Showdown Over AI: SAG-AFTRA Actors Join WGA Writers on Strike
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2023
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode Walter Smolarek and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss the historic strike of SAG-AFTRA actors and WGA writers and what's at stake. 160,000 actors are now joining the Writers Guild on strike. They're challenging who gets to decide how to install artificial intelligence in the entertainment industry.
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.
Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | With 160,000 actors joining the Writers Guild on strike, |
| 0:05.0 | Hollywood is shut down in a historic labor struggle. |
| 0:10.0 | The major studios are determined to push ahead with streaming and artificial intelligence |
| 0:15.0 | in a way that threatens to decimate their employees' livelihoods, |
| 0:19.0 | but unions are standing up and saying enough. |
| 0:22.6 | We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded |
| 0:28.8 | impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. We are very excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us for a regular weekly segment |
| 1:02.8 | where we discuss the biggest stories relating to the economy, the state of the working class, |
| 1:07.0 | and the crimes of big business. |
| 1:09.0 | I'm Walter Smolerick, filling in for Brian Becker. |
| 1:11.9 | The Socialist Program brings you content three days a week thanks to the support of our patrons |
| 1:16.2 | at patreon.com slash the Socialist Program. We appreciate all of your support and encourage you |
| 1:22.1 | to become a patron today if you enjoy listening to the show. Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work and the author of many |
| 1:31.0 | books, the latest being, The Sickness is the System. |
| 1:33.9 | When capitalism fails to save us from pandemics or itself, you can check out all his work at |
| 1:39.5 | R.D.Wolf.com. |
| 1:42.6 | So Professor Wolf, 160,000 actors now on strike. |
| 1:47.5 | This is really a historic challenge to the power of the big movie studio executives, |
| 1:53.3 | who are themselves a very powerful component of the capitalist class in the United States. |
| 1:58.9 | Yes, and I think that therein lies the enormous |
| 2:02.8 | importance of this strike, beyond the specific issues of those studios, the writers who went |
| 2:11.4 | on strike first, now the actors who've joined them. There is a wave of militancy of working people across the United States. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Socialist Program, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Socialist Program and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.