Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Episode: "Struggling Against the System"

Release Date: April 19, 2018
Host: Richard D. Wolff
Guest (2nd half): Rob Robinson, Take Back the Land Movement, NESRI

Overview

In this episode, Richard D. Wolff tackles the theme of “struggling against the system,” focusing on how economic structures and profit-driven motives negatively impact public goods, personal well-being, and the collective interest. In the first half, Wolff delivers several sharp updates—ranging from U.S. teachers’ strikes and Facebook’s privacy scandals to systemic issues like shrinking living spaces and the surge in antidepressant use. The second half features an in-depth interview with Rob Robinson, a housing and water rights activist, who exposes the global and local battles over access to water, highlighting the potent intersection of privatization, capitalism, and human rights.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Public School Teachers’ Strikes and Education Funding

[00:10 - 04:20]

• Wolff praises the “courageous, successful, effective” teacher strikes in Arizona, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Oklahoma, observing that teachers have made a “real big difference in the way this world works.”
• Stresses the broader implications for public education, with other states’ teachers drawing inspiration from these movements.
• Quote:

  “They showed the courage to do it and they deserve our respect.” — Richard D. Wolff (01:30)

2. Facebook, Capitalism, and the Erosion of Privacy

[04:20 - 09:00]

• Analyzes Facebook’s transformation from social innovation to profit machine, enabling intrusive advertising and political manipulation.
• Critiques the immense personal wealth of Mark Zuckerberg as a symptom of capitalism’s tendency to enrich a few at the expense of the many.
• Warns that privacy is being sacrificed in favor of capitalist profit motives.
• Quote:

  “It’s a shame what our economic system does to technical change. Deflects it, distorts it and turns it against us, rather than being an agency for our liberation.” — Richard D. Wolff (08:30)

3. Reinforcement of Economic Privilege in Education

[09:01 - 13:30]

• Discusses Harold O. Levy’s reflections about college admissions: selective schools, despite their rhetoric, primarily serve to sustain privilege and wealth.
• Notes the feedback loop where the wealthy secure elite education for their children, preserving economic disparities.
• Quote:

  “Most schools reward privilege and reproduce it because they know that they depend for their reputations on having the money it takes to sustain those reputations.” — Richard D. Wolff (11:15, paraphrasing Levy)

4. Shell Oil and Systemic Climate Deception

[13:30 - 18:30]

• Reveals findings from Dutch journalists that Shell Oil knew of fossil fuels’ role in climate change as early as the 1960s but concealed the evidence.
• Draws parallels with Exxon and lawsuits now faced by oil giants.
• Highlights the conflict between profit and public welfare.
• Quote:

  “Profit to be gained...outweighed the staggering damage that the people profiting from oil knew burning fossil fuels would cause. This is an open and shut case of how and why the pursuit of private profit happens so often at the expense of public welfare.” — Richard D. Wolff (16:21)

• Notes related pollution scandals in Nigeria and Italy.

5. Living Spaces Shrinking — “Economic Recovery” Questioned

[21:00 - 25:10]

• Shares a Guardian report: British living rooms have shrunken by one-third since the 1970s; parallel issues exist in other countries.
• Argues such declines challenge the official narrative of post-2008 “recovery.”
• Quote:

  “That’s not a recovery, friends...You know what word does it better? That’s called economic decline.” — Richard D. Wolff (23:56)

6. Right-Wing Media Contracts and Worker Rights

[25:11 - 27:50]

• Examines Sinclair Broadcasting forcing anchors nationwide to recite scripted statements, eroding journalistic independence.
• Highlights employment contracts with punitive damages for quitting—illegal in most states and now facing litigation.

7. The Antidepressant Epidemic as Economic Indicator

[27:51 - 30:30]

• Reports on a steep rise in antidepressant use: from 13 million (1999-2000) to 35 million (2013-2014) U.S. adults.
• Points out long-term use and side effects, connecting this spike to broader societal and economic anxieties, not “recovery.”
• Quote:

  “You have to wonder what it says about our culture.” — Prof. Edward Shorter (University of Toronto), quoted by Richard D. Wolff (29:40)

• Critiques big pharma and profit incentives as primary drivers.

8. Labor Movement Revival — Labor Notes Conference

[30:00]

• Praises the strong turnout and revitalization at the Labor Notes Conference in Chicago as a hopeful sign for labor organizing against employer dominance.

Interview: Rob Robinson on the Struggle for Water Rights

[30:42 - 55:36]

Background — Rob Robinson

• Co-founder, Take Back the Land; housing activist; experienced homelessness.
• Deep involvement in global water and housing rights movements.

The Global Battle Over Water

[31:19 - 37:16]

• Describes the World Water Forum in Brazil, where corporations and governments “figure out how they can make more money off of water.”
• At the same time, grassroots groups held the Alternative Forum to assert water as a human right, not a commodity.
• Quote:

  “Pepsi, Coca Cola, Ambev, all these large corporations. Nestle is there figuring out how they can increase their profits, how they can get governments to open up their rivers and streams to allow them to take more water.” — Rob Robinson (31:50)

Privatization in the U.S. — Flint & Detroit

[37:16 - 44:57]

• Governments, especially in the U.S., are increasingly shifting responsibility for water supply to for-profit companies, making the poor pay disproportionately.
• Flint: Water switched to a polluted source; government provided bottled water, ultimately seeking deals with big corporations.
• Detroit: Water bills can exceed 10% of family income; inability to pay leads to shutoffs and potential loss of child custody.
• Quote:

  “If your water does get shut off and you can’t pay, you stand to lose your children if you have children in that household.” — Rob Robinson (40:45)

Legal and Ethical Dimensions

[42:14 - 45:29]

• The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing and on Water and Sanitation visited Detroit, condemned shutoffs, and pressed for a “water affordability plan.”
• Failure to provide water is a breach of both moral and international legal obligations.
• Wolff:

  “It is the moral, the ethical, and also the legal in terms of international agreements…the UN is basically here to say: you can’t do that. It’s not an option. It’s sort of like the Ten Commandments. You can’t deny water to people.” (42:16)

Grassroots & International Solidarity

[45:29 - 48:02]

• Canadian activists brought water to Detroit and Flint as a show of solidarity:

  “If you as a government won’t supply it, then we have enough morality in us and enough compassion in us…we will supply them with water.” — Rob Robinson (45:34)

Systemic Causes and Possible Solutions

[48:02 - 50:50]

• Treating water access as a human right would force government/industry to find fairer ways to fund infrastructure.
• Emphasizes the disproportionate political power of corporations.
• Illustrates international progress:

  “Barcelona is moving towards a human rights city…that will operate off a set of values and principles that imply human rights standards.” — Rob Robinson (49:58)

Victories Against Privatization — Cases from Italy, Greece, Lagos

[37:16 - 52:53]

• In Italy and Greece, citizen and union organizing led to water “re-municipalization”—return to public control.
• In Lagos and Brazil, communities are innovating grassroots water access and resisting privatization.

Water as a Radicalizing Force

[52:53 - 55:11]

• Water struggles spur direct action and broader awareness of systemic injustice.

• “When you say to people, you can’t have water because you can’t pay, people all of a sudden become radicalized and militant and they’re willing to at any cost. They’ll fight, right? My baby can’t go without water…So I think we see people rising up around the world in ways that I’ve never imagined.” — Rob Robinson (53:38)

Closing Reflection

• Wolff emphasizes the importance of these victories as evidence that organized people can win against entrenched systems, linking it back to earlier teacher victories.

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Facebook and capitalism:

  "That's capitalism. It's how it works. It makes a few people ridiculously rich, thereby controlling wealth that could be much more usefully spent." — Richard D. Wolff (06:14)

• On college admissions and privilege:

  “You can see the feedback loop here...lots of PR for the few people from the bottom...and the system conspire to make selective, well reputed schools the place where wealthy people send their kids.” — Richard D. Wolff (12:50)

• On shrinking living spaces:

  “Even if people stay in an apartment…people are being crammed into smaller and smaller living spaces. That’s not a recovery, friends.” — Richard D. Wolff (23:20)

• On antidepressants and economics:

  "We've almost tripled the number of American adults taking antidepressant medicine. That's already a sign of something in the society not going real well. It's not what you would expect during a time of economic recovery." — Richard D. Wolff (28:40)

• On water radicalizing people:

  "People all of a sudden become radicalized and militant and they're willing to at any cost. They'll fight, right? My baby can't go without water. It's like saying your baby can't have milk. Well, then it's me or you." — Rob Robinson (54:00)

Important Timestamps

• 00:10: Opening; teachers’ strikes highlighted
• 04:20: Facebook as a case study in profit overriding privacy
• 09:01: Analysis of elite college admissions
• 13:30: Shell Oil’s climate change coverup exposed
• 21:00: British housing study; “recovery” debunked
• 27:51: Antidepressants epidemic and its broader meaning
• 30:42: Interview with Rob Robinson begins
• 39:16: Detroit water shutoffs, UN intervention
• 45:29: Canadian solidarity with Detroit and Flint
• 50:57: Greek citizens’ victory against water privatization
• 53:38: Water as catalyst for social radicalization
• 55:36: Interview concludes

Summary

This episode powerfully demonstrates how systemic, profit-motivated structures undermine fundamental rights—whether to information, education, healthy living conditions, or water itself. Through news analysis and a passionate, fact-filled interview, listeners are challenged to recognize their own roles in these struggles and are given hope by examples where collective action forced lasting change. The tone is urgent, critical of capitalism’s failings, and ultimately hopeful about the potential for popular resistance to reclaim essential human rights.