this is richard wolff from democracy at
work responding to another ask prof wolf
question from our patreon community
and this one comes from karen perkins
who asks a really urgent question for
all of us these days
what's the connection between capitalism
on the one hand
and the ability for political rulers to
control women's bodies
on the other
something we've seen the supreme court
in the united states
do in the most dramatic fashion very
recently
very very important question the kind of
question whose answer can then be
extended to a whole lot of other things
rulers do
to women's bodies men's bodies and a
whole lot of other issues in our society
so i'm eager to respond but the response
is a little complicated
i don't think there's a direct interest
of the rulers in our society to control
women's bodies
that is the rulers particularly those
engaged in
managing and saving and
solidifying capitalism i don't think
they care much about women or men's
bodies beyond making sure
that they're at work and productive at
work and making the profits for the
companies that employ them
so the connection is rather more
indirect and there i think it's very
clear what the connection is and that's
what i would like to talk with you about
you see capitalism is a system that puts
a very small percentage of the
population
in the driver's seat
employers
the people who decide what to produce
and how to produce and where to produce
the people who decide whether or not to
give you a job to pay you a salary to
produce something the people who decide
what's most profitable for them is what
gets
produced
what's most profitable for them
is who gets hired to do what under what
circumstances
and yet employers are one percent of the
population in most capitalist countries
certainly here in the united states if
even one percent
the vast vast majority of us are
employees
we do what we are told we look for a job
from the employer we hope to keep the
job for the employer
we worry about the attitude towards us
of the employer
yeah this is a system that privileges
and empowers
the employers first and foremost but the
employers have a problem
if they're going to sit at the top of an
economic system as they do
that gives them the bulk of the power
and then the bulk of the money its
employers who are the richest people
amongst us
you know the names of jeffrey bezos or
elon musk or any of the others because
they became super wealthy because they
were employers
of armies of people
in order to govern if you're the
employer
you have a problem
because you're a tiny minority
and the vast mass of the people are the
people you tell what to do
the people who work to make you rich
which they don't become
and that's not so easy
so all employers have learned
you have to find
a mass political base you have to find
massive organizations organizations
among the people
the very employees
you use to make profit you've got to
find allies
friends
people you can cut a deal with
to stay in power
and this is particularly true
if what you're doing
this period of history for example
is ripping off the mass of the employees
redistributing wealth and income from
the bottom and the middle to those at
the top
let me remind everyone
50 years ago the united states was a
less unequal country than europe
today we've moved to the number one
position we're more unequal in the
distribution of wealth and income
than most of if not all of the european
countries
when you do that to the mass of your
people
you need even more than usual to have
allies
otherwise you risk that the mass of
people
turn
against you and the system that puts
them at the top and the rest of us at
the mercy of the employers
and to drive it home one more way
we're currently talking about an
inflation we're all impacted by the
inflation let me remind you
prices are set by the one percent of us
that are employers employees don't set
prices
if prices are going up it's because
employers are raising them
and if you talk to an employer privately
they will tell you that all their
decisions are governed by what's
profitable
because profit is the bottom line
profit is why they're in business
profit directs them
so what are they going to do who are
they going to ally with
well if you're turning against the mass
of the working class
half of that is never going to be your
ally you know who that half is it's the
half
who belong to the democratic party
working class people
minorities
women
people who get the short end of the
stick economically
so who can the employer class ally with
among the mass of the people
answer
they found the ally
all of the people
who are looking backwards historically
who want to recreate the 17th or 18th
century who have been upset because
religion doesn't play the role in our
lives it once did
because men don't dominate women the way
they once did
the way white people don't dominate
non-white people the way they once did
all of those old 17th 18th 19th century
those things are looked at as at least
for some
the good old days and the employer class
finds those people the ones who want to
have a gun
in their car the ones who don't want any
woman to have control over her own body
and especially over her reproductive
decisions or not they don't want that
they want the church everywhere they
want white to be supreme all of those
kinds of people are
allies
so what we're seeing in the supreme
court
is the connection
capitalists when they are busy making
money in ways that risk alienating large
parts of the population need allies they
need a mass base
and they turn to those who are upset by
modern society who want to go back
in culture in economics in politics in
every way
and they make a deal with them
if you support the capitalism that makes
us rich
we will support whatever you want to do
in going backwards we'll let you do your
thing
so the same capitalists in new york city
who would never hesitate five seconds to
help their daughter get an abortion when
she wanted one will support the
politicians who deny abortion to
everybody else
because a deal is a deal and in order to
be a capitalist you need someone to ally
with and the capitalists are using
particularly the republican party to
mobilize and to organize the deal
they've made and the result is that
women
in this case
have to watch
rights they fought for for a century
to be taken away
in a cut deal that panders to those who
want to go backwards in history in order
to keep an exploitative economic system
in the driver's seat
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