The core theme is a critique of proposed wealth taxes as an insufficient solution to falling living standards and economic crises, arguing instead for a transition to a publicly owned, socialist economy due to the inherent contradictions of capitalism, particularly in the face of automation.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
Please try and build up this message in
the countries that you're in. It's a
very simple message. The reason for
falling living standards is growing
wealth inequality.
Governments and the middle class are
being squeezed out.
That inequality is continuing to grow
rapidly. If you don't do anything about
it, then living standards and the
economy will continue to collapse. Um,
you need to understand that in your
country as well as in my country. If we
build this message up, we can stop it.
Hello, my name is Ted Ree. If you're not
familiar with this channel, I'm a
Marxist based in Britain. Today I'm
going to talk about Gary Stevenson, his
YouTube channel, Gary's Economics, and
his call for a wealth tax, his call to
tax wealth, not work. I'm going to try
and explain why unfortunately this is
not a sustainable solution to falling
living standards
and a economic crisis that is getting
worse and worse. Let's take a look at
his last video. We are getting closer
and closer to actually getting some kind
of implementation of a fair tax system.
What I would like you to do is just
stick to the message. one simple clear
economic message. The reason for growing
poverty, the reason for falling living
standards is growing wealth inequality.
That is worsening rapidly. If we don't
deal with it, things get worse. We can
deal with it. It's possible. Tax the
rich more. Tax wealth not work. So like
Gary, I'm concerned with collapsing
living standards and I do agree with him
that politically we need a simple
message and as a Marxist that is quite a
difficult thing to convey but I will
give it a go.
Gary says that collapsing living
standards are caused by one core thing
which is growing wealth inequality. the
rich getting richer at the expense of
everybody else. And of course that's
true, but he doesn't explain what's
causing wealth inequality. And
unfortunately, the problem is not greed
or ideology
or anything like that. Those things are
part of it. Don't get me wrong. They
play a role. But
the real core cause is just the nature
of capitalism. by which I mean the
private ownership of capital and mass
commodity production. So I'll explain
this as simply as possible. Commodities
are use values. You have a utility with
a specific purpose, but it's also an
exchange value. So there's a dual
character to the commodity. The more you
produce use values, the more exchange
value tends to wither away. So the
quicker we make commodities and in
greater quantities,
the more commodities, the average
commodity is devalued. So you make more
commodities in less time. You're
automating production. There's less
labor time, less production time
required per commodity. So there's less profit
profit
per commodity. And so you this unfolds
in a process that produces an
underproduction of profit, an
underproduction of exchange value, which
results in stagnating capital accumulation
accumulation
and money capital that cannot be
reinvested profitably. And for example,
we can see this, I'll bring it up on the
screen. Money market funds in in the US
grow ever more steeply before every
recession, peak during a recession
because of the collapse in prices, which
enables some of that money to be
reinvested. But then the process starts
again and and intensifies and and the
money stored in money market funds rises
ever steeper before every recession. And
this was what Markx called over
acccumulated capital. It's just surplus
capital that cannot be reinvested
profitably. So we have the empirical
data backing up Marx's theory. So very
simple. More commodities in less time,
less profit per commodity,
underprouction of profit, stagnating
capital accumulation, economic crisis.
Capitalists have to offset this
underprouction of profit to get capital
accumulation going again. So they do
mergers and acquisitions. They combine
companies into one which is a kind of a
shortcut to accumulation but also
creates economies of scale and therefore
more productive efficiency which then
goes on to cheapen commodities and
production. Again, the other thing they
do is privatize public wealth and public
funds. So that offsets by transferring
that public wealth into private hands,
they're offsetting the underprouction of
profit. So what a wealth tax were to do
would eat into profit margins, make
profit rates lower, and they're already
profit margins are already tending to
thin. profit rates are tending to fall
ever closer to zero as commodity
production expands historically. This is
the core problem capitalism's got. So
any redistribution
of wealth away from capital to labor is
unfortunately going to make the problem
more severe which means more capitalists
go bust which means you actually get job
losses as a result. So the only actual
solution is a publiclyowned
economy in its entirety because
automation is making production so fast
and so efficient
with so little labor time required per
commodity. Capitalism is becoming
obsolete. This is the actual reality of
what we're facing. We can't have a mixed
economy. That option is not possible
anymore. We had a we had a mixed economy
in the 70s, but this contradiction led
to neoliberalism
whereby more and more of the economy has
been privatized over the last 50 years
leading to the crisis that we're in
today, which is only going to get worse
so long as we have privately owned
production. So, we need to take the
economy under public ownership. you know
the factories, the land, the services.
And this is going to happen. It has to
happen because more and more capitalists
are going to go bust whether we have a
wealth tax or not. But of course, the
blame will be pinned on a wealth tax and
a wealth tax might even be used by
billionaires to redistribute value
upwards from millionaires and and so on
and so forth. So that is essentially the
problem that we face and why a wealth
tax won't address it.
>> So at this point I would like to send
the message out to the Labour party. If
you do not deal with this rapidly
growing inequality of wealth, the
economy will collapse and you guys will
get absolutely smashed at the next
election. But more importantly than
that, this country will collapse into
desperate, desperate poverty. I don't
want that to happen and I'm hoping that
you don't want that to happen. This
week, I've sent a few emails out to guys
in Labor. I've tried to set up a few
meetings so we can go and speak to them
to see if they're interested in fixing
this problem. I've got to be honest, I'm
not super confident that the guys I've
spoken to are going to be able or
willing to seriously think about fixing
this problem. And for whatever you or I
might think, uh, because of the
political system we have in this
country, I don't see any realistic way
of fixing the economy without going
through labor. And that doesn't mean I
won't talk to the Greens or anyone else
who who or the Liberal Democrats or or
even Conservatives or reform, but I
think our best chance is to try to get
Labour to not be so aggressively [ __ ]
So, I'm here if you want to talk to me.
>> Obviously, Gary contradicts himself
here. He says he's not confident that
Labour's going to do anything to address
the situation.
And then he says Labour's the only
solution. So, it's pretty obvious that
Labor are not the solution now. They
have always been a party that protects
capital and serves the needs of capital
accumulation. Even after World War II,
that was the role Labor played. Yes,
they did things that
made life better for a lot of
working-class people for a while, but at
the same time, capital actually needed a
lot of help from the state at that point
in time to get accumulation going again
after World War II. But every time
Labour gets reelected, it's more
right-wing than it was the time before
it got elected. And it only ever gets
elected when when the Tory party is in a
deep crisis
uh with deep factional infighting. The
people funding Labor are the same as a
lot of them are the same as were funding
the Tory government. You know,
millionaires, billionaires, Black
Rockck. And again, even parties to the
left of Labor won't be able to fix the problem.
problem.
because because again they just want a
mixed economy but it's it's just not
possible at this stage in history when
we're so close to having fully automated
production. Uh I wanted to send a
message out to people that are voting or
considering voting for the farright
party. Um reform Donald Trump whatever
she in Portugal they're all over the
place and I know it's a lot of ordinary
poor people that are voting for these
guys. Um, but before you consider voting
for farright parties, I want you to
always ask yourself two questions. Who
funds these guys? And what are they
going to do to billionaire taxes?
Because in almost every case, you will
find that these guys are funded by
billionaires and are trying to cut
billionaire taxes. These billionaires
are the guys who are going to own the
houses that your kids need. They are the
guys that are taking the wealth that
your government used to have. They are
the guys that are bankrupting your
countries and your welfare state. Please
don't vote for billionaires who are
going to bankrupt you.
>> Look, I agree with Gary. Don't vote for
right-wing parties. We've had 50 odd
years of right-wing parties and all
they've done really is privatized more
and more. Whether it's been the Tories
or Labor in the US, it's been the
Democrats and the Republicans. They
privatized more and more of the economy
and it's led us to where we are today.
So every problem that you every problem
that's affecting you is symptomatic of
this process of privatization. But it's
not just privatization. Capitalism needs
the privatization. There's no two ways
about it.
So, you know, if you can't like if you
don't want to make a big leap into
joining a socialist organization because
that's a bit too much to process
straight off the bat, okay, vote for a
social democratic
party that will at least champion
the reationalization of core industries.
But try and do it with the understanding
that any progress, any gains made by the
left will only be consumated and secured
with a move that pushes that onwards to
a to an economy that's more and more
publicly owned until we get all the way
to having a fully publicly owned economy.
economy.
>> If you are rich or if you are super
rich, you have a nice life, right? You
know, I've seen how you guys live and I
know you know how you live, right? It's
nice. You know, you guys get a lot of
luxury and it's cool. Um,
by pushing this further and further and
further and taking more and more and
more, you are aggressively destabilizing
the economies and political systems of
the countries which you live in and
which give you extreme luxury.
What the [ __ ] are you doing?
It's enough. It's enough. You've got
enough. If you keep pushing, you will
destabilize the countries that give you
these enormous amounts of wealth. Look
at what happened in history. Look at
what happened in the 20th century. I'm
not trying to redistribute wealth away
from the rich. I am trying to stop the
redistribution that is bankrupting
ordinary people. Listen, I'm out here
with my white flag up. I would accept a
peace treaty. Let's stop it now. If you
keep pushing under this system where you
don't pay tax and the poor pay tax and
you increasingly take everything and
bankrupt everybody else, you will
destroy the political stabilities of
this country.
>> Look, a lot of old-fashioned Marxists
are probably going to say that it's it's
very silly of Gary to make an appeal to
the super rich, but
I think that could have some impact. I
mean there there are millionaire groups
that do call for higher taxes because
that they can see that the
infrastructure they need to
transport their goods is falling apart
for example and they also do need a
working class
in healthy enough condition to work. So
he he's he's not wrong wrong to do that
and I don't think
any movement should write off talking to
their enemies.
It's going to be part of the process.
There are going to be negotiations.
There are going to be talks.
There are going to be offers. And
this is the second part of my simple
message. What is socialism? Well, it's
it's a process of building a system that
can provide abundant material wealth for
all. So,
nobody has anything to lose from moving
into a socialist system because it can
it will have the ability without
the worry of having to make a profit
without surplus capital that becomes
uninvestable, unprofitable.
those problems will be gone and we'll be
able to move into a system that doesn't
have recessions, that doesn't suffer ma
massive job losses, that can retrain
people free of charge when technology
displaces them, that sort of thing. So,
because socialism is a higher mode of
production compared to capitalism, it
will be productive enough easily to be
able to compensate the last capitalists.
A lot of capitalists are going to go
bust anyway. Unfortunately, they're
going to find that out the hard way. The
system that they defend is going to
bankrupt them. But we will offer
compensation deals to the last
capitalists to smooth over the process,
make it as peaceful as possible cuz
obviously at the moment this this system
is sinking
into into wars that could amount to to
anything imaginable.
So yeah, that's those are the simple
messages I have. And
obviously Gary's doing a lot better than
than me at the moment in terms of
getting his message out there, promoting
it on a big platform. So Marxists need
to try and emulate him, his success in
terms of changing the conversation. He
has moved the dial. Credit to him for
that. But the solution on offer is is
unsustainable. It might sort of it might
gain some traction. It might work for a
while, but it will rebound and it will
make the capitalist class even more
aggressive towards the left than they
already are because they will be trying
to reprivatize that wealth essentially
in order to get capital accumulation
going again to stave off their own
economic downfall. So those are the
simple messages. Capitalist crisis is
inevitable because of the nature of
commodity production and there's nothing
to lose by moving into a socialist
system of production for anyone because
it will be capable of producing abundant
material wealth for all and we will
compensate the last capitalists.
Obviously not all capitalists are going
to go for that offer and not all of them
are the ones that do are going to all do
it in one big go. It will be a process,
but it will be a bit like rats on a
sinking ship and we should make offers
that can help that process of defection
effectively. Markx does say in the
communist manifesto that that will
happen that um portions of the ruling
capitalist class will end up defecting
to the working class and the socialist
movement. So I think we should be smart
and foster that process. And you know,
obviously it's it's not going to be the
case that we can convince people to stop
pursuing a wealth tax and just join a
socialist movement that's going to
compensate the capitalist class, which
would therefore make the capitalist
class less aggressive. In theory, that
would happen, but like we're not going
to be able to stop the movement for a
wealth tax because the Marxist movement
is a lot smaller at the moment. So we
have to relate to the movements of
social democracy and the movements
calling for a wealth tax and try and
convince more and more people along the
way as that you know fails for one
reason or another either because
governments just refuse to do it because
they're representatives of capital
because they refuse to allow social
democratic parties to to take power
or because it does happen and the wealth
of tax backs fires because profit rates
fall and companies go bust and jobs are
lost because of it. However it pans out.
We need to be relating to all of that
and trying to move the needle again in
the direction of the masses. We need as
many many people as possible to
understand that basically automation is
making capitalism historically obsolete
and that is the stark truth that we are
dealing with now. If you like this
video, you want to see more of me trying
to take on social democratic and liberal
and capitalist economists and trying to
get this message heard more widely.
Please support the channel. Please
donate what you can either through Kofi
or join my Patreon and make a regular
donation. And yeah, please like,
subscribe, and all that stuff. And thank
you for watching and I'll see you in the
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
