 
Welcome friends to another edition of
Economic Update a weekly program devoted
to the economic dimensions of our lives
our jobs our incomes our debts those
coming down the road confronting us and
those of course facing our children
I'm your host Richard Wolff I've been a
Professor of Economics all my adult life
and I currently teach at the New School
University in New York City.  Before
jumping into the updates for today I
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let's turn to the economic updates for
this middle part of May 2017 well we've
just entered into the third week of a
hunger strike by Yale University
graduate students and because of the
implications and meaning of this strike
it bears some attention what the
graduate students
to do is to unionize after all as they
explained they are cannot complete their
studies to become a PhD recipient in the
graduate schools unless they earn money
because they have to eat and sleep and
do all the other things that people of
their age usually in the night in their
20s of their lives and must do as we can
all understand in order to earn money to
be a graduate student
they are basically required to be what's
called teaching assistants that is to
teach classes typically to
undergraduates at Yale University
people whose families pay hundreds of
thousands of dollars for these young
folks to get a bachelor's degree it is
of course an enormous ly profitable
thing for Yale University to not pay a
regular professor who would have to earn
a regular professors salary and that's
in the neighborhood of seventy five
thousand on up to hundreds of thousands
it's much better for Yale's profits not
to have to pay a professor to teach the
course but instead to get a graduate
student to teach the course because in
effect they pay them a trivially small
percentage of what a full professor a
proper professor of fully-trained
prefers professor would have to be paid
and that's the beginning and mostly the
end of the story it is of course very
bad for the graduate students they have
to work hard they are busily at work
taking classes or writing their doctoral
dissertations highly stressful work and
here they are being paid little or
nothing for doing so this is a difficult
situation and there's no surprise at all
that people in that situation working
hard resent being paid so poorly that
they have trouble making ends meet
there are many graduate students around
the country I don't know whether it
applies
Yale who are eligible for food stamps
and other supports because they are paid
so poorly so what the Yale graduate
students wanted to do was to form a
union local 33 since other workers at
Yale building and grounds people kitchen
people clerks secretaries have already
organized for many years into locals 34
and 35 at Yale University the graduate
students wanted to be their own unit
they had a election according to the
rules of this process in the United
States which they won several weeks ago
but Yale is refusing to sit down and
negotiate with them Yale's lawyers are
contesting the outcome because Yale lost
and Yale can hire and has hired very
high-priced union-busting type law firms
to help them along and of course one can
surmise that Yale is hoping that mr.
Trump will sooner or later reconstitute
the National Labor Relations Board and
that may overturn the rule that allows
graduate students at Yale and other
places to form unions in short Yale
University is a very typical employer
here in the United States all its
protestations to being the guardian of
Western civilization notwithstanding and
they are acting just like any other
employer trying to prevent to stop to
undercut an effort by its workers to get
decent pay and to form a union to do
that I'm particularly interested in this
because forty years ago I was a graduate
student at the same Yale University when
we were trying for the exact same
reasons to do the exact same thing so
there's nothing new here that's going on
my hat is off to the graduate students
they are better organized than we were
they are more clear in their interests
than we were and they are more clear
allies of the union's than we were all
of which has enabled them to be more
effect
recently particularly the women among
the graduate students have added another
demand that is for an end to the sexual
harassment of women graduate students
which was an epidemic when I was a
graduate student at Yale and it is
remarkable to see that the university
has been either unable or unwilling to
deal with that problem
either in the intervening decades but
there's another reason to be interested
in what these graduate students are
doing because it shows that the kinds of
workers you might have imagined could be
exempt from the current austerity across
the Western capitalist world the
austerity that in Europe and in the
United States cuts the services that the
government provides people cuts the jobs
that the government provides to people
to provide the services to everybody
else that these kinds of downsizing of a
declining capitalism they might not
affect university students they might be
exempt they might not have to suffer
what the Yale strike makes so clear is
that the idea that anyone in the working
class is more or less educated higher or
lower paid that anyone will escape this
process is now clearly not the case that
unless the process is stopped we will
all be victims sooner or later in one
way or another yes at one end of the
income distribution the people making
less than $15 an hour are moving across
the United States to try to get a
minimum that allows them to leave to
live but much higher paid much more
educated people like graduate students
at Yale University find themselves in
the same boat being ripped off by their
employer who thinks he can get away with
it at this time in this country's
history by not letting them have a union
by not paying them a decent wage
and simply enjoying the extra profits
that come from having a graduate student
to whom you do not give reasonable
amounts of money do the teaching instead
of a professor the irony is it's not
good for the professors who have less
work the fact or what the graduate
students are trying to become it's not
good for the families who send their
children to places like Yale imagining
they're going to get the best possible
professor no they're not they're going
to have graduate students palmed off on
their students on their children
graduate students who are busy working
at some completely other activity mainly
getting through the program themselves
and getting a PhD hassled by the time
and energy they have to devote to these
other things it's not good for the
students it's not good for the finished
faculty and it's certainly not good for
these graduate students the difference
is the undergraduates haven't protested
and the regular faculty haven't
protested but their graduate students
and that's why my hats off to them or
doing something and in the process
pushing back against the general decline
in standards of living that is the
capitalist program for the working
classes across Western Europe North
America and Japan staying with the same
topic but approaching it from a
different angle I came across the
following news I want to share with you
in July the federal government
particularly the Department of Treasury
has announced it will raise the interest
rates on government loans to students
before I go into the details I'd like to
ask a rhetorical question
is making it more expensive for students
to borrow to get a college education is
that part of quote making America great
again do you think well here's the
specifics undergraduates will find that
the government's interest rate on loans
to them for school go from three point
seven six percent to four point four
five percent
to hefty increase for graduate students
it's from 5.3 percent to 6 percent may
not sound like much but we're talking
hundreds of dollars extra per year for
every year that our students are in debt
and how many students present or past
students are carrying debt something how
many will be affected by this raising of
the government's interest rate you might
be shocked to learn 44 million Americans
currently carry student debt the total
is over 1.4 trillion dollars and the
average debt carried by a student debtor
who borrowed for going to his or her
college university $32,000 hanging over
your head that you have to pay interest
on and that you have to pay back well
here's a little side point as to who's
cheering on the government to raise
interest rates clearly the students
aren't clearly their parents are and
clearly those of us who care about the
future of the United States have to
wonder out loud why would a country that
knows it has to compete in the world
economy be making it more difficult for
young people to get an education rather
than making it easier but put all that
aside here's the people who are cheering
the government on the private lenders
the banks and others who lend to
individuals who either can't afford or
don't want to pay what the government is
charging clearly as the government's
interest rates go up that's good news
for the private lenders that compete
with the government making these loans
and of course there's a key difference
students who borrow from the government
enjoy all kinds of protections from
being hassled afterwards from the costs
of delays in their ability to pay
protections that are not available to
them if
they borrow from private lenders so of
course here is more damage to young
people and their families who are
thinking of college education and again
the larger point I want to drive home is
this namely that here is another sign of
how a declining capitalism shifts the
costs of that decline from those at the
top to everyone else we saw it with what
the graduate students at Yale are doing
demanding a decent salary for the hard
work they do but now we see it again in
the tens of millions of Americans who
will be charged more for their college
loans than they used to be this is a way
of shifting the burden from those at the
top to everyone else the fact that it
comes at a time when those at the top
are getting richer and everybody else
int only makes the story that much worse
last week also saw another development
that merits some discussion two senators
Bernie Sanders from Vermont and
Gillibrand from New York State combined
to introduce two bills into the Senate
that are interesting and that deserves
some discussion the first bill is called
worker ownership readiness and knowledge
or the word wor K work as the name of
this Act they have introduced for
consideration by their fellow senators
the second bill is called the u.s.
employee ownership bank Act to make a
long story short these two bills express
the desire of senators Sanders and
Gillibrand from Vermont and New York to
support the ability and the incentives
for workers to by the companies in which
they work to convert these companies
from their classical ownership by
shareholders who decide what the Board
of Directors is and what the Board of
Directors will govern the company to do
and to change all that and to make the
owners not shareholders who are outside
the company but to make the owners the
workers themselves the workers become
owners worker owned enterprises is this
in advance over what we have now clearly
from the point of view that this program
originates from from everything that I
have been trying to explain and to
understand with you over the years yes
because it's a step in a simple
democratic process instead of a tiny
minority of people shareholders and
boards of directors making all the
decisions that affect every employee and
therefore the communities the employees
live in instead of a tiny number of
people making unaccountable decisions
that affect large numbers which is a
violation of the very concept of
democracy worker ownership at least
takes us into this step where the
workers also become the owners and in
that sense part of their exclusion from
decision making in the workplace is
removed they are less excluded but
having said that having welcomed these
activities having praised Senators
Sanders and Gillibrand for doing this it
is also important to explain that this
is just one step and it is very easy to
see and to imagine how this step could
unfortunately not be the beginning but
also the end of the process of
democratization of the
workplace and that would be a tragedy
and why am i concerned because we have
many decades of experience in the United
States with worker ownership we have the
many ESP operations around the country
employee stock ownership plan this is
where companies have in fact done what
their bill introduced by senator sander
and Gillibrand seeks to do that is they
have brought their workers into
ownership positions by making them
shareholders etc and what has been the
problem in so many in clearly the
majority of these cases that
democratization has stopped there that
workers who become owners still believe
that they ought to put the actual
running of the enterprise those key
decisions about what to produce how to
produce where to produce and what to do
with the profits into the hands of a
Board of Directors and so they have
searched for people qualified to be
boards of directors have found them to
be the people who already are on the
boards of directors of other companies
this is very common in capitalism and so
they have left the running of the
business they technically own in the
hands of people who have run them do run
them and in all likelihood will run them
like they were conventional capitalist
enterprises making the same sorts of
profit driven decisions that capitalist
enterprises do that is why it is so
important to understand that when
workers become owners it gives them
rights but right they have to exercise
or else the whole project is stopped is
stumped is stopped as it were in
midstream what workers who become owners
can do now that they are owners would be
to transform the workplace from a
top-down hierarchical structure run by a
tiny minority boards of directors are
usually 12 to 15 people in enterprises
that can have a hundred a thousand or a
hundred thousand employees the real
question of democracy says no longer
will a tiny minority be able to make all
of the decisions what where and how to
produce and what to do with the net
income that decision could be and should
be democratized it should be subject to
a rule in which every worker has a vote
an equal vote to make those decisions
and no one who isn't a worker does
because you are without rights if you're
not a worker to make the decisions of
what a worker owned and operated and
directed enterprise would do oh sure a
worker co-op which is what we're talking
about would have to work out a
reciprocally acceptable relationship
with its surrounding communities
capitalist enterprises had to do that in
their way too but of course it would be
in a different way because workers
themselves would be the citizens in the
community and the owner operators of the
enterprise when they get together with
themselves to figure out how best to
manage an economic system that put
workers in the driver's seat in the
workplace which we have never seen in
the United States before worker
ownership we have seen worker ownership
is a good step but it is just a step and
it needs to be supplemented by the real
serious business of giving working
people in their workplace the Democratic
right to control the decisions that
affect their
if I can end with a parallel it's one
thing to give everybody the vote in a
political election it's a completely
different thing to provide the time and
the support so that everybody who votes
knows what the issues are has the time
paid time to make politicians come
before them and explain and justify what
they're doing and what they propose to
do democracy means the real
participation of people what good is it
to give them the vote if everything else
in the society blocks them from the kind
of participation for which the vote at
least in principle was intended the same
thing applies to the ownership of shares
in an enterprise unless we understand
where that has to go the next steps we
will be sorely disappointed by the
results the last economic update we will
have time for in today's program has to
do with a an event that happens every
May in the United States and happened of
course this May - namely Mother's Day
this year on the 14th of May a Sunday
and so it led me to think about Mother's
Day I'm not a mother but I'm a father so
I have direct experience of a good bit
of this and it's an important issue for
me so here we go
three reflections on Mother's Day and
the economics of Mother's Day that may
not have occurred to you and I want to
thank MarketWatch which you can find
that MarketWatch or one-word
marketwatch.com
a place that gathers interesting
economic statistics and I found them
particularly useful on the market watch
website for March 14th first American
population growth is now dependent on
children born to immigrants
that is American mothers who were born
here in the United States are having
fewer and fewer children the only way
the population is growing in the United
States is basically because of the
decision to have children by immigrants
in other words the growth in the
American population the future of our
working class which is the future of our
economy has a lot to do with immigrants
in ways you might not have thought about
the second statistic I thought was
remarkable released by market watch was
that mothers whose family income exceeds
$75,000 a year richer mothers take twice
as much paid maternal leave as do
mothers who earn who live in families
that earn under 30,000 simple English
rich people take more maternal leave
than poor you know why because they want
to because they need to because their
commitment to Family Values says it's
good to take some time off before your
baby is born and it's even more
important to be there in the early weeks
and months of your baby as part of what
it means to have quote/unquote family
values and if it is true as the
statistics prove that the more money you
have the more you take advantage of this
important opportunity the more horrible
it is to have to recognize that the
United States is the only advanced
industrial country that does not have a
law mandating paid maternal leave every
other advanced industrial country has
such laws with anything from six weeks
to 40 weeks out of the year being the
required maternally that employer must
give to a mother while paying her every
interesting the country that makes more
noise about family values than any
doesn't
support it when it comes to paid family
leave
finally in 1970 under half of American
mothers were in the labor force in 2015
over 70% were that is a fundamental
historic change it's why the American
family didn't suffer a cut in each
standard of living as badly as they
might have over the last 30 years it's
because a second member of the family
went out to work for millions of
families and that wasn't enough either
which is why they all went into debt
which all blew up on us in 2008 this
year as we think about Mother's Day
let's be honest we've made it harder not
easier for the family to function
mothers are out of the house many more
hours of the day working because they
have to as well as because they want to
they need supports paid maternal leave
and decent paid affordable child care
and this country provides neither to the
mass of its people and that is a failing
of the capitalist system we've come to
the end of the first half of our program
please stay with us remember to use our
websites our DeWulf comm and democracy
at work dot info for more on all of this
kind of analysis and four ways to
communicate with us stay with us we'll
be right back
Tamati
Congrats on paying off all those student
loans finally right how'd you manage
that anyway
I started tracking my spending changed a
couple habits oh I'm kind of living
paycheck to paycheck right now I don't
even know how I'm doing it well have you
tried saving a little I want to where's
that money gonna come from bill
collectors they're the worst am i right
when it comes to financial stability
don't get left behind get tools and tips
for saving at feed the pig org welcome
friends welcome back I should rather say
to the second half of economic update I
am very pleased in this second half -
welcome to the microphones and to our
audiences my guest for today Antonine
plague a welcome Antonia thanks I'm
thank you let me tell you who Antonian
is and then we can jump right in Antonin
Claudia has been a member of the new
anti capitalist party NPA as it's known
in France which is a radical left
organization that was founded in 2009
and Antonin has been part of that effort
since its foundation he is also an
assistant lecturer at the University of
Paris Sorbonne the one in the centre of
the city and the old center of the
French university system and he's
currently at work in his studies on
French colonial history I asked him to
join us because as you know because
we've discussed it there was a very
important election in France for the
presidency of that country a few weeks
ago it happens in two stages eleven
candidates if I if I'm correct in the
first round and then the two top
vote-getters contested in the second
round between Emmanuel Macomb and marine
lepen there was great interest here in
the United States
I thought let's get someone right from
the center of the French activity around
the election to give us a different
insight so let me begin by asking
Antonin the following in the mainstream
media the recent French elections were
represented as a big defeat for
something we call here populism and a
great victory for the establishment or
the political center of politics and it
was almost as though the celebration
because that's really what it was in the
American mass media it was a celebration
of an election that looked or was made
to look like it was Trump versus Clinton
all over again with the satisfying
result for the mass media that Trump
lost and Clinton won in the sense that
Trump was like lepen and macro was like
Clinton do you agree with this take on
the French election how do you see it if
you don't well in fact it's not only in
the US media that we have heard this
interpretation in the French mainstream
media it was also the case and yes if we
have a look just on the election results
it's through 66 percent for macro and
only 33 percent in favor of 9/11 but we
have to look beyond the election Wizards
and doing so it appears populism has not
bid been defeated yet in France at least
if we consider populism has an allegedly
critical speech based on national people
we should be opposed to foreigners or
foreign capital if we do so if we define
populism as such we have to consider the
fact that Milan from one of the left
candidate of rebellious friends can also
be considered as appropriate and one of
his main advisor also recognized and
claimed that for Canada
it was a populist one so taking into
account this definition this election
has not been a failure for populist ID
this idea that in order to protect us
against capitalism we have to proudly
defend our border against immigrants
people would say 9/11 or against German
capitalism could say jean-luc menachem
this ID has been repeated over and over
during the electoral campaign and I
think that both of these IDs wrong and
are real dead end for the working class
both of them both of them Yeshua this is
a reason why with the new and capitalist
party which Alan I'm a member
militant we had our home candidate which
named was Phillip Bhutto and Eva worker
not a worker in cycling an American
company well-known he thought the auto
industry and let us strike a few years
ago because his plant was going to close
down so we chose this candidate in order
to say again with these populist ideas
we in that what our people basically
said he said we workers have more in
common
whatever the borders or whatever the
citizenships supposed to divide us then
we have in common
or we have we would be supposed to have
in common with a nationalist national
capitals all right so the his argument
was if I understand you and please
correct me if I thought that the working
class of friends would be better off in
some sense to make common cause with the
very immigrants that marine lepen wanted
- exactly exactly and that even Melo and
Sean who was very successful in getting
20% of your first time around didn't
take that that not so clearly yeah was
more like a Bernie Sanders or Social
Democrat or something like that
and that you make some important
concessions on that question right but
before we get into that I want to pursue
that but before we get into that if you
put into the camp of populist both lepen
and Malone Xiong and perhaps some of the
other smaller candidates in the first
row then what percentage of the French
electorate would be quote unquote
populist by that definition monism foot
psy person but close to half yeah but
it's not the same kind of populist
understood yeah understood very
different they had a strong disagreement
I don't know that but to say that
populism was defeated at the same time
that you point out that nearly half the
people makes the argument that populism
was defeated very strange because it
would seem to me as an outsider and say
my goodness populism was able to get
against the mass media which denounced
both the left and the right populism
it was able to get half the French
people to vote for this is a stunning
achievement that will shake European
politics no matter what pretenses are
made that it was quote-unquote
defeated anyway let's go back there was
a great deal of attention in the United
States to marine lepen
because of the similarities to Donald
Trump to the fact that she came to see
Donald Trump in part of her campaign and
so on you are a French person you're
active in politics tell us what is the
appeal of marine lepen to the French
workers in the French population and
based on that what what do you see is
the future of the National Front in
France I think there is two main reasons
for this appeal the first reason is
probably the social situation in France
which is as you probably know quite
difficult so 2008 crisis have
considerably affected conditions of the
working class five millions of people
are unemployed which means approximately
10% and this is the official
unemployment rate and the real one is
going to be quite higher than this one
the situation is getting worse because
the crisis is deepening
there is plant closures and
working-class conditions I've been in
the red tag is the socialist government
in the past five years
so people are upset they are angry and
the right to be so because at the same
time the government is giving
subventions
to big companies to the banks which
people are becoming richer if you if I
can give you just one example take
bahama auto which is the first
wealthiest person in France reduce
virtual threat yeah he's in the given in
the world last year he owns the fortune
of 34 billion of dollars and this year
year and 7 billion more is to say yearns
now he owns now 41
brilliant others and which makes an
increase meant an increasing of 20% in a
year no workers in general achieve that
the past year so people see this and
they are upset and I'm upset too of this
situation for sure but the problem is
it's not enough to be upset you also
have to understand how did we get so far
and from this point of view governance
for three decades one after the other
every governments are ambiguous or even
sometimes we open arguments against
immigrants deeper such a way to explain
the social situation in other words the
reason workers are experiencing
difficulty and a growing gap between
rich and poor for three decades has been
blamed on immigrants in somewhere
somehow yes in fact our immigrant people
in a way or another in the speech of the
different governments have been
responsible
taken as responsible of the situation
immigrants people should would be
supposed to be in this discourse in this
speech responsible of info insecurity
responsible for unemployment they are
supposed to be isn't you know yet these
kind of speeches as we've had that in
this country is very shallow and the
fact is that the national friend is a
political party that is saying this the
most clearly on the political stage so
thanks to this three decades of social
attacks alongside an immigrant on an
anti-immigrant speech you get the
popularity of the National Front okay do
you think this is going to continue this
is going to get worse is this a is this
scapegoating we call it the scapegoating
of the immigrant it isn't I mean the
image we get in this country this is a
successful political program in the
sense of getting more support and votes
for marine lepen
and for the National Front is that true
and is that likely to continue in your
judgment yeah if we pursue on this
question of immigration I would like to
say first that I think the beginning of
the rules in Libya the words in 92 was
in Libya
in the past few years in which French
government with American government have
for different reasons major
responsibilities since the beginning of
this world Mediterranean Sea became
increasingly it was already the case
before that but it's increasingly the
place of a human disaster 5,000 people
are dying every year in this print so we
see the catastrophe and the policy of
the European governments toward
immigration directly responsible of this
mass murder fortunately for her I have
to say that it does exist important
solidarity movement it's not just the
National Front so we go so NATO
solidarity movement on this party
associations some minionese and the far
left is not isolated on this question so
have been many demonstration on this
issue and these are these are
demonstrations of solidarity with
immigrants is it because of a
disagreement about the role of
immigrants in the French economy or is
it a critique of French government's
role in forcing the immigration by
creating troubles in Africa Middle East
and where does this solidarity come from
I think the first reaction is probably a
kind of humanitarian reactions to a
disaster but this is also disagreement
on the police's and on the speeches that
we were talking about okay let me push
you one last time about this is this
growing are the French people's upsets
about their situation making them more
open to blaming immigrants in other
words it is this sense of the other
problem getting worse correct or would
you disagree what's your sense from your
own experience I would say that it
depends of the social and political
situation I mean for example a few years
ago we have had this great experience of
a big undocumented workers strike six
thousand undocumented workers went on
strike in order to claim equality right
equator of the right with the rest of
the working class in France and this is
a strong demand that can convince people
that immigrant people and French working
class should and how one working class
that should work together and that could
claim for the same rights as oh yeah do
you think French French born native
French workers understand that agree
with that in other words is there a is
there a sense that solidarity with
immigrants is a strategy this move
and met some solidarity my Randy strike
it was not an isolated one and I think
that is through the social movement that
we can change people's mind and we can
convince them that both of them are
common interests to fight against
capitalism okay and if we do not do this
for sure these feelings of
anti-immigrant would grow so you say it
could grow but it will depend on
struggles to push a different agenda out
of the suffering of French people yes
thank you
another feature of the French election
which we found very interesting looking
from the United States was the hostility
that seemed widespread to the European
Union to the notion that somehow France
was not doing well in the European Union
and would do better if it were out of it
that was clear from marine lepen in the
National Front but you could see many
other politicians making noises like
that and it's clear that Emmanuel macron
in his very first few days is also
trying to project an image of focusing
on France being somewhat critical of the
European Union what is that about why
why is the European Union a target for
criticism in France now what what's that
about
I would say that governments either
their French government British
government whatever governments don't
want to take the responsibility when
they are adopting an unpopular law you
know and the little policy intending to
promote higher flexibility for example
such as to say are your expectation of
the working class and they say I'm not
responsible of this policy I let it
because the European Union is compelling
me to do so you know but what is the
European Union European Union is
basically just a meeting of national
government
and the French government alongside the
German government played a great role in
the European Union and they decided all
together the policies that they want to
read together just to give you an
interesting example last year
concerning the whistle blower diagonal
oh it was during whistle blowers as we
call blower yeah
just after the Panama paper last year
European Parliament has adopted a law
called business secrets in order to
avoid this kind of scandal to happen
again in the future and it's interesting
to know types to note that every single
French representatives in European
Parliament voted in favor of the slope
except a few one from the Green Party
but every other one had voted in favor
of zero so with responsible of this
policy of European Union this is
European Union as such as I eat it
French representative Ramon goes our
representative so let me make sure I
understand and our audience understand
this would this is kind of a a political
theatre in other words the national
government in your case friends pushes
through an unpopular law and then acts
as though it had to do that under the
pressure of the European Union because
that way they are not held responsible
so they get the law they want and they
pretend they're not to blame for it even
though they are also the controlling
forces in the European Union so this is
a kind of a theatrical way to put their
program through but the side effect of
it then if I understand you is to make
the European Union immensely and
unpopular because the governments have
blamed it for everything they wanted to
avoid responsibility for and so the
people this and this could be applicable
to England too so that people vote
against the European Union because
they've been told that's where the
problem is but then they're left with
the national government which was behind
it all along and therefore they've
wasted their time exactly that's what I
wanted to say and you can bet that if
there is any convictions in the two
coming Montes on future whistleblowers
you can bet that the very same one who
advocate in favor of this law would
accuse EU because it's responsible of
this situation
okay all right let's go back and for
those people who will follow these
things it was remarkable that someone
like jean-luc mélenchon did as well as
he did because it did suggest that there
was a basis for a left-wing election
success that the mainstream media had
said wasn't there and you have to
remember that this comes out of the
American experience where in the initial
months of Bernie Sanders effort he was
dismissed as someone who would get 1 or
2 percent of the vote he wouldn't make
any difference and he ended up
surprising everybody so tell us what is
this mellow song phenomena where does it
come from
and where does it go I think that the
main ocean phenomenon we can mainly
explain it with the collapse of the
Socialist Party were leading the
government in the past five years and
the Socialist Party have chosen in the
past five years to serve with a real
loyalty interest of US border heat
interest of the capitalist system and
doing so politically speaking sever most
committed suicide political sewers yeah
yeah sure for the polling the polling
results for Francois Hollande were
unbelievable and he literally one had
the impression that one had gone in a
very short time from a socialist party
that had won the presidency and the
majority in both the Senate and the
National Assembly to a party that nobody
wanted to talk about or see or vote for
was an amazing
self-destruction yeah sure and you think
Melo shall represent what in
relationship to that main ocean has
benefited from the collapse of the
Socialist Party because former voters of
the Socialist Party turns a vote in
favor of men are consistent in men also
know the world could be an alternative
to the social spots or could be an
alternative for socialist police I would
say that I don't think so and mainly for
two reasons the first reason is that the
notion for sure is on the left side of
French politics so this for Instagram
includes social measures that would
benefit to the working class if they
would be adopted and that's a good point
but we can also observe that while he
was getting closer to the second round
of the it was the presidential election
he starting
giving up key points of his program on
social questions on an immigrant
question Alexander II was attending in
2012 last present presidential election
freedom of movement and we gave up this
demon in his program he was defending
rating of minimum wage but he finally
specified that it would be only one
thousand three hundred and fifty euros
per month why the unions and the Celeste
considers that 1800 817 the minimum to
live with dignity so I don't think he is
this kind of legitimate or good and
potential eternity the second reason why
is not mention basically was saying vote
for me and the social reforms will
follow many of his supporters are aware
that even do not need social we found
require social struggles but if you want
to prepare people a working class to
this perspective
like to say it and that is the reason
why working-class need because it's home
candidate for this kind of elections
with the new aunty capitalist party as I
said before we decided to add our own
candidate Philip Putin and as an auto
worker you know workers can identify -
he can identify to his pretty what did I
really say basically say was we here to
defend the vital demands of the working
class raise wages normal firings and for
this we need to organize we need to
build our own organization we need to be
the one party and we finally need to run
ourselves this society if we want it to
be better the good news for us is that
this kind of candidate we are not the
only one in in the world towards this
policy to have our workers in in the
stage on the stage in order to defend
this kind of policy revolutionary policy
we have developed for example here in
the US strong relationships with an
organization called revolutionary
workers good and everywhere which why we
are trying to develop and this kind of
policy because if we want one day to
want to be better we have to start here
and now all right thank you very much
I'm done in didn't Antonian clay VA from
France and I hope my audience enjoyed as
much as I did your accent as well as
what you had to tell us thank you in
conclusion folks for today let me remind
you that programs like this are the work
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that is also a partner for us in the
sense of distributing and sharing what
we do with many many others the United
States is clearly if you read the
headlines as we all do entering a period
of enormous stress and turmoil we see it
at the surface of our political life
everyday but below the surface it is
also going on there is a vast economic
reorganization of the United States it's
in trouble
it is facing the twin challenges of an
out-of-control automation that is
removing jobs in place in place of
giving work to people it gives work to
robots into computers and at the same
time it takes jobs away from people
who've spent lifetimes working at them
who had decent salaries and moves them
abroad to where wages are very low this
is a society that does not know how to
cope with its own problems in which the
rich get richer and shift the costs of
this problem of these problems onto
those below them with every chance they
get that's why graduate students at Yale
are striking that's why we
have the social conflicts building that
threaten the future of this country we
will be attending to all of this closely
in the weeks and months ahead thank you
very much for being with us and I look
forward to talking with you again next
week
