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- [00:10]
A
Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic dimensions of our lives. I'm your host, Richard Wolff. I want to begin today by correcting an error from a program a few weeks ago when I incorrectly referred to Connecticut State Senator Alex Bernstein as though that were a man. That was a mistake. I misread the name. Alex. She is the Connecticut State Senator, Alex Bernstein. I want to turn first today to something else that happened a little while ago, a remarkable, even for this president, tweet by Donald Trump. Trump actually several tweets in which he essentially recommended to four women of color who now sit in the House of Representatives in Congress that they quote, unquote, go back to where they came from. Three of them were born in the United States. The other one is a naturalized citizen. The gross, insensitive, historically stunning backwardness of all of this should not distract us from what is going on. Mr. Trump is a mouthpiece. He's a mouthpiece for a process that is unfortunately not new. This is called distracting by throwing up something, preferably outrageous, preferably that will attract media attention so as to distract the public from what the real issues are. In this case, Mr. Trump's outrageous, reaching even further into the swamp of racism and nationalism and all the rest. The purpose of these distractions was twofold. First, to distract attention from the concentration camps for refugees that have been established by the United States along its southern border with the horrors of how children are treated and so on. That was getting more and more attention as even the Vice President was able to recognize that something very ugly is going on that had to be distracted from. And this unspeakable racism was one way to do that. But there's another one. We are in the throes of a reaction of the American people, delayed, but therefore stronger to the collapse of capitalism in 2008 and 9, and to the fact that the people who brought us the crisis were the ones bailed out and that the people who've suffered the last 10 years were the one who paid for the bailout of the people who brought it. That would make anybody angry, even if they only half understand it. And the risk for capitalism today, as it has always been, is that the people who are left out in the capitalist story, who are not sharing the wealth, who are sharing the suffering, may turn their anger on the system unless you distract them. If you can convey to at least a portion of an angry working class that it is the non whites among them or the foreigners or the immigrants or the trading partners, well, then you have done your job. And that's all Mr. Trump is doing the job of distracting at least a portion, and in the United States, perhaps a white portion of the working class from the source of its misery and scapegoating others. The fact that he has to do it to such extreme lengths tells you how serious the problem here is, which is something we emphasize on this program all the time. I want to turn next to an update which I call how Gross can Capitalism get? This time it's in France. And here's what happened. A scandal a couple of weeks ago in which it was discovered by the press that one of the ministers in Mr. Macron's government and which minister, the Minister for the environment, had been spending huge amounts of money, first to make his office more comfortable, nearly $100,000, and then to entertain friends, dinners featuring lobster and $500 bottles of wine. Why am I bringing this to your attention as the French discuss it? Because Mr. Macron and his environment minister were the ones who put a tax on on fuel to help pay for improving the environment, which is what stimulated the Yellow Vest movement. They simply said you can find other ways for the money needed to improve the environment. We now know that one of those other ways would be to, oh, maybe move the dinners from $500 bottles of wine, you know, to a couple of bucks for soda pop. And maybe instead of lobsters, some cheapoh, maybe not so cheap hot dogs that would lave money that you wouldn't have to burden the people with. But of course, seriously, what is this? This is a sign that this government, like most French governments, like most capitalist governments, spend money on the people at the top while burdening the rest of us to pay for whatever the social problems are. That needs some addressing. Capitalism is a system that gives a tiny number of people at the top in every business, in every store, office, and factory, a disproportionate amount of wealth. So it isn't surprising that when these folks get to be government officials, they behave in exactly the same way. The problem is the system. And then there was another update that caught my eye. One of the reasons why we have immigrants on our border to the south. I hadn't understood it so well before, and I want to share it with you. Over the last three years, the price of coffee per pound at the farm, the beans, the coffee beans, has gone from over $1.20 per pound to $0.55 per pound. That's a drop of more than 50%. It destroyed the livelihoods of tens of thousands of small coffee farmers all through Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica. You get the picture. Those people could not survive. Literally. There's one statistic that says over 60% of small coffee farmers reported in surveys that they were food insecure over the last two years. Food insecure is the polite technical term for going hungry. So they did what people hurt by economic change have done for 300 come to the borders of the United States seeking entry so that they don't starve to death. The past of the United States welcomed these people, found a place for them. Not always, but in general, but not now. Now we condemn these people to concentration camps, cages for their children. And why? Because the price of coffee. And who's a major player in the price of coffee? Yeah. The United States. Yeah. And big American corporations. Little footnote. Screwing those farmers was one step. If you haven't noticed a drop in the price of coffee, that might be because the company delivering your coffee drink is keeping the extra money they get by not having to pay as much for coffee as they used to and using it for their profits. It's the system that works that way. Now let me turn to a recent argument by conservatives. They are really having to reach these days. We should have a moment of compassion for their hard situation. They have to fight the demand of Bernie Sanders and other candidates for free college tuition. And in their stretch, here's an argument they came up with that is so remarkable I wanted to share it with you. They said we shouldn't do it because we've learned the lesson. Hear me now. You may not believe this, but I didn't make it up. You can't make up this sort of stuff. We shouldn't have free tuition because we've already made the mistake by helping people with loans to go to college. Oh, I see. We shouldn't have given them loans. No, say the conservatives. And here's why. When we gave students loans, colleges raised the tuitions because they said the students can now get loans and we can raise the tuitions. And the second thing that happened was by giving them loans, we enabled more students to go to school than might otherwise. And that made more of them look for jobs, which is why employers aren't raising wages, because there's all these people looking for jobs. So you see, we shouldn't give them loans and we certainly shouldn't forget free the tuition because colleges will raise their tuition and employers will stop raising wages. Oh, my goodness. This is why we shouldn't help people. Because others in this crazy system would take advantage of helping people. That's Right. That's their argument. A system that allows schools and colleges to negate. The whole point of helping people get a loan to go to school by raising the price for that's a problem that we should solve. And ditto employers who don't pay people a living wage is a problem of a capitalist system that we should address. The conservative solution is to screw young people out of a loan and out of free tuition because the rest of the system behaves so badly. That's the logic of conservatism. The alternative is to change a system and that works this way and frustrates the attempts to help people that loans and free tuition represent. My final update today has to do with the whole process of companies moving abroad. A process that continues, a process that all the theatrics of Mr. Trump have not stopped and have hardly interfered with because what he does is theater. He doesn't have the power and he has no desire to interfere actually in the process. It's too costly to him politically and he gets wrapped across the knuckles by big corporations when he even looks in that direction. So we have nafta. That's the deal by which the United States has access to to Mexico and Canada. In that three country arrangement, Mr. Trump got rid of NAFTA because it isn't fair and substituted the usmca, which is NAFTA rewritten, as everybody who reads the documents knows. And what's its effect? Virtually nothing. And let me give you an example. General Motors is producing its Chevy Blazer SUV and also the new version of the Chevy Cruze, no longer in Lordstown, Ohio. Four and a half thousand workers lost their jobs at the General Motors factory there. Savaging the community, destroying the economics of all those families, interrupting their educations, interrupting their lives, leading to depressions and suicide. This extraordinary story of corporate irresponsibility. And they moved to Mexico. Nor is there the slightest mystery as to why they did that. Hourly wages at the GM plants in Mexico that are producing these cars, $3 an hour wages for the seasoned workers in Lordstown, $30 an hour. Do you get the picture? This is what General Motors saved. They're now going to have workers they pay $3 an hour to and they're going to pocket the profit. All the money saved because of the difference between $30 paid to an American worker in Ohio and $3 paid to the Mexican. What this does is destroy the economy here in the United States and do very little for Mexico, because paying someone $3 an hour means they are condemned to, to poverty there too. Capitalism spreads the poverty here in the United States and also in Mexico. An extraordinary example of how capitalism works and how the leadership of folks like Trump does nothing to stop it. We've come to the end of the first half of Economic Update. I want to remind you please to subscribe to us on our YouTube channel to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which you can do by going to our two websites, rdwolff with two Fs.com and most important, democracyatwork.info and a special thanks as always to the Patreon community. You can follow us there and you can help us in ways that we are grateful for and want to thank you for for as well. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Welcome back, friends, to the second half of Economic Update. As we have done before, I am very pleased to welcome back to the microphone and to the camera Dr. Harriet Fraad. She is a mental health counselor and a hypnotherapist in private practice in New York City. She's been on the program many times. Her work explores the intersections of American personal, economic and political life. She writes in a variety of places, and her work can be found at her website, Harriet Fraud. That's spelled H A R R I E T F R A A D. But most importantly, I want to direct your attention to her latest project. It's a bimonthly podcast that explores what is happening in the economic and political realms, as well as the impact of those things on our personal life. It's called Capitalism Hits Home. It answers questions about how capitalism impacts personal life, intimate relationships, those kinds of issues. You can find the podcast Capitalism Hits Home on itunes, Google Play, and our own website, democracyatwork.info and if you would like to support this project, yet another way to engage it is to go to patreon.com capitalismhitshome welcome to the program.
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B
Thank you for inviting me.
- [16:12]
A
What I wanted to talk about today, as I told you, was the remarkable economics and politics of the spectacular victories of the United States women's soccer team that got so much exposure this year and so much interest in the population, men and women alike. What's going on? What is this extraordinary moment in American history when a women's professional team, normally put into the background of what constitutes sports in America, suddenly becomes the center of attention? What's going on?
- [16:52]
B
Well, this is the time for equality. This is the time for talking back. This is the time for women's equality. And in the words of Megan Rubino herself in Time magazine, when she's being asked the question, your goal celebration with outstretched arms. What does that mean? She says, that was me representing everyone. Everyone fighting for the same things as I am. Equal. Pay more attention to race relations. Migrants at the border. You will not silence us. You will not take the smile off our face. You will not take anything from us. We're coming, we're here, we're not leaving. Because what this team stands for and Megan Ribino stands for as the picture is, we are not just sex objects. We are powerful players in this system and we're winning. And we're going to win, and not only for ourselves. As she says in that Time interview. We are going to win for all people who are treated as inferiors. And that's very powerful. And that's why equal pay was chanted at the games. And that's why Nike picked up an ad that has them chanting equal pay, because she sold more Nike jerseys and so did that team than have ever been sold before. Even though the men's team in 2018 got $400 million allocated and the women's winning team got $30 million, they were promised now, as a big prize, $60 million instead of 400. They're saying out with second class citizenship. In an article in the New York Times today, they mention how they fly the men's team business class and the women's team economy comfort. They reinforce over and over again the lines of dominance and submission. And women won't have it. And those people who are taught to submit are not submitting. And they're a message to all those people, don't submit. We're here and we're not leaving.
- [19:28]
A
For me, it was very interesting, looking at it as an economist, that an old issue that capitalism has never solved, which is the systematic discrimination in what is paid to white men on the one hand and what is paid to non whites on the other hand, and on the third hand to non males. So this was very interesting because suddenly that issue which has rankled, which has led to criticism, which has been held onto by employers who don't want to pay women or non whites the kind of money that they deserve from the work that they do, this is now being confronted through the mechanism of a sports event. I find that kind of remarkable that this group of women athletes would make that a centerpiece of what they're saying and what they're doing.
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B
Well, I think it's particularly appropriate because even though your money gets you into college, as we have learned, and gets you into positions in the economy, as we have Learned when you're out on the field playing a sport, you have to be good at it. You can't get there because your parents gave money. That's impossible. So it's one area where Americans can watch people compete who are qualified not by their parents, money, or theirs, but actually by their own skill, by their own determination, and by their own ability to play as a team. And they have emphasized over and over again that they are a team. People don't make goals by themselves. They're shot the ball and then they get it through and the goalie stops the other people. You know, it's amazing.
- [21:14]
A
There's a long line of criticism in capitalism, of capitalism that makes this point in another way. But I see you referring to it and that one of the reasons capitalist societies idolize sports, why sports are so important, whether it's on television or in the lives of people, is this point that it's one of the few areas where. Where there's actually some truth to the notion the individual's skill, the individual's capability, not who you know, not where you went to school, not how much money your folks have and all of that, but your real skill makes a difference. And then the double irony that it's all about the team. It's not all about the individual player. The teamwork, which is so not the case in the rest of the capitalist system, is central in these sports events. It's kind of remarkable that this all comes together. And so my next question is, why now? What's going on that would make this group of athletes bring that important role of sports to where it really talks about the economic issues and the political issues and the priority given to men and all the rest of the.
- [22:30]
B
Well, 2017 was the beginning year of Me Too and MeToo is everybody too. And gives the idea everyone to. And time's up. Gives money not only to the people who have the money to sue, but allocates money for everyone, like the 30,000 campesinas who are farm workers who have organized their own. Time's up. That women have the initiative right now because we have gone from being the most egalitarian income country in 1970 to the least of all the developed nations, according to the OECD statistics. And so it's galling on every level and their impulse right now, this team, to say, we're in it together and we're going to win and we're not going away and we don't care if we refuse the invitation to Trump. She said, I'm not going to the Blank White House, followed by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's invitation to the team, which they all accepted, to tour Congress with aoc. It says, we will not be squashed. And that's a message to everyone who needs to rise up in America. That's why Bernie's whole orientation, the issues he raised, which were far out in 2016, are now espoused by many of the Democrats because times are changing.
- [24:07]
A
Tell me, do you think it will have an impact on sports, particularly women's sports, in terms of recognizing the. The inequality that has been imposed on them, the discrimination when it comes to money and salaries and supports for their athletic effort, is that you think this is gonna now wrench this problem into the foreground and something will be done?
- [24:30]
B
I think it already is. In looking at the New York Times sports pages, they're often the men's sports pages. Sometimes there's no mention of women. There has been. Sometimes there's one little paragraph that looks like a token. Nothing. Now, women are covered for the first time in a long time, for the first time, forever, as far as I know, because women are asserting themselves, whether in tennis or in soccer. And the soccer team is militantly asserting their right to be included and their right to equal pay. And their fans are echoing the chant, equal pay. In fact, they're so dominant that Procter and Gamble is making a big deal of equal pay because their deodorant is featured as a sponsor of the team, as well as Nike, who's selling off jerseys like it's going out of style, as well as the Luna Company, who sells the energy bar. Suddenly, seeing that times have changed, capitalist corporations are trying to cash in, which is a sign that their PR departments are noticing, oh, times have changed. Better shift. I don't think it's their deep seated belief, but they are recognizing this.
- [25:52]
A
What about the implications of the confrontation between the administration of Mr. Trump and the Republicans on the one hand in the White House? And the response both how they handled this women's successful team and how the team responded? How do you see the implications of that?
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B
Well, I think it has huge implications for capitalism, because I don't think you can have an oppressive system like capitalism unless you enforce the lines of dominance and subordination in children and adults. And what they are doing is saying, we will not be subordinate. Capitalism pits one group to whom they give some small favor, like the whites in the south or men over women, male supremacy or white supremacy in order to keep the unity of the working class from emerging against capital and so these lines, based on flimsy biological rationalizations allow an oppressive system in which everyone's exploited, but some people are exploited a little less so the white male can feel superior. You can see that in the supporters of Trump. Make America great again. They mean make males who are white great again and make women cower. And sexual abuse, which is everywhere in the news, has been a way to make women cower, to sexualize women, to put them down as nothing but sex objects. That's what Epstein did, who was so lauded in the capitalist class and so much a friend of Clinton and Trump. He didn't care if these young girls were tortured when he raped them. They're only girls. They're there for sex. It's a way of totally subordinating a gender. And without those systems of inner subordination and shame, that doesn't work. That's what Black Lives Matter is about. We're not going to let that work. We're not going to feel like we don't matter because we're black. Even though you have inculcated those lessons from the time we were little in your children's books and in your culture, so it really does change the lines of dominance and subordination, which keeps the majority ashamed to stand up.
- [28:25]
A
Very good. Very passionate. I really appreciate your giving your feelings about this as well as the analysis. And as usual, I wish we had more time, but I think you've made the point that this was an athletic event, a sports event that really is a moment of a changing history. I want to thank all of you for joining us. I hope you found this as interesting a discussion of the remarkable women's soccer team as I did. Thank you for joining us, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.