Richard Wolff: The Collapse That Will Change A Generation

right now we maintain as a nation 700 to 800 military bases around the world no other country does anything remotely like that that is not just very expensive but that is also a kind of running the world if not by hitting people by threatening to hit people because we have troops and planes and bombs and missiles and all over right I mean right in your neighborhood and not far from what are we doing we came out of a situation where we thought this would protect us and in some ways it did and even in some

ways I'll Grant it does but you have to ask the question what else is it doing and the answer is it is defining the United States as the holder backer of what we are trying to do here in the ivory Republic in Africa or in Malaysia or in paragua it is the entity that's having a hold on the world trying to hold us back when the American Naval Fleet sits in the South China Sea you know a Stones Throw from Taiwan nobody cares about Taiwan nobody is fooled by this maybe a few Americans who are

naive this is not about Taiwan Taiwan is not a concern for China either it's the symbolism of it all and it allows the Chinese to say look at them they are here threatening us because we are out competing there neither you or I can resolve how honest or true that is it's got some truth it's got some exaggeration but we are giving them the ammunition if you like with which to characterize Us in this way I'll give you another example there's an enormous opposition inside Europe to the war with Russia and Ukraine there are many

many Europeans Pro capitalist anti- capitalist across the board who think that is the worst mistake of their lifetimes that struggle they are clear in their mind and I'm not arguing whether they're right or wrong it's wrong they should never have done it it's stupid the Russians will win the ukrainians will lose end of story it's a waste of money and it is making the people of Europe Furious because we're cutting back social programs while we fund a losing war that we don't care about in the first place but that's a real problem what are you

going to do you had three elections in the last few weeks Britain France and Germany every one of those elections should tell you the same thing the mass of people are rejecting the conventional politicians you better be careful because if they're doing that there they're going to do it here too maybe Trump is halfway there already maybe what comes next will be more let me give you an example for 15 years you had the conservatives as the conditions of existence of the British working class declined over the last 20 years and they declined worse than

anywhere else in the Western World the British the conservatives came up with the great idea idea blame the Europeans that's right up there with the United States today blame the immigrants are you crazy United States is a country of 330 million undocumented immigrants in this country maybe 10 to 15 million people and among them the poorest people on the planet they are not going to shape the economy of 330 million that's childish that never happened isn't happening now and isn't about to happen but if people are upset enough and they are and if they've suffered

enough and they have then they are vulnerable to being told okay so the British did it they left Europe with great Fanfare 10 years ago a little less 2016 brexit okay they have brexit their condition got worse not better which any fool could have told them why because that's not your problem there are pros and cons about Europe that's another but the notion that by separating yourself from Europe you're going to solve your problems you got to be crazy it's like if if you stop the flow of immigrants across the border into Texas you're going

to make a freaking bit of difference this is childish but this is what smart people do when they're jammed now let's look at France France has a middleof the road leader a nice young man so he hasn't got age as a problem Mr mcon okay in the National Assembly vote a month or two ago three major parties contested a left-wing party that's virtually fascist by Marina Le Pen the national front his own party party the sitting president of the country and a Unity of four little leftist parties the French Socialist Party the French Communist Party

the french green party and the French Socialist Party that takes the name France unbowed those four came together and you know what the French people did for their president his party came in third out of three the number one party was a party led by a former member of the French Communist Party who is still a big leftist that's the largest political Block in the French assembly right now and then in Germany you had election it wasn't National the way it was in Britain and France it was in the Eastern region two or three lender

they're called in Germany they're like states in the United States roughly in those the right-wing quasi fascist party that has arisen in Germany that's an achievement man because Germany is where they had Nazis and Hitler so to be a right-wing you know to with Hitler to have a swas on your shirt it's something anywhere in the world but to do it in Germany amazing they came in first who came in second a relative political unknown a woman Sarah vagen who is a Marxist has been a Marxist all her life was a fixure of the Marxist

left in Germany decided to run on her own and comes in second okay what we're seeing here is a rejection of the status quo on a massive scale you got to deal with that and none of them are you know what Mr starmer the new head of Britain his first two acts as the new labor party prime minister he's cutting fuel assistance to poor people in England as they face the coming winter where they are desperately in need why because fuel has gone up in price why because British can't get their hands on Russian oil

and gas which is the cheap way Britain has heated itself in winter time so they can see real clear the connection with Ukraine and Russia on the one hand and their own suffering and you know what else Mr starmer said is besides saving money on giving fuel Aid to the poor he's going to give more to Ukraine man this is the end for him this the end for the labor party they are creating a situation where the British working class is going to finally figure out that relying on the cons conservatives and the labor party

back and forth between these two is not solving their problem and why am I telling you this because in the United States we are in the midst of the process of our working class reaching the same conclusion about the Republicans and the Democrats this is holding back these conflicts play out Britain is a basket case economically and becoming more so they don't even address the problems they have they are so caught up in not being willing to face their real problems and make the changes the Empire is gone and no matter how pompous the inauguration

of their new King Charles it doesn't make it more than a piece of Hollywood Theater you know the Chinese a year ago began to deliver around the world a statistical result which the United Nations endorsed it went like this over the last 10 years we have raised 800 million people out of poverty in China their average income went from X to y y is higher than x by enough to say they are no longer in poverty they are in modest or whatever the terms are that the UN uses okay it doesn't matter whether it's exaggerated

or not probably is but who knows but it's the right thing to say it gives them the word that the rest of the world the overwhelming majority of the rest of the world is most interested in how can we do that let me give a statistic just to try to help people get a handle on it I recently was invited to give a speech to an organization in losos Nigeria and in order to prepare for that speech and what they asked me to talk about I went back to reacquaint myself with this example of Africa

in relationship to the United States and I did it because Nigeria is a very important important country in Africa one of the most important maybe the most important in Africa here's a one minute summary the population of Nigeria which will amaze people is 220 million people okay that's 2/3 of the United States in Nigeria we the United States now is a country 50% larger than Nigeria we have 50% more people roughly what is the GDP the gross domestic prod the total output of goods and services achieved in Nigeria in one calendar year recently you know

2022 2023 whatever I could get half a trillion dollar so about $500 billion give or take what is the GDP of the United States recent year 22 23 trillion okay that means that while the United States is 50% more people it has 50 times the wealth of Nigeria now I don't think that's a sustainable arrangement for anybody no matter what your economics are or your politics or your ideology or anything that's not sustainable you cannot especially in a world where those 220 million are in a position which they are to learn all about the difference

this is not going to work and indeed the proof of it was that the people who inv invited me to speak there believe that and that's what they wanted me to talk about cuz they find it intolerable and they're upset and they're bitter and they're angry or they're you know a good number of Nigerians leave Nigeria they don't want to but the difference between the life they can lead in the United States or Europe or someplace else is just so enormous that for their husband or their wife or their kids look I understand all of

that my parents are refugees from Europe they came to the United States to survive and to do better which they did but it's not sustainable you got to do something you cannot fob that off but in fact that's what's being done neither Europe nor the United States is addressing this qu just doesn't do it gives them verbalism give them noise just noise the Chinese are everywhere Building Bridges erecting schools it's amazing to watch we in the west we are making it easier for this to blow up in our face this selfdefense of pretending this isn't

going on is killing us it's like watching a slow motion train heading into a stone wall you want to scream at the people on the train stop the train get off the train you have the power you can do it pull the brake yell at the conductor do something but they're so busy partying that they don't recognize what's happening I think there are very basic similar arities between the United States and China which I would be glad to tell you about and those are more than enough that a comparable deal could be and should be

worked out nuclear war is not an option unless you're lunatic and I'm assuming that the prevailing mentality in Washington in Beijing and everywhere else is not lunatics Americans don't understand what terrible war is they just don't they've never suffered being on the losing end of a major war fought on their own territory the Chinese have the Japanese have the Russians have the Europeans have and I could go on but we have't in World War II bombs fell in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor and never again no American city has has ever gone through that the only

time I ever went to a bomb shelter was when I was a student in my public school here in the United States and they taught us how to get under our desk in case there was a bomb which none of us understood and thought was a funny game and when Americans talk about war there's a Bravado that sounds like a bad cowboy movie in which you know you see the shooting and then when it's over everybody gets up and goes and have a cup of coffee or a beer it's not a real trauma that settles

into the Consciousness so my view is here's what's similar the Chinese never broke not yet from the capitalist commitment to organize production in a particular way and that way has a small group of people at the top they'll make the basic decisions they decide basically what's going to be produced how it's going to be produced where it's going to be produced and what is done with the revenue and the rest of the people are employees and they have the Monopoly of the power do they share some of it sure they do especially if they're smart

they understand but that's where the power is and that's where the wealth accumulat because they keep whatever the net revenue is a disproportionate amount for the owners and the top Executives and all the rest the Chinese don't do all that different but they do substitute State officials so that is very different but they ironically are going to have a harder time maintaining that system than we in the west cuz we have the ideological rationalization of it all we teach as I have done all my life in the University that this capitalist Arrangement is necessary is

efficient this is like teaching a catechism in a Catholic school if you know or any other religion I don't mean to pick out a Roman Catholicism I know that we're teaching an ideology that rationalizes that the problem in China they teach an ideology that doesn't if you open up Marx's Capital which they teach people to do Marx is all about there's another way of doing things ladies and gentlemen and in this country we call it a worker Co-op it's a horizontally organized Enterprise it's a community that decides democratically what to produce how to produce where

to produce and what to do with the revenue that's an all that's what Marx was talking about and that's going to be on the agenda one way or another there and here and then the real question becomes how will these two systems engage and struggle with the challenge that's coming from below and the irony which I don't think is far-fetched is that they have a lot to get together on they're afraid of that they're afraid here in one way but they're afraid another way there and that plus the threat of nuclear war is more than

enough to be able to do together now what Britain and the United States did back in the 19th century we are in a problem position a unipolar world us on top is becoming a multi-polar world contesting Empires and not just the US and China Europe as I tried to suggest trying to find some way to survive in this multi-polar world but that means that the US Empire is in Decline we can dance and pretend all we want around it try to keep up the denial but if you remember that denial didn't work well for all

those other Empires you might at least open the possibility that it's not working well for us either