1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:13,333 --> 00:00:16,517 -I believe that open markets and free enterprise are the best 4 00:00:16,541 --> 00:00:21,309 imaginable force for improving human wealth and happiness. 5 00:00:21,333 --> 00:00:22,976 -(Protesters): Who protects the bankers? 6 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:25,790 Police protect the bankers! 7 00:00:30,208 --> 00:00:33,975 -Did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism? 8 00:00:33,999 --> 00:00:36,226 -Is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? 9 00:00:36,250 --> 00:00:41,558 -How would Smith see the economic world around us? 10 00:00:41,582 --> 00:00:42,725 -I think Keynes would have said the problem is the hole 11 00:00:42,749 --> 00:00:45,184 in the economy. 12 00:00:45,208 --> 00:00:47,142 -Hayek really wrote "The Road to Serfdom" 13 00:00:47,166 --> 00:00:47,892 as a warning. -You always have to be careful 14 00:00:47,916 --> 00:00:50,809 with Marx about the one-liners. 15 00:00:50,833 --> 00:00:53,642 -Polanyi, for me, was an intellectual earthquake. 16 00:00:53,666 --> 00:00:57,476 -I mean, if I had to stereotype Ricardo, I would say he would 17 00:00:57,500 --> 00:00:59,249 look like George Soros. 18 00:01:08,375 --> 00:01:12,142 -(Narrator): We were told that capitalism is the product 19 00:01:12,166 --> 00:01:17,642 of big thinkers and big ideas, but is it true? How did ideas 20 00:01:17,666 --> 00:01:21,767 shape our lives? What is their relation to reality? 21 00:01:21,791 --> 00:01:24,975 Can they help us understand today's economic crisis, 22 00:01:24,999 --> 00:01:28,249 let alone the future of capitalism? 23 00:01:47,375 --> 00:01:53,039 -Dawn in Nanjing, China's last surviving communist commune. 24 00:01:53,541 --> 00:01:55,351 On the surface, a time warp complete with revolutionary 25 00:01:55,375 --> 00:02:00,207 posters and radio-news piped into the main square. 26 00:02:03,582 --> 00:02:05,393 But the community claims it rediscovered Marx's values 27 00:02:05,417 --> 00:02:10,207 as a defence against China's roaring capitalism. 28 00:02:20,999 --> 00:02:24,267 London's financial center; Marx is unexpectedly being 29 00:02:24,291 --> 00:02:27,832 rediscovered here as well. 30 00:02:28,833 --> 00:02:31,600 -And all Marx and Engels' warning of the dangers 31 00:02:31,624 --> 00:02:33,725 of monopoly capitalism and concentrated finance have 32 00:02:33,749 --> 00:02:37,207 come to pass. 33 00:02:41,708 --> 00:02:44,832 -And we thought he was gone forever. 34 00:02:45,125 --> 00:02:48,558 -With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism, 35 00:02:48,582 --> 00:02:51,142 that system of government was consigned to the dustbin 36 00:02:51,166 --> 00:02:54,623 of history and Marx was thrown out along with it. 37 00:02:57,041 --> 00:02:59,517 -So it is possible that we misread Marx? 38 00:02:59,541 --> 00:03:02,809 Is it possible that his insight into 19th century capitalism 39 00:03:02,833 --> 00:03:07,416 has more relevance now than in past decades. 40 00:03:28,666 --> 00:03:31,517 -Carl Marx's house in Trier, Germany, besieged by Chinese 41 00:03:31,541 --> 00:03:34,249 tourists. 42 00:03:39,208 --> 00:03:41,809 -Karl Marx was born in 1818 in the Rhineland, which is 43 00:03:41,833 --> 00:03:44,249 the westernmost province of Prussia. 44 00:03:46,833 --> 00:03:48,393 It was an interesting part of the Greater Germany because 45 00:03:48,417 --> 00:03:52,351 it had been occupied by Napoleon. And so, it'd been 46 00:03:52,375 --> 00:03:55,809 initiated in the ideas of the French Enlightenment. 47 00:03:55,833 --> 00:03:58,832 And that was a milieu in which he was raised. 48 00:04:03,166 --> 00:04:07,351 -"I can feel no regret", wrote a young woman to her loved one. 49 00:04:07,375 --> 00:04:10,809 "I shut my eyes very tightly. Once again, I lay close 50 00:04:10,833 --> 00:04:16,142 to your heart, drunk with love and joy." 51 00:04:16,166 --> 00:04:19,975 A romantic love letter like so many others. The innocence 52 00:04:19,999 --> 00:04:24,934 of the early 19th century in a provincial German town. 53 00:04:24,957 --> 00:04:27,101 The only difference is that the man the letter was addressed 54 00:04:27,125 --> 00:04:30,623 to was Karl Marx. 55 00:04:36,041 --> 00:04:39,975 -In Trier, he met Jenny von Westphalen. 56 00:04:39,999 --> 00:04:43,558 She was quite a catch for Marx because he was the son 57 00:04:43,582 --> 00:04:46,226 of a Jewish lawyer and was, by such, a social outcast. 58 00:04:46,250 --> 00:04:50,207 She was the daughter of a Prussian baron. 59 00:04:52,582 --> 00:04:56,183 -So he got educated in Trier and then he went to Berlin. 60 00:04:56,207 --> 00:04:59,308 I guess the expectation was that he'd go to college and be 61 00:04:59,332 --> 00:05:03,832 a good boy and learn law or something like that. 62 00:05:07,375 --> 00:05:10,975 He was politically very much engaged because there were 63 00:05:10,999 --> 00:05:14,184 all these kind of questions of after the French Revolution, 64 00:05:14,208 --> 00:05:17,975 would there be a sort of liberal democracy? What was going 65 00:05:17,999 --> 00:05:23,434 to happen to the autocratic regimes in Germany and so on? 66 00:05:23,457 --> 00:05:27,249 He was kind of mixed up in all of that. 67 00:05:31,749 --> 00:05:34,142 -More than a century later, the romantic student from Trier 68 00:05:34,166 --> 00:05:37,683 had been transformed into the menace of western governments 69 00:05:37,707 --> 00:05:41,040 and capitalist countries. 70 00:05:41,207 --> 00:05:44,767 -Captain Capitalism! -Ah, making out the old 71 00:05:44,791 --> 00:05:49,226 Christmas list, I see. Let's see here: world peace, an end 72 00:05:49,250 --> 00:05:55,142 to world hunger, free healthcare. This isn't 73 00:05:55,166 --> 00:05:58,517 a Christmas list, son. Who the hell taught you this, child? 74 00:05:58,541 --> 00:06:01,767 -Santa did. 75 00:06:01,791 --> 00:06:04,850 -Marx had become a bogeyman, the conspirator behind 76 00:06:04,874 --> 00:06:06,975 every social demand. 77 00:06:06,999 --> 00:06:11,309 -That red suit gives you away, Karl! 78 00:06:11,333 --> 00:06:17,975 -Captain Capitalism! So, you discovered my plan. 79 00:06:17,999 --> 00:06:22,476 Santa Claus is truly I, Karl Marx, the undead 80 00:06:22,500 --> 00:06:25,207 founder of communism. 81 00:06:31,375 --> 00:06:33,725 -The reason for this radical transformation from a promising 82 00:06:33,749 --> 00:06:37,183 young student into a dangerous revolutionary, can be found 83 00:06:37,207 --> 00:06:42,623 in the basement of the Trier Museum, kept in a safe. 84 00:07:02,749 --> 00:07:06,476 -In that year, Europe erupted in popular revolts. It was 85 00:07:06,500 --> 00:07:08,850 the moment Marx had been waiting for after years of agitating 86 00:07:08,874 --> 00:07:14,040 for radical, political reforms. 87 00:07:16,957 --> 00:07:20,517 -"A spectre is haunting Europe", opens The Communist Manifesto." 88 00:07:20,541 --> 00:07:24,558 The spectre of communism, all the powers of Europe have 89 00:07:24,582 --> 00:07:29,832 entered into holy alliance to exorcise this spectre." 90 00:07:31,417 --> 00:07:33,808 -Unfortunately for Marx, he was always late in all 91 00:07:33,832 --> 00:07:36,975 of his writing and he didn't publish "The Communist 92 00:07:36,999 --> 00:07:40,351 Manifesto" until after the 1848 revolts had begun. 93 00:07:40,375 --> 00:07:43,517 So he couldn't take credit for those, but and in fact, 94 00:07:43,541 --> 00:07:46,808 'The Communist Manifesto" was sort of lost in the revolution, 95 00:07:46,832 --> 00:07:50,416 it was only rediscovered later. 96 00:07:53,166 --> 00:07:55,351 -The story behind "The Communist Manifesto" did not begin 97 00:07:55,375 --> 00:07:58,393 in the 1848 revolution, but in Paris, 5 years earlier 98 00:07:58,417 --> 00:08:02,267 when Marx met Friedrich Engels, the revolutionary son 99 00:08:02,291 --> 00:08:05,040 of a wealthy industrialist. 100 00:08:07,166 --> 00:08:09,351 -They met in a Paris café that was known worldwide as being 101 00:08:09,375 --> 00:08:14,351 a place where chest masters matched wits. Marx and Engels 102 00:08:14,375 --> 00:08:17,558 spent 10 days and 10 nights talking and at the end 103 00:08:17,582 --> 00:08:21,184 of that time, they came out feeling that they were 104 00:08:21,207 --> 00:08:23,684 completely in agreement in all things. And a beautiful 105 00:08:23,707 --> 00:08:27,623 relationship was born. 106 00:08:34,375 --> 00:08:36,767 -Marx meeting Engels was, I think, a crucial moment 107 00:08:36,790 --> 00:08:40,351 He meant somebody who was actually engaged in working 108 00:08:40,375 --> 00:08:44,226 in the factories of Manchester and therefore could talk 109 00:08:44,250 --> 00:08:46,249 to Marx about the labour process. 110 00:08:49,375 --> 00:08:51,517 -"They are worse slaves than the Negros in America". 111 00:08:51,540 --> 00:08:55,725 wrote Engels. "For they are more sharply watched and yet it is 112 00:08:55,749 --> 00:08:57,934 demanded of them that they shall live like human beings, 113 00:08:57,958 --> 00:09:02,517 shall think and feel like men. This they can do only under 114 00:09:02,541 --> 00:09:05,642 glowing hatred towards their oppressors, which degrades 115 00:09:05,666 --> 00:09:09,040 them as machines." 116 00:09:09,582 --> 00:09:11,393 -Marx went to Manchester with Engels for a little trip 117 00:09:11,417 --> 00:09:15,725 in 1845. He saw the people who were living in the most 118 00:09:15,749 --> 00:09:17,892 degrading conditions, who were building this industrial future 119 00:09:17,916 --> 00:09:21,416 by working in the factories. 120 00:09:25,291 --> 00:09:28,351 He saw the families that had been torn apart by the factory 121 00:09:28,375 --> 00:09:31,809 work. The mothers who had to give their infants opium 122 00:09:31,833 --> 00:09:34,351 in the morning so that they could go off to work 123 00:09:34,375 --> 00:09:36,142 and assumed that the children are going to be drugged 124 00:09:36,165 --> 00:09:39,207 all day and they wouldn't have to be cared for. 125 00:09:40,040 --> 00:09:44,351 For a man like Marx, a social, political theorist and economic 126 00:09:44,375 --> 00:09:47,975 theorist, to go there would be to walk right in the laboratory 127 00:09:47,999 --> 00:09:51,040 of humanity, of industrial humanity. 128 00:09:51,540 --> 00:09:55,184 -While in 1848, "The Communist Manifesto" was ignored, in 1917, 129 00:09:55,208 --> 00:09:58,476 it was the blueprint for the Bolshevik Revolution 130 00:09:58,500 --> 00:10:00,558 and its global ambition. 131 00:10:00,582 --> 00:10:04,809 -Ever heard of Karl Marx? In his mind, communism was born 132 00:10:04,833 --> 00:10:07,725 more than a hundred years ago. 133 00:10:07,749 --> 00:10:11,249 -Marx has now been transformed into a global threat. 134 00:10:13,333 --> 00:10:16,517 -This is the Kremlin, citadel of Russian communism. 135 00:10:16,541 --> 00:10:20,850 Looking closer, we see a public display of giant portraits 136 00:10:20,874 --> 00:10:23,309 of communist leaders. 137 00:10:23,333 --> 00:10:27,517 Here was a new face, but in the background was an old one, 138 00:10:27,541 --> 00:10:31,040 Karl Marx's. 139 00:10:35,833 --> 00:10:37,975 -The Marx that people in the 20th century and 140 00:10:37,999 --> 00:10:40,850 in the 21st century ran away from was the Marx of 141 00:10:40,874 --> 00:10:42,642 "The Communist Manifesto". 142 00:10:42,665 --> 00:10:45,558 That's the person that, I think, capitalist governments 143 00:10:45,582 --> 00:10:50,142 and democracies and Western governments held up as 144 00:10:50,165 --> 00:10:53,101 the person who was responsible for communism and its atrocities 145 00:10:53,125 --> 00:10:55,832 in the 20th century. 146 00:11:04,208 --> 00:11:06,351 -So maybe we got it all wrong. We focused so much on 147 00:11:06,375 --> 00:11:10,184 the revolutionary message of "The Communist Manifesto" 148 00:11:10,208 --> 00:11:13,558 and ignored the bulk of the document, which analyzed 149 00:11:13,582 --> 00:11:18,623 the real revolution that Marx wrote about: capitalism. 150 00:11:24,417 --> 00:11:26,600 -Ladies and gentlemen, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 151 00:11:26,624 --> 00:11:29,184 were the first to chart the uncompromising, 152 00:11:29,208 --> 00:11:32,184 unrelenting, compulsively iconoclastic nature 153 00:11:32,208 --> 00:11:35,809 of capitalism. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley 154 00:11:35,833 --> 00:11:39,558 feudal ties that bound man to his natural superiors, 155 00:11:39,582 --> 00:11:43,351 and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man 156 00:11:43,375 --> 00:11:49,207 than naked self-interests, than callous cash payments. 157 00:11:57,582 --> 00:12:01,767 And it was Marx who revealed how capitalism would crush 158 00:12:01,791 --> 00:12:05,517 languages, cultures, traditions even nations in its wake. 159 00:12:05,541 --> 00:12:11,249 In one word, it creates a world after its own image, he wrote. 160 00:12:22,500 --> 00:12:26,393 I would like to suggest to you that Marx has rarely seemed more 161 00:12:26,417 --> 00:12:31,558 relevant. Marx's stock resurgence on a 150 year tip 162 00:12:31,582 --> 00:12:34,017 was how the New York Times, the New York Times! Marked 163 00:12:34,040 --> 00:12:37,476 the 150th anniversary of the publication 164 00:12:37,500 --> 00:12:40,415 of "The Communist Manifesto". 165 00:12:43,165 --> 00:12:46,809 A text which more than any other, as they put it, 166 00:12:46,833 --> 00:12:48,976 recognized the unstoppable wealth-creating power 167 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:50,393 of capitalism, predicted it would conquer the world 168 00:12:50,417 --> 00:12:55,184 and warned that this inevitable globalization of national 169 00:12:55,208 --> 00:12:58,684 economies and cultures would have divisive and painful 170 00:12:58,708 --> 00:13:01,623 consequences. 171 00:13:06,791 --> 00:13:08,975 -After the publication of "The Communist Manifesto", 172 00:13:08,999 --> 00:13:11,558 Marx was expelled from Continental Europe. He was 173 00:13:11,582 --> 00:13:19,207 once again a refugee, this time arriving in London in 1849. 174 00:13:23,375 --> 00:13:27,809 -Imagine Dean Street in 1850, the year Karl Marx and 175 00:13:27,833 --> 00:13:31,832 his family moved into this Soho neighbourhood. 176 00:13:37,540 --> 00:13:41,142 The streets were teeming with refugees, people who had fled 177 00:13:41,165 --> 00:13:45,517 failed revolts on the continent. They arrived in this country, 178 00:13:45,540 --> 00:13:48,101 some with only their clothes on their backs, many not even 179 00:13:48,125 --> 00:13:50,249 speaking the language. 180 00:13:52,958 --> 00:13:56,309 Marx and his family were among the lucky, but all they had, 181 00:13:56,333 --> 00:13:59,767 three adults and three children, were two rooms in an attic. 182 00:13:59,790 --> 00:14:04,142 And in those cramped quarters, Marx tried to make sense 183 00:14:04,166 --> 00:14:06,517 of what he had just experienced and what he saw on the streets 184 00:14:06,541 --> 00:14:09,249 around him. 185 00:14:12,208 --> 00:14:14,393 -And next door, a brand new exhibition opened, 186 00:14:14,417 --> 00:14:19,393 right at the time Marx began writing "Das Kapital". 187 00:14:19,417 --> 00:14:21,017 An exhibition celebrating the achievements 188 00:14:21,041 --> 00:14:24,207 of the Industrial Revolution. 189 00:14:27,333 --> 00:14:32,184 -It was a triumph of industry. Man's greatest achievements 190 00:14:32,208 --> 00:14:35,600 were on display and so this was the dawn of a new era. 191 00:14:35,624 --> 00:14:37,351 King Capitalism was on the throne, and yet Marx 192 00:14:37,375 --> 00:14:41,975 up in his garret was busily scribbling why the system would 193 00:14:41,999 --> 00:14:44,892 never work. Yes, it produced wonders, but it would also 194 00:14:44,915 --> 00:14:48,415 produce great destruction. 195 00:15:11,999 --> 00:15:17,142 -I teach Marx and the question I always ask is: what can 196 00:15:17,166 --> 00:15:21,351 we learn from Marx and what do we have to do for ourselves? 197 00:15:21,375 --> 00:15:26,184 And I think that's a very important question to ask 198 00:15:26,208 --> 00:15:30,184 because very frequently in the past, people have read 199 00:15:30,208 --> 00:15:34,393 their Marx and then sort of plugged reality into it 200 00:15:34,417 --> 00:15:37,142 and then said: Ah here's the answer. I don't think 201 00:15:37,165 --> 00:15:40,351 you can do that. I think there's only a limited set of things 202 00:15:40,375 --> 00:15:44,975 we can learn from Marx. Paradoxically, we can't really 203 00:15:44,999 --> 00:15:48,725 learn that much about socialism or communism or the future 204 00:15:48,749 --> 00:15:54,832 from Marx. We can learn a great deal about how capital works. 205 00:15:57,375 --> 00:15:59,476 -(Quote): The wealth of societies in which capital 206 00:15:59,500 --> 00:16:03,767 modes of production prevail, presents itself as an immense 207 00:16:03,791 --> 00:16:08,642 accumulation of commodities. Our investigation must therefore 208 00:16:08,666 --> 00:16:12,184 begin with the analysis of a commodity. 209 00:16:12,208 --> 00:16:16,416 Karl Marx, "Das Kapital", Volume 1. 210 00:16:28,624 --> 00:16:31,975 -Tom? Tom, what do you want for breakfast? 211 00:16:31,999 --> 00:16:34,142 -What did you say? -What do you want for breakfast? 212 00:16:34,165 --> 00:16:35,975 -I don't care. 213 00:16:35,999 --> 00:16:39,142 -(Quote): A commodity is in the first place, an object 214 00:16:39,165 --> 00:16:43,309 outside of us. A thing that by its properties satisfies 215 00:16:43,333 --> 00:16:44,725 human wants. 216 00:16:44,749 --> 00:16:47,767 "Das Kapital" 217 00:16:47,790 --> 00:16:51,725 -While she gets Tom's breakfast, let's take a closer look 218 00:16:51,749 --> 00:16:56,558 at that pan. The iron ore for that pan came from the Mesabi 219 00:16:56,582 --> 00:16:59,476 Range. So let's start there and see what happens. 220 00:16:59,500 --> 00:17:04,974 Maybe it'll give us an idea of just what it is we have. 221 00:17:04,999 --> 00:17:08,767 -Now what Marx does in Volume 1 of Kapital is have a little 222 00:17:08,790 --> 00:17:11,809 section called the "Fetishism of Commodities" and what it 223 00:17:11,833 --> 00:17:16,351 basically means is that our daily experience doesn't 224 00:17:16,375 --> 00:17:20,226 actually tell us or give us all the information we need 225 00:17:20,250 --> 00:17:22,249 to understand how a system is working. 226 00:17:24,582 --> 00:17:28,142 Our daily experience is we take some money and we buy 227 00:17:28,165 --> 00:17:31,600 a commodity and we take it home, that's our daily experience. 228 00:17:31,624 --> 00:17:33,934 But that doesn't tell you anything about the labour 229 00:17:33,958 --> 00:17:36,976 that went into the commodity. It doesn't tell you anything about 230 00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:39,725 why it is that this commodity costs twice as much as that 231 00:17:39,749 --> 00:17:42,416 commodity. 232 00:17:44,208 --> 00:17:46,226 And Marx is kind of saying that the market system 233 00:17:46,250 --> 00:17:51,416 disguises all of those social relations. 234 00:17:56,250 --> 00:17:58,975 -(Quote):There are many different commodities 235 00:17:58,999 --> 00:18:02,059 with different use values but they have only one common 236 00:18:02,083 --> 00:18:06,892 property left, that of labour itself. 237 00:18:06,916 --> 00:18:08,767 "Das Kapital" 238 00:18:08,791 --> 00:18:10,517 -The Industrial Revolution, which we conventionally date 239 00:18:10,541 --> 00:18:16,809 from around 1780 was founded upon the creation of the factory 240 00:18:16,833 --> 00:18:20,975 system with large-scale machinery and of course, 241 00:18:20,999 --> 00:18:24,351 a labour process that was very different from that which 242 00:18:24,375 --> 00:18:30,249 artisans making their cabinets and so on engaged in. 243 00:18:37,166 --> 00:18:39,393 This conversion and its rise of industrial capitalism from 1780 244 00:18:39,417 --> 00:18:47,409 onwards was, in Marx's view, a crucial transformation. 245 00:18:50,208 --> 00:18:52,767 -(Quote): The worker is related to the product of labour 246 00:18:52,791 --> 00:18:56,393 as to an alien objet. The more the worker spends himself, 247 00:18:56,417 --> 00:19:00,892 the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects 248 00:19:00,916 --> 00:19:05,517 which he creates, the poorer he himself, his inner world, 249 00:19:05,541 --> 00:19:10,623 becomes. Karl Marx 250 00:19:22,541 --> 00:19:24,558 -This iPad worker, who asked for his identity to be hidden, 251 00:19:24,582 --> 00:19:30,623 has been given a camera to film his life outside the factory. 252 00:19:46,541 --> 00:19:49,975 Once these workers were peasants with a connection to the land 253 00:19:49,999 --> 00:19:53,184 and its products. Now, they're part of an assembly line. 254 00:19:53,208 --> 00:19:56,684 Alienation, argued Marx, is built into the manufacturing 255 00:19:56,708 --> 00:20:00,832 process of commodities. 256 00:20:40,417 --> 00:20:43,351 -To Mark, it's the idea of living labour, which is so 257 00:20:43,375 --> 00:20:47,351 crucial, which distinguishes him very much from the classical 258 00:20:47,375 --> 00:20:52,600 political economists who saw labour as a fact of production. 259 00:20:52,624 --> 00:20:55,767 They call it a factor of production. It's a thing, 260 00:20:55,791 --> 00:20:59,017 which gets put into production and produces something. 261 00:20:59,041 --> 00:21:02,040 To Marx it's not, it's a process. 262 00:21:06,291 --> 00:21:09,767 I used to teach an introductory geography class and the first 263 00:21:09,791 --> 00:21:11,684 lesson, I would say: Can you tell me where your breakfast 264 00:21:11,708 --> 00:21:13,809 came from today? 265 00:21:13,833 --> 00:21:17,249 -Come on, Bernie, time for breakfast! 266 00:21:18,833 --> 00:21:21,184 -They would say, well, I went to the cafeteria. 267 00:21:21,208 --> 00:21:22,476 I'd say okay, but where did it come from? Well, I went to 268 00:21:22,500 --> 00:21:26,059 the supermarket. Where did it come from? Where did it come 269 00:21:26,083 --> 00:21:28,832 from? Where did it come from? 270 00:21:29,417 --> 00:21:31,226 After a little while, I'd get them to go back and start 271 00:21:31,250 --> 00:21:34,393 to think about the person cutting sugarcane 272 00:21:34,417 --> 00:21:37,975 in the Dominican Republic and that sugar gets on your 273 00:21:37,999 --> 00:21:39,351 breakfast table and you have a relationship with that person 274 00:21:39,375 --> 00:21:43,184 who's cutting the sugarcane. But the market doesn't tell you 275 00:21:43,208 --> 00:21:46,416 anything about that, it disguises all of that. 276 00:21:50,375 --> 00:21:52,393 -A lush countryside in India hides what Marx saw as another 277 00:21:52,417 --> 00:21:56,226 characteristic of market expansion: the transformation 278 00:21:56,250 --> 00:22:01,623 more and more of life into commodities. 279 00:22:14,582 --> 00:22:16,517 This group of cotton growers banded together to fight 280 00:22:16,541 --> 00:22:21,249 the invasion of their fields by genetically modified seeds. 281 00:22:22,250 --> 00:22:27,393 -Seed in India has been recognized as the source 282 00:22:27,417 --> 00:22:33,832 of life and the very word "Bija", "Ja" is life. 283 00:22:35,624 --> 00:22:41,832 Every ritual is about keeping seed forever. 284 00:22:52,541 --> 00:22:55,142 -Those seeds have now been genetically engineered and made 285 00:22:55,166 --> 00:22:58,642 into a commodity which farmers are encouraged to buy annually 286 00:22:58,666 --> 00:23:01,249 with the promise of higher yield. 287 00:23:09,582 --> 00:23:12,684 -Biotechnology answering the world's call for a better 288 00:23:12,708 --> 00:23:16,040 future today. 289 00:23:20,541 --> 00:23:23,226 -For some of these women, the new promise of the commodity 290 00:23:23,250 --> 00:23:28,517 of seeds turned into a nightmare. Genetically 291 00:23:28,541 --> 00:23:30,976 engineered seeds, which needed to be purchased every year, 292 00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:34,416 pushed their husbands into debt. 293 00:23:35,624 --> 00:23:38,767 -So they always borrow to get the seed on credit. 294 00:23:38,791 --> 00:23:44,309 Now the creditors take collateral in terms of the land 295 00:23:44,333 --> 00:23:48,767 mortgage. So two years later, when the farmer cannot pay 296 00:23:48,791 --> 00:23:54,309 back, the new moneylender, who is the agent of the seed 297 00:23:54,333 --> 00:23:58,142 and chemical companies, comes and says: your land is today 298 00:23:58,166 --> 00:24:00,832 mine. 299 00:24:26,417 --> 00:24:29,975 They don't tell their wives the seed has got us into debt. 300 00:24:29,999 --> 00:24:31,975 When they get into debt, they are ashamed. When they know 301 00:24:31,999 --> 00:24:34,184 they're losing the land, they're shocked because the bond 302 00:24:34,208 --> 00:24:39,975 with the land is still vital for the peasant culture. 303 00:24:39,999 --> 00:24:42,393 That's the day the farmers will drink pesticide to end 304 00:24:42,417 --> 00:24:50,417 their lives and the figure has now hit 260 000 suicides. 305 00:24:57,791 --> 00:25:01,142 It is the greed of capital accumulation that has turned 306 00:25:01,166 --> 00:25:04,393 seed into something that has to be bought every year. 307 00:25:04,417 --> 00:25:07,809 That has been turned into a commodity, a consumer 308 00:25:07,833 --> 00:25:13,892 product and the combination of new sources of profit 309 00:25:13,916 --> 00:25:16,623 for corporations. 310 00:25:22,999 --> 00:25:26,142 -I think that the idea of life as a commodity really, it's 311 00:25:26,166 --> 00:25:31,416 interesting because is a cow a commodity? Or pig? 312 00:25:34,208 --> 00:25:36,351 I would say they've been commodities for a very long 313 00:25:36,375 --> 00:25:41,767 time and we don't really care about that. So, where do we draw 314 00:25:41,791 --> 00:25:45,184 the line? And the line may be in human beings. I think 315 00:25:45,208 --> 00:25:49,142 what we really worry about are human beings. 316 00:25:49,166 --> 00:25:53,393 -And we as a society might have already crossed this line. 317 00:25:53,417 --> 00:25:56,976 -Her announcement made headlines around the world. 318 00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:01,725 Angelina Jolie underwent a double mastectomy after 319 00:26:01,749 --> 00:26:05,393 a genetic test showed she had a mutated BRCA1 gene, giving her 320 00:26:05,417 --> 00:26:10,725 an 87% chance of getting breast cancer. Her news put 321 00:26:10,749 --> 00:26:15,059 this company Myriad Genetics, front and center. It has patents 322 00:26:15,083 --> 00:26:19,832 on the BRCA1 and 2 genes. 323 00:26:20,541 --> 00:26:23,517 -Once life is transformed into a commodity, it is subject 324 00:26:23,541 --> 00:26:26,558 to market laws. Investments in genes like those in seeds, 325 00:26:26,582 --> 00:26:31,558 need to be protected by patent keeping competition away. 326 00:26:31,582 --> 00:26:35,184 -It's the system we have in this country, the investment system 327 00:26:35,208 --> 00:26:36,393 we have, which many people do think are the reason why 328 00:26:36,417 --> 00:26:41,267 we have been the leader for so long in so many areas, 329 00:26:41,291 --> 00:26:44,623 that's just the way it works. 330 00:26:45,791 --> 00:26:47,976 -So the production of commodities according to Marx, 331 00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:52,059 not only transforms life, it changes our perceptions 332 00:26:52,083 --> 00:26:54,832 of nature and of ourselves. 333 00:26:55,999 --> 00:26:59,142 -Marx's theory of social change again is a process, a process 334 00:26:59,166 --> 00:27:03,975 that says ideas have to change, but if the production process 335 00:27:03,999 --> 00:27:06,976 doesn't change, then the ideas don't mean anything. 336 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:08,226 The production process can change but if the ideas don't 337 00:27:08,250 --> 00:27:12,393 change, it doesn't mean anything. So, it's 338 00:27:12,417 --> 00:27:14,309 the relationship between the production process 339 00:27:14,333 --> 00:27:16,809 and the ideas and the social relations and the institution 340 00:27:16,833 --> 00:27:20,623 arrangements and daily life has to change. 341 00:27:22,083 --> 00:27:26,184 -The world congress on industrial biotechnology and 342 00:27:26,208 --> 00:27:28,725 bioprocessing the world's largest industrial biotechnology 343 00:27:28,749 --> 00:27:30,351 event. 344 00:27:30,375 --> 00:27:33,142 -The fetish of commodities according to Marx masks 345 00:27:33,166 --> 00:27:36,767 their role in impacting social change. Barely 60 years ago, 346 00:27:36,791 --> 00:27:38,850 scientific innovations were rarely patented and never 347 00:27:38,874 --> 00:27:42,249 industrialized in such a way. 348 00:27:44,624 --> 00:27:48,393 -1955, a year of anxiety and triumphs. A major medical 349 00:27:48,417 --> 00:27:52,476 hurdle was crossed with the discovery by Dr. Jonas Salk 350 00:27:52,500 --> 00:27:55,309 of the anti-polio vaccine. 351 00:27:55,333 --> 00:27:58,226 -60 years ago, no one talked about patenting the polio 352 00:27:58,250 --> 00:28:01,017 vaccine or selling it for a fee. 353 00:28:01,041 --> 00:28:03,642 -Who owns the patent on this vaccine? 354 00:28:03,666 --> 00:28:07,850 -Well the people I would say. There is no patent. This is... 355 00:28:07,874 --> 00:28:11,351 could you patent the sun? 356 00:28:11,375 --> 00:28:13,975 -I mean, I can think back to a time when we had ideas, 357 00:28:13,999 --> 00:28:19,975 crazy ideas now, about social solidarities. We're all 358 00:28:19,999 --> 00:28:23,832 individuals now. That's what neoliberalism changed. 359 00:28:26,417 --> 00:28:30,809 -The 60's caught capitalism completely off-guard. How a 360 00:28:30,833 --> 00:28:33,101 company is to sell products to a generation that has 361 00:28:33,125 --> 00:28:35,558 rejected consumerism? 362 00:28:35,582 --> 00:28:37,809 The answer was to tune into the movement and to sell 363 00:28:37,833 --> 00:28:40,184 to the individual in everyone. 364 00:28:40,208 --> 00:28:44,017 The strategy worked, the marketing machine captured 365 00:28:44,041 --> 00:28:46,934 the spirit of the 60's individualism and made 366 00:28:46,958 --> 00:28:48,600 it its own. 367 00:28:48,624 --> 00:28:50,809 -So Marx has what I call a co-evolutionary theory 368 00:28:50,833 --> 00:28:53,975 of social change and to the degree that capital is 369 00:28:53,999 --> 00:28:56,809 a permanently revolutionary configuration, so we would see 370 00:28:56,833 --> 00:29:01,040 movements in ideas, movements in social relations. 371 00:29:01,833 --> 00:29:04,142 -Leaving ideology behind, we now derive a sense 372 00:29:04,166 --> 00:29:06,558 of personal identity and empowerment from the goods 373 00:29:06,582 --> 00:29:10,309 we purchase and consume. -Go on, break the rules, define 374 00:29:10,333 --> 00:29:14,642 who you are... 375 00:29:14,666 --> 00:29:17,142 with our sneakers. 376 00:29:17,166 --> 00:29:18,558 -By the time he gets towards the end of Kapital, Marx does 377 00:29:18,582 --> 00:29:22,809 something interesting. He comes back to the idea of fetishism. 378 00:29:22,833 --> 00:29:25,101 And the big fetish is of course the money form 379 00:29:25,125 --> 00:29:27,249 and the credit system. 380 00:29:29,166 --> 00:29:33,309 -You have money jitters? Ask the obliging Bank of America 381 00:29:33,333 --> 00:29:38,809 for a jar of soothing instant money. M-o-n-e-y in the form 382 00:29:38,833 --> 00:29:44,476 of a convenient personal loan. Available now 383 00:29:44,500 --> 00:29:47,207 at Bank of America. 384 00:29:52,375 --> 00:29:55,184 -In order to expand tomorrow's demand and increase profits, 385 00:29:55,208 --> 00:29:58,975 today's production needs to be financed. 386 00:29:58,999 --> 00:30:01,142 -That means the credit system has to come in here, and what we 387 00:30:01,166 --> 00:30:04,558 can derive from this immediately is that the accumulation of 388 00:30:04,582 --> 00:30:07,725 capital in history has always been paralleled by an 389 00:30:07,749 --> 00:30:13,040 accumulation of debt. You can't have one without the other. 390 00:30:13,999 --> 00:30:16,975 -(Quote): A large portion of this money, capital, is always 391 00:30:16,999 --> 00:30:20,517 necessarily purely fictitious, that is title value, 392 00:30:20,541 --> 00:30:24,850 just as paper. 393 00:30:24,874 --> 00:30:27,249 Karl Marx, "Das Kapital" 394 00:30:29,375 --> 00:30:32,309 -One of the things that Marx did, I think, very neatly, 395 00:30:32,333 --> 00:30:39,725 was to demonstrate fundamental and foundational underlying 396 00:30:39,749 --> 00:30:44,142 relations and that underlying relation between accumulation 397 00:30:44,166 --> 00:30:47,351 of debt and the accumulation of capital can be looked at 398 00:30:47,375 --> 00:30:52,207 in a number of very specific ways. I'll give you one example. 399 00:30:55,582 --> 00:30:58,517 Tract housing is being built. Where did the builders get 400 00:30:58,541 --> 00:31:02,558 the money to do it? They borrow the money from a financial 401 00:31:02,582 --> 00:31:05,975 institution and say: give me the money and I will buy 402 00:31:05,999 --> 00:31:09,351 the land and I'll build the housing. Okay and then, 403 00:31:09,375 --> 00:31:14,040 they'll be a rate of return on that and I'll pay you back. 404 00:31:15,791 --> 00:31:17,975 Now, in order for that to happen, they have to be able 405 00:31:17,999 --> 00:31:21,184 to sell the housing to somebody. Buyers out there, they go 406 00:31:21,208 --> 00:31:23,184 to the same financial institution and say: lend me 407 00:31:23,208 --> 00:31:26,600 some money to buy the house that you have financed 408 00:31:26,624 --> 00:31:29,309 the production of. This is fictitious capital 409 00:31:29,333 --> 00:31:32,226 at work, because the financial institution that has surplus 410 00:31:32,250 --> 00:31:35,976 money is actually funding both the production 411 00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,416 and the consumption of the housing. 412 00:31:42,333 --> 00:31:45,558 Right now, we are in a crisis where fictitious capital is 413 00:31:45,582 --> 00:31:49,142 all over the place. But what Marx does is this brilliant 414 00:31:49,166 --> 00:31:52,351 of saying: there's a surface appearance, which is the fetish, 415 00:31:52,375 --> 00:31:55,351 I'm going to go behind it and actually be able to describe 416 00:31:55,375 --> 00:31:59,809 to you the nature of this fetish which creates this thing called 417 00:31:59,833 --> 00:32:03,416 fictitious capital. 418 00:32:11,624 --> 00:32:13,558 -Adrian Subaru could be described as a victim 419 00:32:13,582 --> 00:32:18,351 of fictitious capital. A victim of debt which was never his. 420 00:32:18,375 --> 00:32:19,684 His story begins here in the Romanian Parliament 421 00:32:19,708 --> 00:32:23,249 on December 23rd, 2011. 422 00:32:25,041 --> 00:32:27,393 -Romania's Parliament cancelled the no confidence vote 423 00:32:27,417 --> 00:32:29,517 on Thursday after a Romanian electrician staged 424 00:32:29,541 --> 00:32:31,249 a one-man protest. 425 00:33:26,582 --> 00:33:29,142 -On his t-shirt he wrote: you have gunned us down, 426 00:33:29,166 --> 00:33:33,142 you have killed our children's future. You can take away 427 00:33:33,166 --> 00:33:37,249 our money and our lives, but not our freedom. 428 00:34:18,791 --> 00:34:21,516 -From this tiny apartment in Bucharest, Adrian Subaru 429 00:34:21,541 --> 00:34:24,684 and his wife raised two kids on his small salary of a public 430 00:34:24,708 --> 00:34:28,040 TV technician. 431 00:34:33,958 --> 00:34:38,141 After 2011, his salary was cut by 25% and so was the financial 432 00:34:38,166 --> 00:34:42,248 help for a special education for Calin, their autistic son. 433 00:35:20,125 --> 00:35:23,892 -How and why did the debt of his country lead to Adrian Subaru's 434 00:35:23,916 --> 00:35:26,249 desperate act? 435 00:35:31,250 --> 00:35:34,226 -That was shocking to all Romanians, I presume, 436 00:35:34,250 --> 00:35:38,184 but because this is my way of thinking, I frame 437 00:35:38,208 --> 00:35:43,249 that episode, that tragic episode into a much wider frame. 438 00:35:46,458 --> 00:35:49,975 For many years, I thought about the way the financial industry 439 00:35:49,999 --> 00:35:56,725 has gone awry, the derailed high finance and what was not going 440 00:35:56,749 --> 00:36:00,142 well. 441 00:36:00,166 --> 00:36:04,059 We realized that a growth model based on free movement 442 00:36:04,083 --> 00:36:08,351 of capital, total financial liberalization 443 00:36:08,375 --> 00:36:12,184 and over-borrowing by the private sector creates 444 00:36:12,208 --> 00:36:16,393 fragility and creates vulnerability for the economy 445 00:36:16,417 --> 00:36:21,642 as a whole and may be very, very painful when something, 446 00:36:21,666 --> 00:36:25,832 when a crisis occurs. 447 00:36:28,791 --> 00:36:31,767 -In Romania, foreign capital in search of return flooded 448 00:36:31,791 --> 00:36:36,832 Romanian banks which fuelled growth based on debt. 449 00:36:38,833 --> 00:36:43,393 -The bankers stepped in and they helped the consumer 450 00:36:43,417 --> 00:36:48,623 growth and money was flooding into the country. 451 00:36:53,375 --> 00:36:58,975 Lots of foreign savings flooded to Romania via banking channels 452 00:36:58,999 --> 00:37:03,017 and they reached the Romanian consumers and everybody could 453 00:37:03,041 --> 00:37:09,351 afford buying new things like cars and houses. 454 00:37:09,375 --> 00:37:15,767 And then the people thought: we have reached the market 455 00:37:15,791 --> 00:37:20,184 economy and we can afford more. But actually, there were 456 00:37:20,208 --> 00:37:24,207 too much expectations and maybe some false expectations. 457 00:37:26,166 --> 00:37:29,184 -Romania is now the latest European country wrestling with 458 00:37:29,208 --> 00:37:32,832 violent protests over budget cuts and financial issues. 459 00:37:34,166 --> 00:37:38,142 -The bubble finally burst here as everywhere. Debt as 460 00:37:38,166 --> 00:37:42,416 Marx foresaw, is a form of fictitious capital. 461 00:37:44,166 --> 00:37:47,975 As a public employee, Adrian was never part of the boom. 462 00:37:47,999 --> 00:37:50,850 But when the bubble burst, the State turned against 463 00:37:50,874 --> 00:37:54,040 its weakest citizens. 464 00:37:58,999 --> 00:38:01,393 -Capital is perpetually moving its crisis tendencies around. 465 00:38:01,417 --> 00:38:05,309 If you look at the most recent crisis, it started 466 00:38:05,333 --> 00:38:07,226 in the housing market. 467 00:38:07,250 --> 00:38:10,809 -If deputies Allen Mathias and Derek Stevenson come 468 00:38:10,833 --> 00:38:14,101 to your door, your house no longer belongs to you. 469 00:38:14,125 --> 00:38:15,809 It belongs to the bank. 470 00:38:15,833 --> 00:38:18,017 -It then went to financial institutions. 471 00:38:18,041 --> 00:38:19,892 -There's blood in the streets and no one knows when 472 00:38:19,916 --> 00:38:22,351 the bleeding will stop. 473 00:38:22,375 --> 00:38:24,725 -It then became State debt. It's now being pushed onto 474 00:38:24,749 --> 00:38:28,725 the people, but people are not in a position, very frequently, 475 00:38:28,749 --> 00:38:33,101 to bear that. So it's now moving back to financial institutions 476 00:38:33,125 --> 00:38:36,207 in some instances. 477 00:38:36,999 --> 00:38:40,184 Marx is, I think, very good at giving us a sense of how 478 00:38:40,208 --> 00:38:43,642 this moves around. And as it moves around, of course, 479 00:38:43,666 --> 00:38:48,832 it engages in a process of destruction. 480 00:38:56,417 --> 00:38:59,767 -On the far end of the global trail of the tsunami 481 00:38:59,791 --> 00:39:03,351 of fictitious capital in search of return, is India, 482 00:39:03,375 --> 00:39:06,249 one of the world's largest emerging markets. 483 00:39:08,791 --> 00:39:12,184 -The term emerging markets emerges in the late 1980's, 484 00:39:12,208 --> 00:39:16,975 early 1990's as well. And it's actually coined by people 485 00:39:16,999 --> 00:39:21,184 at the World Bank and the IMF in order to describe those 486 00:39:21,208 --> 00:39:25,416 economies which are going to be growing very rapidly. 487 00:39:27,749 --> 00:39:31,517 Now, why are they so concerned about growth? Not just because 488 00:39:31,541 --> 00:39:35,558 they believe that growth will address poverty. But they are 489 00:39:35,582 --> 00:39:40,309 interested above all in the quantitative measure of growth. 490 00:39:40,333 --> 00:39:43,767 What's the reason for that? If you examine deep enough, 491 00:39:43,791 --> 00:39:47,351 you'll find that if the real economy, instead of 5% per 492 00:39:47,375 --> 00:39:50,393 annum, let's say GDP in these areas is growing at 8% or 9%, 493 00:39:50,417 --> 00:39:56,226 the returns to financial investors in financial markets 494 00:39:56,250 --> 00:40:00,416 actually grow by orders of magnitude, greater. 495 00:40:05,333 --> 00:40:10,351 So India in 2009 was the third most lucrative stock market. 496 00:40:10,375 --> 00:40:13,351 The Bombay Stock Exchange was actually getting annual returns 497 00:40:13,375 --> 00:40:16,393 of on average about 48%, which is remarkable. So what 498 00:40:16,417 --> 00:40:21,850 you actually notice is that India has become an outpost 499 00:40:21,874 --> 00:40:26,040 of global finance capital. 500 00:40:29,166 --> 00:40:31,351 -Finance capital, which Marx called fictitious is said 501 00:40:31,375 --> 00:40:36,142 to have lifted around 200 million people up to the middle 502 00:40:36,166 --> 00:40:38,850 class, but left behind an estimated 800 million more, 503 00:40:38,874 --> 00:40:42,623 surviving on one dollar a day. 504 00:41:26,541 --> 00:41:30,184 -Stagnation so severe that in the United States for example, 505 00:41:30,208 --> 00:41:33,142 a CEO was making 20 times more than his employees 506 00:41:33,166 --> 00:41:38,600 in the 1950's. In 2000, his salary ballooned to 120 times 507 00:41:38,624 --> 00:41:45,040 and in 2013, it almost doubled again to 204. 508 00:42:18,916 --> 00:42:22,558 -This is CNN Breaking News. 509 00:42:22,582 --> 00:42:25,226 It was a Monday morning like none other in the 158 year 510 00:42:25,250 --> 00:42:27,892 history of financial giant Lehman Brothers. 511 00:42:27,916 --> 00:42:31,832 The company went bankrupt. 512 00:42:35,166 --> 00:42:38,309 -If capitalism is not on its deathbed as Marx predicted, 513 00:42:38,333 --> 00:42:40,600 then what could be an alternative theory to explain 514 00:42:40,624 --> 00:42:45,040 the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath? 515 00:42:48,166 --> 00:42:50,558 -We recognize that the very nature of globalization, which 516 00:42:50,582 --> 00:42:57,184 creates ever higher standards of living, also is the process 517 00:42:57,208 --> 00:43:00,309 which we call creative destruction. The problem with 518 00:43:00,333 --> 00:43:06,040 creative destruction is that it is destruction. 519 00:43:07,582 --> 00:43:09,226 -Creative destruction was a term coined by the early 520 00:43:09,250 --> 00:43:14,207 20th century economist Joseph Schumpeter. 521 00:43:15,417 --> 00:43:17,767 -Schumpeter's key idea of creative destruction was 522 00:43:17,791 --> 00:43:19,725 the idea that capitalism is constantly revolutionizing 523 00:43:19,749 --> 00:43:23,207 itself from within. 524 00:43:24,749 --> 00:43:26,517 He called it the process of industrial mutation, 525 00:43:26,541 --> 00:43:30,142 where there's incessant change destroying the old and bringing 526 00:43:30,166 --> 00:43:33,434 in the new and the agent of this change, the person who carried 527 00:43:33,458 --> 00:43:36,416 this change out is the entrepreneur. 528 00:43:40,375 --> 00:43:43,642 -Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes 529 00:43:43,666 --> 00:43:47,309 along that changes everything. 530 00:43:47,333 --> 00:43:49,476 -So the basic idea of creative destruction is that there's 531 00:43:49,500 --> 00:43:51,351 a new product that's the creative side for a new 532 00:43:51,375 --> 00:43:56,558 method of producing and that's all to the good, but there's 533 00:43:56,582 --> 00:43:59,558 also the destruction side which is that it wipes out 534 00:43:59,582 --> 00:44:03,142 some earlier method or product and there's a loss there. 535 00:44:03,166 --> 00:44:05,976 There's a social loss, there's a human loss. Schumpeter didn't 536 00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:08,684 pay quite as much attention to the loss side as 537 00:44:08,708 --> 00:44:11,017 to the creative side. 538 00:44:11,041 --> 00:44:16,142 -Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary 539 00:44:16,166 --> 00:44:18,975 of the information purification directives. We have created 540 00:44:18,999 --> 00:44:23,725 for the first time in all history a garden of pure 541 00:44:23,749 --> 00:44:26,623 ideology. 542 00:44:43,541 --> 00:44:50,725 We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. 543 00:44:50,749 --> 00:44:58,142 We shall prevail! 544 00:44:58,166 --> 00:45:02,809 On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. 545 00:45:02,833 --> 00:45:09,416 And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984. 546 00:45:30,417 --> 00:45:32,558 -So are we in the midst of a crisis, which is part 547 00:45:32,582 --> 00:45:37,351 of an endless cycle of creative destructions or in the midst 548 00:45:37,375 --> 00:45:40,476 of a system which as Marx predicted is indeed in 549 00:45:40,500 --> 00:45:43,207 a terminal downwards spiral? 550 00:45:46,791 --> 00:45:48,393 -It was probably the weekend before Lehman's went bust. 551 00:45:48,417 --> 00:45:54,184 And it's normally a little bit noisy, but at the time, 552 00:45:54,208 --> 00:45:56,767 it was, you could hear a pin drop. It was that deathly 553 00:45:56,791 --> 00:46:01,393 quiet. And I could almost feel that the global system was 554 00:46:01,417 --> 00:46:06,623 frozen. And it was quite a scary thought. 555 00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:11,767 It took me back to a lot of the things that I used to read 556 00:46:11,791 --> 00:46:14,809 about and study when I was much younger. The days when 557 00:46:14,833 --> 00:46:17,476 I actually read Marx for fun. 558 00:46:17,500 --> 00:46:20,767 -All Marx and Engels' warning over the dangers of monopoly 559 00:46:20,791 --> 00:46:24,975 capitalism and concentrated finance have come to pass. 560 00:46:24,999 --> 00:46:31,558 So why then no total collapse of capitalism? Because right 561 00:46:31,582 --> 00:46:36,684 around the world governments have been forced to bail out 562 00:46:36,708 --> 00:46:40,832 the so-called free market. 563 00:46:43,166 --> 00:46:45,809 We have bailed out the banks, we have subsidized industries, 564 00:46:45,833 --> 00:46:47,184 we sorted out the insurance sector, we've underpinned 565 00:46:47,208 --> 00:46:51,850 financial services. It is the forces of collectivism 566 00:46:51,874 --> 00:46:56,832 which have saved capitalism. 567 00:46:59,417 --> 00:47:04,226 -In 1991, socialism died, at least communism, 568 00:47:04,250 --> 00:47:09,416 in the Eastern Block. In 2008, capitalism died. 569 00:47:10,208 --> 00:47:13,975 When I was a young student of economics, the great 570 00:47:13,999 --> 00:47:17,809 debate was between socialists who believed in central planning 571 00:47:17,833 --> 00:47:22,226 and Hayekians or liberals who believed in the miracle 572 00:47:22,250 --> 00:47:26,517 of the market in organizing economic activities. 573 00:47:26,541 --> 00:47:32,142 The argument of the pro-market theorists was that capitalism is 574 00:47:32,166 --> 00:47:37,600 a Darwinian struggle where the fittest prevail and the less 575 00:47:37,624 --> 00:47:41,476 fit, the more inefficient, the least productive 576 00:47:41,500 --> 00:47:43,351 and profitable perish. 577 00:47:43,375 --> 00:47:46,142 -The New York State's attorney said that Citigroup, Merrill 578 00:47:46,166 --> 00:47:48,393 and seven other banks which got a 175 billion dollars in tax 579 00:47:48,417 --> 00:47:54,309 funded bail out money, paid out 33 billion in bonuses. 580 00:47:54,333 --> 00:47:58,393 -What happened after 2008, with a particular way in which 581 00:47:58,417 --> 00:48:04,184 the bankers were saved was Darwinism inverted. 582 00:48:04,208 --> 00:48:08,558 The more unsuccessful you were as a banker, the greater 583 00:48:08,582 --> 00:48:13,558 your bank's losses, the greater the support you got from 584 00:48:13,582 --> 00:48:16,558 the tax payers and the more successful you became 585 00:48:16,582 --> 00:48:19,558 at extracting from the rest of society the surplus that 586 00:48:19,582 --> 00:48:24,184 the rest of society was producing. So we have a new 587 00:48:24,208 --> 00:48:27,476 regime which I call "bankruptocracy". It's 588 00:48:27,500 --> 00:48:31,040 the rule by bankrupted banks. 589 00:48:39,999 --> 00:48:42,184 -The whole point about the contradictions in capitalism 590 00:48:42,208 --> 00:48:46,017 is not specifically whether Marx's analysis is relevant, 591 00:48:46,041 --> 00:48:48,142 which personally I think, in many ways it is, 592 00:48:48,166 --> 00:48:52,809 but it's the outcome, it's the synthesis and our capacity 593 00:48:52,833 --> 00:48:57,207 to basically nurture and establish coping mechanisms. 594 00:49:04,833 --> 00:49:07,142 On Marx's tombstone, as you know if you have been there, 595 00:49:07,166 --> 00:49:10,142 there's a inscription taken from the thesis on Feuerbach 596 00:49:10,166 --> 00:49:12,975 which says: the philosophers have only interpreted the world 597 00:49:12,999 --> 00:49:16,809 in various ways, but the point however is to change it. 598 00:49:16,833 --> 00:49:18,558 Which is precisely what our antecedents have done 599 00:49:18,582 --> 00:49:23,226 by developing coping mechanisms like institutions of the rule 600 00:49:23,250 --> 00:49:26,975 of law, limited liability companies, trade unions, 601 00:49:26,999 --> 00:49:30,767 mutual societies, insurance, welfare and technological 602 00:49:30,791 --> 00:49:35,934 discoveries that drive productivity income and jobs. 603 00:49:35,958 --> 00:49:39,101 Finding those coping mechanisms is an endless task and we need 604 00:49:39,125 --> 00:49:41,832 to make more progress. 605 00:49:51,582 --> 00:49:55,351 -Marx finally finished "Das Kapital". He had watched 606 00:49:55,375 --> 00:49:59,558 his wife become ill, his daughter suffer ill-health 607 00:49:59,582 --> 00:50:03,558 and poverty. He had buried now four children by the time 608 00:50:03,582 --> 00:50:08,600 "Das Kapital" was published and the family waited for 609 00:50:08,624 --> 00:50:11,142 the recognition that they all believed he deserved 610 00:50:11,166 --> 00:50:15,975 for a book that they felt would not only change their lives, 611 00:50:15,999 --> 00:50:19,351 but would change the world and nothing happened. 612 00:50:19,375 --> 00:50:22,975 When "Das Kapital" was published, Engels and the family 613 00:50:22,999 --> 00:50:25,351 frantically started writing reviews in order for it 614 00:50:25,375 --> 00:50:27,684 not to be ignored, but their reviews were the only ones 615 00:50:27,708 --> 00:50:31,142 really that were written. 616 00:50:31,166 --> 00:50:35,809 -Marx never really recovered. He died on March 14th 1883, 617 00:50:35,833 --> 00:50:39,517 2 years after Jenny. Only 11 people showed up 618 00:50:39,541 --> 00:50:44,767 at his funeral. Friedrich Engels eulogized him. "On the afternoon 619 00:50:44,791 --> 00:50:49,393 of the 14th of March 1883 at a quarter to 3", Engels said, 620 00:50:49,417 --> 00:50:54,832 "the greatest living thinker ceased to think." 621 00:50:59,666 --> 00:51:02,393 -The Marx family was originally buried in a very small and 622 00:51:02,417 --> 00:51:06,642 modest plot, here in Highgate, just down the row from where 623 00:51:06,666 --> 00:51:09,623 the monument is today. 624 00:51:13,041 --> 00:51:17,393 In 1956, the communist party decided that Marx, such 625 00:51:17,417 --> 00:51:20,517 a monumental figure, really deserved a larger 626 00:51:20,541 --> 00:51:23,416 memorial. 627 00:51:29,791 --> 00:51:32,809 And so they built this. And in a way, I think this really 628 00:51:32,833 --> 00:51:36,517 is a very good indication of what happened to Marx's 629 00:51:36,541 --> 00:51:41,101 legacy, Marx's ideas, how it was interpreted and misinterpreted 630 00:51:41,125 --> 00:51:43,832 in the 20th century. 631 00:51:55,999 --> 00:52:00,017 -In 1929, capitalism seemed to be on its knees and Marx's 632 00:52:00,041 --> 00:52:02,351 prediction came closer to fulfilment than ever. 633 00:52:02,375 --> 00:52:06,725 Two individuals had diametrically opposed ideas 634 00:52:06,749 --> 00:52:10,351 of how to save capitalism from itself. The debate between them 635 00:52:10,375 --> 00:52:15,207 has shaped the past century and is still raging today.