Huge L.A. Fires: The Capitalist Connection
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode, Brian and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss the mass fires engulfing many Los Angeles neighborhoods, killing 24 already and displacing over 100,000 people. As politicians and the media start to point fingers and find scapegoats to blame, Brian and Richard uncover the real culprit: capitalism and the profit motive.
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 | The huge fires in Los Angeles have torn through residential neighborhoods, killing scores of people, |
| 0:08.9 | displacing over 100,000 people, 300,000 people are on evacuation alert. A state climate task force |
| 0:19.0 | warned against this very catastrophe in 2019, but real estate developers |
| 0:26.1 | built in the riskiest areas anyway, putting people right in the path of wildfires. |
| 0:33.1 | We need a new system. |
| 0:35.4 | We need a new society. |
| 0:37.3 | We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. We are excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us again for our regular weekly segment, |
| 1:14.2 | where we talk about the biggest stories related to the economy, |
| 1:17.2 | the state of the working class, and the crimes of big business. |
| 1:21.0 | I'm your host, Brian Becker. |
| 1:23.1 | The Socialist Program brings you content several days a week. |
| 1:26.8 | Thanks to the support of our patrons at patreon.com forward slash the socialist program. |
| 1:33.3 | We appreciate all of your support and encourage you to become a patron today if you enjoy listening to this show. |
| 1:40.3 | Richard Wolf is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. He's the author of many books, |
| 1:46.7 | including Understanding Capitalism, which is now available at Democracy at Work. Info. Professor Wolf, |
| 1:54.6 | welcome back. |
| 1:55.6 | Thank you, thank you, Brian. I'm glad to be here. |
| 1:58.4 | Yeah, we're very happy you were able to join with us again in a new |
| 2:02.0 | year, 2025. The Socialist Program is now in our fifth year. And Richard, you've been with us right |
| 2:08.6 | from the beginning. So we thank you. Our patrons, thank you. And of course, most importantly, |
| 2:14.3 | the audience for this show, thanks you. Richard, wildfires are part of nature. |
| 2:19.9 | They have been with us and with the people in Southern California for hundreds of thousands, |
... |
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