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Editor's Note
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Danny Haiphong
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PROF. RICHARD WOLFF
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Editor's Note
Perhaps a small note of disagreement with Prof. Wolff. In most of his lectures and discussions, Prof. Wolff seems to accept the Western, "neoclassical" definition of GDP to classify the size of an economy. Problem is, by using that self-serving standard, America's highly "financialised economy" comes easily ahead of China, for example, which is arguably deeply misleading. A "financialised economy", corresponding to a late-stage, decaying capitalism, appears big because it is essentially bloated with a huge financial services sector (insurance, real estate speculation, financial and banking services, excessive trading in corporate valuations, accounting services, etc.). None of this is directly related to tangible necessities produced in "the real economy", such as cars, trucks, houses, roads, airplanes, hospitals, medicines, schools, clothing, and certainly food. Besides, the capitalist GDP formula will not and cannot begin to measure actual human wellbeing because it is obsessed with only market transactions and their valuations. This feature can easily yield absurdities. Indeed, think of just one example. As more and more people commute to and from their jobs, more traffic accidents will occur. Traffic accidents lead to auto repairs, medical bills, parts replacements, and insurance and legal fees, if not funeral expenses. All of this expands the GDP, but who can argue that the commonwealth is actually better off for it? Graver still, the "Neoclassical GDP" prescription is blind to how the national income is actually distributed. Obscene wealth and ghastly poverty side by side do not trouble it. The US, long described by its professional apologists as the richest and greatest nation on earth, is also, demonstrably, one of the most unequal societies on the planet, with pervasive, seemingly intractable poverty and misery just about everywhere. Need we go any further?—PG
Perhaps a small note of disagreement with Prof. Wolff. In most of his lectures and discussions, Prof. Wolff seems to accept the Western, "neoclassical" definition of GDP to classify the size of an economy. Problem is, by using that self-serving standard, America's highly "financialised economy" comes easily ahead of China, for example, which is arguably deeply misleading. A "financialised economy", corresponding to a late-stage, decaying capitalism, appears big because it is essentially bloated with a huge financial services sector (insurance, real estate speculation, financial and banking services, excessive trading in corporate valuations, accounting services, etc.). None of this is directly related to tangible necessities produced in "the real economy", such as cars, trucks, houses, roads, airplanes, hospitals, medicines, schools, clothing, and certainly food. Besides, the capitalist GDP formula will not and cannot begin to measure actual human wellbeing because it is obsessed with only market transactions and their valuations. This feature can easily yield absurdities. Indeed, think of just one example. As more and more people commute to and from their jobs, more traffic accidents will occur. Traffic accidents lead to auto repairs, medical bills, parts replacements, and insurance and legal fees, if not funeral expenses. All of this expands the GDP, but who can argue that the commonwealth is actually better off for it? Graver still, the "Neoclassical GDP" prescription is blind to how the national income is actually distributed. Obscene wealth and ghastly poverty side by side do not trouble it. The US, long described by its professional apologists as the richest and greatest nation on earth, is also, demonstrably, one of the most unequal societies on the planet, with pervasive, seemingly intractable poverty and misery just about everywhere. Need we go any further?—PG
Richard Wolff: The End of US Empire, Russia DESTROYS NATO Sanctions, and Rise of China & BRICS
Lili News 029
- In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
- Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
- Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.
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