Welcome friends to another edition of
Economic Update weekly program devoted
to the economic dimensions of our lives
jobs incomes debts those of our children
and those looming down the road
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 I need to
begin today's program which I apologize
for with a few announcements the first
is that you can now hear this program
every week on I heart radio that's all
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TV in that way finally we have arranged
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any of you or any organization you are
involved with would like to bring me out
for a speaking engagement please get in
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the name of the organization is
appropriately speak out now dot org
that's all one word speak out now dot
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speak is simply info at speak out now
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at speak out now dot-org finally I want
to invite all of you that either live in
the Greater New York area or might be
visiting on July 12th that that is the
resumption of our monthly presentations
at the Judson Memorial Church in New
York City and it begins at 7:30 the
second Wednesday of every month so this
coming July 12th will be the second
Wednesday so please if you're in town
consider yourself invited to come and
join us at the Judson Memorial Church on
Washington Square very historic Church
in New York City
July 12th 7:30 p.m. so now we can jump
into the economic updates well I want to
talk to you to start with about
automobiles and cars and car loans in
particular in order to explain something
first
the raw data which I think you will find
very interesting we had a record this
last month June of 2017 the record is
for the longest car loan period in the
history of the automobile business in
other words people are borrowing money
for longer periods of time to buy a car
than they ever have before precisely
sixty nine point three months that's a
very long time nearly six years and it
means that for most people they will be
paying for a car for a good number of
months or even years where the loan they
have to pay is larger than what that car
is then worth it's called sometimes
upside down indebtedness around the car
industry average car buyers were taking
out a loan of $31,000 for their car why
so much because what happens is when you
buy a car on a long term loan and it
comes time to trade it in
you still owe a ton of money in terms of
trading it in more money that you you
owe then that car is worth for the
trade-in so you're building up your
indebtedness which is why it is so high
I mentioned this not only because it's a
wonderful piece of evidence that the
recovery we've been hearing about is a
mirage that underneath the glowing
statistics about people having jobs by
the way jobs that are less secure have
fewer benefits and a lower pay but
behind that statistic is a reality such
as you're in deeper and deeper debt to
have a car you have to have a car
because in most American of America
there's no other way to solve your
problem of getting to and from work
getting your shopping done and all the
rest of it we are in a situation where
it's becoming so difficult to pay for a
car that that's behind the other final
statistic which is that we have now had
six months of declining automobile sales
people simply can't afford to buy cars
the way they did one of the ways they
did was by borrowing heavily which I
just explained to you more money for
longer periods of time now that becomes
unsustainable because they owe too much
and they can't do it so now the car
sales collapse it's interesting that our
neighbor to the north Canada which
doesn't have that history of loans is
having record year of car sales just as
we are going down and laying off people
in the car business because of it it's
not a system that works real well is it
my next update is very personal it has
to do with airline service I would put
the word service in quotation marks but
I don't think most of you need that I am
responding as I say to something
personal a couple of weeks ago I
returned from Paris France on a flight
on United Airlines I want everyone to
know who it was and it came from Paris
to new
work New Jersey I can easily say to you
it was the worst flight I have ever had
in my life and I'd been on many it
begins on the day that we were supposed
to leave Paris at 9:30 in the morning
and we were informed around 7:15 on our
way to the airport that the flight would
be delayed at first we were told it
would be delayed until 5:00 in the
afternoon then sometime later we were
told it would be delayed until 6:00 or
6:30 in the evening and then a little
while later while we were standing
online trying to figure out how United
Airlines would get us home we were told
with another text message that the
flight had simply been canceled now back
to the line the line was an ensign
filled up a whole corridor in the
airport in Paris why because even though
there were six or seven stations for
people to occupy at the United Airlines
counter only two people were there
serving us who got there for the right
to stand in line for hours I won't go
through the rest of it horrific we were
up for 18 hours that day before we got
home we had to stop in Ireland on the
way it was supposed to be a direct
flight non-stop at every turn the lines
were long at every turn the tempers were
short and the basic reason everyone
should be clear is that it saves money
for United Airlines to have too few
people I don't even know why the plane
was canceled we were never given the
same straight story twice partly because
people were so hassled who were working
there that they couldn't possibly have
taken the time to figure this out they
make more money by saving on personnel
we suffered we the people for whom the
airline is supposed to be providing get
ready a service
well they didn't
their profits at our expense I and the
other people flying had our lives
disrupted had our work interrupted were
exhausted physically and mentally by an
experience of this sort and it could
have been handled a thousand ways more
conveniently but it would have cost
United Airlines some money and they are
letting us know profit first you last
did they learn something having been
exposed earlier for other abuses of
their clients no sign of it when I was
traveling third item an important
meeting taking place 7th and 8th of July
some of you will hear this report before
the meeting some after it's called the
meaning of the g20 the 20 richest
countries in the world this is the 12th
meeting they've had they started meeting
in the crisis of 2008 when it was
crystal clear that the system economic
system of capitalism which dominates in
every one of those countries was in deep
trouble so this is the 12th meeting of
these 20 richest country it is being
hosted by Germany it is taking place
July 7th and 8th in Hamburg Germany a
large city in the north of that country
in addition to the 20 countries eight
other country leaders are invited and
likewise the leaders of nine major
international organizations like the
World Bank the International Monetary
Fund and several units of the United
Nations in the weeks leading up to this
meeting there have been protests in
Hamburg and across Germany and elsewhere
in Europe why are the people protesting
because the mass of people the mass of
people have been badly damaged by not
only the crisis that capitalism brought
in 2008 to the whole world but by the
response orchestrated and organized by
the g20 in the years since 2008 which is
roughly now coming on to
a full decade the people protesting are
angry at the policy that was adopted by
the g20 country by country to cope with
the crisis that's what they told us in
order to get out of this crisis they
said we need what came to be called
austerity we needed the government to
cut back on the money it spent for
social programs to cut back on the
number of people it employed to tighten
our belts and that will get us through
the crisis well I'm here to tell you as
a professional economist that it was a
nice story but it wasn't true what the
real agenda was and that has been
carried out in every one of those 20
countries was to say let's double down
not only is capitalism a system that can
bring into crisis the world economy
costing hundreds of millions of people
their jobs sometimes for years on end
but we're a system that is so well
organized that we can use the crisis to
our advantage to do something in the
name of dealing with the crisis that
we've been trying to do for 30 years and
you know what that is to roll back the
gains made in the aftermath of the last
capitalist crisis the Great Depression
of the 1930s in the wake of that
depression we had here in the United
States the New Deal in Europe you had
the rise of what we call social
democracy a system in which the mass of
people said we are not going to live in
the capitalism that crashes our wages
destroys our livelihoods undoes the
family values to which they give empty
lip service no no we demand to be taken
care of with the national health
insurance with subsidized education with
a welfare program if you can't provide
jobs you capitalists then the government
that you control is going to have to do
it one or the other of you and that
worked in the United States and it
worked in Europe as well
and the business community hated it
hated it because they were taxed in part
to pay for it hated it because it gave
the working class a sense of its own
power what it could achieve if it worked
together to do so capitalism or no
capitalism they didn't like it they
wanted to roll it back to undo the New
Deal and European social democracy they
tried over and over again they weren't
able to get very far not in the United
States as far as they wanted that's why
we had Trump not in Europe as far as
they wanted but the crisis their own
crisis gave them the chance in the name
of getting us out of the crisis
capitalism brought us the leaders of the
United States and Western Europe came
upon austerity and what does austerity
mean taking back the social services
that have been provided to people
cutting them laying off people who do
those services who provide them to all
of us in the fields of Education in the
fields of health in the fields of Social
Welfare you name it everywhere the
effort undo them not facing the truth of
it that we don't want to pay the taxes
look at the struggle for example over
the Trump GOP health bill it's all about
not taxing the super-rich who would have
to pay a good part of the extension of
Medicaid to people with no insurance at
all we're willing to sacrifice 25
billion people in America to save taxes
to the richest that's what we're talking
about that's austerity whether you call
it that or not so the anger at the g20
is not just that they are the countries
who embody the capitalism that brought
us the crisis it's even more that they
have used it to further an agenda of
taking away from the mass of people to
enrich a minority that's why in every
one of those countries the gap between
rich and poor has gotten wider
freedom of corporations to do what they
want has been enhanced as the economic
livelihoods of the mass of people have
been constricted that's why they have to
take six year car loans because they
don't have enough income to have a car
which they have to have any other way
there's one example of it that I can't
forego letting you know recent research
from UNICEF the United State a nation's
program to deal with the problem of the
children of the world brings it all home
under the austerity programs of the g20
from 2008 to 2012 reports UNICEF the
number of children living in poverty in
these rich countries has increased by
2.6 million or more and here's the
statistic that jumped out of UNICEF to
give you an idea of what austerity has
meant today an average of one in five
children in the 41 highest income
countries in the world that's a d20 plus
another 21 in five live in poverty what
a statement about modern capitalism as
to what it has achieved for the people
who suffer in and under it well the
fourth of July is right behind us and if
you will indulge me here's a little bit
of history about it
fourth of July makes us think about the
origins of the United States
and when I do that I come back and I see
the economics of it and the man who
stands out in my mind was one of the
great leaders of the American
independence movement Thomas Jefferson
and he had a very clear idea an idea he
had gotten from the British philosopher
John Locke who we admired and read and
studied and from Locke Jefferson got and
advocated that the new United States
should be a country of self-employed
people small farmers small craftsperson
small merchants and that these
people who didn't employ anybody else
who were their own master their own
self-employed persons could and would
together democratically run their
communities whether it be in a New
England town hall setting or in any of
the other ways that people roughly equal
manage their affairs in the communities
where they live and work but there was
opposition and Jefferson's vision was
never realized Jefferson's hopes were
defeated instead we had what Jefferson
feared an economic system that wouldn't
have everybody equal that would produce
a poll of very wealthy at one end and a
mass of people barely getting by at the
other it's what he feared that's what
came to pass and that's the capitalism
that we have now when most people have
little property and even less power
that's the system that's capitalism and
there's a history here that needs to be
spoken American capitalism was born and
developed in that revolution let's
remember the revolution of 1774 5 6 and
so on it was a violent revolution not
against this or that law not against
this or that regulation not even against
this or that politician it was a
revolution against the system the system
at that time that we revolted against
was colonialism in particular British
colonialism the u.s. was a colony and
was being abusively treated as colonies
usually are by the imperial power at the
top in that case Britain and to
exemplify to illustrate the awfulness of
it there was a kind of clownish king at
the time King George the 3rd and he
epitomized everything that was wrong
with having a person like that running a
colony 3,000 miles
away so we made a revolution against the
system and here's the irony centuries
later the independent capitalist economy
has come to much the same situation it
has produced the very capitalism the
Thomas Jefferson feared it has brought
people to a level of anger and
resentment and bitterness and suffering
that makes more and more of them say we
face the same problem it isn't the
Republicans or the Democrats or this law
or that law or this politician or it's a
system this time it's not imperialism
and colonialism this time it's the
capitalist system and isn't that
interesting that as we discover that the
capitalist system is the problem the
spirit of Thomas Jefferson who kind of
figured that out a long time ago finds
its way back into relevance on this 4th
of July the next update has to do with
Seattle sort of but it goes beyond
Seattle a recent study by a group of
economists in Seattle at the University
of Washington reignited a very old and
to my mind rather boring debate it asks
the question when you raise the minimum
wage of workers that is you raise the
wage of people at the bottom of the
economy let's remember the federal
minimum wage in the United States is
$7.25 per hour lower than that in any
European country and lower by a lot okay
let's look the University of Washington
economists said their research showed
that when you raise the minimum wage
there will be a loss of jobs that is
unemployment will go up not a great deal
but that was enough liberal economists
horrified by this result reignited the
they want everyone to believe and so
they rediscovered some recent research
by a group of economics professors at
the University of California in Berkeley
which shows the opposite namely that
when you raise the minimum wage there is
little or no impact on jobs so back and
forth we go liberals saying you should
raise the minimum wage because it
doesn't lose some people their jobs and
conservatives saying you shouldn't raise
the minimum wage or at least if you do
you should be aware you're hurting
people at a low wage and what's the
reason for this very simple very basic
economics if you raise the wage you make
work more expensive for the employer and
in a free economy like ours free
capitalism the employer is free to take
the job away from the worker if he's
unwilling to pay them the higher minimum
wage so here we have it one side in this
old debate saying don't worry you can
raise the minimum wage because the
employers won't lay off low-income
workers and the Conservatives suddenly
demonstrating a concern for poor workers
that they never show otherwise or say no
no you mustn't raise the minimum wage
because there will be poor workers who
lose their jobs
besides the disingenuous mess of people
basically on both sides let me remind
you again of a little history about a
hundred years ago there was a similar
debate it had to do with child labor
should it be allowed for capitalists the
hire little kids as young as five years
of age paid them very little and take
advantage of them because they can pay
them so little to get a lot of work done
the Conservatives said yes that's a
great thing you should allow that
because poor families can barely get by
and they need to be able to send their
children out here again
conservatives showing a sudden concern
for the poor the Liberals came back and
said though that's terrible child labor
shouldn't
be allowed and we don't want it and then
they felt awkward because the
Conservatives said you're hurting poor
families because they need to be able to
send their kids out to work guess what
the anti child labor folks won you can't
employ people five years old anymore in
the United States the way you once good
and the way thousands of capitalists did
did capitalism fall apart as the
conservative said if you do that did
poor families rise up and revolt and
demand the return of child labor of
course not child labor was outlawed just
as paying human beings $7.25 an hour can
and should be outlawed now economists
shouldn't be debating as if the employer
has the right to say I either pay you a
low wage or I won't pay you any wage at
all we should raise the minimum wage
because that's what an economy owes its
people and we should give every adult
healthy person a job because that's also
what a decent economy owes people and if
capitalism in America can't do it that's
an argument to change systems but as
long as we don't face that and we have
our intelligent economists debating gee
do we dare raise the minimum wage or gee
maybe we shouldn't so that poor people
don't lose their jobs you know what this
is like this is like being accosted in a
dark alley by a person who says I'm
gonna give you freedom of choice you can
either have me stab you and take your
money or hit you over the head with a
hammer and take your money a rational
person says I don't like the choice he
doesn't stand there and say gee which
one is a better way for me to go we are
being held hostage by capitalism when we
are told either accept a miserable low
wage or the employer will be free to lay
you off and you'll have no wage at all a
system that offers that choice that has
intelligent economies debating back and
forth rather than saying how do
we've developed an economy that gives
people a decent wage and a job which is
what they should be doing that's a
comment on a system that has spun out of
control that is not serving the mass of
people not well at all we've come to the
end of the first half of economic update
for today we will be right back after a
short interlude please stay with us you
sure you don't want some it's chamomile
you are extremely terrifying just the
scariest undead subhuman thing on TV and
I really mean that but I am worried that
you could give my kids nightmares if
they see you so I'm going to have to
block you so that's it oh and until the
zombies are there block 2
so same time next week
well of course put away a few bucks feel
like a million bucks for free tips to
help you save go to feed
it's okay
when some people struggle with their
mortgage payments they become frozen but
the people who take action are far more
likely to get the most positive outcome
call this free government program for
the option that's right for you welcome
back friends to the second half of
Economic Update for this part of July
and because it's the early part of July
as we do with the first program of each
month I have as my guest Dr. Harriet
Fraad I wanted first of all to spell her
name because it's a little unusual and
some of you clearly in your emails to us
aren't clear about how that's done first
name h a RR ie T Harriet and the second
name fraud F is in Frank R double a Dr. 
Harriet Fraad she is a mental health
counselor and a hypnotherapist with a
practice in New York City she speaks and
writes about the intersection between
economics politics and the psychology of
personal life she publishes widely and
her work can be found at Harriet fraud
or one word Harriet fraud dot-com I want
to welcome her as we do each month to
the program thank you I'm glad to be
here okay our topic for today has to do
with the relationship between capitalism
as an economic system on the one hand
and the problem of addiction addiction
to alcohol but addiction to a whole lot
of other things as dr. fraud will
explain to introduce the topic let me
just point out that capitalism as a
system as we often discuss it on this
program is given too extreme instability
business cycles bouncing up and down
every few years laying off millions of
workers around the world booming up
booming down it's an unstable system
imposed on people
lives and that the other quality of
capitalism that's relevant here is the
inequality that it breeds the
polarization between ever fewer people
with more and ever more people with less
this kind of instability and inequality
has certainly worsened if not created
all by itself the problems of addiction
addiction to alcohol narcotics gambling
as dr. frogg will explain later
of course capitalism isn't the only
cause but capitalism is a complicated
system that not only provokes the need
people have for the escape that
addiction provides but it also produces
industries profiting off of that
providing the alcohol providing the
narcotics providing the gambling centers
and so on it even profits off of
programs that help people get out of the
addictions that this system so
systematically fosters and it is
stunning to recognize that these
addictions are global wherever
capitalism is and that capitalism by its
own admission has been singularly
unsuccessful by and large in dealing
with this problem and certainly not in a
rally eradicating it so I want to begin
by asking dr. fraud to tell us what is
it about capitalism's instability and
inequality that makes an addiction in
some sense a way people have of coping
with the problems one of the worst
things that's happened which has made
addiction an epidemic in the United
States the biggest cause of accidental
death now is heroin overdose and by
opioid which is a human-made form of
heroin or opiates or opiates which are a
poppy grown of course the opioids are
easier to make because they're made with
human created substances but when you
have gross inequalities between
people you have huge loneliness the
people at the top in order to sustain
their privilege have to feel
disconnected with the people at the
bottom who they for whom they can't
afford compassion or they would wonder
wait a minute that's not fair the people
at the bottom particularly in American
culture which is the worst in this
aspect feel what did I do wrong
if I was smart maybe I'd be rich I'm not
rich it must be my fault and there's
something wrong with me and then there
are a million little humiliations I'm
not having enough not having enough food
not having which one in five children
experiences food scarcity otherwise
known as hunger and that I don't have
the kind of nice sneakers that other
kids do or that I can't afford nice
clothes as a as a person then what is
wrong with me and they start feeling
inferior and disconnected and ashamed of
themselves because there's a lot of
shame attached to poverty so the
isolation breeds addiction my friends if
you're an inequality breeds isolation I
remember a teenager that I dealt with
from a very fancy school district
telling me how proud she was then she
could afford drugs her teachers couldn't
even afford that they were chosen class
which is really quite amazing that
there's a separation
out of people from one another and
connection is the basis of that all the
12-step programs and connection is a
basis of mental health connection with
close people connection with friends
connection connection with social
organizations and connection with the
wider world all of those things are hurt
and how do those with inequality yet how
do those aspects of a capitalist economy
then lead to an addiction as a way
people why
is addiction or how is addiction away
people cope with the very isolation and
inequality you just described in of
course many ways I'll tell you about two
big ways one is it makes you feel good
you feel for a while that everything's
okay
even when it's not when you're a rich
kid and you feel isolated from other
people and you feel terribly lonely and
you can afford everything but you're
still not happy
it makes you feel happier it going here
the returns you get a substance you feel
better for poor people you also feel
better you feel less inferior you feel
less disconnected and so that that will
connect you know repairing the damage to
connection is one thing that drugs do
and of course there are different drugs
for different deficits that you feel
like--okay and get you all hyped up so
you feel powerful and not inferior every
drug has its own particular kind of
manifestation however it's about
comforting you that you're disconnected
and alone it also is very predictable if
you take in a life that's precarious
because your job is precarious you could
lose it at anytime because your life is
precarious you don't have for the
majority the five hundred dollars you
need in case of an emergency or a person
on whom you can count for help in an
emergency that's one out of four
Americans has no one to turn to no
matter how what the disaster in their
personal life but there you can count on
the drug you can count on that they'll
make you feel good it's something solid
in a shaking universe of both economic
precarity and shaking and personal
shaking which are very closely related
to one another if I've understood you
those are very powerful for telephone
and so we can kind of understand the
next place I'd like to talk to you about
which is not just that capitalism as a
system has reproduced fostered this for
a long time but it's even more striking
to me that this these addictions while
on the one hand they're profitable for
capitalism the alcohol industry the drug
industry both illegal drugs and the
illegal drugs are places where employers
and employees have been making big
business for a long time then at the
same time addiction is very damaging not
just to the addict and to the alux
family which we know those stories but
to capitalism itself an addicted worker
may not come to work an addicted worker
may not be as productive as he or she
could otherwise be if they weren't
addicted and suffering all the physical
and mental consequences so I'm struck
and I would like your opinion how do you
account for the fact that capitalism
fosters and suffers at the same time
from an addiction which you can't seem
to cope with well there's another first
I want to add it with another damage
which is as drugs get more expensive
people go from prescribed drugs to the
same drugs on the market and they go
from heroin to things like fentanyl made
in China which are 10 times more
powerful and more deadly because they
need the money they turn to crime and so
that you also have a huge number of
crimes perpetrated because drugs are
illegal and you have a very very
lucrative illegal drug industry which
accomplishes its power through
physically punishing people who don't go
along with it and also stealing getting
people money
into people's hands in a country like
Portugal where drugs were legalized
crime went way down and wrist and drug
addiction went down 75% but here you
have a huge cost of the society of crime
fueled by expensive drugs because the
capitalist system operates as a drug
market not only the legal ones and the
psychological farm and pharmaceuticals
that are some of the most profitable
drugs in the United States but also the
illegal drug industry so that maybe the
argument is that it's so profitable to
capitalism on the one hand that even
though it undermines profitability
elsewhere it can the system can't figure
out how to how to solve this problem the
system never looks at the social costs
they look at the profits to the top they
don't look at the social costs from
those profits anywhere that's capitalism
right but they there are some costs to
the top if your worker is less product
absolutely worker it has too much
absenteeism if you get robbed if you get
robbed so the system profits suffers but
can't work that out because I guess the
profit side of that equation
dominates and so we don't get a solution
and yet and this is the most important
part of what I want to ask you about one
kind of program one tight has seen to
work much better than all the others
that is in this sea of a failure to deal
with these problems of addiction that
have become so widespread I mean today's
newspapers are full of the latest
particular form the so-called opioid
epidemic but we really have an alcohol
epidemic and all the rest of it tell us
about what the one program is that seems
they have been more successful and tell
us why you think it has been the one
that's more success well the most
successful programs that are by far the
most successful in every little town in
America where there's no other
organization
there's an a a an Alcoholics Anonymous
at least and in larger places there are
many many programs that are all 12-step
programs modeled on modeled on the
original one which was Alcoholics
Anonymous but they're all Anonymous
programs to do now they are free and I
want to tell you why I think they know
before you do tell us about some of the
others so we're all made aware alcohol
okay there are three kinds of 12-step
programs the first is a program to help
you get off of an addictive substance
narcotics of all sorts alcohol or you
may have a food addiction there are
Overeaters Anonymous and food addict
Anonymous because you know the food then
is the cheapest that you can get to
comfort yourself and the most available
another is something to help and support
you to get over addictive behavior so
it's not substances it's behaviors
behaviors like gambling addictive
spending sex addictions and also
starving oneself anorexia bulimia and so
on the others are getting over emotional
addictions like codependency you have to
have people depend on you and so you
surround yourself with people who can't
give you anything but constantly take
from you and depend on you or the
behavior of cluttering every place you
have this clutter errs Anonymous
there are under achievers that are
emotionally constrained overachievers
there are workaholics that are
constrained and addicted to constantly
keeping busy working and then there are
12 steps to get over the damage caused
by child abuse by sex abuse by child sex
abuse by parents who are alcoholics so
there's three kind substances behaviors
and recovery of others from others
behavior
there are one of the great great things
about the 12-step programs is they're
free anyone can come and ironically
enough they are the refuge in the
capitalist system because they utterly
reject capitalist values they have the
12 steps and the 12 traditions and they
completely reject self gain greed money
people who serve in a a have a chance to
serve they are not paid the people who
lead the meetings are not paid the only
thing you have to pay for is if you send
away for literature so monies are
rejected in the traditions the first one
is our common welfare should come first
personal recovery depends on unity that
the voices of people together are much
are the most important they also have
rules there can be no superheroes no
person can identify him or herself to
the press by a last name because we
don't want superheroes we want unity
among all of us as equals
now that is opposite of the star culture
in which person who's a head of the
corporation speaks and gets a lot of
money everybody else doesn't have a
voice and that there can be no money and
no ego and no person employs another
person no person employs another person
no person can take money as a person
everything is the organization and the
unity of the group and each person's
voice is equally important to be heard
and everyone listens and everyone learns
and the healing of unity the healing of
listening the healing of being part of a
group a unified group that cares is the
opposite of capitalism with its
competition with its greed and its
hierarchies and so people look to a
12-step program that
costs no money and involves no money and
involves no hierarchy and involves no
greed and involves no ego to calm the
damage that they've suffered so the
irony of ironies for me is a critic of
capitalism is that capitalism produces a
serious addiction problem throughout its
history wherever it lands can't figure
out how to solve it and that the most
successful efforts so far more
successful than all the others in
helping people caught up in these
addictions is a system that without
saying it in it is embodied the negation
of everything that the capitalist system
is no money nobody employing anybody
else
nobody profiting off the next person or
the next person's labor no egoism of
that kind no inequality built into the
organization it's extraordinary
that the salvation of an addiction
within a capitalist system turns to the
negation of capitalism as its way out
that's right because capitalism as
Poquette II and millions of others have
said breeds inequality and in 12-step
programs everyone has an equal voice and
when you take responsibility to lead a
meeting it is an opportunity for service
nobody gets paid very important that it
leads the world of money and yet as so
many critics and cynics have not been
willing to admit a program in which
nobody gets paid is able to be active in
virtually every community in the United
States having people who keep it going
who go to the meetings who make sure
that they happen will make sure that
this coffee or a cookie or whatever or
that people in fact in a capitalist
society will regularly for decades
sustain an organization that embodies
collectivities community it is
remarkable it is remarkable and it is
remarkable because people in their
search for comfort and kindness
have to look for an antidote to the
capitalist competition and cruelty and
humiliation and money system in which
they live and the more societies are
unequal then the more addiction they
create and people look for solace in
unity with other people as equals
outside the money system it leads me to
ask you a question even though I have
another point I want to get at
there are many victims of capitalism who
don't turn to addiction obviously but in
those who are addicted or finding their
way out of that problem of capitalism
maybe people who aren't addicted would
find a way to live a better life if they
change the society so it was more like
what AAA has achieved and what these
programs have achieved in the way of a
community of a unity of a collectivity
that nurtures people rather than one in
which everybody is out for themselves in
other words there's a kind of model
almost here for what a movement to
change society might want to take
seriously precisely because of how it
has worked as the best program to handle
one of capitalism's victims namely the
addicted population as I wrote a list I
wrote an article twelve steps to a
revolution talking about how by using
the 12 steps in a political way so that
in a a and all the other 12 steps you
have to take a serious moral inventory
of yourself
and be honest well as Americans we also
have to take a serious moral inventory
look at how our country is built on the
genocide of Native Americans how we've
had slavery how we also have wonderful
liberation tendencies even though the
Constitution only gave the right to vote
of six percent of the population it
still had some checks and balances of
which we can be proud and so on that
there are for every step there's an
equivalent in a
secular organization that you can look
up to that you can connect on and the
unity is most important and although in
the 12 steps they talk about God all the
time the God they referred to can be any
God you want the bottom line is the life
loving spirit of the child that gets
crushed adjusting to a cruel society in
their family and in the outside world
let me in conclusion because we're
running out of time let me ask you about
one particular aspect of the 12 steps
that has always struck me the argument
is made that they there should not be
discussion of the larger society and how
it has caused or contributed to whatever
your addiction happens to be and the
argument is that's copping out on your
own personal responsibility how you your
life your family your choices
contributed to the addiction yet
everything you have said seems to me to
argue that the larger society is indeed
a major player how do you react to this
insistence of the 12 steps to exclude
the social causes of addiction as a
cop-out on your personal responsibility
well I react in two ways one is that
it's expedient because the 12-step
programs get free services all over the
place
churches community centers and so on if
they were interrogating the capitalist
systems profiteering they probably would
get many fewer donations places help of
all sorts but I do feel that there needs
to be a thirteenth step what are the
social conditions and social forces that
have led to the addiction so you'd have
to look at the alcohol lobby for
alcoholism you'd have to look at psycho
the psycho pharmacies and adds that this
tranquilizer and that upper will make
you feel better you have to look for the
behavioral addictions at the insistence
that you work harder
harder and harder and harder on speed up
you'd have to look at the hierarchical
nature in which let's say the the
surgeon who's sitting on the shoulders
of the nurse who hands the implements
the people who clean the hospital the
orderlies that all that will the
patients around but somehow he's the
king and makes a million dollars a year
whereas they're at minimum wage you'd
have to look at the hierarchies and say
no we're all in it together each one of
us does his or her part to make
something work for us and that's an
anti-capitalist notion that's a communal
notion that's a co-op notion of how to
run a hospital for example in one
example would you say for example that
just as the 12-step program says you
shouldn't cop out on your own
responsibility because that's part of
the story
it is you could answer if I'm hearing
you that you agree with that don't you
agree that it's equally another kind of
cop-out not to face the social causes
the economic contribute contributions to
your problem
you shouldn't cop out on the part you
yourself play but you also shouldn't cop
out on the part of the society pays
plays in all of this because a solution
then would require not only changing
yourself but changing this society
absolutely right that's why it would be
the thirteenth step that you would look
at how have I colluded with these
capitalist values and why did I have to
what is our economic system that pushes
me to this and you'd have to look at
psycho Pharma for example with its
relentless advertising that of drugs
direct to people which is not allowed in
any other country in the world you'd
have to look at the alcohol lobby and
how it pushes college students to have
beer runs where you run and then you
stop at a beer station and down beers or
pushes it at fraternity part
you'd have to look at so much of the
addictive quality of our society and say
no we want relaxation we want unity we
want kindness with one another as usual
I want not only to thank you for coming
but I want to invite the audience if
this program is interesting if this kind
of a dialogue is something you would
like to see let us know go to our two
websites our DeWulf with two F's calm
and democracy at work or one word
democracy at work dot info those two
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want to thank you for that remarkable
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that partners with us if you're
particularly interested in the way
doctor fraud and I interact I should
mention that we will be speaking in
Montreal at the American Sociological
Association annual meetings on August
11th in the self and society seminar
that is part of those a si meetings
thank you very much for being with us
and I look forward to speaking with you
again next week
