- Inching us all towards
a machine apocalypse.
Did socialism create that
innovation that led to you
buying that iPhone you're tweeting from?
(farting)
Capitalism has built more
school, hospitals, homes
and appliances than socialism ever could.
(farting)
You're probably tweeting from an iPhone.
(farting)
How can you pick up an iPhone,
slip on your new Nike trainers
and then vote for socialism?
(farting)
Capitalism is standing
in line for an iPhone 7.
Socialism is standing in line for bread.
(farting)
Oh hey, ah I'm a hypocrite.
I not only believe that
capitalism has failed
as an economic and social system
but I also utilize technology.
And I realize that the
barrel and the iPhone
are not exactly a congruent look
but I had to choose between the iPhone
and health insurance so obviously iPhone.
Even worse I fund my
series through Patreon.
I repeatedly criticize
unchecked corporate greed
and yet there I am accepting money.
And since money's the root of all evil
call me Satan while I'm
buying my groceries please.
No really do it I'd
like to tweet about it.
Listen if I hate capitalism so much
I need to get rid of this iPhone right?
I need to throw it off a
cliff or burn it in a barrel,
or stomp on it til it's
in a million pieces
and I feel as though I am whole again.
I also need to stop buying
all these lying books
and also shut down my
Patreon and get a real job
where I do real labor.
Producing content isn't a real job.
I mean, unless you wanna make content
that isn't particularly
critical of industry
and the systems that enable it.
Uh, we just want handouts and free stuff
and the ability to go get educated
without going deeply into debt.
Is it really not believing in
the economic and social system
that has marginalized and impoverished
millions upon millions of people
or are we just a bunch of assholes?
Don't answer that.
People love to say the iPhone
is one of capitalism's
greatest achievements.
In fact, I've rarely seen a person do it
without having an orgasm.
But it's not just the device
itself that brings people
to a sexual climax,
it's also it's creator.
You know, God.
I mean, Steve Jobs.
(slow instrumental music)
♫ Now everybody gather 'round
♫ I got a story to tell
♫ About a man
♫ But not just a man
♫ You see I'm talkin' about Steve Jobs
♫ The last visionary a creative genius
♫ The great disrupter
♫ He changed the world time and time again
♫ A world that wasn't fair to Steve Jobs
♫ No the world was not fair for Steve Jobs
♫ They tried to make him have
license plates on his car
♫ But he said what he say fuck that
♫ Fuck that
♫ I've got a lot of money
♫ Yeah from that cheap ass Chinese labor
♫ Instead I'll buy a
new car every six months
♫ Because California's
laws allow you to do that
♫ Steve Jobs drove a Mercedes
♫ Innovator and rebel
♫ Steve Jobs fought back
♫ Fought back to burn it down
♫ Against a world that wasn't kind to him
♫ And that's why we have
♫ The iPhone
It's such a good thing
that Steve Jobs invented
that computer totally alone in his garage,
made tons of money off of it,
never just flat out using human beings
or creating rivalries
due to a management style
that was neither friendly
nor approachable.
He didn't just repeatedly
push people out of his life
because he didn't care much
about the human element
of anything did he?
He didn't exploit other people's knowledge
simply saying "This would be a good idea,
"please do it" did he?
He wasn't simply a managerial
figure at the center
of a large organization
consistently trying to find ways
to get people to become
addicted to some type of media
that they could have control over was he?
- The world was one way
and then Steve Jobs came
and it was another!
What did he do?
Somebody, for the love of God,
what the fuck did that guy do?
He told other people what to invent.
"I want my entire music
collection in that phone,
"get on it!"
How the fuck are we gonna get all of this
into this I mean?
Steve Jobs just walkin' by, "I don't hear
"any thinking going on in there!"
He was some pretentious fruit like a pear.
No one just came up
with on the way to work,
I'd like to turn pages on a
screen that aren't even there.
Yeah wrap your fuckin'
heads around that guys!
- Bill Burr actually
gives him too much credit.
Steve Jobs actually did
even less than that.
Much of the tech of the iPhone came
from publicly funded research.
In 2013, Italian economist
Mariana Mazzucato
published a book called
The Entrepreneurial State
debunking public versus
private sector myths.
There are some things in
this book I agree with,
some things I don't, however
it does the amazing work
of mapping out where all the technology
that went into making
the iPhone came from.
This information pretty
much debunks the idea
that capitalism made the
iPhone which is as you know,
a popular justification
used to shame people
who are criticizing capitalism.
Really all the iPhone is is
a brand of miniature computer
that uses all of these technologies
that were created by public funding.
Looking at Figure 13 from the book
which is also published
on marianamazzucato.com
you can see that most of the
vital components of the iPhone
were developed thanks to public funding.
The Defense Advance Research
Project Agency DARPA,
the Department of Energy,
the Department of Defense,
the Navy, the CIA, the
Army Research Office,
touchscreens, GPS, lithium ion batteries,
signal compression, RAM, LCD display,
micro hard drive, microprocessor.
Do I even need to keep going?
I do?
Well in 2003 DARPA, a government agency,
alongside SRI International, a nonprofit
that was paid by DARPA
literally spent five years
and $150 million creating Siri.
Apple took that technology, integrated it
with all the other
public funded technology
that they'd integrated
into their iPhone brand
and then they named it.
That's the wonder of capitalism right,
recognizing the potential
in all these disparate
discoveries, these innovations
that so many have done
all across the world in
various government agencies,
paid for by public funds.
Just understanding the market,
having the right product,
the right brand and message,
knowing when to strike,
and having the supply to meet the demand.
Anybody can work up right?
I have staked a lot of my identity in this
so it better work, oh my God,
if it doesn't work I do not
know what I am going to do
because that would mean the
deck is stacked against me
and (laughing) I just don't
wanna think about that.
Okay well aside from the
fact that the popular version
of this argument is that
the iPhone was entirely
an innovation of capitalism, sure.
(farting)
It's cool that they
aggregated these things
into a single product and
you know the product is good.
Yeah, but if it's not their innovation
how on earth did they make all that money?
It's not theirs.
Let's talk about what
a trade agreement is.
A trade agreement is an
agreement that determines
tax and tariff on trades
coming from other countries.
A country that claims to be concerned
with the human rights of
workers in various countries.
You know like the United
States love talking
about stuff like that, how
great we are to other countries,
how we spread democracy and make sure
that everybody lives in a fair situation.
Stuff like that, you
know that kind of thing.
Yeah, a country like us
who's really concerned
with the rights of
labor in other countries
should either use taxes and tariffs
in an attempt to raise
the labor conditions
or just shouldn't enter
into trade agreements
with countries who have
human rights violations
in the workplace like Malaysia,
a country that doesn't bat an eyelash
when out of the two million
illegal migrant workers
in the country, people are often kidnapped
and sold as slaves typically
used in electronics factories,
garment factories, and plantations.
And let's not forget that
sex slavery right (laughing).
But that's just Malaysia.
Apple iPhones are manufactured
at a group of factories
owned by a company called
Foxconn which operates in China.
You know, Communist China,
definitely very Communist China
with their hourly wages
and their stock exchange,
with their different
classes of rich and poor
where business people have millions
and working class people
have nearly nothing.
Absolutely, definitely
not state capitalism
calling itself Communist China.
The country that's most world renowned
for incredibly good labor practices.
(laughing)
Starting in 2010 there were
a large number of people
attempting suicide at Foxconn.
Now that doesn't mean
while working at Foxconn
because a lot of the employees
lived in dormitories.
That's right, on-site dormitories.
In the United States sometimes workaholics
are criticized for taking
their work home with them.
In definitely not capitalist
China work is your home.
And I mean these Foxconn dormitories
don't exactly look like
fun places to live.
I mean can you imagine going
to a birthday party there?
Ugh.
And I doubt they're stocking
up on beer and Doritos
for game night.
I don't know, do these people
even know if there's sports?
Have they heard of Britney Spears?
I mean video game consoles
were literally illegal
in this country until last year.
Like how much of the outside
world do these people ever see?
Anyway yeah, this was people's lives.
In response they started
killing themselves.
So after the 18 suicide attempts in 2010,
Foxconn raised its salary
from 1000 yuan a month
which is the equivalent of $150 a month,
to 2000 yuan a month
which is the equivalent
of $300 a month.
Now that's not a living wage.
That's not real money and I
know somebody's gonna make
the argument that "In those
countries money is worthless.
"Therefore giving them this
amount of money is good.
"You're interfering with
their ability to have a job."
Oh yeah, there is definitely
interference in their lives
but it's not me complaining
about the conditions
that they live in and work in.
It's the United States
making trade agreements
with countries like this and not saying
"Listen, we'll do business with
you but you can't do this."
And the reason why we're happy to enter
into trade agreements
that allow these things
to go down is because
the labor is so cheap.
Ain't no such thing as paying that little
for labor in a factory here.
I mean unless the factory is illegal
and the workers are human trafficked
which I'm not saying doesn't
happen in this country
but (laughing) it's aside from the point.
The conditions of living and
working in the same place
for almost no money for very
very long periods of time
has caused suicides every
single year since 2010.
And between this and automation,
that's why there aren't manufacturing jobs
in this country which harms workers here
and kills workers there.
Speaking of automation,
Foxconn just replaced
60,000 of its factory workers
with an automated assembly line
which is gradually going to
happen more and more as well.
Not only putting people out of jobs
and inching us all towards
a machine apocalypse,
but also bringing in inefficiency
and a total lack of
necessity for human rights
that will quickly bring
down the price of labor.
Unless people accept less for human labor
automation will obviously replace it.
One way or another it's
a race to the bottom
and lots of people end up in
significantly worse situations.
Is the innovation of an iPhone
really that big of a deal
when you consider all the human
suffering that goes into it
from the exploitation of labor
to the inhumane conditions of poverty
created by an increasingly
automated workforce
that drives the price of labor down?
And on top of that the technology itself
is simply an aggregate of a
lot of different inventions
that were mostly taxpayer funded.
So the idea that the iPhone
is this magical thing
that capitalism produced
and changed the world
in a positive way isn't just a lie,
it's kind of a horrific lie.
I mean yes, this aggregate of technology
is actually a positive
thing for all the people
who have access to it but for
the people building it, eh.
There's a popular phrase
that 90's video game icon
Sonic the Hedgehog came up with
and it goes a little something like this.
There is no ethical
consumption under capitalism.
What that means is that
there is no consumption
that doesn't along the line
somewhere exploit someone.
Including the consumption of chili dogs.
Sega!
And whether that means
labor with unfair pay
or conditions or slave labor,
or it means destroying the environment
in either a generalized
way or a way that affects
specific people like the
Dakota Access Pipeline,
there really isn't anything you can buy
or even something that
you consume for free
thanks to ads or some other thing
that doesn't exploit someone.
We talked about trade agreements
but what about prison labor?
Essentially there's no
requirement to actually
pay prison labor and when they do get paid
it's either in extremely low amounts
or it looks like a regular amount
but various fees are
deducted or percentages
for having to work in
a prison resulting in
an average of 96 cents per hour.
You know which works out pretty well
if you want to buy some bubblegum but uh
I don't really know why a prisoner would.
Prison labor sews the uniforms
for fast food restaurants
as well as makes their cutlery.
It answers technical
support calls for Verizon
in case you've ever
wondered why those people
sound like they really hate their lives.
Private prison companies literally
are cheap labor companies.
You know the stereotype
of undocumented workers
picking berries in fields.
That's called exploitation of labor.
When a farm pays a
migrant worker $2 an hour
because they don't have
any labor departments
that they can complain to,
you know 'cause they'd get deported,
they're exploiting a human
being and their labor.
Were you aware that human trafficking
isn't just a sex thing?
There's also a lot of construction workers
who are actually human trafficked
and were bought by somebody for $90 a pop.
Yeah that happens in the United States.
Now it's illegal but
do you know for certain
that that building you're in right now
wasn't built by a slave?
Well, whether you're in a small town
or a sprawling metropolis, you don't.
So doesn't this kind of
make everyone a hypocrite.
Everybody who thinks
they're not hurting anybody
when they shop at Walmart
or Whole Foods or anywhere,
but most of all doesn't
admit people who are directly
criticizing capitalism into hypocrites?
Well yeah, it kind of does
but there's a big problem
with trying to make a
big problem out of that
and that is we don't really have a choice.
If I got up tomorrow and said hey,
I'm no longer going to
participate in capitalism.
The following things would happen.
I would get people very angry
at me or worried about me
for suddenly disappearing
and not answering calls.
People would wonder if I was okay
and then about a month later,
assuming my family and I
haven't starved to death yet
we would be forced out of
our home for not paying rent.
And then we'd die of starvation.
You can't be alive and not
participate in capitalism.
Whether you have literally any kind of job
including whatever people
consider to be a dream job,
all the way down to people
on unemployment benefits,
whether it be whatever
you call welfare or SNAP
because they buy food
and things with benefits
paid for by tax money.
People who live with their
parents and don't work
because their parents buy food and things
either with the money they
get from participating
in capitalism or benefits
paid for by tax money.
Benefits go back into
the capitalist ecosystem
and continue to ensure
that people are exploited.
People who do literally
anything like making books
that advocate for socialism.
Those books have to be made right?
They're printed.
How do you know those
books aren't being made
by slave labor in some other country?
You don't.
You cannot exist and not
participate in capitalism.
Whether you live in the United States
where labor is exploited routinely,
or you live in a country
that the United States pays
to exploit labor for them.
If you are a socialist then
you have to do capitalism
at least for now.
If you're an advocate for socialism,
that usually means pushing socialism
into the bullshit marketplace of ideas
and participating in a lot of
nonsense you don't believe in
to push the idea of socialism.
And you may make money from it.
In fact you should make money from it.
Because if it interests people
and they think it's worth
time and money by the
standards of capitalism itself
you should be compensated for your labor.
That doesn't mean the
compensation will be fair.
You could be undercompensated
or overcompensated.
I don't know but because we
all depend on money to exist
there is absolutely no fucking reason
you should not be paid to do labor.
This is why Patreon and other ideas
similar to Patreon are good.
Frankly it's better to derive the power
to have and expand a platform by asking
for small recurring donations from people
than it is to accept it form capitalism
usually in the form of advertising.
Advertisers will always
retain some degree of control
over a creator as long as
they rely on advertising
to you know have a house and eat.
Advertising requires you
to establish an audience
that is comfortable with the status quo
and advocating against capitalism
is basically the opposite of doing that.
You would have to compromise your message
in order to ensure that
people are comfortable
and therefore making
content that is ad friendly.
Because this country runs on
capitalism, money is power.
It is one of many many many
forms of power in this country
but it is power.
In getting your money specifically
from capitalist sources
that are interested in
preserving capitalism
means there will always be power
exercised over your message.
You may even make a ton of
money advocating for socialism
and you know what, I don't give a shit.
Even if you're advocacy is soft,
you're doing something
that will push someone
in the right direction.
Left.
And you'll be able to
do more with that money
than you could without it.
We don't get to choose
a reality for ourselves,
well we kind of do but we're presented
a very limited amount of choices
and those choices all
feed into capitalism.
So in the context of what
I'm presenting right now
we don't get to choose
a reality for ourselves.
We can fight to make one
that is better for everybody
but in the meantime we all have to eat.
Or do we?
- [Narrator] What if I told you
that you can not only miss meals
but your heat can get shut
off during the winter?
What if i told you that you
don't even have to have a house?
You are free to choose
to live wherever you want
as long as you don't
get caught living there.
What if I told you you can actually
win the race to the bottom?
It's called poverty!
That's right, poverty!
Now you too can miss out on everything!
All you need is one or
more of the following.
A physical disability, a
mental illness or issue,
to be a veteran, to be born in a poor area
or to a poor family,
changing economic conditions,
to get cancer without
having health insurance,
to go to college but not immediately find
a high-paying job,
to know something about
a person who's rich
and powerful and kills
people who knows that thing
so you disappear for awhile but things get
even more out of hand,
to go through a brutal
divorce in a relationship
in which one partner
did not have an income
which could go either way,
anything you could be
discriminated against for
like being LGBT in a
state that doesn't protect
your housing, employment,
or other human rights,
bad luck, or robots.
You too can be the
subject of a Facebook post
where a middle-aged white
woman congratulates herself
for buying you a lunch
because it looks like
you haven't eaten in a few days.
Great huh!
To get poverty dial 1-800-CAPITAL
or get our app on your
iPhone instead of healthcare.
(upbeat instrumental music)
