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Encore: Taming Capitalism Run Wild

Replay Our Chat with Economist Richard Wolff

March 20, 2013
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Credit: Dale Robbins

Richard Wolff (Credit: Dale Robbins)

In Bill’s first interview with economist and professor Richard Wolff, he asked viewers to submit questions for Wolff to answer. We received hundreds, some of which the professor tackled on this week’s Moyers & Company. 

We invited Wolff back to our studios for a live chat with viewers on Tuesday, March 26, in which he answered more of your questions. Replay the chat by pressing play in the box below.

 Economist Richard Wolff(03/26/2013) 
11:22
Moyers & Company: 
Our live chat with economist Richard Wolff begins at 1 PM ET, but we encourage you to submit your questions now.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 11:22 Moyers & Company
12:43
Moyers & Company: 
Richard Wolff will be joining us in about 15 minutes. Wolff is a Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Visiting Professor at the New School graduate program in International Affairs in New York.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 12:43 Moyers & Company
12:43
Moyers & Company: 
Wolff’s work challenges the conventional wisdom that capitalism is the ideal framework for the political economy. More recently, he has concentrated on analyzing the causes and alternative solutions to the global economic crisis. In 2010, Wolff put his economic theory into action, and co-founded Democracy at Work, a project that aims to build a social movement and society whose workplace is more equitable, sustainable, and democratic.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 12:43 Moyers & Company
12:44
Moyers & Company: 
Over the years, Wolff has written extensively and published many books including Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism, Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism, and Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It, which was also made into a DVD.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 12:44 Moyers & Company
12:44
Moyers & Company: 
Wolff’s bold and persuasive economic ideas have helped him establish a strong media presence. He writes regularly for The Guardian and Truthout.org, and has been interviewed by Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera English, and National Public Radio. He is also a frequent lecturer at colleges and universities across the country.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 12:44 Moyers & Company
12:44
Moyers & Company: 
Wolff earned his PhD in Economics and MA in History from Yale University, an MA in Economics from Stanford, and a BA in History from Harvard. He lives in New York with his wife, Dr. Harriet Fraad, a psychotherapist.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 12:44 Moyers & Company
12:55
Moyers & Company: 
We'll be getting started in five minutes, so please submit your questions now. We already have quite a few in the queue.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 12:55 Moyers & Company
12:59
Moyers & Company: 

Professor Wolff is here with us now in the Moyers & Company studio. We're very excited to have you here with us. Welcome to you!

Tuesday March 26, 2013 12:59 Moyers & Company
12:59
Junot Díaz: 
Hello. I'm happy to be here.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 12:59 Junot Díaz
1:00
Moyers & Company: 

Hang on... We're experiencing the wrong label here. Give us a few seconds to fix it.

Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:00 Moyers & Company
1:00
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Testing
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:00 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:01
Moyers & Company: 
Okay, we've got the right name!
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:01 Moyers & Company
1:01
Moyers & Company: 
Sorry about that! We'd like to get started right away. We have a lot of questions to get through. Thanks for coming to our live chat.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:01 Moyers & Company
1:01
[Comment From Don Eichelberger Don Eichelberger : ] 
Thank you both for this opportunity. I want to ask if you feel there is such a thing as a "moral" economics possible, where people would look at ALL the costs involved, social and environmental, and choose in favor of the larger community good and refuse to make profit in certain ways?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:01 Don Eichelberger
1:02
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Yes, I think its possible.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:02 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:02
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
And the reasoning here is straight forward.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:02 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:02
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
We have a system that puts in charge a handful of major shareholders and a tiny board of directors who are told and paid to maximize the bottom line: profits.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:02 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:03
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
That system ignores all of those moral values.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:03 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:03
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Such as the mental and physical health of all the workers, the value to the community and to nature of what's going on in the enterprise.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:03 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:03
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
I'm confident that if enterprises were democratized and all the people together made the decisions, they would count all of the moral and ethical questions alongside the bottom line.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:03 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:04
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
And that way, we get better economic decisions and a better economy.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:04 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:04
[Comment From Guest Guest : ] 
When you look at the truly horrible trends in the U.S. (and in many other nations) over the past 35 years, what is the realistic basis for hope and activism? ... (edited)
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:04 Guest
1:04
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
My answer is based on my own experience.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:04 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:05
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Over the last two years, I have been invited to more public speaking, to more media interviews, to air my kind of economics, than I got in the previous forty years combined.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:05 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:05
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Something is changing in the United States at a very profound level.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:05 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:05
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
New questions and new solutions are being sought by more Americans than at any time in the last half century. That's the basis for my hope.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:05 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:06
[Comment From macionmhuinn macionmhuinn : ] 
Thank you, Mr. Moyers, for hosting this excellent discussion. I'm looking forward to Professor Wolff's ideas regarding what is to be done. How do we empower workers and communities so that they may build and secure an economy that works for everyone? Can we get there by implementing gradual reforms, or, do we need to break free of capitalist constraints entirely in order to win economic democracy and substantive equality? Christopher & Maryanne Augusta, Maine
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:06 macionmhuinn
1:07
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
In my view, the solution is not more laws, more regulations. Corporate America has proven to us that they can get around the laws and regulations or else control the political system that devises laws and regulations.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:07 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:08
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
So for me, everything is about organizing and mobilizing people to act through their unions, through social movements, through the kind of initiative shown by Occupy Wall Street. These are the ways to make an economy serve the people by the people taking charge themselves.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:08 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:08
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Finally, that's why worker co ops appeal so strongly to me as a way to move forward in this country at this time.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:08 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:09
[Comment From Claire Claire : ] 
What did the Occupy movement achieve, if anything? Do you think it should be resurrected in some form? Also, why do you think it was crushed? Is this form or style of movement outdated? It seems as if peaceful protest/speech is becoming more difficult to perform in public.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:09 Claire
1:09
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The Occupy Wall Street movement had enormous importance for America.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:09 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:10
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
For the first time in many years, the basic economic problem of American society was put front and center.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:10 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:10
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The slogan of one percent versus 99 percent crystallized thinking and feeling across America.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:10 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:11
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Criticism of capitalism and the inequality is had produced became possible -- and, indeed, popular.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:11 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:11
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
I cannot overstate how important that was.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:11 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:11
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Americans who feel that way discovered that they are the majority.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:11 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:12
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
That's why billionaire mayors like Michael Bloomberg had to order bulldozers to remove the folks in Zuccotti Park
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:12 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:12
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Like other officials, they could not rebut the criticism that Occupy Wall Street offered.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:12 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:12
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
They could only repress.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:12 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:13
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
I think that whether we have a resurgence of occupy or new forms of social movement, the crisis of the United States, like that in Europe, is provoking and organizing the critics of the system into ever stronger and larger expressions.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:13 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:13
[Comment From Guest Guest : ] 
Great question from Claire... beat me to the punch!
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:13 Guest
1:13
[Comment From Guest Guest : ] 
What would it take for another movement along the lines of Occupy Wall Street to make greater changes in society? Was it too disjointed?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:13 Guest
1:13
[Comment From Steven Steven : ] 
But what has really changed as a result? It seems more of a footnote.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:13 Steven
1:14
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Occupy Wall Street has not changed the kinds of policies coming down from the business leadership and the political leadership of the country.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:14 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:14
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
They want to believe they can continue. They don't understand that doing the same will simply provoke bigger and stronger movements.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:14 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:14
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Does occupy have things to learn? Certainly.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:14 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:14
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
They need to learn long-term organization.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:14 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:15
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
They cannot indulge the notion that everyone will do their own thing.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:15 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:15
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
But these are lessons every movement has to learn as it builds.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:15 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:16
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Last: Because the folks running American business and politics failed to prevent this crisis and failed to change the decline in the economic conditions of most Americans, they are building the conditions for the very movement that will undo their dominance.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:16 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:17
[Comment From MWWA MWWA : ] 
Is it possible to have capitalism without growth? The growth imperative seems to be what makes the current system so destructive of community and environment.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:17 MWWA
1:18
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
What capitalism does is focus growth on what's most important to it. And that's profit and growing market share for an enterprise and the economic expansion that impresses shareholders and corporate directors.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:18 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:19
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
What the mass of people want is economic growth of a different kind. More leisure, for example. Growth in a harmonious relationship with nature. Time for the important relationships of life.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:19 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:19
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The reason we need to do better than capitalism is to make sure that the growth we get is the growth most people need and want, not the growth that profit-maximizing capitalist enterprises make their top priority.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:19 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:20
[Comment From Richard Richard : ] 
Can we achieve that through capitalism?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:20 Richard
1:20
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
My basic answer is no. We have tried to have genteel, progressive capitalisms.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:20 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:20
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
In Europe, these are called capitalisms with a human face. And we have seen them oscillate with harsh capitalisms.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:20 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:21
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The kind of harsh capitalism being imposed on the United States and Europe now by what are called austerity policies.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:21 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:21
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
It is therefore long overdue that we ask and debate in our country whether we can't do better than capitalism.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:21 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:21
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
...and have the daring to try.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:21 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:22
[Comment From Guest Guest : ] 
Are there any currently successful or budding worker coops in the US right now?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:22 Guest
1:22
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
There are hundreds of successful coops functioning in the United States today. Perhaps thousands, because no complete census of them is available.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:22 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:22
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Many have been successful for decades.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:22 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:23
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
It is only because the capitalist corporations that dominate American culture don't want to have Americans engage in a debate about capitalist versus cooperative business organization that we don't know more and discuss more about that alternative.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:23 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:23
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Cooperative workplaces are as old as the United States is as a nation.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:23 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:24
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
As capitalism fails to deliver an improving standard of living to most Americans, it is more important than ever that we renew interest in and experiments with cooperative democratic business organization.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:24 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:24
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
To give a few examples:
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:24 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:25
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
In the Bay Area of Claifornia, Arizmendi bakeries are a wonderful example of successful, growing bakeries and coffee shops.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:25 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:26
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
On Marthas Vineyard, on the other end of America, the South Mountain Company is a group of thirty architects, builders and carpenters who started their business in 1975, converted it into a coop from a conventional capitalist enterprise in 1987, and have been successful and growing ever since.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:26 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:26
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
And between the two coasts, cooperatives exist in every state across all kind of businesses, from manufacturing through services.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:26 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:26
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
This is a proven model that could be the basis for the economic and social rebuilding of America that becomes more urgent with every passing week.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:26 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:27
Moyers & Company: 

If you'd like to learn more about cooperative businesses in the U.S., you can also visit BillMoyers.com to watch some scenes from the documentary, Shift Change, which features interviews with workers.

Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:27 Moyers & Company
1:28
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
By the way, our website, www.democracyatwork.info, had loads more examples.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:28 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:29
[Comment From William Salter William Salter : ] 
Are American unions in their current form as much of an obstacle to implementing your ideas as corporations?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:29 William Salter
1:29
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Unions in America have had to accomodate over the last fifty years to a very difficult economic situation.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:29 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:29
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
After WWII, business in America went to work to undermine and destroy unions who had become very powerful as a result of the Great Depression.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:29 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:30
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
During the 1930s, we had the greatest unionization drive in American history.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:30 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:30
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Millions of Americans joined unions who had never done so before.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:30 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:30
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
In response, business tried to undermine unions and have been largely successful.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:30 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:31
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
For example: In 2013, the percentage of workers in the private sector of America who are members of or represented by a union are under seven percent.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:31 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:31
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
That is, 93 percent of private sector workers have no union.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:31 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:31
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
That's down from 35 percent after WWII.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:31 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:31
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
A fifty year decline has made unions much weaker and much less able to win for working people what they once did.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:31 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:32
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
I think that unions need to drastically question their strategies because of their vulnerability, and that new and different ways of serving the needs of most Americans are long overdue.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:32 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:32
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Unless Americans can figure out new and different organizations to serve their needs, unions will have to continue to be among their best hopes.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:32 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:33
[Comment From Andrew Gorman Andrew Gorman : ] 
On Economics: I see universities teach two concepts: macroeconomics and microeconomics. Where does Marxian economic analysis fit into this model? Or is this merely the model that is perpetuated precisely to alienate more critical forms of analysis?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:33 Andrew Gorman
1:33
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
As an economic professor, all my life I have always criticized the inadequate, biased and ultimately disfunctional of both undergraduate and graduate economic education in the U.S.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:33 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:33
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The field of economics has always been a contested terrain.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:33 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:34
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Theories that celebrate capitalism is what we teach. Theories that criticize capitalism and explore alternatives are denied even the chance of discussion in the vast majority of our higher education curricula.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:34 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:34
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
This is a disservice to our students and to our society.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:34 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:34
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
It misrepresents the exciting debate within economics over capitalism and its alternatives.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:34 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:35
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Final thought: One of the reasons our leaders have done so poorly to prevent the current crisis or to turn it around is because they are a generation that never learned the insights of economist critical of capitalism as they should have been when they were going to school
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:35 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:36
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The Cold War is over, and someone should explain that to the folks in charge of economics education in America's college and university communities.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:36 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:36
[Comment From Derek Tarbell Derek Tarbell : ] 
Hello Professor Wolff. A lot of people I talk to still are not sure as to what the concrete differences are between Socialism and Communism, could you explain in the simplest terms you can? And how can we as a society get away from all of the false negativity surrounding those two systems, particularly socialism?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:36 Derek Tarbell
1:36
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The interesting fact about socialism and communism is how little Americans know about them. And that's not surprising.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:36 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:37
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
For most of the last half century, everything about socialism and communism has been demonized and very little about its actual reality has been taught.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:37 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:37
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Socialism is the system that countries like the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China used to define themselves.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:37 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:38
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
These were economies where the state took over industrial enterprises and where the state used planning as a way to distribute goods, rather than markets.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:38 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:38
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Neither of those countries claimed to be communist.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:38 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:38
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
They made the distinction that communism was a distant, future state they hoped one day to achieve.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:38 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:39
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
For them, communism represented a society in which need determined the distribution of goods and each person labored as much as he or she thought appropriate.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:39 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:39
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
As Lenin once said, in communism the state would wither away.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:39 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:40
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
One consequence of this distinction between socialism and communism is what disappeared in Russia, what failed to survive there, was not communism since they hadn't achieved that.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:40 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:41
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Final point: As the Cold War recedes from our memory, it should and I believe will become possible once again to rationally debate and evaluate what was positive in the socialist experience, what were the flaws of the socialist experience, and by evaluating both capitalism and socialism, to figure out the best way forward for all economic conditions across the world today. That will be a healthier way forward than to continue the lopsided celebration of capitalism as if it had no flaws and the demonization of socialism and communism as if they had no virtues.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:41 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:42
[Comment From lilcapo lilcapo : ] 
Dr. Wolff, Do you think that removing private money from all elections - local, state, and federal - would fix many of the problems in the workplace you advocate fixing? After all, very powerful special interests would no longer be able to use their financial advantage to weaken or prevent legislation that benefits the average worker. Thank you. --Aaron Newport, KY
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:42 lilcapo
1:42
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Many countries have tried to remove the money of wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals from controlling politics.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:42 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:43
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
But we have to face a difficult reality. Whenever big businesses and wealthy people realize that politics threatens them, that people's rights to vote and express themselves politically can undo the inequality that gives them their wealth, they decide to use their wealth to control politics so that they are no longer vulnerable.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:43 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:44
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The efforts to prevent them have never really succeeded.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:44 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:44
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
That is why the solution lies in changing our business enterprises, democratizing workplaces, because only then will we prevent the inequalities of wealth and income that always end up corrupting politics.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:44 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:44
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
We've tried to control the efforts of the wealthy. It doesn't work.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:44 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:45
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
But if we change the economic basis of the distribution of wealth and income, we will avoid the problem by dealing with its root cause.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:45 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:45
[Comment From Elaine Elaine : ] 
I believe the lack of universal health care in this county is the biggest detriment to our economy. I think most people can learn to live poor, but living without health care can destroy lives with one serious illness. The example of cooperative industries in Spain presented Sunday are exactly what is needed in the U.S. to get our economy going. However, Spain does have a universal health care system in place. How would you propose a cooperative cover its employees?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:45 Elaine
1:46
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The U.S. is the only advanced industrial country that does not provide its citizens with a national health insurance program.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:46 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:46
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
At the same time, the U.S. requires its citizens to pay far more for their health care than the people in any other advanced industrial country.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:46 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:46
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
These two facts are intimately connected.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:46 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:47
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
A proper national health care insurance program, like those existing elsewhere, could not only secure the health of our people, but reduce the costs dramatically.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:47 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:47
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
That would help cooperatively organized businesses, but it would help all businesses.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:47 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:48
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The irony and tragedy of the U.S. health system is that we permit four industries to impose absurd costs on the vast majority of us.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:48 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:48
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The four industries are the doctors, the hospitals, the drug companies and the medical insurance companies.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:48 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:49
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
If we had a thriving cooperative industrial organization in America, it would give us an enormous extra strength to finally break the monopoly that those four industries have imposed on the American people, and American enterprise, requiring us to overpay for our medical care.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:49 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:49
[Comment From Mellody Mellody : ] 
In your conversation with Bill Moyers, you responded to a question about overwhelming student debt. You said that there are some specific things that one could do, but you didn't have time to elaborate. Could you do so now?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:49 Mellody
1:50
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Yes -- the first problem with student debt is that we shouldn't have allowed the conditions to develop that require it.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:50 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:50
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Lets be clear: other advanced industrial countries do not exhibit anything like the levels of student debt that we have in the U.S. today.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:50 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:50
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Higher education benefits the whole society.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:50 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:51
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Not just the students who get educated.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:51 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:51
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Thats why other countries subsidize higher education for their people.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:51 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:51
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The United States, after WWII, took giant steps to do likewise in this country.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:51 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:51
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
That's why over three quarters of college and university students today attend public institutions.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:51 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:52
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
We should, therefore, have prevented the escalation of tuition and other university costs over recent years. That would have removed the need for students to take on excessive debt.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:52 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:52
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
We could likewise have established special governmental loan programs to provide, at least, interest free loans to students for college education purposes.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:52 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:53
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
These would have been steps that would have increased the quality and the quantity of the university graduates which would have been the best possible investment in the economic future of the United States.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:53 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:53
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Instead, we have done the opposite.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:53 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:53
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Thereby shooting ourselves in the collective foot.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:53 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:54
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
...in a way not done by our chief economic competitors, lead by the People's Republic of China, who have increased their subsidies and supports for higher education.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:54 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:55
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Lastly: Even now, the government could and should take immediate steps. For one simple example, change the law to allow students who can demonstrate bankruptcy to thereby relieve not only their credit card debt or their mortgage debt, but also their student debt, which is not now legally possible.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:55 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:55
[Comment From Cynthia. Gardner Cynthia. Gardner : ] 
I loved hearing your ideas for change. Please give myself and others concrete steps that we can take as individuals to make it happen!
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:55 Cynthia. Gardner
1:55
[Comment From Guest Guest : ] 
What's the most important thing we can do to get your ideas noticed and discussd?
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:55 Guest
1:55
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
There are two things.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:55 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:56
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
The first one is to be confident enough that you can learn what's going on and explain it to people around you.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:56 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:57
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Forgive my immodesty, but please take a look at my website www.rdwolff.com which is intended to be a resource on all the things we discussed over the last hour.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:57 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:57
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
And the second thing is: get together with the millions of like-minded people to build the organizations without which no change will happen, and which are now more possible than at any time in my lifetime.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:57 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:58
Moyers & Company: 
I'm afraid we have to wrap it up. Professor Wolff, do you think we could do this again sometime? We have so many more questions that you didn't get a chance to answer.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:58 Moyers & Company
1:58
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
Absolutely, I would love to.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:58 Prof. Richard Wolff
1:59
Moyers & Company: 
Thanks so much for spending time with us. I think this was our most attended chat yet!
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:59 Moyers & Company
1:59
[Comment From Vicente Roybal Vicente Roybal : ] 
Great Session! Thank You!!
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:59 Vicente Roybal
1:59
[Comment From Sue Sidun Sue Sidun : ] 
thank you!!!
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:59 Sue Sidun
1:59
[Comment From Guest Guest : ] 
Thank you...............
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:59 Guest
1:59
[Comment From Aislinn Aislinn : ] 
Thank you Bill Moyers, for having Prof Wolff on to do this. I loved it.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:59 Aislinn
1:59
Prof. Richard Wolff: 
There were many great questions that came in that we did not have time to get to. Some of you had more questions about worker coops and how coops can be part of our economy. I've addressed many of those on my website, www.democracyatwork.info, and in my book Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism. You can also find answers to many of the other questions you submitted about our economy on my other website, www.rdwolff.com.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 1:59 Prof. Richard Wolff
2:00
[Comment From MLK and FDR MLK and FDR : ] 
Thank you Mr. Moyers and Dr. Wolff!
Tuesday March 26, 2013 2:00 MLK and FDR
2:01
[Comment From Jeff Jeff : ] 
Thank you Bill Moyers and Company for providing these wonderful resources.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 2:01 Jeff
2:01
Moyers & Company: 
Thanks eveyone for joining us! It was a real pleasure.
Tuesday March 26, 2013 2:01 Moyers & Company
2:01
Moyers & Company: 
Have a great day, everyone!
Tuesday March 26, 2013 2:01 Moyers & Company
 
 

Wolff is known for his ability to explain the complex causes of America’s current economic challenges — most notably, runaway capitalism and our growing income inequality. He’s also known for championing democratically run cooperative businesses. His recent book, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism, is a self-described manifesto for the alternative business model.

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