“Global Capitalism: The Second War In Ukraine [January 2023]”, Jan 11, 2023, Richard Wolff

 “Global Capitalism: The Second War In Ukraine [January 2023]”, Jan 11, 2023, Richard Wolff, Democracy At Work, duration of video 55:09.

< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGBAKRzoJ1o  >

~~ recommended by dmorista ~~

“The Second War in Ukraine [January 2023]”, In this lecture, Prof. Wolff will discuss the following: 

1).  At an Historical Turning Point 

2).  Impact on US 

3).  Impact on Europe 

4).  Impact on China, India, Russia, BRICSTj

Note: This is an you tube video of a lecture available at                                                   < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGBAKRzoJ1o >..  There is no written transcript.

Introduction by dmorista:

Professor Richardd Wolff discusses some aspects of the Ukraine War that are studiously ignored by the Corporate Controlled Media.  He freely admits to a near complete lack of military knowledge and instead concentrates on the economic aspects of the Ukraine War, thus his use of the phrase for that aspect of the struggle there as “The Second War in Ukraine”. While not commenting on which side is winning the military part of the war, he states conclusively that the U.S. and its allies have decisively lost the economic struggle.  He looks at the sanctions, seizures of Russian property, and changes in the economic hierarchy of world capitalism.  He notes that the period when the U.S. was the unquestioned Global Hegemon has ended and other power centers (mostly China) are becoming more prominent and more assertive in pushing their agendas.

He compares the situation that the U.S. ruling class now faces, with that faced by the British Ruling class in the late 19th and first half of the 20th Centuries.  The situations are not identical but there are many striking similarities.  One aspect of these two pivotal  historical periods that Wolff does not address is the fact that from about 1890 - 1914 the British Empire sponsored a Global Free Trade system, similar to what the U.S. enforced from about 1980 - 2016.  In both cases the Free Trade period was, while very profitable to major segments of the ruling capitalists, disastrous for the overall populations of the two societies.  As the Imperial and Economic declines proceeded eventually the power of the hegemonic society was greatly diminished.  This took place for the U.K, in the WW 1 and interwar period; and for the U.S. in the period following the signal defeat of the American military in SE Asia.   

The first Globalization period ended abruptly with the outbreak of WW 1, and the world economy broke up into a set of Trading Blocs and for the U.S. in the wake of the major retrenching that took place in the late 1970s and 1980s.  While many commentators constantly write that incomes in the U.S. have stagnated, Webster Tarpley, in contrast,  has correctly pointed out that the working and middle class people of the U.S. have had their disposable incomes reduced to about ⅓ of the level enljoyed during the heyday of the “American Dream” period in the 1950s - the mid 1970s.  Most American working people no longer can afford to buy homes in decent neighborhoods, obtain affordable health care, or affordably transport themselves around the great majority of our cities, that largely lack any effective public transportation.