FREE with Clara Mattei Richard Wolff: Why Capitalism Can’t Give Us Equality
Aug 13, 2025
In this engaging discussion, Richard Wolff, an esteemed economist and advocate for worker cooperatives, joins Clara Mattei to dissect capitalism's failures. They reveal how the labor market's hidden coercion undermines liberty and equality. The duo explores inflation and unemployment from a class perspective, exposing how these issues serve capitalist interests. They also discuss how AI could be leveraged by worker cooperatives to enhance productivity while benefiting workers, offering a compelling vision for economic emancipation.
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Capitalism's Structural Barrier To Democratic Ideals
- Marx framed capitalism as a new employer-employee system that replaced feudal lords but preserved concentrated power.
- That structure inherently blocks liberty, equality, fraternity, and democracy by design.
Vanilla Freedom At The Ice Cream Stand
- Wolff used the ice-cream-parlor joke to show constrained choice: "any flavor as long as it's vanilla."
- The joke highlights apparent freedom that hides structural compulsion to sell labor.
Who Really Decides Prices And Incomes
- Employers control production, prices, and incomes, so economic decisions are undemocratic.
- This concentrated control inevitably produces grotesque inequality and preserves elite wealth.
