Capitalism, Marxism and Islamic Economics with Prof Richard D. Wolff (MH Podcast #11) (2020-12-16) #

0:00:00 [Music]
0:00:07 welcome to the 11th episode
0:00:08 of the mh podcast i'm joined with an
0:00:11 esteemed guest
0:00:12 he is dr richard or professor richard
0:00:14 wolff who's a professor of economics
0:00:16 emeritus at the university of
0:00:18 massachusetts amherst and a visiting
0:00:20 professor
0:00:20 in a graduate program in international
0:00:22 affairs of the new school university in
0:00:24 new york city
0:00:25 he is the founder of democracy democracy
0:00:27 at work and the host
0:00:28 of their nation nationally syndicated
0:00:30 show economics
0:00:31 economic update his latest book is the
0:00:34 sickness is the system
0:00:35 when capitalism fails to save us from
0:00:38 pandemics
0:00:39 um or itself and is available along with
0:00:42 other books uh
0:00:43 on the link which we'll be providing on
0:00:44 the bottom of the um of the deaf
0:00:46 of the uh bio uh sorry in the comments
0:00:49 section below
0:00:51 hiding professor thank you uh for
0:00:53 inviting me and i'm fine
0:00:56 tell us professor how you got into um
0:00:59 you know this
0:01:01 go into economics in the first place
0:01:02 what made you interested in this field
0:01:06 well it's a it is actually an
0:01:08 interesting story i went to
0:01:09 college um here in the united states
0:01:13 where i was born
0:01:14 uh intending to be a natural scientist i
0:01:19 don't know physicist chemist that's what
0:01:21 my parents wanted me to be
0:01:24 and in my first year i took a course in
0:01:26 economics because i was always
0:01:28 interested uh in how the economy
0:01:32 worked
0:01:35 i can't do this
0:01:39 excuse me um and i went to this
0:01:42 economics course and hoping to learn
0:01:44 about how economies work and so forth
0:01:47 and the sad result was i was treated to
0:01:50 a group of
0:01:51 economics equations it didn't make much
0:01:54 sense to me or to the other students
0:01:56 everything was discussed in terms of
0:01:58 what explains
0:02:00 prices i didn't take a course in
0:02:02 economics to understand why prices are
0:02:04 what they are
0:02:05 i wanted to understand the big questions
0:02:08 uh
0:02:08 why are some countries rich and others
0:02:10 poor why
0:02:11 is there wealth on one side of the town
0:02:15 and
0:02:15 poverty on the other living in new york
0:02:18 city area i knew that story really well
0:02:21 from personal experience etc etc
0:02:24 but economics had nothing to say to me
0:02:26 so i majored in history
0:02:28 and i finished my program studying
0:02:30 history and the more i studied history
0:02:33 the more i recognized that it was the
0:02:36 economy that shaped so much of what
0:02:38 happened in history
0:02:39 that i kind of had to bite my tongue and
0:02:41 go back
0:02:42 and learn the economics so i went to
0:02:45 graduate school in economics
0:02:47 and it was always a contest what i was
0:02:49 taught was not what i wanted to learn
0:02:52 what i was taught was mostly why the
0:02:55 system were living in
0:02:57 capitalism although it was taboo to call
0:03:00 it that
0:03:00 at the time the our professors
0:03:04 were professors of the cold war here in
0:03:07 the united states
0:03:08 where anything that sounded looked or
0:03:11 had
0:03:11 any vague resemblance to anything
0:03:14 socialist
0:03:15 marxist or anything like that was so
0:03:18 taboo
0:03:19 that even words like capitalism were not
0:03:22 supposed to be used
0:03:24 um and so i was always in a kind of
0:03:27 struggle with my professors
0:03:30 and what that did is shaped me it shaped
0:03:32 me because i had to learn
0:03:35 to be able to argue with them to be able
0:03:38 to defend
0:03:39 my critical perspective on what i was
0:03:42 learning
0:03:43 and i found a few other students like
0:03:45 myself
0:03:46 and we began what i did throughout my
0:03:49 career
0:03:50 studying on my own with a student or two
0:03:53 or three with me
0:03:54 um who had similar interests and then
0:03:58 in a sense i had two parallel tracks
0:04:01 the official appropriate economics
0:04:05 mainstream economics microeconomics
0:04:07 macro
0:04:09 all of that i had to learn but on my own
0:04:13 i learned to my great delight
0:04:16 that there was a vast literature which i
0:04:19 could access in the library
0:04:21 of people who were critical of
0:04:23 capitalism
0:04:24 so that i could get in my classes all of
0:04:27 the arguments
0:04:29 for capitalism and then as i went to the
0:04:32 library with my friends
0:04:34 we could also read and think about
0:04:37 a critical perspective which was totally
0:04:41 absent and let me stress that which may
0:04:43 interest your
0:04:44 your audience i went to the what are
0:04:48 usually considered the foremost
0:04:50 universities in the united states
0:04:52 i was an undergraduate at a place called
0:04:55 harvard
0:04:56 i then went to graduate school for a
0:04:58 while at stanford in california
0:05:00 and i finished and got my phd in
0:05:03 economics
0:05:03 at yale university so i'm like a poster
0:05:07 boy for elite education here in the
0:05:09 united states
0:05:11 i spent 10 years of my life
0:05:14 in the undergraduate and graduate
0:05:16 learning program
0:05:17 10 contiguous years that's 20 semesters
0:05:21 two semesters per year during that time
0:05:25 in 19 out of the 20 semesters
0:05:28 i was not assigned to read
0:05:31 one word critical of capitalism 19 of
0:05:35 those semesters
0:05:36 were studies in celebrating how
0:05:39 efficient
0:05:40 capitalism was how beautifully organized
0:05:44 how equitable i kid you not even though
0:05:47 we lived in a society
0:05:49 where difference of income and wealth
0:05:51 and power were obvious
0:05:52 we were constantly told no no no this is
0:05:56 the best system
0:05:57 the human mind has been able to develop
0:06:01 in one semester one professor
0:06:04 in stanford california did give us
0:06:07 a little bit of a critical perspective
0:06:10 and i was grateful to him for doing that
0:06:12 but it gives you an idea of how lopsided
0:06:16 it was
0:06:17 and and i hasten to add my teachers were
0:06:20 good teachers it wasn't that
0:06:22 they were terrified it was a disaster
0:06:25 for them personally
0:06:26 their careers would be badly affected
0:06:29 if they were knowledgeable about if they
0:06:32 talked about even if they weren't
0:06:34 supportive
0:06:35 of a critical perspective the very
0:06:38 decision to put
0:06:39 such things on a reading list would
0:06:43 make others suspicious
0:06:46 question them it was really a time
0:06:49 even in the best universities of a
0:06:53 intellectual conformity that is now
0:06:57 hampering here in the united states any
0:07:00 reasonable ability to deal with the
0:07:01 crises that we face
0:07:03 because nobody was trained to
0:07:07 think about to analyze when capitalism
0:07:11 breaks down
0:07:12 which it is now doing so tell tell us
0:07:15 about this diagnostic this critical
0:07:17 perspective
0:07:18 what exactly of the system here um needs
0:07:22 to be outlined as
0:07:23 fa a failure or what exactly did you see
0:07:27 was going wrong with capitalism such
0:07:29 that you develop this critical
0:07:30 perspective in the first place
0:07:32 good let me go backwards in time uh
0:07:35 let me mention the two big failures that
0:07:38 are now
0:07:39 rapidly and i mean that and more so that
0:07:42 at
0:07:42 any point in my life and you can see
0:07:46 from my hair that i'm not a young man
0:07:48 i've been here a long time born in the
0:07:50 united states i've lived all my life in
0:07:52 the united states
0:07:53 i can assure you that the criticism the
0:07:56 critical attitude towards capitalism
0:07:59 is greater right now as i'm speaking to
0:08:01 you in the united states
0:08:03 than at any point in the history of this
0:08:06 country
0:08:06 as so far as i have lived here um
0:08:10 it's extraordinary and the two things
0:08:12 that are right now
0:08:14 fueling this criticism are
0:08:18 the failure the failure to anticipate
0:08:22 or to prepare for or
0:08:25 to manage the economic crash
0:08:28 of capitalism which begins in
0:08:31 uh february of this year uh
0:08:34 extraordinary producing
0:08:36 tens of millions of unemployed people at
0:08:40 this moment
0:08:41 over 60 million that's a third of our
0:08:43 labor force
0:08:44 has had to apply for unemployment
0:08:47 compensation
0:08:49 at some point over the last eight or
0:08:51 nine months
0:08:52 with millions of them unemployed for the
0:08:54 whole
0:08:55 period of time uh that is spectacular as
0:08:59 a crisis
0:09:00 it makes this system as
0:09:04 as poorly functioning as the last time
0:09:07 something like this happened
0:09:08 which was of the great depression of the
0:09:10 1930s
0:09:12 the second thing right now shaping
0:09:15 anti-capitalism
0:09:16 is the failure of the united states's
0:09:19 kind of capitalism to prepare for
0:09:23 or to manage the covet 19
0:09:27 pandemic we've just crossed 300
0:09:30 000 dead americans to give you a
0:09:33 perspective
0:09:34 this pandemic in less than a year
0:09:39 has killed more people than americans
0:09:42 died in world war ii in other words this
0:09:46 crisis of public health is a more
0:09:49 devastating
0:09:51 impact on this country than any war
0:09:55 it has fought since the civil war
0:09:59 which was in 1860 to give you an idea
0:10:02 but even before the crisis of today
0:10:05 of this year there were two things about
0:10:10 capitalism at least here in the united
0:10:12 states
0:10:13 that began to develop a critical
0:10:17 movement and momentum uh
0:10:20 and it's very easy to describe the first
0:10:23 one
0:10:23 and probably the most important is
0:10:27 inequality in other words the gap
0:10:30 the difference between the richest at
0:10:33 the top
0:10:34 and the mass of people the united states
0:10:39 you need to see it historically
0:10:41 celebrated
0:10:43 that in the 20th century at least
0:10:46 in the 20th century after the great
0:10:49 depression
0:10:50 there was a compression of inequality
0:10:54 to give you an example extreme
0:10:56 inequality in the 1920s
0:10:59 but with the crash in 1929
0:11:03 in the 1930s there was a massive
0:11:06 movement from below
0:11:08 the congress of industrial organizations
0:11:11 was the greatest
0:11:12 unionization movement in american
0:11:15 history
0:11:16 in the 1930s roughly from 1932 to 1938
0:11:21 roughly
0:11:22 more people joined labor unions in
0:11:25 america
0:11:25 than had ever done it before and more
0:11:28 joined than have ever done it since
0:11:30 it is the high point of millions of
0:11:33 americans who had never been in a labor
0:11:36 union before
0:11:37 deciding that with the collapse of
0:11:39 capitalism in the 1930s
0:11:41 their best chance as individuals as
0:11:44 families
0:11:45 as regions as communities was to join
0:11:48 labor unions was fantastic at the same
0:11:52 time
0:11:53 there were even more radicalized people
0:11:56 who joined
0:11:57 two different socialist parties and a
0:11:59 communist party
0:12:01 and the two socialist parties and the
0:12:03 communist party
0:12:04 and the cio the labor movement all
0:12:07 worked
0:12:08 together and they went to the president
0:12:10 of the united states at that time
0:12:13 franklin roosevelt by name and they said
0:12:16 to him
0:12:16 by the way a centrist democrat
0:12:20 rather like joseph biden in terms of
0:12:23 his politics and they went to him and
0:12:26 they basically said to him
0:12:28 a straightforward story uh we
0:12:31 represent 30 40 million people we have
0:12:34 organized them into unions into
0:12:36 political parties and we're telling you
0:12:39 mr president very politely we're telling
0:12:42 you
0:12:43 you have to help the mass of people in
0:12:46 this country
0:12:47 get through this crash of capitalism
0:12:50 if you do we will make you a hero
0:12:54 and if you don't we will throw you out
0:12:56 of office
0:12:58 and mr roosevelt was a smart politician
0:13:01 he understood that this coalition was
0:13:05 called in those days
0:13:06 the new deal coalition in the united
0:13:08 states
0:13:10 union socialists and communists could
0:13:12 deliver
0:13:13 on their threat it was not an empty
0:13:15 threat
0:13:16 and so he said to them okay we'll make a
0:13:20 deal
0:13:21 i will do for you and the mass of people
0:13:24 what has never been done by a president
0:13:27 in this country
0:13:28 but in return i don't want to hear any
0:13:31 more about revolution
0:13:34 socialism none of that that's the deal
0:13:37 and that deal was accepted and over the
0:13:40 next few years
0:13:41 the middle of the 1930s here's what was
0:13:44 done
0:13:45 and remember it's a crisis with millions
0:13:48 of unemployed
0:13:49 the government is bankrupt because the
0:13:51 unemployed don't pay taxes
0:13:53 businesses have collapsed in the midst
0:13:56 of all of that
0:13:57 the government created social security a
0:14:00 pension program for every american
0:14:03 when you reach age 65 the government
0:14:05 gives you a check
0:14:06 every month for the rest of your life
0:14:08 that was created in the middle
0:14:11 of the depression number two the first
0:14:13 unemployment
0:14:15 system at the federal level if you lose
0:14:18 your job and by the way at that time
0:14:20 there were tens of millions
0:14:22 without work if you lose your job the
0:14:24 government will give you a check
0:14:26 for one half year or more
0:14:30 simply because you are unemployed every
0:14:32 week number three
0:14:34 the first minimum wage so that employers
0:14:37 could not pay
0:14:38 below a living wage that would allow
0:14:41 people
0:14:41 to have a minimum decent life and number
0:14:44 four
0:14:45 a federal jobs program and here's what
0:14:47 the president said
0:14:49 if the private capitalist sector either
0:14:52 cannot or will not employ millions of
0:14:56 americans who only ask for a
0:14:58 job than i as president said roosevelt
0:15:02 i will and between 1934 and 1940
0:15:06 the federal government hired 15
0:15:09 million unemployed people and gave them
0:15:12 a decent wage
0:15:14 and if you ask as you should where did
0:15:16 the money come to pay for
0:15:18 all of this here's the answer
0:15:22 roosevelt the democratic party in power
0:15:26 taxed corporations and the rich
0:15:29 heavily and also required
0:15:32 loads from them to the government to pay
0:15:35 for all of this
0:15:36 so let me underscore it because in every
0:15:39 part of the world
0:15:40 this needs to be understood in the 1930s
0:15:44 a massive program to help the poor
0:15:48 to help the middle class survive
0:15:51 and grow have jobs have incomes keep
0:15:54 their homes
0:15:55 all of it was done by the president
0:15:59 was paid for by the corporations and the
0:16:02 rich
0:16:03 they weren't happy about it but they had
0:16:05 to do it
0:16:07 and the reward that mr roosevelt got
0:16:10 was he was re-elected three times
0:16:13 no other president in history of this
0:16:16 country
0:16:17 ever achieved that not before mr
0:16:20 roosevelt
0:16:21 and not since wow
0:16:25 the lesson here the politician who does
0:16:28 for the mass of people more than any
0:16:32 other president
0:16:33 is also the most popular president this
0:16:36 country had
0:16:37 and that is part of the consciousness
0:16:41 even if you don't hear that story told
0:16:43 well
0:16:44 what this did was for the rest of the
0:16:46 20th century make
0:16:47 american capitalism u.s capitalism
0:16:51 much less unequal than for example
0:16:55 british or french or german or italian
0:16:58 capitalism and the capitalists
0:17:02 tried to make something good out of what
0:17:04 was forced on them
0:17:05 so we began to celebrate when i went to
0:17:08 school
0:17:08 isn't capitalism wonderful because we
0:17:11 have a vast
0:17:12 middle class yeah the irony is the vast
0:17:16 middle class
0:17:17 was created by labor unions socialists
0:17:20 and communists in the middle of the
0:17:22 great depression it wasn't the gift of
0:17:25 capitalism
0:17:26 it was forced on capitalists from below
0:17:30 but nonetheless that was the ideology
0:17:33 capitalism makes us all
0:17:36 wealthy or at least middle-class
0:17:39 comfortable
0:17:40 our own home our own automobile
0:17:44 all of that and when you do that in a
0:17:47 society
0:17:48 and you do it for decades as we did
0:17:51 roughly from the 1940s right to the
0:17:54 present
0:17:55 if then you change that if suddenly you
0:17:58 take away
0:18:00 from the middle class what they won in
0:18:03 the 1930s
0:18:04 when you recreate the pre-1929
0:18:08 inequality of the united states which is
0:18:11 what we've done in the last 25 years
0:18:14 you produce rage
0:18:17 anger bitterness as the mass of
0:18:20 people find themselves further and
0:18:24 further behind
0:18:25 the mythology the so-called american
0:18:28 dream
0:18:29 of everybody having a kind of
0:18:31 middle-class life
0:18:33 that's not true for the mass of people
0:18:35 and they're what here
0:18:37 and they're watching that situation get
0:18:39 worse
0:18:40 and worse worse for them worse even for
0:18:44 the prospects
0:18:45 for their children and that's that
0:18:48 inequality
0:18:49 in our history is making people
0:18:52 question the whole system in a way as i
0:18:55 said
0:18:56 i have never seen before the second and
0:18:59 there's only two
0:19:00 the second quality of capitalism
0:19:03 that is now working together with this
0:19:06 inequality to provoke system
0:19:10 criticism is what i would call
0:19:13 instability wherever capitalism has
0:19:17 settled
0:19:18 for the last 300 years all over the
0:19:20 world
0:19:22 you have an economic downturn
0:19:26 on average every four to seven years
0:19:29 you know and that's an average so
0:19:31 sometimes it takes longer
0:19:33 sometimes it takes less but on average
0:19:35 for
0:19:36 every four to seven years here's what
0:19:38 happens
0:19:39 suddenly sizeable numbers of people lose
0:19:42 their jobs
0:19:43 their skills haven't gone away the
0:19:46 importance of what they do
0:19:47 hasn't gone away the needs of the
0:19:50 society for labor
0:19:51 and its products hasn't gone away but
0:19:54 your
0:19:54 job went away and with it your income
0:19:58 businesses have to cut back or they go
0:20:00 out of business
0:20:01 we have many words because this is so
0:20:04 common
0:20:05 recession depression bust
0:20:08 crisis downturn collapse
0:20:12 crash i mean lots of words because it is
0:20:15 so
0:20:16 ever present it means that your lifetime
0:20:19 you
0:20:20 and i being normally whatever it is 50
0:20:23 to 80 years
0:20:24 we're going to experience quite a few of
0:20:27 these
0:20:27 which are going to interrupt our
0:20:30 families our relationships our
0:20:32 educations
0:20:33 our jobs our regional locations
0:20:36 it's extremely disruptive especially
0:20:40 when the downturns are deep and
0:20:42 long-lasting
0:20:44 which the 1930s was and which today's is
0:20:48 you put together the instability
0:20:51 of this system and the inequality
0:20:54 it is generating and you have two
0:20:58 fundamental flaws of a system that make
0:21:02 people ask the logical question
0:21:06 if this system is so unstable and
0:21:09 produces such
0:21:10 inequality if on top of it it is
0:21:13 un incapable of handling
0:21:17 the preservation of public health in the
0:21:19 face of a virus
0:21:21 yeah well then why don't we consider
0:21:24 another system i think that's a good
0:21:26 question and i think a lot of people
0:21:28 will
0:21:28 will agree with large parts of your
0:21:29 diagnostic there
0:21:31 um i mean here's what i've understood
0:21:33 from what you've said you've obviously
0:21:34 used the example of the you know the
0:21:36 wall street crash in the subsequent the
0:21:37 great depression in the 30s as like the
0:21:40 prime example of how this system
0:21:42 malfunctions
0:21:43 both in terms of stability and in terms
0:21:45 of inequality and i think a lot of
0:21:46 people will think
0:21:47 well this is like you said this boom and
0:21:49 bust is is a feature of capitalism and
0:21:51 always has been a feature of capitalism
0:21:54 but many people will also say well
0:21:55 the alternative which maybe you may be
0:21:57 alluding to
0:21:59 if we're talking about an alternative
0:22:00 which is in many ways
0:22:02 antithetical to the capitalistic system
0:22:04 things like communism marxism
0:22:06 or strong forms of socialism
0:22:09 those systems themselves have their own
0:22:12 uh
0:22:13 problems if you like you know they have
0:22:15 their own issues um for example if
0:22:17 we were to assume i'm not sure i'm not
0:22:19 saying that this is your view because
0:22:20 i'm not sure exactly what you
0:22:21 your view is on this but if we were to
0:22:23 assume that
0:22:25 the government is going to now possess
0:22:26 or take all the means of production for
0:22:29 itself
0:22:29 and now distribute in an egalitarian
0:22:32 type of way the means of production
0:22:34 and thus people will not have property
0:22:36 rights or they will not have
0:22:39 you know employment rights and so on and
0:22:40 so forth then
0:22:42 the issues that commonly asked or the
0:22:44 questions are commonly asked
0:22:45 with this type of system will be
0:22:47 pronounced things like
0:22:48 where is meritocracy uh in this kind of
0:22:51 system or
0:22:52 meritocracy would be something which is
0:22:54 much de-emphasized in this kind of
0:22:56 system
0:22:56 a lazy person if you want to put it in
0:22:58 colloquial terms can be
0:22:59 rewarded for his laziness or her
0:23:01 laziness it could be the case also that
0:23:03 you have a transition to a kind of
0:23:06 authoritarian system because now the
0:23:08 government has
0:23:09 all this means of production and many
0:23:11 would use i'm not saying this is
0:23:13 um you know the reason but many would
0:23:14 use the examples of you know
0:23:16 lenin and stalin and mao and so on and
0:23:18 so forth as examples of
0:23:20 you know where the opposite which is
0:23:22 communist or marxist kinds of systems
0:23:24 would also go wrong so having having
0:23:27 said that in terms of
0:23:28 um your diagnostic with capitalism
0:23:32 what makes you confident about and if if
0:23:34 you are indeed uh confident about this
0:23:36 what makes you confident
0:23:37 that a socialist or a marxist system uh
0:23:40 or
0:23:41 or some kind of uh left-leaning uh
0:23:43 fiscally
0:23:44 economic um system would be better than
0:23:47 uh
0:23:48 or not even better than it would be the
0:23:49 solution
0:23:51 well it's a very you know it's in what
0:23:53 we call in this country the 64
0:23:55 000 question yeah it's the question that
0:23:59 that's from a television show that asks
0:24:01 who wants to be a millionaire yeah
0:24:04 um it's very important question i'm glad
0:24:06 you asked it let me respond
0:24:08 if i can yes uh but before i do about
0:24:10 meritocracy
0:24:12 as i mentioned to you i am the product
0:24:15 of the
0:24:16 most elite schools this country has
0:24:19 and i have benefited personally
0:24:22 throughout my life
0:24:23 from that fact whenever i because i'm a
0:24:26 critic of capitalism because i do
0:24:29 admit and i don't run away from having
0:24:31 learned an enormous amount
0:24:33 from the marxist tradition of criticism
0:24:35 of capitalism
0:24:36 and since i don't shy away from that i
0:24:39 have been
0:24:40 i've had to have problems in my life
0:24:42 because of my political perspective
0:24:45 and whenever i have i've waived my
0:24:46 pedigree having gone to the right
0:24:48 universities
0:24:49 and usually the folks back away because
0:24:51 they are intimidated
0:24:53 by the pedigree and they leave me alone
0:24:56 which is part of why
0:24:57 i've been a professor in american
0:25:00 universities i'm on television
0:25:02 literally every day now et cetera et
0:25:04 cetera
0:25:06 why do i tell you this because
0:25:08 meritocracy is a wonderful
0:25:10 idea i'm sure it would be interesting
0:25:13 to live in a society that works that way
0:25:16 but i can
0:25:17 assure you that the united states
0:25:20 is not was not and is nowhere near
0:25:23 being such a place uh and if
0:25:26 if you think it is then i take my hat
0:25:29 off to the
0:25:30 public relations of people for having
0:25:33 persuaded folks
0:25:34 uh of such a thing i was surrounded at
0:25:37 all of these institutions
0:25:39 by young men and women some of whom were
0:25:41 and still are my personal friends
0:25:44 but merit is not what they had they had
0:25:47 parents with money who got them into the
0:25:49 right school at the right time
0:25:51 who've carried them all their lives it's
0:25:53 been a source of support for them
0:25:56 which they've appreciated but it's also
0:25:58 been a condemnation
0:26:00 to ambivalence about learning uh about
0:26:02 human relationships and i know this all
0:26:05 from very close uh observation
0:26:08 uh with these folks most of those of us
0:26:12 who were
0:26:12 quote unquote successful in these
0:26:15 universities
0:26:16 came from less well-off families
0:26:19 who were able to get their kids like me
0:26:21 my parents had no money at all into
0:26:24 these
0:26:24 institutions at the various moments when
0:26:27 they were
0:26:28 open uh to people who had some
0:26:31 intellectual interests but no
0:26:34 in this country the the honest statement
0:26:38 is where you end up in in life is
0:26:41 not dependent on what you know it's
0:26:43 dependent
0:26:44 on who you know and that is well well
0:26:47 understood
0:26:48 i don't know what a government-run
0:26:50 systems
0:26:52 arrangements would be my assumption not
0:26:55 that different
0:26:56 but in any case meritocracy is a
0:26:59 wonderful idea
0:27:00 i wish somebody would actually
0:27:03 try to set that up but uh we haven't
0:27:06 managed
0:27:07 you've kind of alluded this i probably
0:27:09 agree with you on on those comments uh
0:27:11 or at least a large part of them
0:27:12 but the the point i'm making here is
0:27:15 that if you did have a communist system
0:27:17 meritocracy or the idea of marriage i
0:27:19 don't know
0:27:20 yeah no no i am i understand let me get
0:27:22 to that
0:27:24 here's the way i would answer uh yes i
0:27:27 am part of the left i am part of the
0:27:29 socialist communist marxist whatever you
0:27:31 want to call it
0:27:33 uh left it's critical of capitalism but
0:27:36 i'm also
0:27:38 a product of the last century i have
0:27:41 seen
0:27:42 what happened in the soviet union or
0:27:44 china or vietnam or cuba or any of the
0:27:46 other
0:27:47 societies that have tried in one way or
0:27:49 another
0:27:50 uh to depart from the capitalism that i
0:27:53 grew up in and that i know
0:27:54 best which is what we tend to call
0:27:57 private capitalism
0:27:58 in the sense that the largest part of
0:28:00 the economy is privately owned and
0:28:03 operated
0:28:04 capitalist enterprises now from my
0:28:08 learning i know that from the beginning
0:28:11 of
0:28:11 certainly of marxism marx dies in 1883
0:28:15 so for the last 150 years
0:28:17 since he passed on there's been a
0:28:20 tradition of
0:28:21 using his thinking to criticize
0:28:24 capitalism and then
0:28:25 once the soviet union revolution happens
0:28:28 to try to install it
0:28:30 and i know and i hope you do that there
0:28:33 have been
0:28:34 long deep bitter disagreements
0:28:38 debates alternatives within
0:28:41 the marxian tradition as to what the
0:28:44 words he wrote meant what the critique
0:28:47 should be
0:28:48 what the alternative might look like
0:28:50 there isn't
0:28:51 one there isn't the socialist response
0:28:54 there never was
0:28:55 there are socialist responses and one of
0:28:58 the things folks like me
0:29:00 and boy am i not alone here one of the
0:29:03 things
0:29:03 we've learned is that the alternative
0:29:07 to the capitalism we are critics of
0:29:10 is not to have the state come in
0:29:13 and do it it is not to have the state
0:29:17 take over industry for example
0:29:20 neither by regulation sort of the
0:29:22 european
0:29:23 social system
0:29:26 nor the soviet or chinese type where the
0:29:29 government
0:29:30 uh it's not true anymore in china but it
0:29:32 was for a while
0:29:33 that the government literally displaces
0:29:36 the private
0:29:38 capitalist and runs the businesses
0:29:40 itself
0:29:41 we see we see that that
0:29:45 didn't do what our criticism of
0:29:48 capitalism
0:29:50 aims at achieving what it did do and
0:29:54 that's a whole nother discussion
0:29:55 is it replaced the private employer
0:29:59 with the government as the ultimate
0:30:02 employer
0:30:03 and that's interesting that's a shift in
0:30:05 our view
0:30:06 from a private capitalism to a state
0:30:11 run capitalism because for us
0:30:14 and here marx is crucial the key thing
0:30:17 about
0:30:17 capitalism is the relationship
0:30:20 between the two players in this system
0:30:24 the employer and the employee
0:30:28 in capitalism it's the employer
0:30:31 who has all the power makes all the key
0:30:34 decisions about every enterprise
0:30:36 every factory every store every office
0:30:39 a tiny group of people the owner uh the
0:30:42 board of directors
0:30:43 the major shareholders whatever they are
0:30:46 tiny group of people
0:30:47 make the decisions for the vast majority
0:30:50 the
0:30:51 employees and that's how the system
0:30:54 works
0:30:54 for us that's the problem and that's not
0:30:58 solved if you get rid of the private
0:31:01 citizen
0:31:02 in the employer position and substitute
0:31:05 for that
0:31:05 a public official in the employer
0:31:08 position
0:31:09 which is largely what the soviet union
0:31:12 for example
0:31:13 did our view is that the problem
0:31:16 is that relationship the employer
0:31:19 employee
0:31:20 relationship and that what needs to be
0:31:22 done and what socialism
0:31:24 means for us in the 21st century
0:31:28 is the radical transformation of the
0:31:31 enterprise
0:31:32 so that it becomes not a hierarchical
0:31:36 employer employee structure
0:31:39 but instead a democratic
0:31:43 community in which all the players
0:31:46 whatever their function in the division
0:31:49 of labor within the enterprise
0:31:51 one person one vote they decide
0:31:54 with debate discussion and majority rule
0:31:58 what to produce what technology to use
0:32:01 where to carry out the production and
0:32:03 what to do
0:32:04 with the profits that all of them
0:32:06 together have helped to produce
0:32:09 the democratization of the enterprise
0:32:12 structure
0:32:13 internal is what we think the future
0:32:17 holds as a solution to both the problems
0:32:21 of private capitalism with which we
0:32:23 began our conversation today
0:32:25 and the problems of the state capitalism
0:32:29 that were the efforts of the last
0:32:31 century to go beyond capitalism
0:32:34 i believe those efforts are now
0:32:35 exhausted we learned
0:32:37 much much was accomplished many terrible
0:32:40 mistakes were made
0:32:42 we're ready for the next phase right so
0:32:44 let me tell you i'll put my cards on the
0:32:46 table as
0:32:46 where where i kind of um my where my
0:32:49 position is so obviously i'm coming from
0:32:51 the islamic tradition
0:32:52 um and and actually islam does have
0:32:56 discussions on economics and obviously
0:32:58 um uh zakat is one of the pillars of
0:33:00 islam
0:33:01 but um in terms of where we stand on
0:33:03 this discussion uh
0:33:04 or where i stand and maybe many will
0:33:06 agree
0:33:07 is yeah so the capitalism we don't agree
0:33:09 with it but we also don't agree with
0:33:11 communism
0:33:11 um and so the reason why is because um
0:33:15 in terms of capitalism you've talked
0:33:16 about the inequality problem and you've
0:33:17 talked about the instability problem
0:33:19 for us um i really don't think that
0:33:24 there is a push towards an equality of
0:33:26 outcome from the islamic perspective
0:33:28 in other words and the reason why we
0:33:30 base we have this judgment or at least i
0:33:32 have this judgment is because of a
0:33:34 well-known saying of the prophet so
0:33:36 basically some people came to the
0:33:37 prophet muhammad and asked him
0:33:39 um some people were raising the prices
0:33:41 in a market okay so
0:33:43 and so they asked him to basically lower
0:33:45 the prices in which he responded he said
0:33:47 that
0:33:47 god is the one who sets the prices in
0:33:49 other words i'm not going to get myself
0:33:51 involved
0:33:52 in setting lowering and increasing
0:33:54 prices
0:33:55 um so because because that's not really
0:33:58 it's not my position and so from that
0:34:01 there seems to be like a free market
0:34:03 kind of understanding from the obviously
0:34:05 demand and supply based but at the same
0:34:07 time there's a redistribution
0:34:08 understanding as well because of zakar
0:34:09 tennis there's eight recipients of zakat
0:34:11 or eight categories of recipients
0:34:13 of them is um of the people who
0:34:15 basically don't have money
0:34:16 or the or the one who is impoverished
0:34:20 or those who don't have enough to
0:34:22 fulfill their basic needs and so on
0:34:24 but it would seem to me that from from
0:34:26 this perspective
0:34:28 the economic inequality factor
0:34:31 although is something which is not
0:34:34 necessarily desirable it's not something
0:34:36 which is seen as
0:34:37 immoral from the islamic perspective so
0:34:39 long as the basic needs of that
0:34:40 individual is being met
0:34:41 and in fact there is a verse in the
0:34:43 quran to that effect which says
0:34:51 that we have actually allowed some of
0:34:52 you to exceed others
0:34:54 in levels uh and then so so you can use
0:34:58 or that they can they can use other
0:35:00 people for employment purposes you can
0:35:01 even
0:35:02 i'm not sure that's employment would be
0:35:04 the the right kind of translation but
0:35:05 you could they can use them for their
0:35:07 own advantage
0:35:08 which seems to me to be exactly against
0:35:11 what marx would say because obviously
0:35:12 surplus value
0:35:13 the idea that um you know the the the
0:35:16 the
0:35:17 the employer employee relationship is an
0:35:19 exploitative one at its core basically
0:35:21 this is my understanding of marxism
0:35:22 that when you have this hierarchy the
0:35:25 employer employee relationship
0:35:26 then there's an exploitation going on by
0:35:29 necessity almost
0:35:30 because this is surplus value and so
0:35:33 marxism for me seems to say well what we
0:35:36 need to do is we need to kind of abolish
0:35:37 this
0:35:38 um so that the hierarchy is eliminated
0:35:40 and it seems to be the assumption from
0:35:42 uh from what i'm hearing from you
0:35:44 is that the inequality is a bad thing in
0:35:48 all cases
0:35:49 um and so even when it comes to equality
0:35:51 of outcome
0:35:53 we want to achieve equality of outcome
0:35:56 whereas what it seems to me from from
0:35:57 doing of my tradition is that
0:35:59 uh equality of outcome is not a
0:36:01 desirable objective in fact
0:36:03 um the burden of proof would be the upon
0:36:05 the one who's making the claim so in
0:36:07 other words if someone says
0:36:08 equality of outcome is is a desirable
0:36:11 objective
0:36:12 that everyone should have the same kind
0:36:13 of money or the same kind of uh
0:36:15 uh you know resources and they shouldn't
0:36:18 be this kind of
0:36:18 hierarchical structure of employee
0:36:20 employee and that is an exploitative one
0:36:23 s core
0:36:23 then the person is making this claim it
0:36:25 seems to be a very
0:36:26 epistemologically heavy claim with many
0:36:29 assumptions
0:36:30 would have to prove in the first
0:36:32 instance uh instance that
0:36:34 um that it is undesirable that is
0:36:37 exploitation an objectively true
0:36:38 exploitation
0:36:39 number one and number two that would be
0:36:41 desirable to have
0:36:42 equality of outcomes so that it would
0:36:44 seem before we could get to the point of
0:36:46 saying we
0:36:47 inequality is a bad thing which seems to
0:36:48 be like a very
0:36:50 like general wide thing to say two
0:36:52 problems would have to be solved
0:36:54 one of them is how do you know or how
0:36:56 can you prove
0:36:57 that equality of outcome when it comes
0:36:59 to economics is a good thing
0:37:02 and how can you prove that the employer
0:37:04 employee relationship or surplus value
0:37:06 whatever you want to call it
0:37:07 is in fact an exploitative thing at all
0:37:11 from an objective kind of perspective
0:37:13 sure
0:37:14 let me respond which i think i can um
0:37:18 first a couple of points where we may
0:37:21 disagree
0:37:22 yeah um notice that i tried to stress
0:37:25 that there are different interpretations
0:37:27 of socialism and marxism and
0:37:30 as with all you know great traditions
0:37:33 of thinking there are disagreements and
0:37:36 varieties of interpretation
0:37:38 yeah from the little bit i know about
0:37:40 islam it's true of that tradition too
0:37:43 that there are differing perspectives on
0:37:46 on how to read the quran how to
0:37:48 interpret it and how to
0:37:50 understand uh the writings and
0:37:52 contributions
0:37:54 of great thinkers in the islamic
0:37:55 tradition etc etc
0:37:57 um and i would guess that some of them
0:38:00 are probably
0:38:01 closer and some of them are further from
0:38:03 the perspective within marxism
0:38:06 that i've tried to argue number one
0:38:08 number two
0:38:09 i apologies for the telephone but it's
0:38:12 uh
0:38:14 um okay um
0:38:17 number one number two uh let's be clear
0:38:20 i did not advocate some kind of blanket
0:38:23 equality neither of quote opportunity
0:38:27 nor quote outcome that's not
0:38:30 the issue the issue would be if
0:38:33 if i make myself clear is that for
0:38:36 example in an enterprise
0:38:38 run democratically one of the decisions
0:38:42 that would be made democratically
0:38:45 is what range of difference
0:38:49 among the people in an enterprise
0:38:52 including difference in income or wage
0:38:55 or salary or whatever words you want
0:38:58 would be appropriate that that is a
0:39:00 socially
0:39:02 determined and should be democratically
0:39:05 determined range of difference but there
0:39:08 is no
0:39:09 presumption or not none is needed in the
0:39:12 argument i'm making
0:39:13 that they would decide they might but
0:39:16 there's no presumption
0:39:17 that they would have to decide that
0:39:19 everybody gets the same
0:39:20 that right that's usually been i'm not
0:39:23 saying you did this but usually
0:39:25 that kind of image has been used as a
0:39:27 bit of a
0:39:28 uh a caricature in order to criticize
0:39:31 the
0:39:32 position that's not necessary but let me
0:39:35 give you an example of why
0:39:36 this is this idea is important
0:39:40 over the last um eight months
0:39:43 here in the united states as i said
0:39:46 three hundred thousand people have died
0:39:48 of the covet 19
0:39:51 and 60 a million a third of our labor
0:39:54 force
0:39:55 has had to go into unemployment during
0:39:57 which
0:39:58 whatever savings they have were used up
0:40:01 uh
0:40:01 during which they leaned on their family
0:40:05 and relatives and friends and neighbors
0:40:07 for help at a time when the friends and
0:40:09 neighbors weren't able to help them or
0:40:11 couldn't do much and so
0:40:14 we've had a massive diminution
0:40:18 in the standard of living of at least
0:40:21 half our population at the same time
0:40:25 i'm going to give you one example
0:40:27 jeffrey bezos
0:40:29 the owner and ceo
0:40:33 of the um just escapes me right now
0:40:37 amazon
0:40:38 corporation i assume you know what that
0:40:40 is um
0:40:42 his fort his personal fortune went from
0:40:45 roughly 130 billion dollars
0:40:49 to over 200 billion
0:40:53 dollars right if we took away
0:40:57 180 billion dollars
0:41:01 from this man we could
0:41:04 he by the way that would leave him with
0:41:06 20 billion
0:41:07 and he would then be among the 100
0:41:10 richest people
0:41:11 in this country and in the world that
0:41:14 180 billion
0:41:16 could save the lives and transform
0:41:20 the lives of tens of millions
0:41:23 of his fellow citizens that's how
0:41:26 capitalism now
0:41:28 works this level of inequality
0:41:31 is what this system produces just as it
0:41:35 produces
0:41:36 wealth at one pole uh say in western
0:41:39 europe
0:41:40 and poverty in africa etc etc i don't
0:41:43 have to tell you that you know that
0:41:44 better than i do but what gives us the
0:41:46 right to take for example with that
0:41:48 analogy what would give us the right to
0:41:49 take 180 billion
0:41:51 from that from that man like
0:41:54 the moral imperative that a man who can
0:41:58 continue to be
0:41:59 among the richest in our community
0:42:04 would enable by that movement of wealth
0:42:08 to do something for the larger community
0:42:11 that it has already done for him he's
0:42:14 paying
0:42:15 back the mass of people produced the
0:42:18 surplus
0:42:19 that gives him that income so that is
0:42:21 that moral imperative
0:42:23 premised or in some way uh predicated by
0:42:26 the idea that
0:42:27 that level of inequality should not
0:42:30 exist
0:42:30 within a society
0:42:34 it may or may not that's that's really
0:42:36 not relevant here
0:42:37 what you have is a need and a desire
0:42:42 on the part of i don't know i'll pick a
0:42:44 number 30 million
0:42:45 people who could be helped by this by
0:42:48 doing this
0:42:49 on the one hand and the desire of mr
0:42:52 bezos
0:42:53 not to have that money taken from him
0:42:59 that's exactly parallel to the fact
0:43:03 that there are i don't know two or three
0:43:06 million people
0:43:07 who work in amazon warehouses
0:43:11 where they are driven like i've worked
0:43:13 there driven like animals
0:43:16 paid an absurdly low amount of money
0:43:19 which brings them to work only because
0:43:22 in this society
0:43:24 if they didn't take that job they'd be
0:43:27 in even worse circumstances so they
0:43:30 take the job knowing that for every
0:43:34 hour that they work for mr bezos
0:43:38 they add to the services he sells
0:43:41 more value than he pays them
0:43:44 in a wage which is why he hires them he
0:43:47 wouldn't hire them
0:43:49 because that's how capitalism works you
0:43:51 never hire a worker
0:43:53 unless the worker produces more for you
0:43:56 than it costs you
0:43:57 to have him come monday through friday
0:44:00 from nine to five
0:44:01 so you are producing a surplus that
0:44:04 enriches mr bezos at your expense
0:44:09 yes well let me finish yes right now the
0:44:12 question
0:44:12 becomes what does mr bezos
0:44:16 do for you and you know
0:44:19 if mr bezos insists
0:44:23 and if i were advising him i would tell
0:44:24 him this yeah and by the way i am
0:44:26 advising people like him and i do tell
0:44:28 them what i'm about to tell you
0:44:30 for a good long while you may get away
0:44:33 with this
0:44:35 but a time will come when you won't
0:44:38 and how you act now will determine
0:44:42 what happens to you when this imbalance
0:44:46 is corrected all right
0:44:49 there's a few things there that once
0:44:51 again it kind of forces me back to the
0:44:52 assumptions of the entire
0:44:54 uh project right because once again we
0:44:57 are assuming a few things we're assuming
0:44:59 that
0:45:00 um 180 million sorry billion dollars
0:45:04 wouldn't would be
0:45:05 justifiably taken away from him or and
0:45:07 all that
0:45:08 that level of inequality should not
0:45:10 exist within
0:45:12 uh society by the way that's fine i mean
0:45:14 i i don't necessarily disagree with this
0:45:16 sentiment there's
0:45:17 a verse in the quran which says
0:45:20 so it doesn't become a circulation among
0:45:22 the rich among you so i'm not
0:45:23 i'm not saying that i agree with
0:45:25 capitalism or i agree with
0:45:27 money being circulated among the the
0:45:29 higher echelons of society but what i am
0:45:30 saying is
0:45:32 at what point do we say well you have so
0:45:35 many ideals here you talked about
0:45:36 democracy democracy is
0:45:38 one political philosophy and then you've
0:45:39 got liberalism which says
0:45:41 that you know property should be
0:45:42 protected and then you have marxism
0:45:44 which talks about surplus value
0:45:46 if we're in a society which claims to be
0:45:48 liberal in the case of united kingdom uh
0:45:50 sorry and the united states as well
0:45:52 it claims to be liberal and it claims to
0:45:53 also be democratic
0:45:55 at what point do we prioritize a
0:45:57 democratic kind of
0:45:58 reasoning which in this case seems to be
0:46:01 you know one vote one person everything
0:46:02 everyone
0:46:03 counts with a liberal principle which is
0:46:06 that property should be protected
0:46:08 um and if we do prioritize one over the
0:46:11 other what allows us or gives us the
0:46:12 oppo
0:46:13 the right to hierarchize for example the
0:46:16 right for one person to have
0:46:17 uh as much as say as another person
0:46:19 which is the democratic side
0:46:21 over another which says that property
0:46:22 should be protected and all wealth also
0:46:24 should be
0:46:25 protected which is the liberal ethic
0:46:28 who is responsible for hierarchizing
0:46:31 these
0:46:31 uh ideals and coming to different
0:46:34 conclusions as a result of it
0:46:36 because if we say that what's that let
0:46:39 me risk let me respond
0:46:40 but otherwise otherwise you know you
0:46:43 accumulate your points are all important
0:46:45 it's not that it's
0:46:46 too many for me to respond uh
0:46:49 there is no answer to that question
0:46:52 yeah history answers that question
0:46:54 liberalism is the
0:46:56 ideology of capitalism it says if the
0:46:59 capital if i can hire you
0:47:01 yes and i can rip you off by making you
0:47:05 produce more value than i pay for you
0:47:07 look i could show you it's easy to do in
0:47:10 economics i could show you
0:47:11 that by hiring let's pick someone john
0:47:14 or mary it doesn't matter
0:47:16 by hiring that individual i now have
0:47:20 50 an hour more goods or services to
0:47:25 sell as a club
0:47:26 someone could say so what what's the
0:47:27 problem with that yeah yeah let's let me
0:47:29 let me do it okay so i i hire you
0:47:33 i have fifty dollars more because your
0:47:35 labor
0:47:36 your use of your brains and your muscle
0:47:40 added 50 worth of output
0:47:43 that i can sell and i really appreciate
0:47:47 your coming there
0:47:48 and so i'm going to give you half of
0:47:51 what you produce i'm going to give you
0:47:54 25 an hour yeah in
0:47:57 to show you my appreciation for your
0:48:00 giving me
0:48:01 50 worth of output
0:48:04 your labor okay so i'm i'm
0:48:07 really happy because i'm getting 50
0:48:10 and in exchange i'm giving you 25.
0:48:15 and the only and your answer to me would
0:48:17 then be
0:48:18 uh wait a minute it's my effort
0:48:21 my brains my muscle those are finite
0:48:24 resources
0:48:26 i my labor produces 50 i don't want
0:48:30 to be given 25 because i did the work
0:48:34 you didn't i did so i want
0:48:38 the full value of what i have added
0:48:42 to this enterprise's output
0:48:45 and you say to me sorry
0:48:48 25 is all you get and i know that that's
0:48:52 going to work
0:48:53 because i know that if you don't take
0:48:55 this job
0:48:56 the next job you can get will give you
0:48:58 24.
0:49:00 so you're talking about really this is
0:49:02 surplus value you're you're talking to
0:49:04 absolutely yeah absolutely and so i just
0:49:06 want you to understand from that
0:49:08 perspective
0:49:10 what mr bezos is accumulating
0:49:14 is the surplus that he squeezes
0:49:18 out of millions of employees
0:49:21 in this way he's like a pharaoh in
0:49:24 ancient
0:49:25 egypt or something with you know 10
0:49:27 million slaves or whatever the
0:49:29 equivalent would be
0:49:30 and so he can build the pyramid and he
0:49:32 can live the way they did et cetera et
0:49:34 cetera
0:49:35 there is there is one there is one i
0:49:38 would say
0:49:38 one major difference between the two uh
0:49:41 the major difference would be that
0:49:43 in the case of the the pharaoh uh or
0:49:45 ramses or ramses ii
0:49:47 uh if you want to take the biblical
0:49:48 historian seriously on that you know
0:49:50 whoever it may be that's
0:49:52 enslaving populations in the ancient
0:49:55 time
0:49:56 with um with the owner of amazon
0:49:59 the the employer the employees have a
0:50:02 choice they can either get into that
0:50:04 contract or they don't or they don't
0:50:05 have to get into that contract
0:50:06 whereas within in a in a purely slave
0:50:09 type relationship
0:50:10 the choice is not there in the first
0:50:12 place there's no choice at all the ieo
0:50:14 you it's either you're going to be my
0:50:15 slave or you're going to be my slave
0:50:17 there's no third option to that
0:50:19 but with that one you can either be
0:50:21 employed with that surplus
0:50:24 in place or you don't have to be
0:50:26 employed with that surplus in place
0:50:28 and then and then what happens to you
0:50:30 what happens to you you can you have a
0:50:32 you have an opportunity to be to be the
0:50:34 one who's uh setting up the surpluses or
0:50:37 being the beneficiary of it by being an
0:50:38 employer yourself
0:50:40 and or wait wait a minute the only way
0:50:43 you can do that is if you have
0:50:44 capital which is what workers don't have
0:50:46 i don't think that's always true like
0:50:48 especially not in today's um society
0:50:50 where you can there's some start-up
0:50:51 businesses and
0:50:52 so on that you can start with literally
0:50:54 no capital whatsoever you can start off
0:50:56 with an account on
0:50:57 um in the internet and you can start
0:50:58 making money from the beginning or you
0:51:00 can have very limited capital and then
0:51:02 literally just between do you actually
0:51:05 believe that what you just said really i
0:51:08 think there are many examples of
0:51:10 companies
0:51:10 if you look if you look at them that
0:51:12 started with very limited capital but
0:51:14 then
0:51:15 uh continue to be businesses grow but
0:51:18 that's a different argument
0:51:20 yeah yeah people who start businesses
0:51:22 with no capital
0:51:24 but we're talking about no capital the
0:51:25 person's impoverished the person's not
0:51:27 in a position of
0:51:27 any he doesn't matter the vast majority
0:51:31 of americans
0:51:32 the vast majority of americans not only
0:51:35 have no
0:51:36 capital but they have negative net worth
0:51:39 that is the debts they have exceed
0:51:43 their assets they have no capital and
0:51:46 because they have no capital
0:51:48 they can't get access to other people's
0:51:51 capital
0:51:51 either yeah so that i would agree with
0:51:53 you i don't think there should be an
0:51:54 economy or in a society where
0:51:55 there's people with debt and in fact one
0:51:57 of the one of the recipients
0:51:59 yeah one of the recipients like from my
0:52:01 perspective the religious perspective
0:52:03 one of the recipients of zakat would be
0:52:05 an indebted person
0:52:06 so someone who does who has what you've
0:52:08 just described is uh
0:52:09 that's what i do well wait a minute then
0:52:11 you're agreeing with me because that's
0:52:12 at this point yeah on the on this planet
0:52:15 we would take from mr bezos
0:52:17 his 180 billion or if i had my way
0:52:20 much more than that but we would make
0:52:21 100 well i could compromise
0:52:23 i could compromise we take 180 billion
0:52:26 and we transfer it so that for example
0:52:30 we eliminate yes just to be clear i'm
0:52:33 not saying that we should not have a
0:52:34 robust system of redistribution in an
0:52:36 economy i'm saying that we should have
0:52:37 it
0:52:38 um i i think the 180 billion is we're
0:52:41 talking about
0:52:42 you know 99 tax
0:52:45 over the last 40 years i could show you
0:52:47 if you were interested no no no with
0:52:49 that no with this point the sentiment
0:52:50 i agree with yeah and over the last 40
0:52:53 years we have had
0:52:55 a massive redistribution of wealth
0:52:59 here in the united states we have had
0:53:01 the undoing
0:53:02 of the new deal we have erased
0:53:05 everything that was accomplished in the
0:53:07 1930s
0:53:08 and more so now with that kind of thing
0:53:10 we don't agree with yes so i would
0:53:19 is very nice but what we needed was
0:53:22 social movement to prevent that from
0:53:25 happening
0:53:26 and because it didn't you are now
0:53:30 seeing as i'm sure you will a movement
0:53:33 against capitalism because
0:53:37 of the inequality that it continues
0:53:41 even you know we have our politician
0:53:44 think of it this way look at the
0:53:46 spectacle politicians
0:53:48 left and right democrat republican i'm
0:53:50 talking
0:53:51 the us here of course but it's similar
0:53:53 in other countries and the politicians
0:53:55 telling us we
0:53:56 all have to work together to get through
0:54:00 this pandemic to get through this um
0:54:03 health crisis that the world faces
0:54:07 meanwhile we're all together fighting
0:54:09 this thing
0:54:10 that is if you pardon me bs that's
0:54:14 nonsense because what's underlying that
0:54:16 is a continuation
0:54:19 of a really radical redistribution
0:54:23 of wealth by a system that is not
0:54:26 only failing to deal with the public
0:54:29 health crisis
0:54:31 but continues having been
0:54:34 already the most unequal capitalism in
0:54:37 the world
0:54:38 to become more so yes this is not agreed
0:54:41 agreed now i i i think the diagnostic
0:54:43 here
0:54:44 yes i think what happens when systems
0:54:46 are about
0:54:47 to crash i think that point is is
0:54:49 definitely true i think when you're
0:54:50 talking about
0:54:52 i guess how i would answer that question
0:54:54 from within my own tradition i would say
0:54:55 that
0:54:56 the it's not about inequality being
0:54:59 completely undesirable it's about the
0:55:00 extent to which inequality is
0:55:02 undesirable and i think the extent to
0:55:05 which on
0:55:05 inequality is undesirable from my own
0:55:07 tradition is where it leads to people
0:55:09 being indebted in the minuses as you've
0:55:11 just mentioned
0:55:12 and or it leads to people not having
0:55:13 housing or it leads to people not having
0:55:15 access to medical treatment or the
0:55:16 basics and with that there should be a
0:55:19 robust system of redistribution
0:55:21 and so on that we do agree although
0:55:23 probably would have different
0:55:24 prescriptions i mean
0:55:25 if we were you know in charge or so on
0:55:28 but here's something i would
0:55:29 want to um ask you i mean this is
0:55:31 probably one of the defining features of
0:55:33 the islamic system in terms of economics
0:55:35 is the eradication of interest
0:55:37 completely
0:55:38 yeah so that is probably one of the most
0:55:40 dramatic things
0:55:41 which any capitalist would be completely
0:55:44 against
0:55:45 but this aspect of river or usury or
0:55:48 interest
0:55:49 um how would you think i'm just kind of
0:55:52 getting from your experience how do you
0:55:53 think an economy would
0:55:55 or what would you think an economy would
0:55:56 look like if we
0:55:58 slowly but surely got rid of interest
0:56:00 would you think it would
0:56:01 flatten the boom and bust that you were
0:56:03 talking about in the beginning of the
0:56:04 segment were you talking about four to
0:56:05 seven years
0:56:06 of boom and bust do you reckon that
0:56:09 economic depressions will be
0:56:11 less uh pronounced and
0:56:14 at the same time booms will be also
0:56:16 flattened out a little bit
0:56:18 what do you think um would happen if
0:56:21 banks were told
0:56:22 they can't charge interest rates or even
0:56:24 all governments and all banks as well
0:56:28 well you know again it's one of these uh
0:56:30 decisions
0:56:31 it's like any other market i mean i look
0:56:33 at interest as
0:56:35 there's a market in money and if you
0:56:37 want to borrow money
0:56:38 under the current situation uh you can
0:56:41 do that
0:56:42 if you have collateral and if you pay
0:56:44 interest
0:56:45 i'm fully aware that both in the islamic
0:56:48 tradition and for that matter
0:56:49 also in the in the christian tradition
0:56:52 there are long periods of time middle
0:56:54 ages
0:56:54 in europe for example when there was the
0:56:57 roman catholic church was dominant
0:56:59 and it prohibited what it called usury
0:57:02 which is basically
0:57:03 the charging of interest and it comes
0:57:05 out of a biblical tradition
0:57:07 which says that if another person needs
0:57:10 your help
0:57:11 your job as a good christian is to give
0:57:14 that person help
0:57:16 and it is not helpful to demand more
0:57:19 back from the person you're helping
0:57:21 than you gave them that undercuts and
0:57:24 destroys the whole notion
0:57:25 of charity and of giving alms and being
0:57:28 a good christian
0:57:29 blah blah all of that uh i understand
0:57:32 that i think
0:57:33 by the way in the history of capitalism
0:57:36 there have been movements
0:57:38 there are today either to eliminate
0:57:41 interest or to radically control
0:57:44 interest for example among the 50 states
0:57:47 here in the united states
0:57:48 there's quite a bit of difference you
0:57:50 cannot charge certain levels of interest
0:57:53 in some states that you can charge in
0:57:56 others
0:57:56 because there have been social movements
0:57:59 that either
0:58:00 asked to eliminate interest or
0:58:03 to control it then there are for example
0:58:05 movements quite strong among students
0:58:08 in the united states saying that they
0:58:10 shouldn't be
0:58:11 charged interest for the loans required
0:58:14 nowadays to to get a college degree in
0:58:17 the united states and that
0:58:18 the uh the debt that they've accumulated
0:58:21 should
0:58:22 be canceled either the interest portion
0:58:24 of it or even the principal
0:58:26 portion of it etc etc etc
0:58:29 so it's a contentious issue i don't
0:58:32 think capitalism
0:58:33 hangs on it one way or another there
0:58:35 could be alternative ways of allocating
0:58:38 capital
0:58:39 other than using the interest rate uh
0:58:42 for me this is the usual question of the
0:58:44 market and by the way
0:58:46 i'm not familiar enough with islam to be
0:58:48 sure but i know in the
0:58:50 christian tradition and i'm no christian
0:58:51 either but in the christian tradition
0:58:55 there's an equivalent uh notion that not
0:58:58 only should there be no
0:58:59 interest but that there should the price
0:59:02 of everything
0:59:03 and this may disagree with your
0:59:04 quotation from muhammad
0:59:07 from earlier in the christian tradition
0:59:10 there's a so-called just price
0:59:13 just the price of justice with the
0:59:16 justice being derived
0:59:18 from the bible that something should be
0:59:21 priced by the way the the the the
0:59:24 literature suggests
0:59:25 that what is just is that the price
0:59:28 should reflect
0:59:29 the toil and trouble of the worker who
0:59:32 produces the
0:59:33 object yeah marx will say that would
0:59:34 never be the case right
0:59:36 excuse me mark marks with integer would
0:59:39 would say that
0:59:40 that would never be the case by virtue
0:59:41 of the hierarchy in the first place
0:59:43 well it's not so much hierarchy it's
0:59:45 that the system as a whole
0:59:47 cannot doesn't function that way but but
0:59:50 by the way marx is as i understand very
0:59:53 clear
0:59:53 that the notion of surplus is not what
0:59:56 you referred to earlier as quote-unquote
1:00:00 an objective or something that has a
1:00:03 standard
1:00:04 that makes it truer than something else
1:00:07 that's what human beings do they
1:00:08 disagree about how the world works what
1:00:11 a marxist does
1:00:12 as far as i understand it is use the
1:00:15 theory of surplus and value
1:00:17 that comes out of marx who in turn
1:00:21 got that idea from smith and ricardo and
1:00:23 the people that preceded him
1:00:26 this is one way of understanding how the
1:00:28 world works
1:00:29 it's not the only one yeah it is always
1:00:32 in debate with
1:00:33 alternatives uh both within the marxian
1:00:36 tradition and outside of just to ask you
1:00:38 on that
1:00:39 wouldn't you say though because they the
1:00:40 marxism is largely based on historical
1:00:43 materialism
1:00:44 um that there is a kind of push
1:00:48 towards making this as objective as
1:00:50 possible
1:00:51 um no no no no no that is a
1:00:54 for me again i am i am not speaking for
1:00:57 all marxists
1:00:59 but in my understanding of marxism he
1:01:02 is a student of hegel his teacher in
1:01:05 germany
1:01:06 and that he made that very clear uh
1:01:09 and for him the human community
1:01:13 is a group of people who interact with
1:01:17 the world
1:01:18 in different ways they dress differently
1:01:21 they
1:01:21 sing differently they eat in a different
1:01:24 way
1:01:25 and they think in a different way yeah
1:01:27 and if i asked you the question
1:01:29 which is the right way to eat with a
1:01:32 knife and fork
1:01:33 with your fingers with chopsticks you'd
1:01:36 react
1:01:36 i hope and say to me that's a silly
1:01:39 question there isn't a
1:01:40 right way to eat there are culturally
1:01:42 historically developed
1:01:44 alternative ways human beings nourish
1:01:47 themselves with food
1:01:49 and i would say yes agreed and there are
1:01:52 also different ways they make sense of
1:01:54 the world
1:01:55 the marxist way i understand uses the
1:01:58 apparatus
1:02:00 of surplus to understand the world
1:02:03 and that shapes the political
1:02:05 conclusions we come to
1:02:06 but i'm clear that other people have
1:02:09 alternative theoretical frameworks
1:02:12 and that's why my sense is that it's
1:02:15 history it's the struggle
1:02:17 amongst these alternatives that
1:02:19 determines
1:02:21 in the context of our historical
1:02:23 situation
1:02:24 which of these perspectives grow thrive
1:02:27 and shape the world
1:02:28 and which of them past sort of like
1:02:31 human beings they are born evolve over
1:02:34 time and die and this is pretty much
1:02:36 what happens to these ways of thinking
1:02:39 and my discussion of capitalism was
1:02:41 designed to make the point
1:02:43 that what's happening in the larger
1:02:45 framework
1:02:46 is giving a boost to the marxian
1:02:49 criticism of capitalism at a depth and
1:02:53 on a scale
1:02:54 i had never seen in the history of the
1:02:57 united states
1:02:58 certainly not in my lifetime but in
1:03:00 nothing that i've read
1:03:02 about that history either by the way
1:03:05 just to um uh comment on something there
1:03:07 is such a thing as a kind of just
1:03:08 price as well in the islamic tradition
1:03:10 in the 83rd chapter of the quran there
1:03:11 is
1:03:14 i don't know enough but yeah but
1:03:16 exploitation is
1:03:17 is not it's once again it's not the same
1:03:20 as you know a marxian
1:03:21 um surplus understanding where there's
1:03:24 uh
1:03:24 where there is this exploitation going
1:03:26 on because of because of the by virtue
1:03:27 of the system or whatever you want to
1:03:29 put it but
1:03:29 going back to this question of
1:03:31 materialism uh for me
1:03:33 like when you use historical materialism
1:03:35 it seemed like a push to be
1:03:36 scientific in a sense but there is going
1:03:39 to be a point
1:03:40 where you move from is to all
1:03:43 uh to use kind of like a david humeian
1:03:45 um
1:03:46 dichotomy or um distinction so th
1:03:49 this is how the world worked or this is
1:03:52 the history of the world
1:03:53 there was you know feudalism or slavery
1:03:55 and feudalism and capitalism
1:03:57 and then there's going to be communism
1:03:58 this kind of meta-narrative if you like
1:04:01 this is how it was but now this is how
1:04:03 it ought to be this is where it becomes
1:04:05 moralizing this course what becomes
1:04:07 um a philosophizing discourse where
1:04:09 you're putting your own
1:04:10 um kind of uh morality into it and this
1:04:14 is defined as exploitation this is
1:04:15 defined as
1:04:16 just and this is defined as what should
1:04:18 happen or what ought to happen
1:04:20 um and there is where i would and there
1:04:23 is why i think
1:04:24 the discussion is really the base of um
1:04:28 of marxism has to be premised with
1:04:29 something as solid as possible and i
1:04:31 think
1:04:31 i really do think marx attempted to do
1:04:34 that
1:04:35 but from the is to the ought is where we
1:04:38 have
1:04:38 a problem or where we have an issue
1:04:41 in terms of um really proving
1:04:44 that that is what exploitation is in any
1:04:47 objective way
1:04:48 but if someone says well subjective well
1:04:52 the movement from okay this is what
1:04:53 happened to this is what ought to happen
1:04:56 um then becomes a matter of public
1:04:58 opinion then really
1:04:59 we can't say that uh minimum wage should
1:05:02 be set at this
1:05:03 price or that price it then it becomes a
1:05:05 matter of what are you using chopsticks
1:05:06 and i'm using a knife and fork
1:05:08 it becomes really a matter of aesthetic
1:05:11 value judgment really
1:05:12 at this point yeah well here perhaps you
1:05:15 and i disagree
1:05:16 uh in my experience as best i can make
1:05:19 sense of the world around me
1:05:21 um every single person you me and
1:05:24 everybody else who might be drawn into
1:05:26 this conversation
1:05:27 has a set of oughts right if you
1:05:31 are various words for this you know has
1:05:33 utopian desires
1:05:35 has dreams of a of a better world
1:05:40 is drawn for example to religion as a
1:05:43 place
1:05:44 where uh a better world or a set of
1:05:47 oughts is articulated that you vibrate
1:05:50 too that means something to you that
1:05:52 that you embrace in some sense we all
1:05:54 have that that's right number one
1:05:57 we differ about them but we all have
1:06:00 these
1:06:00 desires um especially those
1:06:04 who suggest that they don't have it they
1:06:06 for them the problem is they have it
1:06:08 but they need to deny it's a little bit
1:06:10 like what what we've learned from
1:06:12 psychology over the last hundred years
1:06:14 yes and i'm also this just my
1:06:17 perspective persuasion i'm also
1:06:19 persuaded
1:06:20 that for everybody you me and everybody
1:06:22 else
1:06:23 the oughts we have are part of our
1:06:26 mental apparatus
1:06:28 and shape the quote unquote objective
1:06:31 reality
1:06:33 we try to grasp in other words we don't
1:06:36 have some
1:06:37 wall between the desires the hopes the
1:06:40 dreams
1:06:41 the utopian longings on the one hand
1:06:44 and the analytic apparatus we deploy
1:06:47 on the other i i find the notion that
1:06:50 one of them
1:06:51 is quote-unquote subjective and the
1:06:54 other one
1:06:55 objective to be fundamentally
1:06:58 nonsense your your ability
1:07:02 to formulate a utopian dream
1:07:05 is as objectively determined as
1:07:08 everything else
1:07:09 that is it's a product of the whole
1:07:11 world you live in
1:07:13 the the minister the imam their parents
1:07:16 your so your your loved ones all of
1:07:19 those things your political experience
1:07:21 your job
1:07:22 they shape both your analytic
1:07:26 capability and your utopian longings
1:07:30 which shape each other in the process as
1:07:32 well
1:07:33 and i find the so-called distinction
1:07:36 subjective
1:07:37 objective useless unless it means
1:07:41 and then it becomes trivial subjective
1:07:43 is you alone
1:07:45 and objective is the largest society
1:07:48 but that's just a collection of
1:07:50 solutions in the sense that like for
1:07:52 example if
1:07:53 science works in a very systematic way
1:07:56 and obviously social science is an
1:07:58 attempt to mimic it in many ways
1:08:00 but if if so if science worked in the
1:08:03 way
1:08:03 that you've just described then it would
1:08:05 be very difficult to establish anything
1:08:07 because
1:08:08 if you go into the laboratory but no it
1:08:11 does
1:08:12 physical or natural science chemistry
1:08:14 biology
1:08:15 mathematic it is exactly what i just
1:08:18 said that's how it is
1:08:20 it is proposition look people
1:08:23 right now are debating whether the world
1:08:25 is best understood
1:08:27 as an energy flow or as a
1:08:30 set of particles uh and there's a
1:08:33 distinction between
1:08:34 quanta of one or the other and they
1:08:37 can't agree
1:08:38 literally on what matter is no i accept
1:08:41 that what i mean is that
1:08:42 for example we have controlled
1:08:44 conditions that all of us can when we
1:08:46 speak in the
1:08:46 in the language of mathematics we're all
1:08:48 speaking in exactly the same language
1:08:50 so when we oh no but really sir in all
1:08:52 the respect
1:08:53 yeah i'm a mathematician before i became
1:08:56 an economist tell me why
1:08:58 you have radically different ways of
1:09:00 understanding
1:09:01 what a number is what a field
1:09:04 is what a set is
1:09:07 what words like large or small
1:09:10 or infinity or any other basic
1:09:13 mathematical
1:09:15 uh concept is an object of
1:09:18 debate and by the way it's very
1:09:20 important
1:09:21 to grasp that otherwise you become
1:09:25 fixated on something as permanent
1:09:29 when nothing is i get that and i've also
1:09:32 read godel in terms of incompleteness
1:09:34 theory and and really have uh
1:09:36 i understand where you're coming from in
1:09:37 terms of the axioms of science
1:09:40 is heisenberg that when whatever you
1:09:43 think
1:09:43 is going on in the physical universe
1:09:46 is shaped by how you think of
1:09:50 the that universe how you constructed
1:09:53 the microscope the telescope or any
1:09:56 other tool you use
1:09:58 has already in it the theory at the time
1:10:01 that
1:10:02 object was created but would you now use
1:10:04 it would
1:10:05 would you agree that there's more of a
1:10:06 symbiotic type of relationship between
1:10:08 actors that in a sense this cantier
1:10:11 notion that we are the ones who are kind
1:10:13 of
1:10:13 projecting the reality onto the world
1:10:16 rather than the reality being extra
1:10:18 extracted from the world um for me
1:10:21 it's always both yes
1:10:25 the world shapes us including
1:10:28 how we understand that the world is so
1:10:31 there's a symbiosis
1:10:33 how we understand the world shapes the
1:10:35 world
1:10:36 right how the world is shapes our
1:10:39 understanding
1:10:40 of it but we're speaking english
1:10:41 together now and we're using
1:10:43 um sentences right and so if we didn't
1:10:45 have the same understanding of
1:10:47 what in a sense a noun is or maybe not
1:10:49 in a grammatical sense but at least
1:10:50 in a conversational sense we would not
1:10:52 we wouldn't be able to have this
1:10:53 conversation so there's there are some
1:10:55 basic buildings
1:10:58 i've done this work i don't agree with
1:11:00 that i don't believe that you and i
1:11:02 when we use the word noun in a sentence
1:11:05 talking to each other
1:11:07 we have a convention you and i it's
1:11:10 because of our histories our
1:11:12 cultural developments you and i are
1:11:14 having a conversation and we are using
1:11:17 words
1:11:18 the same words let's call it the word
1:11:20 noun for example
1:11:21 but i don't infer from that at all
1:11:24 that we have the same meaning for that
1:11:26 word we're just agreeing
1:11:29 not to worry about that now there will
1:11:32 come a time if you and i continue this
1:11:34 conversation
1:11:35 if we develop it if we apply it if we
1:11:38 see merit
1:11:39 in in continuing we will come at a
1:11:42 certain point
1:11:43 and to realize you and i both that we
1:11:46 meant something else than we
1:11:50 thought the other one meant yeah when we
1:11:53 use that word there's always going to be
1:11:54 like a an interpretive scope in terms of
1:11:57 language but right
1:11:58 so but then but then again the language
1:12:02 is meaningful by definition
1:12:04 right otherwise it's not the same
1:12:06 meaning yeah it's not the same obviously
1:12:08 otherwise we wouldn't be able to have
1:12:09 this conversation what
1:12:11 otherwise this conversation would be um
1:12:14 like jibber-jabber we wouldn't be able
1:12:15 to have a comment if there were if
1:12:16 language
1:12:17 that's that's an extreme either it's not
1:12:19 either right yeah
1:12:21 we're we're deriving meanings which is
1:12:24 why we're doing this you thought there
1:12:26 would be some meaning
1:12:27 in talking to me and i thought the same
1:12:30 visibly talking to you
1:12:31 yeah i feel that way now i'm i find this
1:12:33 interesting
1:12:35 but i have no illusion because that's
1:12:37 what i think it would be
1:12:39 that you and i don't have all kinds of
1:12:42 issues already lurking
1:12:45 in the sentences we have given each
1:12:47 other but that haven't yet risen to the
1:12:50 point that you and i want to talk about
1:12:52 them
1:12:53 uh just like we went for quite a while
1:12:55 before we got to this epistemological
1:12:57 question i think conversation happens
1:13:00 all the time between
1:13:01 people who do not agree what the meaning
1:13:04 is of the words they're using
1:13:06 but get other kinds of benefits
1:13:10 out of the interaction i think for
1:13:12 example that i will be
1:13:14 provoked in ways i can't even specify
1:13:17 yet
1:13:18 by yuri telling me um
1:13:21 in passing that the islamic tradition
1:13:24 also has a kind of uh just price
1:13:27 kind of idea that's interesting i'm
1:13:29 gonna that's gonna stay in the back of
1:13:31 my mind i don't know exactly
1:13:33 when i will pursue it or how i will
1:13:36 pursue it
1:13:37 but it has a meaning to me and at some
1:13:40 point i'll figure that out and if you
1:13:42 and i are talking
1:13:43 we will laugh with one another that what
1:13:46 you
1:13:46 meant and what i got were not the same
1:13:49 and that's not aberrational it doesn't
1:13:53 have to be the same for us to get value
1:13:55 out of conversation
1:13:56 it never was if i can give you the
1:13:59 example
1:14:00 that i use when i teach when young
1:14:02 people get together and find themselves
1:14:05 attracted to one another and they say
1:14:09 you are my friend or uh you are my
1:14:13 uh beloved it turns out
1:14:16 it takes quite a while for the two of
1:14:18 them to figure out what
1:14:19 each of them meant when they used such
1:14:22 words with one
1:14:23 so sometimes people can speak cross
1:14:25 purposes right that's that's basically
1:14:27 the people
1:14:27 again you're polarizing i don't mean
1:14:30 it's not
1:14:30 it's not cross purposes it's just
1:14:32 different it takes
1:14:34 time to work out the differences and
1:14:36 here's the irony
1:14:38 very regalia as you work out the
1:14:41 differences
1:14:42 over one word you produce new
1:14:45 differences
1:14:46 in the very words you use it never stops
1:14:50 but that doesn't mean there isn't
1:14:51 communication right
1:14:53 communication and identity
1:14:56 are not the same never but you see this
1:14:59 is a very important thing because when
1:15:01 when you use the term so now we've
1:15:03 talked about it in the context of
1:15:04 language but now
1:15:05 when we kind of apply this to the meta
1:15:07 ethic if you like
1:15:08 when you use the term exploitation um
1:15:12 and for example if we use it in a
1:15:14 marxian way and we say
1:15:15 surplus value for example exploitation
1:15:17 or these key terms associated with
1:15:19 marxist philosophy
1:15:21 if it's not meant to be understood
1:15:24 by a collective at least then it becomes
1:15:27 impossible to act upon the content
1:15:31 material because
1:15:32 if if what we're saying is that everyone
1:15:34 can understand exploitation whatever way
1:15:35 they want to
1:15:36 or everyone can understand surplus value
1:15:38 in whatever way they please
1:15:40 then there will not be a an impetus or
1:15:42 even
1:15:43 an ability for a collective to come and
1:15:46 say well let's do what you know a
1:15:48 communist revolution or let's do this
1:15:50 because in that
1:15:51 in that setting everyone's got different
1:15:53 ideas and there is no measurement of
1:15:55 exploitation
1:15:56 exploitation becomes an arbitrary ad hoc
1:15:58 figment
1:15:59 of the subject's um interpretation
1:16:03 i know but you keep looking for
1:16:04 something beyond that
1:16:06 look when i go and i talk to people
1:16:08 about the surplus here's what i'm hoping
1:16:10 for
1:16:11 yeah that the very complicated
1:16:13 differences
1:16:15 among all the people in a room students
1:16:18 workers whatever is gathered however big
1:16:21 or small the collective may be
1:16:23 five people five thousand people and i i
1:16:26 address groups of all different sizes
1:16:28 and we don't now because of covet but we
1:16:30 used to um
1:16:33 my hope is that these words these this
1:16:36 theory of the surplus as i articulated
1:16:39 yeah
1:16:40 touches them means something to them
1:16:43 do i understand that they are all going
1:16:45 to have to agree with mommy
1:16:46 absolutely not that's not going to
1:16:49 happen
1:16:49 i don't think that ever happened i think
1:16:52 every social movement
1:16:53 is a collection of a large number of
1:16:56 people with
1:16:57 very different ideas but who
1:17:00 all understand that they
1:17:03 need one another and they're going to
1:17:07 work out
1:17:08 or maybe suspend for a while their
1:17:11 disagreements or their differences
1:17:13 because they have something else in
1:17:15 addition to those that they want to
1:17:17 accomplish
1:17:18 and they understand they can't do that
1:17:21 individually
1:17:22 they have to do that collectively and i
1:17:25 i argue that's what we're doing and this
1:17:28 theory that i'm about to explain is a
1:17:31 way for
1:17:32 us to achieve this outcome
1:17:36 which this collective has an interest
1:17:39 in pursuing and i hope that works
1:17:42 because
1:17:43 that's all theory ever was
1:17:47 so let me ask you one of the pre um kind
1:17:49 of last questions i'm going to ask you
1:17:50 because it's been a pleasure really
1:17:52 speaking to you and i by the way i
1:17:55 appreciate
1:17:56 that your interests were not just what
1:17:58 usually
1:17:59 passes for economics but went into
1:18:01 philosophy and epistemology
1:18:03 and if that's part of your your islamic
1:18:06 commitment
1:18:07 my hat's off to you that makes a much
1:18:09 better conversation no for real i mean
1:18:11 it's it's
1:18:12 it's very it's a very productive
1:18:13 conversation for me obviously speaking
1:18:14 to someone of your eminence one of the
1:18:16 most influential
1:18:17 really professors of uh who's seen as uh
1:18:19 a marxist i'm not sure if you
1:18:20 describe yourself as such uh but it's
1:18:22 been it's a learning experience
1:18:24 i don't but i'm happy if you do no
1:18:26 problem
1:18:27 what i was going to say is that in terms
1:18:29 of
1:18:31 a robust theory of justice because a lot
1:18:32 of the underpinning of this
1:18:34 is about justice and injustice obviously
1:18:36 yes um
1:18:37 my question to you is very
1:18:40 straightforward do you ever think
1:18:42 that justice can be achieved in this
1:18:44 world
1:18:46 in if we're talking about society
1:18:48 economics or politics
1:18:49 do you do you start off um like because
1:18:52 you've
1:18:52 elaborated upon what you see as
1:18:55 problematic with what's going on in the
1:18:57 economy and you talked about the 1930s
1:18:59 example and the
1:19:00 wall street crash and great depression
1:19:02 fdr and then moved all the way up to
1:19:03 2008
1:19:04 you know and today with the pandemic
1:19:07 these are all injustices and i think
1:19:09 both of us will agree
1:19:10 with with that uh to some extent using
1:19:13 different paradigms and
1:19:14 different understandings but coming to
1:19:16 maybe a similar conclusion
1:19:18 but do you think therefore
1:19:21 that justice is achievable
1:19:24 economic political or social in this
1:19:26 world or do you think
1:19:28 that really justice is not achievable at
1:19:31 all
1:19:33 well you know i think of justice as a a
1:19:36 moving target maybe that's the best way
1:19:38 for me to put it yeah
1:19:41 i think the notion of what is just has
1:19:44 always
1:19:45 changed over time um i don't see a
1:19:48 reason to believe that won't continue
1:19:52 i think it is part of
1:19:56 the history of the human race to
1:19:58 formulate
1:20:00 notions of justice to seek
1:20:04 uh a criticism
1:20:07 of societies uh on the bay
1:20:10 and i mean by society everything as
1:20:13 little as a household or as big
1:20:15 as a as a large community uh
1:20:18 that there are concepts of justice that
1:20:20 we use
1:20:21 to understand our environment whether
1:20:24 it's a household or
1:20:26 or a whole country or anything in
1:20:28 between
1:20:29 um and that it represents
1:20:32 what we mentioned earlier a utopian
1:20:35 longing for a way
1:20:37 of interacting with one another that is
1:20:40 somehow
1:20:42 honorable to one another that is that is
1:20:45 rooted in a
1:20:46 kind of solidarity appreciation
1:20:50 of human life and of its possibilities
1:20:53 and of
1:20:54 of the emotions and relationships that
1:20:56 we're able to construct
1:20:58 and to be able to look at a society and
1:21:01 say
1:21:01 look it isn't working here it is falling
1:21:04 short here um will we get to some
1:21:08 some state of of of perfection
1:21:12 in some sense of justice i doubt it i
1:21:15 my suspicion is that we will we will
1:21:19 make
1:21:19 progress we will move in a certain
1:21:21 direction
1:21:22 fueled and shaped by a notion of justice
1:21:26 but in the very process of moving
1:21:29 in a direction given to us by a notion
1:21:32 of justice
1:21:33 that very movement will again change
1:21:36 here's hegel again
1:21:38 change the notion of justice so that
1:21:40 it's a
1:21:41 it's a feature it's a feature of life
1:21:44 so i the short answer is no i don't
1:21:46 think we'll probably
1:21:48 uh ever get to a place where we think
1:21:51 we're done
1:21:51 we have arrived at some i don't think
1:21:54 that i think
1:21:55 and i would i would agree with that i
1:21:56 mean even even though obviously i come
1:21:58 from tradition which is
1:21:59 um religious in nature and obviously um
1:22:02 the ideas of sharia law which is
1:22:05 obviously a taboo subject
1:22:06 just as marxism is in in american
1:22:08 circles uh among people but the idea of
1:22:10 these
1:22:11 um divinely inspired laws um
1:22:14 which are meant to produce the best
1:22:15 results i think a lot of people
1:22:17 caricature them in a very similar way
1:22:19 that people caricature marxist
1:22:20 understandings
1:22:21 because the muslim position is that the
1:22:23 muslim position is not that
1:22:25 um we put in these laws or taking our
1:22:28 taking away usually or putting in
1:22:29 systems of dis redistribution or
1:22:31 allowing the market to set us on prices
1:22:33 the things that we said are part of the
1:22:34 islamic tradition in order to get
1:22:36 justice in this world because justice in
1:22:39 this world from the islamic paradigm is
1:22:41 actually unattainable
1:22:42 and that's why it's relegated to the
1:22:44 eschaton in that sense and there's this
1:22:46 whole thing called
1:22:47 the day of judgment or literally yo
1:22:49 medin which
1:22:50 literally means the day where debt
1:22:53 is redeemed because dean comes from the
1:22:56 eric word dain which
1:22:57 which literally means debt because
1:22:59 everyone's going to be indebted to
1:23:00 somebody else not just
1:23:01 in economic terms and i think this
1:23:03 moving more into vabry and kind of an
1:23:05 analysis but also in sociological terms
1:23:08 where people
1:23:09 are unjust to each other and actions and
1:23:11 behaviors and so on and so forth
1:23:13 and therefore everything is relegated to
1:23:15 the eschaton to the afterlife to the day
1:23:17 of judgement
1:23:18 and and and therefore it's kind of like
1:23:20 an er er
1:23:21 it's kind of is an ideal state um
1:23:24 but then the the realization that you're
1:23:26 not going to get what you
1:23:28 deserve or you're not even going to be
1:23:30 given what you deserve in this world
1:23:32 i think although is in many ways a a sad
1:23:36 thing to think about
1:23:38 being grounded in that reality gives one
1:23:41 in many ways more hope of what to expect
1:23:44 and being more of a realist so i would
1:23:47 agree with the fact that justice can't
1:23:48 be
1:23:48 established in this world because um
1:23:51 this is the reason from the islam
1:23:52 perspective for
1:23:53 you know god one god the creator god and
1:23:55 so on and so forth
1:23:56 having this day of judgment the eschaton
1:23:58 where he he literally
1:24:00 uh any exploitation that has been done
1:24:02 will be basically fixed on that day
1:24:05 um but it's been it's been a pleasure
1:24:07 talking to you really it has
1:24:08 and um i'm going to leave some of the
1:24:10 because if people want to know more
1:24:11 about socialism you have written books
1:24:13 about
1:24:13 introduction to social i think it's
1:24:14 called introduction to socialism isn't
1:24:16 it understanding
1:24:17 oh understanding socialism and other
1:24:19 books you've
1:24:20 produced many books so i'll put
1:24:22 something in the description box for
1:24:24 people to see
1:24:25 in order to because i do believe that
1:24:27 people need to be literate when it comes
1:24:29 to these uh
1:24:30 systems you know they need to know uh
1:24:33 you know what what is
1:24:34 the argument um and also if if they are
1:24:37 muslims because many people that we
1:24:38 watching this are going to be muslim
1:24:40 to not caricature you know marxist
1:24:43 beliefs
1:24:44 or and one thing i've learned from you
1:24:46 is that actually
1:24:47 this idea that you know the government
1:24:49 is going to take all the production from
1:24:51 your perspective and then
1:24:52 you know it's not really what you're
1:24:53 saying at all is it
1:24:55 not at all in fact the thing that we
1:24:58 emphasize here if i could say two things
1:25:00 to conclude
1:25:01 one is that the focus for us is the
1:25:04 democratization of the enterprise
1:25:06 we stress worker co-ops as an
1:25:09 alternative way
1:25:11 at the base of society to reorganize
1:25:14 the workplace on the theory that adults
1:25:17 spend
1:25:18 a huge part of their lives at work you
1:25:21 in our country here five out of seven
1:25:23 days
1:25:24 the best hour excuse me of those days
1:25:27 you're at work and if you want a good
1:25:30 society a democratic society
1:25:32 then workplace should have been the
1:25:34 first place where that democracy
1:25:37 and that good society should have been
1:25:40 established
1:25:41 ironically the history of capitalism has
1:25:44 been to
1:25:44 exclude democracy from the workplace
1:25:48 even as it celebrates its own democratic
1:25:52 nature particularly here in this country
1:25:54 it is false because it is a society
1:25:57 where the majority of people work go to
1:26:00 a workplace that is organized
1:26:02 in an anti-democratic way tiny number of
1:26:06 people at the top making all the
1:26:07 decisions
1:26:08 notice in what i'm saying that i don't
1:26:10 say a word about the government it's got
1:26:12 nothing to do
1:26:13 with the government it really that
1:26:15 that's that's
1:26:16 that's a socialism of the 20th century
1:26:19 the new
1:26:20 direction of socialism is this other one
1:26:22 the other thing the only other thing i
1:26:24 would say
1:26:24 and and i mean this to be provocative
1:26:28 in a good way much of what
1:26:32 i suspect listening to you motivates
1:26:36 um a desire for
1:26:40 religious activity religious engagement
1:26:44 islamic or other isn't all that
1:26:47 different
1:26:48 from what motivates others to a
1:26:52 marxist criticism of capitalism
1:26:55 to get to a better place for human
1:26:58 beings
1:26:59 to share their differences to argue
1:27:03 in a good way that teaches each of us
1:27:05 what we can learn
1:27:06 from the other which is always
1:27:08 significant
1:27:10 um i have a yearning for that kind of a
1:27:12 society
1:27:13 in which this kind of conversation you
1:27:16 and i have had
1:27:17 can end up wondering productively
1:27:21 about the similarities of what we are
1:27:24 trying to do
1:27:25 even in different languages and
1:27:28 different cultural traditions and
1:27:30 different
1:27:31 images of what it is we're doing and
1:27:33 what we're after
1:27:34 it's a much much better way to go than
1:27:37 to live as you put it rightly
1:27:39 with these caricatures that i think are
1:27:42 driven more by
1:27:43 fear than they are by by a by an honest
1:27:46 engagement in what we're like
1:27:48 and where we're different i thank you so
1:27:51 so much for
1:27:52 this uh brilliant experience having you
1:27:54 on the podcast
1:27:55 and obviously if you want any um more
1:27:57 information about islam
1:27:59 or or anything like that so you can kind
1:28:01 of make comparisons between marxism
1:28:04 islam or any other reason
1:28:05 please let us know and we'll send you
1:28:07 the material
1:28:09 will do and if you want to have this
1:28:10 conversation at some future point again
1:28:13 please know i'd be glad to hear from you
1:28:15 and to arrange to do that
1:28:26 fantastic
1:28:29 you