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- [00:10]
A
Welcome, friends, to another Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic dimensions of our lives, jobs, debts, incomes, those of our kids, those facing us as we go down the road of this economic system. I'm your host, Richard Wolff. I've been a professor of economics all my adult life. And that has been the preparation I bring to these economic updates that I offer you each week. Well, a recurring theme of these updates is on the agenda again today. You might call it the struggle between science and profit. The scientific truth about the weed killer called Roundup is quite clear. There's more than enough information, even though some of it is conflicting, as is usually the case with science. But there's more than enough evidence to suggest that it could be very damaging, as in cancer causing for many people who either work with it or eat items that have been sprayed with it. So there ought to be an emergency international effort, since it's used around the world to do the kinds of comprehensive studies that can determine whether it's safe for the human race or not. But here the problem arises. It is produced by a very big company, Monsanto by name, a company that recently got bought by an even larger company, the Bayer company of Germany, and they don't want to give up the profits that come from producing and selling Roundup. So many governments, unfortunately, the Trump Republican government as well, don't do anything. They don't rush. They don't see the problem. They do not want to interfere. Because when caught between science and health on the one hand and profit on the other, they seem to be a little bit like those famous deer caught in the headlines, frozen, frozen, the risk is ours. Letting capitalism and the profit motive into our food system is a dangerous, misguided decision we ought to revisit with urgency. Now, there's elections in the air, of course, and I was struck by an NBC story on October 24 that reported on polls taken in September and October of this year. And they show the following, which I urge you to think most Americans in these surveys, the majority, indicate that their economic circumstances have not improved since the election of 2016, that Mr. Trump into office. Indeed, 27%, more than one in four, said that their economic circumstances had deteriorated since the election of 2016. But even more interesting to me than those facts were the most Americans who said that did not blame either party. And most of them also didn't expect either party to do anything about this. And for me, this was more evidence, if you need it, that Americans have given up on their political system. It isn't a vehicle for Change. It isn't a vehicle to solve their problems. It's lots of noise, lots of propaganda, lots of yelling and shouting and denouncing and attacking. But it doesn't solve the problems, which explains why voters are so alienated from this political process. Look at the idea of going and casting a ballot as an exercise in futility. That's less the fault of those who don't votemistake as it is not to use that tool. But it's more the mistake of a system that gives us a political elite, a political group whose job, apparently is to fake it rather than to change anything. My attention was also caught for another update by a study released by the World Health Organization, a study that is really interesting. It was led by Professor Frank Elgar of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and it's a study of corporal punishment. And it notes that many countries, actually 54 countries, have now banned corporal punishment of children anywhere in the society. At school, at home, anywhere. You know, this is a new phenomena in the world. It was started by Sweden in 1979, doesn't go back that far. And here's what the study if you ban corporal punishment, if you make it a crime to strike a child, here's what you discover. A dramatic drop in physical violence among adolescents across the board. It's a really robust connection. Don't let the kids be hit, and they won't hit one another to make it real simple. And why is this an important item for a program on economics? Well, because when adolescents physically fight, they incur medical costs that are expensive in a society. They get themselves arrested and involved in the legal system, which have costs for society. They disrupt schools and schooling, which have costs for society. They require more personnel in the schools and in other venues to cope with the violence among adolescents. A ban on hurting children turns out to be a way to make economic systems much more efficient than they now are. Is capitalism efficient? No. But doing something about harming children physically could be. And it's therefore a study we need to think about. The United States is not among the 54 countries that have banned corporal punishment everywhere in society. And we pay the price economically as well as in many other ways for having failed to do that the way those other 54 countries have done. My next update refers to something being argued these days by my classmate from the time I was a graduate student at Yale university getting my PhD in economics. @ about the same time Janet Yellen was sitting there getting her PhD in economics at the same Yale Economics department. She then became, as I hope most of, you know, the head of the Federal Reserve in the United States until she was replaced by Donald Trump. Well, she's been going around giving speeches on something I want to share with you. She is extremely worried that the next economic downturn in the United States, which, like most other observers, she thinks is imminent, that is likely to occur, if not in 2019, then certainly in 2020, as the Chase Manhattan JPMorgan Chase bank has itself predicted, and so on. But here's her concern, and I find it remarkable for what it reveals, beyond even what she says. She's worried that this crash could be worse even than 2008 for a particular reason. Corporations have taken on much more debt since 2008 compared to what they had going into that crisis. And the extra debt means that as a company has difficulty with selling products because of a downturn, it will not only have to shut itself down or cut it back, but it will be unable to pay its debts to all the others who rely on those debts being paid back, who rely on the interest that these indebted companies won't be able to pay. I want to talk to you about what this means, so let's do it. In 2008, capitalism has had its second worst crash since the Great Depression of the 1930s. So devastating was the collapse, particularly in the last third of the year 2008, that a terrified set of governments in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Germany, in Europe, in Japan, and literally around the world rushed in to have the governments try to cope with the mess, the economic mess created by private banks and private corporations. And one of the things done in many countries, and especially here in the United States, was to help companies out by lowering interest rates. The Federal Reserve brought interest rates down to just barely above zero. They hoped thereby to induce to create an incentive for companies to borrow money, because it's virtually costless at a low interest rate, to have individuals buy homes, buy cars because the interest rates came down. It was a way of helping capitalism get back on its feet after the momentous 2008 crash. But of course, by making money cheap to borrow. It sent a message which we now can see was well received by American corporations, those in difficulty, but also those not in difficulty. Maybe you had a corporate president here, there, or the next place who had made a really bad investment that was now showing up as a problem for the company. He could cover that over by borrowing a vast amount of money and expanding in another direction to distract attention, to make up for the losses of the actual investment, by doing something big and attention grabbing with cheap borrowed money. Whatever the reason, American corporations borrowed money like there's no tomorrow from 2008 to now, making Janet Yellen really worried that a vast amount of borrowing has fueled very questionable investments by corporate leaders who could make those investments look good for a few years, get themselves fat bonuses during that time, and then the catastrophe would come after they've well taken care of themselves. She's really worried about it. I want you to understand that you live in a capitalist system that not only crashes in 2008 and then solves the problem by lowering interest rates, but the very solution they found sets up the next crisis. This is a system that goes from crisis to crisis. And that's why this system is in deep trouble. And it's long overdue for us to ask and answer the question, can't we do better than capitalism that works this way? It's the most important question we have. And in the elections we are now dealing with. It wasn't on the ballot. Think about it. Well, friends, we've come to the end of the first half of Economic Update. I want to remind you and also ask you to please subscribe to our YouTube channel for economic Update. It is an enormous help to us and builds our support and our audience. I would like to ask you also to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and take a look at our website, democracyatwork.info. that's all one word. Democracyatwork.info where you can find ways to expand on the information we offer here to learn how you can work with us in an ongoing way to no matter where you are and what your life activity is. We also want to offer a particular thanks to the Patreon community that supports us in such an enormously important way. Patreon P A T R e o n patreon.com economicupdate is a way for those of you who have not yet done so to join that community. And we want to thank those of you that are already in that community and those of you that might be persuaded to join it. Thank you very much. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Welcome back, friends, to the second half of Economic Update. It is my pleasure to offer today a conversation, an interview, if you like, with Reeva Enteen. She is a socialist and has been active since the 1960s. She attended the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco and worked for many years in the National Lawyers Guild and then she worked as its program director and she was also the first chair of the local board of kpfa, one of the many stations that carries this program. And that has been an important part of the economic update community. So it is with pleasure that I welcome Reeva and Teen to the program. Thank you for.
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Coming. Thank you very.
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Much. Okay, well, the thing that brought you here, in a sense, was a book. And you've told me that this is a book you spent five years of your life assembling and putting together. So let's begin by talking about what this book is and why you spent that time, given your history, to do this sort of.
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Project. Okay. It was a labor of love. The last page is the poem by Marge Piercy, 1973, to be of use. Since I was raised a socialist, and I certainly see the problems in this world, my life is really to be of use. We need to be of use in terms of how the book evolved. I have been an avid listener of Pacifica since I grew up in New York with WBAI KPFA in California. Flashpoints is an excellent daily investigative show. Dennis Bernstein is an excellent interviewer. He was asking for people to transcribe his interviews. I volunteered. He then asked me to to edit a book of his interviews, which became a five year.
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Project. Was there a particular part of his interview style or what he did that captured your interest and desire to do.
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This? Well, certainly the politics he has left and there's less and left of real deep analysis from the left. He also, I think, is the best of the interview genre. It's candid, it's fresh, it's colloquial, and he brings the best out in people. I am a true lover now of the interview genre. There's something fresh and honest about it. It's not pre recorded. You're just doing it at the moment. So it was an honor that he asked me to edit a book of his interviews because they are very, very thought.
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Provoking. Good. And it gives you a sense of this experience that we're having right now, which is another one. Okay, give us your sense of some of the highlights. What were some of the programs that Dennis did that you have also put in this book that you think are the best in some sense of what was.
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B
Done. Okay, a little bit more about the interview genre. Again, he brings out the best in people. So I got many, many interviews to work with. And it broke down into nine subject areas, which includes surveillance, class, race, gender, imperialism, immigration, Palestine, and ends with the planet. Because frankly, if we don't have a planet, there's really nothing left because it was such a long project. It came out under Trump. There are 66 interviews. The book came out under Trump, but all 66 interviews happened under Obama, our first black president who offered hope and change and really didn't deliver. So I call the book both a reality check on Obama, who is becoming sanitized, and the writing on the wall for how we got here. So I could give you a few little excerpts from some of my favorite interviews. Be my guess, a few little excerpts. And again, let's remember these were all under Obama. Okay? Mara Verheyden Hilliard, who is an attorney with Partnership for Civil Justice. The Tea Party was having rallies across the US where they were openly carrying weapons. Some rallies were outside where the President of the US Was speaking. But what does the FBI do? They are going after the nonviolent, peaceful Occupy movement. Okay? Shahid Butar, First Amendment Coalition. The Obama administration is already our nation's far and away most aggressive anti press administration. More national security whistleblowers faced prosecution in the last five years than in the entire preceding 225 history of the Republic here's one that's important because people wonder about this caravan and why people are leaving Honduras in Central America. Okay, this is by Adrian Pine, an anthropologist at American University. To understand why not only the Honduran homicide rate but also the rate of many other forms of violence is so high is to understand the coup that happened in 2009, a coup that was carried out by military forces trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. Every Honduran I know has been violently assaulted at one point or another with a gun. It's happened in front of me on several occasions. A month ago I walked by a man who had been killed in a targeted assassination 10 minutes earlier and was lying there on the ground. Read one other short one that is funny. So this is by Laura Flanders, who's the niece of the muckraking Alexander.
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Coburn. And she has also done an interview on this.
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Program. She's in the book talking about Alexander and here she's talking about Alexander's father. So Alexander was inspired by his journalist father Claude's courage and extraordinary freshness of voice. Claude loved to tell the story of interviewing Al Capone for the London Times, only to have the story never appear in print because the gangsters views on American capitalism were so indistinguishable from Wall street and the paper's editorial page. I could give you a few more if you.
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Want. So they're like windows on the Obama period of American.
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History. Absolutely. And you know, given the recent shooting in the synagogue. Here's one about the shooting in the church by Dylann Roof. This is by Vernelia Randall, a retired professor. Because all of this is historic. You're right. They're windows, they're snippets of all the churches Dylann Roof could have picked in that town. He picked the church that was celebrating its 193rd year anniversary. That's a church standing since slavery, with membership since slavery. One of the co founders of the church was hung, murdered by this system for supposedly organizing a slave.
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Revolt. Right. It is remarkable. It's a window on recent and ancient.
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History.
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Exactly. Okay, so what's your hope? What will this book. What do you hope that this book achieves? Who will it reach? And what would you like to see flow from having spent your time.
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Doing this well, for it to be of use again? Everything ties in with Follow the Money. So there's nine subject areas. And what I say is if you follow the money, you find the route of the rot. So in terms of your listenership and viewership, it's about money. If you follow the money. There's a class analysis. We need to look at how we got here, but examples of how the book can be used at the Left Forum. Just last June, we did a book reading and there were two interviewees. Adrian Pine, the anthropologist, and Marcia Coleman Adebayo, who is a fired EPA whistleblower. And as a result of us. And what Marcia is working on now is trying to preserve an African cemetery that's outside of D.C. that they want to pave over as a result of them meeting. And this is the kind of thing the book can do. Adrienne's anthropology students are using their methodology to support Marcia's organizing to preserve the cemetery. Right. So it's right up your alley. Let's Follow the Money and start addressing where the root of the rot is and try to figure out a way out of it, this mess. Because we really can't keep going the way we've been.
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Going. It occurs to me you might have a unique approach or insight here. You are after a long life of activism, you know, a life of socialist activism. Having put together these comments of a group of people who shared, broadly speaking, your approach, what's your sense of today that comes out of this? How do you cope with what we're all experiencing now in the United States or beyond that that comes out of all the work you've done in reviewing and thinking about these interviews, I.
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Was talking to Binghamton students the other day, and again with my gray hair, one of the students said, how do you keep going? And we have to believe that we can be useful. Wasn't it Gramsci? Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will, we have to believe we can do it. But a side note is I live in South Lake Taho, and living in nature is really helpful. I recommend people get sustenance in any way they can, because we've been doing this a long time, but the stakes are high. We've been saying for a long time, heighten the contradictions. Trump is certainly heightening the contradictions for us. So frankly, I'm hopeful because I don't think we can keep going down this road very.
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Long. Okay, good. The theme of Follow the Money as a way to think through what's going on, tell us a little bit about how you came to that and. And how that works out as you did the work that produced the.
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Book. So when I came up with the nine subjects first, and then I had to think of a title that tied it in, and I came up with Follow the Money, and I had to go through all nine to see how it fits. And it's interesting, given that I'm a feminist from the 70s, the gender one was one of the ones. Is this Follow the money? Of course it's follow the money. We are paid less on the dollar. Palestine, which is called ongoing bloodshed in the Holy Land, that chapter is about Palestine. We certainly follow the money there. There's a whole chapter on class, which includes your interview, which says, imagine socialism in the US it was at the height of the Bernie campaign. Certainly Empire is about money. If you look at race, it's about money. If you don't have money, you get capital punishment. If you do have. If you have capital, you don't. So it just came together for me and raised as a socialist. What I say is that follow the money is a bit of a mantra for me. It really explains a lot. You just keep following it and you find out what's really going.
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On. Here's a question I've asked other people who have your background. That is, they were socialists as young folks, and now you've lived most of your life. Are you more of a socialist, less of a socialist, would you say now, I told you so. Have you been reinforced or how's it been your.
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Socialism? Well, I had to remind my son recently that I believed in the Bolshevik Revolution. I think the fall of the Soviet Union changed geopolitical politics. But Cuba, actually one of My acknowledgments in the book is that Cuba, I believe in Cuba. Cuba shows that it can be done. I believe it's a model of a successful socialist. Not so experiment. And we can't know how powerful Cuba would be but for the embargo. So, no, I'm clearly a socialist. And I like to say when people say, well, what does that really mean, being raised a socialist? I say, and this is Long Island, New York, in the early 60s, late 50s. I say, well, I was raised by middle school. I knew that the government was responsible to provide everybody food, clothing and shelter. And I knew I wasn't supposed to talk about.
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It. Your folks had given you that.
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Understanding? They didn't tell me. I just felt it. You don't really talk about it, but Bernie allowed people to talk about it. I have to remind people he won the rest belt. People are not as afraid of the word as they think people are because, of course, everybody is entitled to food, clothing and shelter. We're a civilized.
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Society. What's interesting to me is you remind me of those polls in the last three or four years that indicate, particularly for younger people, say below 40, that now huge proportions, somewhere between 30 and 60%, depending on the poll, will say they prefer socialism to capitalism, even though the conversation with them afterwards indicates they're not so clear how to define these things. But they know what they don't like, which is what we got, which is capitalism, and they want something else. And socialism sounds like a good place to.
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Start. It is a very good place to.
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Start. Thank you very much, Reeva, for producing the book and for coming and sharing your.
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Insights. Thank.
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You. And for all of you, let me thank you as well for joining us in this interview. This is a person who makes possible one of the radio stations, kpfa, that carries this program and has for a long time and been therefore very supportive of us. And so I want to appreciate the station as well as Reeva, who's a part of it. I also want to remind all of you that we will continue this conversation, Riva and Dean and myself for our Patreon community after the program is over. Please join us for Economic Update Extra on Patreon, and I look forward to speaking with you all again next.