Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Episode: #MeToo and Corona: System is Key

Date: March 26, 2020
Host: Richard D. Wolff

Episode Overview

In this two-part episode, economist Richard D. Wolff critically examines two of the most pressing crises of 2020: the revelations of systemic sexual harassment highlighted by the Harvey Weinstein case and MeToo movement, and the catastrophic response of the United States to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wolff links both issues to deeper systemic problems inherent in economic and workplace structures, arguing that meaningful change requires addressing the roots of these systems—particularly capitalism’s hierarchies and the prioritization of profit over human well-being.

Part 1: The Weinstein Case, #MeToo, and Systemic Sexism

(00:10 – 21:58)

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• The Systemic Nature of Sexism

  • Wolff contextualizes sexual harassment as a recurring feature across economic systems: slavery, feudalism, monarchy, and now capitalism.
  • Historic examples such as the “law of the first night” and abuses by feudal lords and kings are invoked to demonstrate the deep cultural and institutional roots of sexual subordination.
  • “That’s a deep seated system of subordination and sexual harassment.” (05:16)

• Hierarchies of Power Under Capitalism

  • Capitalism was supposed to bring “liberty, equality, fraternity, and democracy,” but instead replaced feudal hierarchies with the employer-employee divide.
  • Employers, like Weinstein, are uniquely enabled by their structural power to perpetrate systemic abuse.
    • “An employer has extraordinary power over an employee… the employer can deprive the employee of the job, the work, the income…” (10:24)

• Mechanisms of Abusive Power

  • The workplace hierarchy bestows powers such as hiring, firing, and promotion upon a select few, making employees vulnerable to exploitation.
  • Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and the ability to “buy off” victims is discussed as systemic, not simply personal failure.
  • “If the employer abuses the employee…and gets caught, the employer can and normally does use the profits gotten from those workers' labor to offer them a bribe called a non disclosure agreement, an NDA…” (13:20)

• Workplace Culture – The ‘Casting Couch’

  • The normalized expectation that employees, especially in industries like film, must endure sexual exploitation to advance their careers is highlighted.

• Proposed Solution: Democratizing the Workplace

  • Wolff envisions a workplace where all personnel have equal votes on major decisions, including hiring, firing, promotions, and profit use.
    • “Suppose those decisions were all made democratically by everybody in the workplace having one vote equal to everybody else.” (18:16)
  • While not a complete solution to sexual harassment, democratization would significantly reduce power abuses.

• Central Thesis Quote:

  • "If we don't change the system, we will have failed to use the opportunity that the MeToo movement has produced in our society." (20:47)

Part 2: Coronavirus Crisis and Capitalist System Failures

(21:58 – 48:12)

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Failure to Respond: A Systemic View

  • The US’s slow and inadequate response to COVID-19—despite early warnings—is dissected as a systemic failing, not merely governmental incompetence or individual error.
    • “Why was the United States so remarkably late to address this problem in a systematic way?” (22:15)

• Capitalism and the American Medical System

  • The design of the US medical system as a “capitalist business” is the primary cause of unpreparedness.
  • All sectors—practicing doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical/device companies, insurance—pursue profit, which is antithetical to public preparedness.
    • “Our medical system in the United States is a capitalist business. People go into the business hoping to earn a profit.” (28:37)

• Profit Motive vs. Public Health

  • The government is prevented from competing with private interests due to aggressive anti-government/pro-socialized medicine rhetoric propagated by industry.
  • The US spends more than any other country on health, yet delivers worse outcomes.
    • “We pay more for medical care…than any other country on earth. A lot more because the prices are higher here than anywhere.” (33:42)

• Consequences of Systemic Profit-Driven Logic

  • Private companies have no incentive to keep “unprofitable” stockpiles (like test kits, ventilators) or to invest in readiness for events that may never be directly profitable.
  • “Private companies have no incentive to produce test kits and store them in a warehouse for years before there’s a crisis. It’s not profitable, it costs a lot and they don’t make any money, so they’re not going to do it.” (45:16)

• International Comparison

  • Other industrialized countries with nationalized health systems responded more effectively and at lower cost.
    • “If the government of the United States…had taken the steps necessary to prepare for and manage the coronavirus, it would have cost a lot less money than waiting until the middle of March.” (41:46)

• Capitalist “Efficiency” as a Myth

  • The episode highlights the irony that so-called ‘capitalist efficiency’ results in mass unemployment, massive market crashes, and avoidable deaths in a crisis.
    • "This is capitalist inefficiency gone mad. And I'm not even talking about the ultimate inefficiency... when a system's incapacity to prepare for and cope with a disaster like this is killing large numbers of people. Wow." (43:36)

• Connecting the Crises

  • Like systemic sexual harassment, the COVID response failure is not just about “bad individuals” (Weinstein, Trump, etc.) but about the structures in which they operate.
    • “Sure, get angry at Harvey Weinstein, at Bill Cosby. You have plenty of reason to get angry at Mr. Trump. But unless you change the system…you’re not going to solve the exposed failure of capitalism to prepare for or cope with the coronavirus.” (46:44)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Sexism. A kind of systemic rendering of the female part of our population in a subordinate secondary position is very old. And the sexual harassment of women that follows from that subordination is also very old.” (03:16)
• “The employer's a small minority, have the power over the employees, a huge majority. This situation is a made to order circumstance, really remarkably like master over slave, landlord...king over subject, and so on.” (11:10)
• “NDAs...to buy off their suffering so that they aren’t exposed, so that they can go on to the next person and do it all again.” (13:55)
• “Imagine with me a different organization of the workplace...” (18:16)
• “The United States, as of the middle of March, when the virus began racking up huge death counts in the US...we hadn’t tested hardly anybody. The tests themselves were not generally available. They were in short supply, even though they weren’t that way in many other parts of the world.” (26:44)
• “We, the United States, are the odd one, not the rest of the world. And unless you believe that everybody else...all stupid compared to us who really know how it works, unless you believe that sort of nonsense, you’d have to wonder.” (34:58)
• “Why did we ever let the private profit mentality, the private profit economic system, which has a name, capitalism, get involved in managing our health?” (44:40)

Important Timestamps

• 00:10 — Introduction and context of program recording changes due to coronavirus
• 02:12 — Overview of systemic sexism from slavery, feudalism, religious institutions, to capitalism
• 10:00 — Analysis of employer-employee hierarchies as root problem
• 13:00 — Discussion of NDAs and the film industry’s “casting couch”
• 18:00 — Proposal for workplace democracy as systemic solution
• 21:58 — Transition to part two: The Coronavirus crisis
• 26:44 — Detailing US governmental delay and lack of testing
• 28:37 — Dissection of profit-driven US healthcare
• 33:42 — US health costs vs. other nations
• 41:46 — Cost-benefit of preparedness versus late response
• 43:36 — Critique of capitalist “inefficiency” in crisis
• 46:44 — Parallel between MeToo and coronavirus: structural not individual failure

Tone & Language

Wolff’s tone throughout is direct, analytical, and urgent. He delivers passionate critiques while grounding each critique in historical and economic analysis, aiming not only to inform but to motivate listeners toward systemic change.

Summary Takeaway

Richard D. Wolff powerfully links the #MeToo movement and the US COVID-19 response as symptoms of underlying economic structures—specifically the unchecked power dynamics of capitalism both in the workplace and in the healthcare system. His central argument insists that single-offender accountability is insufficient: only a fundamental democratization of social and economic systems will address these crises at their roots.