Comments by "David H" (@DavidHalko) on "Richard Wolff: Marxism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #295" video.

  1. 2:00:16 - “Trump… most massive tax increase” Incorrect, everyone paid less taxes with the tax cuts passed” “Tariff… Chinese…” If companies moved their production out of China, the tariff would not be paid… so in the end, the cost of the product from China had the cost of the tariff built in, while the same product from Vietnam did not, and price pressures were put on China to be competitive with nations like Vietnam, so yes… China paid the tariffs. When did China not pay the tariff? When business people decided not to move their US production out of China, and they decided to raise prices, until competitors provided alternatives at a non-tariff’ed price, and then we are back to condition #1, where China would start paying the tariffs again.
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  2. 1:08:16 - “every measure to help the standard of living of American workers has to be fought for against capitalists for decades” It never needed to be fought for. People could just refuse to work for the job at the wage and find another job. This raises the wage. Fighting for artificial raises in wages causes inflation, which distorts the market, and negatively impacts the poorest people (who are likely not the beneficiaries of those who fought for the inflated wage.) “minimum wage… blocked” Yes, because every time minimum wage is passed, less skilled workers are laid off. Usually, this is teen employment. This places fewer people in the experienced work force later on, for real jobs, and reduces labor force employees of younger ages, because they never experienced people training them how to arrive at work & leave at work on a regular schedule. We see the results of such distortions in nations like France. We also see the export of jobs overseas, every time there is an increase in minimum wage.
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  3. 2:01:25 - “government is telling you what you can do with your uterus.” Nope. Government is telling people that the Constitution does not protect people from killing a young biological human, because the young biological human lives in a uterus. If there is no living human in the uterus, the government does not care.
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  4. 1:41:13 - “the model of the government is the modern corporation” No, it is not. Corporations can fire people [to fix problems], government [due to worker unions] can not fire people. Corporations go out of business, so that is always the ultimate cost for repeated bad decisions. In the end, governments are completely unaccountable because problem people can not be fired and governments can not be dissolved easily. This results in governments becoming horrible and turning places into h3ll holes.
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  5. 1:22:35 - “monopoly is the product of competition” A new way of doing something always unseats an old monopoly, if the top dog does not continue to innovate. “Win the lottery” In the US, most millionaires create the wealth in their own generation and do not inherit it. This being said, in the US, this means huge number of people win the capitalist lottery.
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  6. 1:04:08 - “it means a rich person can get the scarce milk and give it to their cat while the poor person has no milk for their five children” Or, it means the poor person will not be able to buy the milk to use it for odd uses due to it’s artificially low price, like bathing in a tub of milk to soften skin, people will have a higher value for the scarce milk, and less expensive skin softening stuff might be used, making it more likely for people to feed the milk to their 5 children.
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  7. 1:48:05 - “why did Stalinism lead to so much bloodshed?” Yes, when a majority in groups of people want stuff, then they make a minority of people do the stuff they do not want to do… democracy or mob rule leads to slavery & repression. It resulted in the Holodomor,
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  8. 1:29:10 - “[capitalism] is such a contradiction to part of our nature… that it never quite make it… there is always going to be people who never go along with it… humanity is contradicted by what they are being asked to do” And those who opt out must find something that brings them joy. Capitalism offers people the option to leave, which increases the wages of those who remain, in order to increase retention… or results in changes to the working conditions create increased worker retention. This is how capitalism organically creates better working conditions for all people in society.
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  9. 1:19:45 - “employees don’t elect those individuals [management]… not democratic” Employees can hold stock, get a share of the profits, and share holders can democratically organize to legally force change in a company. The employer can have accountability.
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  10. 1:12:00 - “new machine… get the same output with half the workers… says your fired” Honestly, the employer now increases the number of widgets that are being output, leading to increased wages for everyone. The increased number of widgets results in decreased prices for the general public in the market. “Alternative path… pay them exactly the same for half a days work” This case for Socialism really sucks. And that alternative path sucks because only a few workers are helped, instead of all workers and help the general public [market] By not increasing the output, the public never experiences decreased prices due to the lack of expansion of the original factory with better machines.
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  11. 2:07:48 - “we are not a democracy we are a republic” This is true. When democracy is applied from the top down, we get Hitler & Stalin, where the mob is used to do whatever they are told they want. The force their will upon all the people. A Constitutional Republic like the US provides for guard rails to keep the power of the mob under control and distributes the power of individuals to representatives who work on their behalf, and allowing the people to vote with their feet to other areas when their rights are stepped upon. This saves people’s lives. Judges keep the individuals from being stepped on, before they have to move. There is a big difference between Democracy & Constitutional Republic.
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  12. 1:10:43 - “mass enjoyment of a rising standard of living is built into capitalism” is absolutely correct. If people do not have a good standard of living, they perform less well, are less efficient, and produce less or inferior products. A happy worker is a good worker, capitalists understand that by taking metrics and balancing costs & benefits.
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  13. 1:03:27 - “you allow people who have a lot of money to bid up the price of whatever short, that solves your problem… the poor people drop out… it goes to the people with the most money” No, it does not quite work out that way. People who would normally buy that product at the cheap price turn to other products, and the people who REALLY need that product pay a slightly uplifted price. We saw this in the US when President Joe Biden’s government shut down 1 of 2 artificial baby formula factories over the suspicion that a contamination discovered in a baby but could not be found in the factory after exhaustive testing… until some months later. People were forced into a government shortage of 50%, for many months, and people had to find alternatives for their babies. People who really needed the formula, due to allergies, could still get it due to the uplifted price encouraging people who could find other alternative product to use those other products. My nephew was one of those people who needed such a product, and others with more money bought that product that was still available due to uplifted price protecting that scarce resource from being needlessly wasted. The higher prices saved my nephew’s life… not because the rich could buy it, but because those would could use alternatives were encouraged to do so due to the higher price. It was completely objective.
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