U.S. Capitalists Scapegoat Russia for Soaring Prices
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2022
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode Brian Becker and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss the still increasing costs of many necessities, as the United States flounders in the economic crisis that's now been ongoing for several years. To what extent is the war in Ukraine having an effect?
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can check out his work at rdwolff.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | As the United States and much of the rest of the world experience the worst inflation in decades, |
| 0:08.1 | more and more workers find themselves struggling to afford basic necessities. |
| 0:13.4 | The war in Ukraine is now deepening the inflation crisis and causing the price of fuel to skyrocket. |
| 0:19.8 | We'll take a historical look at how inflation and war often go hand in hand. |
| 0:26.2 | We need a new system. We need a new society. |
| 0:30.2 | We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, |
| 0:34.5 | but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. We are excited to have Professor Richard Wolf join us for our regular weekly segment where we talk about the biggest stories related to the economy, the state of the working class, and the |
| 1:11.7 | crimes of big business. I'm your host, Brian Becker. Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the |
| 1:17.0 | organization Democracy at Work. He's the author of many books. The latest being the sickness |
| 1:22.0 | is the system when capitalism fails to save us from pandemics or itself. |
| 1:28.1 | There's also a new hard copy edition of Professor Wolfe's understanding Marxism. |
| 1:32.9 | That's a book that's been released once again, featuring a new lengthy introduction, |
| 1:38.8 | strengthening the case for why Marxism is worth understanding. |
| 1:43.4 | You can check out all of his works at R-D.Wolf.com. That's |
| 1:47.1 | R-D-W-O-L-F-F.com. Professor Wolf, welcome back. Thank you. Glad to be here. |
| 1:54.8 | Thank you so much. Professor Wolf, of course, since February 24th, when Russia obviously decided that the U.S. was not going to |
| 2:04.2 | negotiate, decided to take matters into its own hand, carried out a military invasion of Ukraine. |
| 2:13.0 | The whole world's situation has, in many ways, shifted and changed. I mean, inside of Europe, the United States |
| 2:20.1 | has been able to galvanize European public opinion around a very staunch pro-NATO position. |
| 2:27.2 | The U.S. has implemented severe sanctions against Russia, evicting, essentially evicting Russia from the world economy, |
| 2:36.6 | seizing or taking control of Russia's own currency reserves, and now boycotting oil and |
| 2:45.2 | gas, and of course for Europe, which may follow suit with the United States, that will have a devastating impact, |
... |
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