Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic
Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic
dimensions of our lives – jobs, incomes,
debts, those of our children, and those looking
at us down the road.
I'm your host, Richard Wolff.
I want to begin today by noting a very important
election, for several reasons.
I'm speaking of the re-election of Kshama
Sawant to the city council in Seattle, Washington.
Sawant began her career in an interesting
way back in 2013.
She declared her candidacy for the city council
with a criticism of the city having become,
in effect, a company town.
The company in question?
Amazon, which is the giant, the Goliath, in
this community, for many reasons.
She was also an outspoken (and by self-identification)
socialist, a Marxist – someone with a critical
attitude not just to the conditions and problems
of Seattle, but to the larger problems of
an American capitalism that, she said, wasn't
working for the majority of the people, including
those in her district that she wanted to represent.
To the surprise of many – a kind of surprise
similar to what greeted AOC in Queens, New
York, or Bernie Sanders back in the presidential
race of 2016 – she discovered that the openness
of American people to socialist thinking,
and socialist ideas, and socialist alternatives
was much stronger than the media, academia,
and Republican and Democratic politicians
like to admit.
So she ran.
And she was elected.
And she was re-elected.
And now, in November of 2019, she was re-elected
again, but with this additional difference:
Rather late in the campaign, the Amazon corporation
– afraid of Kshama Sawant and other members
of the political community contesting for
seats on the city council – they began to
be afraid that there might be a majority on
the council, perhaps led, or at least influenced
by, Kshama Sawant, that would do something
about the exploding housing prices, the growing
homelessness, all the secondary effects of
what Amazon wants to do in making the community
serve its profit-driven needs.
So they did an extraordinary thing: Amazon
gave a million dollars of donation to the
enemies of all of this, including the enemies
of Kshama Sawant.
So here we have a corporation, one of the
biggest in the world, whose president is the
richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos, setting
itself against a city-council race in a city.
Talk about David and Goliath.
And the important thing is they lost.
Amazon lost.
The people it supported lost.
And a number of those critical won seats on
the city council.
The lesson?
Don't think that if you're critical of capitalism,
if you're interested in a socialist alternative,
that you are necessarily foredoomed to lose
in the political battles of the United States.
Recent history, including Kshama Sawant's
race, proves the opposite.
The second topic I want to deal with today,
and introduce you to if you're not familiar
with it, is the problem of obesity, overweight.
The United States has the dubious distinction
of having the worst obesity problem in the
world, according to the World Health Organization
and the Centers for Disease Control, the people
who monitor this situation.
Let me give you some of the basic statistics.
In 1990 – right, that's roughly 30 years
ago – 15 percent, one out of six, US adults
were obese.
Twenty years later, 2010, 36 states out of
50 had rates of obesity over 20 percent, an
enormous increase.
Twelve states had obesity rates over 30 percent.
In other words, it had doubled from between
1990 and 2010.
In 2015-16, the most recent years for which
we have information, obesity among American
adults: 39.8 percent.
Now why is it important to keep track of overweight?
(Of obese, serious overweight, not just a
little.
But to qualify as obese, you have to be considerably
above the normal weights for your age, your
height, and so on.)
Here are the medical professions' statements
about how obesity can cause disease.
The diseases most affected by obesity: heart
disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain
types of cancer.
These are the leading causes of preventable
early death.
The estimated annual medical cost of obesity
in the United States is now listed as 147
billion – with a B – dollars.
A catastrophic loss.
Medical costs for people who are obese are
systematically higher than medical costs for
people who are not.
And the difference is tabulated here in the
United States as $1,429 higher than for people
with normal weight.
The medical costs, the personal costs, the
financial costs of obesity are severe.
Here are the 10 states with the worst problem
of obesity in the United States – draw your
own conclusions.
Reading from the worst to the 10th worst,
number one to the 10: Mississippi, West Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana,
Arkansas, Delaware, and Ohio.
What's the cause here?
Everyone understands.
The number-one cause is fast food – high
in calories, low in nutrition – that Americans
eat way too much of.
And what drives that is the profit to be made
from it.
Corporations advertise to beat the band, making
enormous amounts of money, because the billions
they lay out on advertising come back – and
even more billions – in the purchases, particularly
by middle- and lower-income people of fast
food that's high in calories.
And the other side of the equation: too little
physical activity.
So you take in too many, and you burn off
too few.
It is extremely expensive.
It does generate certain industries.
The estimate of the anti-obesity industry
– you know, the people who sell you, for
profit, this ointment, or that pill, or this
procedure – roughly $72 billion.
I mean, it's on and on.
We all pay the costs because obese people
having higher medical expenses turn to Medicare
and other supports which are tax funded, and
so it comes to all of us.
It's a crisis, it has been a crisis for a
long time, but America as a society has been
unable to find or implement an adequate solution.
And my guess would be there's no willingness
to confront the profit-making, fast-food,
low-quality industry whose profits protect
it from what should be done in the interests
of public health.
Recently I had an opportunity to speak at
the Soho Forum, which is a forum organized
by, of, and for libertarians.
They were kind enough to invite me.
I went.
And I don't think I was terribly successful
in getting them to understand the issues,
so I thought I would respond a little bit
here so that you all could share a little
bit in it.
The first thing that struck me about this
libertarian forum was the arguments of my
other debater, the one debating against me,
that kept referring to the problem of socialism
being that Russian leadership under socialism
and Chinese had killed millions of people.
I always find this a bizarre way of arguing
about economic systems, a kind of a body-count
approach.
But okay, if that's what they want to do,
let's make a comparison.
Capitalism has been the dominant system for
the last 150-200 years, pretty much around
the world.
What's its record in terms of the killing
of people, out of capitalist competition,
capitalist enmity, inside countries, across
countries?
Well, it's way in excess of anything that
socialists could claim.
Let's start with World Wars I and II.
I mean, conservatively those killed 50 to
100 million people – so already in a different
league.
And those were wars that came out of competition
among capitalist countries, like Germany,
England, the United States, Japan, and so
on.
So really?
Are we going to go down that road?
Then there's the thing called colonialism
and imperialism, in which capitalist countries,
mostly in Europe, went around the world killing
huge numbers of people to make the whole world
useful and profitable to Europe.
I mean why do you think there was a slave
trade that basically destroyed Africa for
hundreds of years, diluting it of its people?
And that was in order to bring those Africans
to the Western Hemisphere, first for sugar,
and then for cotton, which were very profitable
commodities capitalists bought and sold.
And then there was colonialism everywhere
else in the world.
The first book I ever wrote was an economic
study of Britain in Kenya, in East Africa.
And one of the things I discovered is when
the British arrived in 1895, they did a census.
Four million Africans lived in Kenya.
Thirty years later they did another census.
Two and a half million people lived.
In that little country, over that few years,
one and a half million people disappeared.
That has to be chalked up capitalism.
So if you're going to go this route of counting
the dead, sure you can make a criticism of
Stalin and Mao.
They deserve criticism.
Killing is not good anywhere.
But the idea that you have found a flaw in
the capitalism/socialism debate is bizarre.
Why would you even go down that road, especially
with five minutes of reflection showing you
it's not good for your side of the argument?
Then there was an even stranger kind of thing
– very typical, I think, for libertarians.
The fellow on the other side argued that he
agreed with me that capitalism was full of
flaws.
I had laid those out, as I do on this program
often, and he agreed with me.
He said it's so bad he would call it – in
his words – "crapitalism."
Okay, everybody giggled.
But then he kept saying to me, yeah, it's
terrible, but your socialism is worse.
Why?
I asked.
Well, he answered, because then the government
will become very powerful, and the government
is bad.
I said, really?
Is the government bad by definition?
Are we like talking in religion, where God
is good, and the devil is bad, and the world
is nicely organized in that way?
Is the government necessarily bad?
And his basic answer to me was yes.
The government, ipso facto, is bad.
And you don't ask why the government does
something, apparently, among these folks.
They don't explain it; it's just sort of given.
Government is bad.
What government does is unwanted, because
it's bad.
The idea that the government is what it is
because of the society in which it exists
– that it doesn't come fully finished out
of nowhere, but is a product of the society
that it is trying to govern – that doesn't
seem to have gotten into that.
I find that bizarre in the history of the
United States, when most observers would agree
that both in 1929 when the stock market crashed,
and again in 2008 when the stock market crashed,
everybody – led by the business community
– went to the government to save us.
It saved us with the New Deal in the 1930s,
and it saved us with the Bush and Obama stimulus
programs.
Apparently the government sometimes does good
things.
So the issue is why would the government be
a necessarily bad one?
Well, that's as much as we have time for.
We've come to the end of the first half of
today's Economic Update.
I want to thank our Patreon community for
their support.
I want to urge you all to make use of our
websites, and particularly to follow us on
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
And finally a reminder: The book we produced
this year, Understanding Marxism, is a response
to the many questions you send in, asking
for elaborations of issues that the Marxists
have an argument for.
If that's of interest to you – and that's
why we produced the book – get ahold of
it.
I think you'll find this is a short, accessible
introduction to what the Marxism we hear about
is all about.
Stay with me; I'll be right back for a very
important interview.
Welcome back, friends, to the second half
of today's Economic Update.
It really is with great pleasure that I welcome
our guest today, Dr. Amy S. Kramer, who has
come all the way from southern Arizona, where
she is a professor of economics at Pima Community
College.
Her approach as an economics professor has
been focused on explaining to students and
her audiences the fundamental differences
and overlaps between radical, liberal, and
conservative approaches to economics as they
are pursued by different professors, and different
audiences, and have been for quite a while.
This work led her, together with her colleague
Laura Markowitz, a nationally awarded journalist,
to produce a special project, which is why
we brought her here today.
The project is called Voices On The Economy,
or "VOTE," V-O-T-E, for short.
It involves both, basically a free course,
a free book, if you like, available on the
internet, at an address I'll give you in a
moment.
And the subtitle, I think, tells it all, so
I want to read it to you.
Voices On The Economy: How Open-Minded Exploration
of Rival Perspectives Can Spark Solutions
to Our Urgent Economic Problems.
On July 4th of this year, VOTE's new book
came out as a free, online educational resource,
available to students, to teachers, to anyone
interested in this broad, diverse, balanced
approach to economics.
And you can find it at voicesontheeconomy.org
– O-R-G.
So it's with great pleasure, Amy, that I welcome
you to the program.
KRAMER: Thank you so much.
WOLFF: All right.
You tell us in your words, what is the VOTE
program, how does it work, and then we'll
go into why you did this and what the hopes
are for its results.
KRAMER: Thank you so much.
It's such an honor and a privilege to be here.
VOTE is an answer to a problem.
We all know we live in a world of extreme
partisan hostility, extreme hateful negativity,
and it's keeping us from generating the kind
of brilliant ideas that we need in order to
create prosperity for all of us.
And that's its goal.
Its goal is to spark new ideas.
And we do it in the following way: We teach
– initially, we teach – people from all
walks of life to hear the great economic thinkers
of our past and how they're echoed in today's
debates.
And then what we do is, we line up the conservative,
liberal, and radical perspectives side by
side in a completely unbiased way.
And what happens as a result of that is, number
one – using role plays and other activities,
what happens is that – people become fluent
in each point of view and that combative debate
that we live in becomes solution-focused conversation.
And we set the foundation for, you know, the
payoff: for new ideas to emerge.
And that's what the VOTE program is all about.
WOLFF: So instead of trying to solve the problem
from within the cocoon of only one, you're
trying to say there are tools that all of
them offer.
If you give them a benefit of the doubt, if
you separate the partisan politics a little
bit from the core ideas that are useful, people
will have a broader toolbox.
I mean, it's an old idea of education, really,
that you brought into economics.
KRAMER: Yeah, it's to recognize the beauty
and the poetry of each of our great thinkers.
If you consider the work of Adam Smith, or
the work of Karl Marx, or the work of John
Maynard Keynes – who really are the basis
of the fights that we're having today – and
you consider how poetic and how insightful
their contributions were, we don't want to
lose that in our siloed thinking, in our echo
chambers, because we'll be at great parallel
to ignore any of them.
Because then we're going to end up stuck,
as we are as a nation, and we're going to
end up reinventing the wheel over and over.
And what we're looking to do is actually use
their brilliance to spark new ideas.
That is the whole idea behind what we're doing,
and it's through a culture, building a new
culture, of respectful listening, passionate
advocacy, and intelligent debate.
That's how we do it, and it's kind of even
funny that it's revolutionary.
It seems like, isn't that how society should
be?
But unfortunately, that's just not where we
are.
And it's actually getting worse.
There's a recent study that showed that 36
percent of voters think that the world would
be better off if large percentages of their
opponents were dead, that 20 percent thought
that their opponents aren't human, they're
more like animals.
We are in a state of extreme partisanship,
and we have a pathway forward.
We have a pathway to envision a new future
of prosperity.
And that's what we're offering.
And we're offering it for free, for everyone
to participate.
WOLFF: Let me follow up on this.
You know my experience – I've been a professor
of economics all my adult life – is that
the need for your book is proven by my experience.
My professors excluded 99 percent, no Marxists,
so they were out.
For a while the kind of Keynesian liberals
were on top, and the neoclassical conservatives
were out.
Then with Reagan/Thatcher, that became the
opposite; the liberals were thrown out.
But you're right; there wasn't any commitment,
basically, across the profession – with
a few exceptions, but basically no commitment
– to do what you're doing.
It is, relative to what we've had since at
least the Second World War – it was better
before, but since the Second World War – the
narrow silo-kind of thinking is what developed
where we are today, as you put it.
And you really are a revolution against that.
KRAMER: Yeah, oh absolutely.
And what we're looking to do, is we're looking
to have people fall in love with the questions
that we ask in economics.
If you think of the Sputnik moment, think
of the moment that we first sent, that Russia
sent a satellite into space, and then the
United States fell in love with the idea of
how are we going to get to space?
How are we going to get to the moon?
I see the stakes in economics are so much
higher.
How are we going to create the kind of prosperity
where each of us can contribute what are our
unique gifts?
Where society can reach its highest potential?
We can't do that in our silos.
We are a conversation starter.
We're a place where we're saying, hey it's
all hands on deck, no matter where you are.
This is maybe starting as a curriculum, but
it's meant for our larger society.
And so our work is written in a highly accessible,
story-driven way where, yes, there's technical
parts, but those can be excluded.
And just try on the words, try on the activities,
see what people are saying.
Let's try to fall in love and spark new ideas.
WOLFF: So tell us a little bit how – even
though I know your project has two volumes
and, you're coming out with the second one
soon – how has it been received?
How has this initiative – revolutionary
in the way you've just told us – how have
people reacted, pro and con, or positive/negative;
how would you describe it?
KRAMER: I would say it is on fire.
WOLFF: You're smiling.
It must be some good result.
KRAMER: Well, okay.
First of all, I do this all as a labor of
love.
I have a day job, where I'm a professor, but
everything I do for the VOTE program – the
teacher trainings, the speakers bureau, the
classes, everything that I do, including writing
this free book – is as a labor of love.
So we've had virtually no marketing, but since
we released our first volume on July 4th,
we've had over 4,200 unique downloads.
We've had educators from around the world,
hundreds of educators, saying can you send
me more teacher resources?
I'm talking 18 different countries and people
in the United States – educators from middle
school through university, graduate schools,
and in every discipline.
This is so needed.
This is an all-hands-on-deck moment.
And, you know, some people say, isn't this
stuff sort of better left to the experts?
And I say, you know, if we were trying to
get to the moon, then, yes, let's leave that
to the rocket scientists.
But these are things we're asking people to
vote on every day: How do we solve hunger?
How do we solve homelessness?
How do we solve poverty?
These are things that we all need to know.
We're asked to vote on them, and it is only
right that everybody knows what's on deck
for their choices.
And the first, you know, sort of benefit of
pluralism is okay, let's become educated in
our voting.
And not just at the voting booth, which is
just to say, at the dinner table, on social
media, and at our workplaces.
WOLFF: What about the people who are happy
in their little silo ways of thinking?
How have they reacted?
KRAMER: So of course there are challenges,
and there are challenges in everything, but
I like to think about them as opportunities.
So when people come to us – and maybe they
come to us through a class, or through a teachers
training, or speakers bureau; maybe they're
coming just through the free book – and
they come and they say, I'm not really sure
that all the perspectives genuinely want to
fix things, genuinely want to create prosperity.
And so we've developed a technique that is
incredibly effective: We assign people different
perspectives on the issues.
So we'll say, hey Rick, for the environment,
you're going to be a conservative.
For health care, you're going to be a liberal.
For international trade, you're going to be
a radical.
And then we give you what are called talking
points.
They're just everyday language, where you're
just trying on why am I right and why are
other people wrong?
And remember, it's all driven through shared
stories.
And then what happens is that we create scenarios
– a scenario of a clinic where you're the
doctor, and you're trying to solve the problem
of health for all.
And then we create what we call our "golden
moment."
And our golden moment is this moment where
people realize we all want the same things,
we just have – I'm sorry, I said that wrong
– all perspectives want the same things.
We just have really different ways of getting
there.
And it's in that golden moment that the foundation
is set, that the seed is planted, for new
ideas to emerge.
And that's the moment where we, that people,
are freed from material worry, where people
contribute what they are uniquely gifted at,
and that the society can reach its highest
potential.
WOLFF: And that's in a way, that's what you're
after.
By opening people up to what is valuable common
effort in each of these perspectives, you
hope that nurtures a kind of cross-fertilization
out of which new ideas will emerge.
KRAMER: And it's those new ideas we desperately
need, because if you think about it, Adam
Smith in the 1700s, Karl Marx in the 1800s,
John Maynard Keynes in the early 1900s – we
haven't had a new idea in 100 years.
And almost every other discipline is doing
what the ideal scientific process is, which
is to take great ideas, use it as a springboard
to new ideas, instead of siloing and doing
the exact opposite of creating genius.
That's what – it's just smart science that
we're looking to do.
WOLFF: I remember being taken with Karl Marx's
theories of surplus value, the three volumes
of his detailed notes, of great respect for
Adam Smith, David Ricardo, all these people
with whom he disagreed but who were his teachers.
KRAMER: Yes.
Yes.
WOLFF: In the little bit of time we have left
– do you think there's a particular relevance
of this kind of balanced approach to the United
States, with its economic difficulties today?
KRAMERA: Absolutely.
So people, across the spectrum, who – including
socialists – who have felt marginalized
in their words, in their thoughts, in their
actions, have now been given a place at the
table.
And they now have, they are now in k-12, they're
in universities and colleges, but in prisons,
in senior centers.
WOLFF: Wherever this program goes.
KRAMER: Everywhere, and in countless venues.
And now it's part of the conversation, so
they're no longer marginalized as something
that isn't relevant, that isn't crucial.
Without Marx's contribution, we cannot move
forward.
We're in danger of going, in fact, going backwards.
And it's in our book.
WOLFF: I wish we could do more, but it's a
wonderful ending because that's the, this
conversation is what this book that you've
produced, and this website, is trying to engender
and to promote.
And I hope all of you can join Amy, Dr. Amy
S. Kramer, and myself in developing the kinds
of conversations beyond narrow perspectives
so that we can move forward – what this
program tries to do, and no one is working
on it better than Dr. Kramer in this work.
voicesontheeconomy.org
And I look forward to speaking with you again
next week.
