Corporations vs Democracy

Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Democracy at Work

Coops, Economics, Economy, Workercooperative, Capitalism, Politics, News, Government

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

******************************************************************************

[EU S14 E2] Corporations vs Democracy

******************************************************************************

In this weeks show, Prof. Wolff analyzes the corporation. It stands as a basic institution blocking real democracy in our society. The corporation's structure and operations empower and enrich a tiny social minority at the expense of the people's wealth and democratic power. Like the critiques of slave plantations and feudal manors that preceded the disappearance of those systems, the growing critique of capitalism reflects but also informs critical social movements now. If you haven't already, please subscribe to our channel, follow us on social media and of course be sure to sign up on our website: www.democracyatwork.info And as always, we thank for your attention, support and solidarity.

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome friends to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic
0:16.4	dimensions of our lives and those of our children. I'm your host, Richard Wolf.
0:29.2	The entirety of today's program is going to be devoted to the corporation, the basic unit that organizes and delivers the goods and services
0:35.0	that we all depend on to lead our daily life.
0:39.0	You know, in the history of the human race,
0:41.0	we've had slavery, and the core of that was the slave plantation.
0:46.6	And we've had the medieval or futile times for a thousand years and the
0:55.0	capitalist system was called the feudal manner.
0:58.0	And in our era, the capitalist system also has a core productive unit it's called the corporation.
1:07.0	And corporations in case you're not familiar do the bulk of the business in the United States.
1:15.0	We have many, many medium and small businesses,
1:19.0	but they depend on and are accessories to the core monster corporations that dominate our economy, however
1:29.4	much we may not like that or wish it. And I want to focus on making sure everyone
1:36.8	understands how they work exactly, how they function and why the conclusion is that that unit, that way of organizing
1:48.0	production is fundamentally undemocratic, unjust, and unnecessary just as the human race found the slave
1:59.8	plantation and the futile manner to be.
2:03.7	I'm going to begin by making sure we all understand how corporations are organized.
2:10.8	At the very top are those who own the corporation. What does that mean?
2:17.0	Most corporations are shareholding corporations.
2:21.0	They issue little pieces of paper that give you a share of the company, the corporation.
2:29.0	And those are the people who vote deciding basically what the corporation is going to be doing,
2:37.6	how it's doing it, and all those basic decisions.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Democracy at Work, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Democracy at Work and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.