American Capitalism Has Always Relied On Government

American Capitalism Has Always Relied On Government - Economic Update

Dec. 20, 2022

Democracy At Work - Professor Richard D. Wolff

CAPITALISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN AUTHORITARIAN

Capitalism is often presented as synonymous with freedom, but when the ruling class meets resistance it responds with violence... and exposes the coercion that sustains a deeply unequal system.

Professor Wolff describes the early development of U.S. capitalism and how dependent capitalists were on the British then American government.

"Capitalism was born, and like most newborns, it was weak and wobbly. And it needs a lot of help, and a lot of that help was provided as always by the government: the British government when we were a colony, the American government when we were independent. And first and foremost, it was the government that snatched the land away from those other people who organized themselves in a pre-capitalist, non-capitalist way." ~Professor Richard Wolff

This is a clip from S10 E46 of Economic Update: What "Capitalism's Decline" Means

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/03/capitalism-has-always-been-authoritarian

Original: https://youtu.be/FdjMPwmH3d4

Watch the full episode on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/pS-eCnCneyA

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