FTX, which was among the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, has collapsed in one of the most

spectacular corporate bankruptcies ever. And in other tech-related industries, mass layoffs continue to gather pace.

The boom-bust cycle of capitalism is once again on full display.

We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible

even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. City. We are excited to have Professor Richard Wolf join us again for our regular weekly segment, where we talk about the biggest stories related to the

economy. I'm your host, Brian Becker. The Socialist Program brings you content three days a week.

Thanks to the support of our patrons at patreon.com forward slash the socialist program. If you like

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Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work.

He's the author of many books, the latest being The Sickness is the System when Capitalism

Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or itself. You can check out all of his

work at RD.Wolf.com. That's RD.W.LF.F.com. Professor Wolfe, welcome back. Thank you, Brian.

Glad to be here. Well, thank you so much. This is huge. I want to talk about FTX in particular. We want to also,

if we have time, get to Twitter and Elon Musk. But in addition to FTX specifically and the collapse

of this company, we want to ask you more about cryptocurrencies and, if possible, to get

your thoughts about money. Of course,

when we look at the first parts of capital written by Karl Marx and published in 1867,

the whole first part is about commodities and money, money and surplus value, money and exchange.

Anyway, we'll talk about money. But I want to start off by reading

a little bit from the New York Times. It's very short, but it kind of helps the audience get a sense

of what the big picture is. FtX filed for bankruptcy at the end of last week after Binance, not finance, but Binance, reverse course on a deal to save

the company. The bankruptcy filing on Thursday by Mr. Ray, the new FTX chief, described numerous

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