool.
In so doing create a strong political base.
Read
Pyscopathic Epidemic
BY Cameron Rielly
..know the depths of depravity.

[dragonore]

Prof Wolff isn't being entirely fair here. He wants to point out the negative externalities of Capitalist development, but neglects to point out the positive benefits to the community. Yes, Prof Wolff, there are positive social benefits too. More economic development from the Capitalist means more money for the town, more money in the coffers to public schools, addiction treatment, more money for social services, etc.. Why didn't you include this in your analysis? Do you see why now we criticize you now?

[GrandmaCathy]

WTF?? That's just all kinds of wrong. 🤬🤬🤬