Dictatorship of the Elite: Big Tech Capitalists Decide for Us on Nuclear, Health & Climate Change
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2024
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode Nicole Roussell and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss the recent decisions by big tech capitalists to reopen old nuclear plants and fund research into new nuclear research, despite the huge health risks. Richard explains how monopolies use advertising to rebrand dangerous products like nuclear energy—evidence of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Old dangerous nuclear power plants have been slated for closure, and new plants haven't been built due to the threat of meltdowns and other catastrophes, the danger of nuclear waste, and the huge expense to build them. |
| 0:12.5 | But now Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are funding research and new nuclear power plants. |
| 0:18.0 | Why is it that massive corporations are the decision makers about such important |
| 0:22.2 | decisions that affect all of us? |
| 0:24.8 | We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded |
| 0:30.9 | impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. |
| 1:04.2 | Music but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. I'm We are very excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us for our regular weekly segment where we discuss the biggest stories relating to the economy, the state of the working class, |
| 1:08.2 | and the crimes of big business. I'm Nicole Roussel, sitting in for your |
| 1:12.0 | host, Brian Becker. The Socialist Program brings you content several days a week thanks to the |
| 1:16.4 | support of our patrons at patreon.com slash the Socialist Program. We appreciate all of your support |
| 1:21.9 | and encourage you to become a patron today if you enjoy listening to the show. Richard Wolf is the |
| 1:27.4 | co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work and the author of many |
| 1:30.8 | books, including Understanding Capitalism, which is now available at Democracy at Work.Info. |
| 1:37.3 | Professor Wolf, welcome back. |
| 1:39.0 | Thank you very much, Nicole. I'm glad to be here. |
| 1:42.2 | Well, we are always very, very glad to have you. |
| 1:45.2 | Today, we want to talk about essentially several tech companies that have recently announced |
| 1:50.4 | huge funding deals. They're researching a new era of nuclear reactors, and Microsoft is even |
| 1:56.2 | reopening Three Mile Island, the site of a horrendous 1979 disaster where significant amounts of radioactivity |
| 2:03.7 | were released and continue to be released into the 1990s. I'm sure many listeners are familiar |
| 2:09.4 | with that, but for people who aren't, this was a really, really shocking and horrific event |
| 2:15.4 | that injured a lot of people and the effects are still playing out. |
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