Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Episode: Enabling Worker Coops

Date: April 20, 2017

Episode Overview

This episode of Economic Update, hosted by Richard D. Wolff, delves into the economic implications of climate change, shifts in global manufacturing, and the rise of cooperatives as systemic solutions to capitalism’s shortcomings. The second half features an insightful interview with Richard D. Bartlett, co-founder of Lumio, about digital decision-making tools and real-world cooperative democracy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Capitalism and Climate Change Responsibility

• Theme: As Earth Day approaches, Wolff stresses the inextricable link between capitalism’s profit motive and the ongoing ecological crisis.
• Insight: Historically, capitalist investment decisions ignored ecological costs, allowing private profits while socializing environmental harm.
  • “Profits earned by companies only because they did not have to acknowledge and they did not have to pay to manage the waste they created, the ecological damage they they created.” (02:18)
• Conclusion: Effectively addressing climate change requires questioning and changing the underlying economic system, not just superficial solutions.
  • “To try to solve them, to overcome them, without questioning or changing the system, is absurd given our history…” (04:40)

2. U.S. Decline in Global Media and Manufacturing

A. Media and Cultural Power Shift

• Observation: The US once dominated global culture through Hollywood but is being eclipsed by China’s booming film industry.
• Implication: As China's market overtakes that of the US, Hollywood—and, by extension, global cultural standards—will be increasingly shaped by Chinese preferences and state regulations.
  • “If the majority of places where you show the film are in China, that’s going to shape... how much money you earn in China, which is becoming the largest market for films.” (12:15)

B. Manufacturing Shrinkage and Causes

• Fact: U.S. manufacturing jobs have dropped from over 18% to less than 8% of total employment since 1980. (17:53)
• Causes:
  • Automation: Technological advancement allows fewer workers to produce the same output; capitalists benefit by reducing labor costs.
  • Outsourcing: Jobs move overseas where wages are lower, accelerated by labor union victories pushing up Western wages.
  • “The very success of workers in improving their conditions of work creates a greater and greater incentive for them to be fired and replaced by machines, or by lower wage workers abroad.” (22:13)
• Punchline: These trends are not accidental—they are logical outcomes of capitalist incentives.
  • “A system that rewards [capitalists] for doing that cannot be expected to do more than wave its hands when it gets the result that it is set up to produce.” (25:41)
• Alternative Uses of Productivity:
  • Wolff notes technology could be used to shorten workweeks instead of boosting profits for a minority.
  • “You could shorten the workday... but we live in a system that enables the minority to use technical change for profit enhancement, not for shorter work weeks.” (27:17)

3. Cooperatives as Systemic Solutions

A. CCA Global Partners: Cooperative of Small Businesses

• Story: Two U.S. businessmen created CCA Global Partners, a co-op enabling small firms to match the buying power and service abilities of big corporations by banding together.
• Benefits:
  • Small firms gain collective bargaining power and economies of scale while retaining personal, high-quality service.
  • CCA outperformed traditional firms during the 2008 crash.
  • “...they were much less damaged by the collapse of 2008 than were all other kinds of companies, large and small, that didn't have a cooperative to help them get through the crisis.” (29:01)
• Takeaway: Cooperative models are effective, scalable, and can challenge the notion that competition and consolidation are the only ways forward.
  • “Cooperation among people, far from being a soft and cuddly nice idea... is also a very powerful political and economic strategy and therefore can succeed quite nicely, thank you, in competition with big corporations…” (29:18)

Interview: Richard D. Bartlett on Workplace Democracy and Digital Tools

[31:16 – 57:20]

About Lumio and Enspiral

Guest: Richard D. Bartlett, co-founder of Lumio (open-source collective decision-making tool) and member of Enspiral (business network for social impact), New Zealand.

How Lumio Works

• Core Function:
  • Online forum with integrated decision-making functionality, allowing groups to “weave together all the different diverse perspectives” and reach conclusions digitally.
  • “Our vision is a world where it's easy for anyone to participate in a decision that affects them, which is a gentle, subtle, modest little vision.” (34:33 – Bartlett)
• Process:
  • Group members propose, discuss, and iteratively refine decisions. Positions: agree, abstain, disagree, block.
  • Asynchronous participation means broader inclusion and participation flexibility.

Lessons from Occupy

• Transformation: Bartlett entered Occupy as an observer, left transformed by consensus processes and the challenges of inclusive decision-making.
• Shortcoming: Consensus in large groups can be paralyzing without structure and can collapse movements.
• Lumio’s Mission: To create tools that make inclusive, collective decision-making easier and more sustainable.
  • “Me and a number of friends that were participating felt this calling, this mission. I don't have any other choice but to try and make that inclusive decision-making process more accessible…” (39:22 – Bartlett)

Lumio’s Place in Cooperative Ecosystems

• Fit: Especially suited to groups already committed to inclusivity—co-ops, collectives, participatory political parties, etc.
  • “Basically it only works for groups that are already trying to be inclusive… It’s designed for those sorts of groups.” (46:23 – Bartlett)
• Future Plans: Broadening user base to traditional organizations by making collaboration and inclusion the most convenient option.

Democratic Innovation: The Example of Taiwan

• Sunflower Movement Context:
  • In 2014, massive Occupy-style protests in Taiwan were directly inspired by the global Occupy movement. Activists occupied the legislature and demoed consensus-based policy-making.
  • Academics, tech activists (gov.zero), and citizens collaborated using digital tools to crowdsource and legitimize budgets and policies; citizen-written Uber regulation is now law.
• Significance:
  • Shows that mass digital deliberation can tangibly impact national policy, moving beyond hierarchical, opaque governance.
  • “We have a concrete example... that masses of people can participate and that government ... serving the few interests that control the government. That's not a necessary limit of how we live.” (56:29 – Wolff)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On ecological responsibility:

  • “Had we properly accounted for the costs of a whole host of investments done by capitalist enterprises over the last two centuries, we would never have done them or done them very, very differently.” (02:45 – Wolff)

• On automation and labor:

  • “Every technical invention... can be used in either of two ways... [to fire workers for profit,] or you could shorten the workday... The latter way is what's good for the mass of working people. The former way is what's good for the capitalists who, who are a minority.” (26:11 – Wolff)

• On cooperatives and scale:

  • “So they can get the benefits of bigness by being a cooperative without losing the virtues of smallness... It's another proof that cooperation among people...is also a very powerful political and economic strategy…” (29:01–29:18 – Wolff)

• On participatory culture:

  • “Most people are not involved in most of the decisions that affect them. And so we're just working on that one little piece of the struggle.” (34:34 – Bartlett)

• On the limits of hierarchy and growth toward cooperation:

  • “It's one thing to make that demand, but it's quite another to demonstrate that there's an alternative... I think we have to grow the alternative together.” (48:50 – Bartlett)

Timestamps of Important Segments

• [02:00] – Capitalism’s ecological blind spots and the need for systemic critique on Earth Day
• [12:15] – Cultural-economic power shift: US vs. China in film/media
• [17:53] – Statistical decline of US manufacturing; automation and outsourcing
• [25:41] – The system’s inherent drive to shift labor and profit through automation/export
• [29:01] – CCA Global Partners: Co-op empowering small businesses against giants
• [31:16]–[57:20] – Interview: Richard D. Bartlett on Lumio, collective decision-making, and the legacy of Occupy
• [53:36] – Sunflower Movement and the Taiwanese example of participatory democracy
• [56:29] – Real-world democratic participation affecting national policy

Episode Tone

Candid, analytical, and hopeful. Wolff is characteristically critical of capitalism but foregrounds practical, systemic alternatives. Bartlett brings an international, pragmatic optimism about building democratic processes from the bottom up, combined with stories and humility that ground theory in lived experience.

For Listeners

This episode offers a thorough economic critique of contemporary capitalism, focusing on its global, cultural, and ecological consequences, and foregrounds cooperatives—both in the workplace and among businesses—as real alternatives. The second half, infused with international activism and digital innovation, will especially interest those seeking practical methods for participatory democracy and cooperative enterprise.