Podcast Summary: Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Episode: Capitalism, Corporations, and Media
Date: November 22, 2017
Host: Richard D. Wolff (A)
Guest: Laura Flanders (B)

Episode Overview

This episode critically examines the interplay between economic policy (“tax reform”), concentration of corporate power, the structure of mass media, and systemic problems including sexual harassment and economic inequality. The first half of the show features Wolff’s signature economic analysis, with a focus on the latest U.S. tax legislation, examples of corporate excess, the Detroit comeback myth, the retail crisis, escalating housing struggles, and pharmaceutical industry corruption. In the second half, Wolff interviews journalist and media analyst Laura Flanders about the evolving landscape of American media, the rise of monopoly and censorship, the potential for independent and cooperative media, and connections between hierarchical power and ongoing abuse scandals.

Key Topics & Insights

1. U.S. Tax Reform: Giveaway to the Rich and Impact on Graduate Students

(00:10 – 10:16)

• Economic Power & Lobbyists: Tax laws are crafted by politicians besieged by corporate lobbyists, resulting in outcomes favoring “the biggest, richest corporations and the richest people,” while ordinary citizens are left with crumbs.
  • Quote: “The work of defining what we pay in taxes is done by the House of Representatives and the Senate... every single one of those politicians is besieged ...by highly paid lobbyists...” (01:00)
• Estate Tax Repeal: Both House and Senate support eliminating the estate tax, benefiting only “two or three thousand of the richest families in America,” shifting the burden onto everyone else through spending cuts, higher taxes, or increased borrowing (ironically from the same rich families).
  • Quote: “When the government borrows because it hasn’t taxed rich people... it’s typically the rich people who lend to the government the money they don’t have to pay in taxes anymore.” (04:15)
• Graduate Student Taxation: The House bill proposes taxing tuition waivers, increasing financial hardship for graduate students while college affordability advances elsewhere globally.
  • “The House... has proposed taking away from graduate students the tuition waiver so.... they will be required to pay a tax on it, making the cost of a graduate education more expensive...” (06:13)
• Systemic Framing: Wolff quotes Jeffrey Sachs:
  • “The tax bills working their way through Congress as a war of the rich against the poor.” (08:15)

2. Corporate Power and Workplace Democracy

(10:21 – 19:00)

• Concentration of Power: Wolff provides high-profile examples of corporate leaders exercising unchecked authority:
  • Joe Ricketts (DNA Info): Shut down entire newsroom after staff sought union representation, showing how individual billionaire decisions can devastate workers and public access.
  • Jeffrey Immelt (GE): Flew a second private jet empty for backup, a symbol of corporate self-indulgence paid at consumer expense.
    • Quote: “When you bought that electric toaster for your grandma... part of the price you paid was to enable Jeffrey Immelt to have an empty plane trailing him all over the world.” (16:43)
• Call for Workplace Democracy: Majorities of workers want greater say; Wolff advocates one-person-one-vote cooperatives as an antidote to abuses of concentrated private power.

3. Sexual Harassment, Power Structures, and Hierarchies

(19:01 – 23:10)

• Political Sex Scandals: Highlights British cases as an illustration of power abuse enabled by hierarchical structures, not only individual pathology.
  • Quote: “You put a few people in positions of power that other people depend on and you’ve created... a structure that fosters this problem.” (21:20)
  • Advocates worker co-ops as a systemic deterrent: “Everybody is on both sides of that game... you will not see these kinds of shenanigans, at least nowhere near as often.” (21:56)
• Inefficacy of ‘Just Don’t Do It’ Campaigns: Analogies to failed anti-drug educational efforts underscore the futility of tackling these issues without structural change.

4. Urban Myths, Retail Collapse, and Housing Crisis

(24:45 – 28:53)

• Detroit ‘Renaissance’ Myth: Downtown rebuilds serve business and tourists, not the broader population. Bank mortgage statistics reveal a collapsed housing market for ordinary residents.
  • “Bank of America did exactly 18 mortgages and JP Morgan did six. …There is no rebuilding of Detroit except for the money making downtown...” (26:11)
• Retail Crisis: Store closures blamed on internet shopping, but Wolff notes the economic root—stagnant incomes drive shoppers toward discount stores like TJ Maxx, not just to online retailers.
• Rent Burdens & Eviction: Since 1960, renters paying >1/3 of income for housing have doubled (from 25% to 50%), with shocking eviction threat stats for Black renters (12%).
  • “One in eight Black families went through...the terror, the anxiety, the fear that ...they would be thrown out on the street...” (28:18)

5. Pharmaceutical Corporate Misdeeds

(28:54 – 29:08)

• AstraZeneca’s Record: Chronicling lawsuits for defrauding healthcare programs, fraudulent marketing, and internal leadership scandals—used to illustrate the lethal consequences of profit-driven health care and need for “system change...beyond this or that rule.”

INTERVIEW: Laura Flanders on Media Monopolies, Independent Journalism & Power

(29:11 – 55:05)

1. Media Fragmentation & Tribalism

(29:26 – 32:40)

• Flanders’ Analysis: The “atomization” of media means more voices can be heard online, but there are now “fewer places where those voices can connect, communicate, exchange...” (31:06)
  • Quote: “We have more possibilities for everyone to have a voice but fewer places where those voices can connect...” – Laura Flanders (31:06)
• Water-cooler debates of three-network nightly news are gone, leaving less common ground and real-time negotiation of facts.

2. Opportunities & Limits for Social Movements

(32:41 – 34:18)

• Social media (Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street) shows potential for movements to bypass traditional gatekeepers, but the early democratic promise of the Internet is being undermined by centralization and corporate control.
  • “Black Lives Matter...a hashtag made a movement...helped by that hashtag.” –Flanders (32:55)

3. Rise of Media Monopolies & Threats to Independent Media

(34:19 – 38:14)

• Corporate mergers (Sinclair-Tribune, AT&T-Time Warner), if approved, would create unprecedented reach for politically motivated outlets.
• Facebook’s Gatekeeper Role: Now the portal for 70% of news, with algorithms that curtail especially progressive/oppositional content (“Alternate...reported 40% drop off since Facebook...new algorithms”) (36:55).
• Implication: “If you had...the head of Facebook decide to run for president...he would be running as the first Internet president with control over...newspapers...and our social media feed...” – Flanders (37:21)

4. Monopoly is Capitalism’s Logical Outcome

(38:15 – 40:53)

• Wolff and Flanders draw historical parallels between today’s media monopolies and prior epochs of economic consolidation, noting it always takes mass action (e.g., antitrust, regulatory reform) to curb them.
  • Quote: “A smart person would eventually conclude either you change the system or you’re ever in the same boat having the same game played on you again.” – Wolff (38:54)
• Media control now synergizes with political power (Sinclair, Koch acquisition of Time magazine); effective democracy is threatened.

5. Journalism’s Role in Social Change & the Need for Public Pressure

(39:19 – 43:15)

• Flanders: Journalism was historically pivotal in breaking up corporate monopolies (e.g., Ida Tarbell & Standard Oil), but today’s mainstream media prefer “personal before the political...idiosyncratic before the systemic.”
  • “The thing about journalism is...the way that we diagnose what ails us and the way that we fix it...” – Laura Flanders (40:19)

6. Gaps in Mainstream Media & Rise of Cooperative, Crowdsourced Alternatives

(43:16 – 47:45)

• There’s a disconnect between dominant outlets and the issues people care about (especially systemic critiques of capitalism, workplace democracy, and the perspective of marginalized communities).
• Growth in cooperative broadband projects and independent media is rapid; challenges include overcoming funding competition and atomization.
  • “What we haven’t figured out...is how do we get over the individualism and the finance dominated competition in which we find ourselves...” – Flanders (45:33)
• Bernie Sanders’ funding model, international experiments (such as Swiss and Canadian crowdsourced cooperative media), and technology suggest cooperative alternatives may soon scale up.

7. Corporate Failure and Sexual Abuse: Systemic Roots

(47:46 – 52:11)

• Flanders reframes sexual abuse revelations as “scandals of concentration of power”—a systemic problem of patriarchal and corporate hierarchy, not just individual failure.
  • “To me, they are scandals of concentration of power. I mean, think of where the abuse happens...in very powerful corporations...” – Flanders (48:49)
• Suggests “shared power products” labels and peer-to-peer education as cultural responses.
• Warns of public numbness if #MeToo revelations don’t translate into actual structural change.

8. Persistent Need for Worker-Ownership & Breaking Hierarchies

(52:12 – 55:05)

• Wolff and Flanders agree: true accountability and cultural transformation require flattening workplace power hierarchies (worker cooperatives as a model).
  • “Imagine a workplace where the employer and the employee are not different people...that’s the systemic, impossible thing. As long as you leave that...” – Wolff (52:30)
• Flanders sees the groundswell of grassroots activism against power abuse as potentially a turning point: “People’s stories are taking down big power...has me feeling like we’re coming back to life...” (53:40)

Notable Quotes & Moments (With Timestamps)

• On the tax bill: “It’s sure to be reduced or eliminated altogether. Wonderful news for two or three thousand of the richest families... Bad news, of course, for the rest of us.” — Wolff (03:40)
• On graduate student taxes: “The House... has proposed taking away from graduate students the tuition waiver...” — Wolff (06:13)
• On corporate power: “One person made a decision and that’s the result for the public and for the employees. Case closed. Think about it.” — Wolff (on Joe Ricketts) (13:57)
• On inequality: “Americans can’t afford anymore; and they’re going where their cheapness is because their incomes are lagging...” — Wolff (27:38)
• On atomized media: “We have more possibilities for everyone to have a voice, but fewer places where those voices can connect, communicate, exchange...” — Flanders (31:05)
• On social media’s dark turn: “Centralization of a whole new kind is taking place.” — Flanders (33:29)
• On Facebook’s power: “Facebook now is the lens, is the portal through which 70% of people get their news.” — Flanders (35:42)
• On history’s lesson for monopoly: “...either you change the system or you’re ever in the same boat having the same game played on you again.” — Wolff (38:54)
• On sexual harassment: “We have not talked about patriarchal power in the way that these so-called ‘sex scandals’ are really power scandals.” — Flanders (48:46)

Structure of Discussion (Timestamps)

• 00:10 – 29:08: Wolff solo: Tax cuts, corporate examples, Detroit, retail crisis, housing/rent, pharma corruption
• 29:11 – 55:05: Wolff interviews Laura Flanders: media transformation, monopoly, independent & cooperative media, sexual harassment and systemic power

Tone & Style

The tone is incisive, analytical, and occasionally laced with sardonic humor. Wolff’s delivery is brisk and professorial, Flanders’ is thoughtful, candid, and activist-minded. Both maintain a sense of urgency about present crises and a cautious hope for systemic alternatives. The conversation is critical throughout, but never cynical—consistently seeking concrete changes and alternative models.

For Listeners: Why This Episode Matters

If you’re concerned about economic inequality, the future of media, who sets the national agenda, and the root causes of ongoing scandals—this episode offers a rigorous, passionate, and unsparing look at how our current systems produce these problems, and what real alternatives might look like.