Welcome friends, to another edition of Economic
Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic
dimensions of our lives: jobs, debts, incomes,
our own, and our children’s.
And I’m your host, Richard Wolff. I want
to talk to you today about the pandemic. You
all know what that’s about. What I want
to stress is the pandemic, as it interacts
with capitalism, the economic system we live
under which makes that pandemic impact us
in very special ways that need to be understood.
So let’s go through a list. First, in this
pandemic, what capitalism is doing is putting
more of a burden on lower wage workers than
on higher. Let me give you simply one statistic
from the Federal Reserve. Of Americans, making
under $40,000 a year, 40% lost their jobs
in the last 6 weeks. That’s way worse than
people earning more than that. At the top,
the CEOs, the highest paid people, get a lot
of public relations benefit out of taking,
graciously, pay cuts. They didn’t lose their
job. They took a pay cut. Public relations
departments of corporations are letting out
that they are having problems with their profitability,
because of accommodating the coronavirus pandemic.
Please be aware, those at the bottom are suffering
the most, and those at the top are suffering
the least. Or to say the same thing in biblical
language, the rich are getting richer and
the poor, poorer.
And why do I say “richer”? Because people
in the stock market, that is 10% of shareholders,
own 80% of the shares, they’re doing reasonably
well. They are getting richer. The rest of
us are getting poorer. Let me drive it home
some more about how capitalism makes the pandemic
impact us unfairly and unequally. Women, the
bulk of the workers in the service industry,
have been hurt more than men, in terms of
lost jobs. Black and brown people have been
fired more than white people. And in a kind
of sickness that really defies description,
the homeless in America, the hundreds of thousands,
if not more, homeless are being told, like
the rest of us, to be safe in this pandemic.
It’s important to stay indoors and wash
your hands frequently. They tell that to homeless
people who can’t do that. There’s something
so wrong there, I really don’t allow myself
to get into it.
Then there’s the disorder in our government.
We have cities doing one thing, states doing
another, and the government still doing something
else. They can’t seem to get together. Nationalism
is big in Washington, so the United States
is going at it alone and not coordinating
with other countries. The evidence is overwhelming.
Arizona, for example, is allowing people to
eat inside restaurants. They’ve opened their
casinos. Next door, California is doing neither
of those things. This makes it crazy, because
you allow, of course, whatever disease there
is to move easily in a disorganized society.
And I’ll tell you something that you may
know from your studies of history. When leaders
are incompetent and chaotic, and can’t their
stories straight, when the federal and local
and regional can’t be coordinated, when
we can’t coordinate one nation [with] another,
it’s the beginning of the end of a system.
These are all symptoms and signs of a system
disintegrating. And now another dimension
of the same story. President Trump recently
referred to himself as being like a wartime
President at war with corona. Well, you know,
during war, Mr. Trump, you may not remember—I’m
being kind here—in World War II unity was
so important, as it could be and should be
during a pandemic. We didn’t allow the market
to work. You know why? Because markets favor
the people with the most money. They get the
best and the most stuff. So we had rationing.
We handed out cards to the American people.
We did that. And you couldn’t get a quart
of milk or a gallon of gas without a ration
card. And ration cards were distributed to
people according to their needs, not according
to how much money they had. That’s what
a wartime President could and should do. That’s
what unity requires. That’s what President
Roosevelt did. None of that is happening now.
We are not fighting this pandemic unified.
We are letting it divide us further than ever.
And here’s a story that somehow, for me,
captured it all in a sharp way. The story
of New Orleans. It recently fired its garbage
collectors. It was paying them $10.25 an hour.
But the workers said they needed protective
equipment, because garbage is full of coronavirus,
or at least it can be. And they wanted an
increase in pay to $15 dollars an hour as
hazard pay for the dangers of their work.
For their reward they were fired. But that’s
not the end of this unspeakable story. New
Orleans replaced the workers it fired by arranging
contracting for labor instead from the prison
inmates from nearby Livingston Parish, inmates
paid $1.33 an hour instead of the $10.25 they
had paid the garbage collectors. And those
inmates, you guessed it, had to work without
the protective equipment and of course without
any hazard pay. So much for our unity, solidarity
and compassion for the essential workers like
those collecting the garbage. Prisoners. In
other countries those are called slave laborers.
And the fact that they are overwhelmingly
black should leave no ambiguity at all about
what is going on here.
Well, we’ve come to the end of the first
part of today’s show. Please remember to
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And now, very special, please stick around
for the second part of today’s show. We’ve
got a very special guest, Dr. Cornel West.
He’s a longtime personal friend of mine,
as well as someone who really doesn’t need
much further introduction. He is a leading
intellectual, he is a leading theorist, a
leading moral voice, and a leading activist.
Any of those qualities is remarkable in a
single person, all of them in Dr. Cornel West
makes him someone I’m especially proud to
bring on, to talk with me and with you on
the next part of today’s Economic Update.
WOLFF: Welcome back, friends to the second
half of today’s Economic Update show. As
I promised you at the end of the first part,
this is entirely now devoted to a conversation
between myself and my long-term friend, a
man I admire more than I can say, Dr. Cornel
West. We are, of course, at different locations
as all these kinds of interviews have to be
now conducted. So first and foremost, welcome
Cornel. Very glad to have you.
WEST: Well, my brother, I’ll tell you, I
have wanted to be on this show, and you’ve
tried to get me on the show for a good while.
I’m glad to be here now and I want to salute
you, my brother. We go back now almost 35–40
years in social status with Stanley Aronowitz,
Fredric Jameson, and Steven Resnick. I’ll
never forget him. I was saying that, I just…
You are the most important, influential socialist,
left, Marxian public intellectual. And you’re
putting a smile on Paul Sweezy’s face as
well as Harry and Didi Magdoff. You remember
those most wonderful, kind memories we have
of brother Harry and sister Didi around Monthly
Review, my brother.
WOLFF: Alright that’s very kind of you,
Cornell. Thank you, and I feel the same. I
admire enormously this combination I find
in you: of an activist, of an analyst, of
an intellectual, and a moral force all combined.
It is an honor and a pleasure to speak with
you. So let me jump right in. What do you
think, given all that you’ve thought and
done, and all that you now see—even if it’s
at an electronic distance—what do you think
about the unspeakable failure to prepare for
this virus, to now cope with it, to overlay
the horror of the disease with an economic
crash? What is the sense you would make of
what this all means?
WEST: I think we’ve become more and more
undeniable that we have overwhelming evidence
of the madness, failure of the American capitalist
system, hand in hand with the feeble democratic
experiment called the USA. What I mean by
that is, the 3 pillars: financialization of
capitalism has led to not just Wall Street
greed, but a level of unaccountability of
capitalist, of economic elites going hand
in hand with a militarized US nation state,
externally manifested in attacks on Venezuela,
advances in Africa, drone drops [inaudible]
wars still taking place. But internally, having
to do with mass incarceration, the massive
militarization of local police departments
and the commodified culture where everybody
is for sale, everything is for sale, and militaristic
metaphors, militaristic vernaculars and films,
and videos, and movies, and culture across
the board. So that what is left, there are
few countervailing voices, figures, movements,
and institutions, which at the moment we can
see, but as well, I think, we’re moving
forward to full-blown neo-fascist moment,
but those voices, those figures, those movements,
those institutions that are countervailing
are very important. And that’s precisely
why I began with your longevity and your integrity
as a public intellectual. You’ve been a
countervailing force against this capitalist
failure, against the commodified culture,
against this militarized nation state, all
tied to “money, money, money, profit maximizing,
profit maximizing”, but holding out for
a democratic, public oriented, people centered
way of being, let alone public policy that
speak to the needs of ordinary and everyday
people.
WOLFF: Is it your sense that the country is
falling apart? I notice that people on the
right, people on the left, people in the middle,
there’s more and more of a growing sense,
or so it seems to me, of a kind of all things
falling apart. Some kinds of certainties that
we thought were certainties, aren’t, assumptions
are not, obviously our daily lives are all
in turmoil. Do you see this producing a kind
of reckoning with this system, a kind of opening
up of options that have been closed off before?
WEST: Well, I actually see both tremendous
possibility and, at the same time, I experience
profound sadness. The profound sadness has
to do with the fact that the decline and relative
fall of the U.S. empire is generating a deep
sense of paralysis. At the same time, there
is new possibility, because crisis is tied
to opportunity, and we’re seeing a younger
generation, for example, the acknowledgement
of capitalist failure. We’re seeing in the
younger generation the refusal to put up with
racist and sexist and homophobic and transphobic
sensibility. This is very different than was
the case, let’s say 30–40 years ago, when
we were coming along in our relative youth.
So that’s specific. And especially younger
generations’ willingness to even talk about
socialism explicitly, without it being associated
with the old Cold War degradation [of socialism]
that we saw between 1945 and 1991. So it’s
a juxtaposition. There’s a sadness, but
also a possibility of bounce back. Now imagine,
I come from a tradition of black people in
America, and we’ve been on the neo-fascist
face the U.S. experience from the very beginning,
with the white supremacist slavery, various
forms of torture and barbarism, and with the
neo-slavery, Jim and Jane Crow, and now Jim
Crow Jr., The New Jim Crow, to use the language
of Michelle Alexander. Black folk have always
been on the underside and the ugly face of
the U.S. capitalist experiment, recognizing
its failure from the “chocolate” side
of town. But at the same time, black folk
often say, “While we’re in barbershops,
that we experience that every setback is a
setup for a comeback. So you have to bounce
back.” But bounce back is what I mean by
countervailing, counter-hegemonic voices,
figures, and institutions. And so even as
we think things are falling apart, considering
that [15:40 — inaudible] in the language
of [inaudible] it’s also true that the bounce
back is there and we got to push that bounce
back as far as we can, down the road toward
democratization, down the road to de-commodification,
down the road to de-militarization in the
name of truth and justice, my brother.
WOLFF: Alright, before I explore the possibilities
and the opportunities with you—and I agree
with you that they’re there together with
the sadness—I want to explore what probably
helps make you sad, which is, how do you understand
whatever that proportion is of Americans that
support Donald Trump and the current Republican
Party in its reversion to so many horrors
of the past of American history, whether it’s
a third or 40% or whatever the number is,
how do you understand, as you put it before,
Jim Crow Jr. or all of that right-wing lurching
that we see?
WEST: Well, one is that I’m not surprised
at the ugly white backlash in a moment of
deep crisis, because that’s been a cycle
in American history. The ruling class wants
to divide black and white workers, black and
brown, black and red, black and yellow workers.
We’ve seen that over and over again. I’m
not surprised at the Wall Street greed. That’s
been in place for a good while. What I’m
most surprised by is my precious black people
themselves. That historically we have really
been the most progressive group in terms of
our critique of militarism, the critique of
injustice as it relates to discrimination,
the need for some kind of serious multi-racial
solidarity in some of the trade unions—think
of what A. Philip Randolph and what others
are trying to do in the 30s and 40s. And I
think that the Black Agenda Report, and Black
Alliance for Peace, and other organizations
have been raising this question. But it’s
the strong failure of the neoliberal black
bourgeoisie that has stood in the way of the
kind of movement that would generate the focus
on what we’re talking about. Brother Bernie
Sanders, he would be the nominee if the black
boulders could break the neoliberal hegemony
of black leadership in the Democratic Party.
And Bernie Sanders, my dear brother Bernie,
he’s no messiah, he’s not God, but he’s
opening up the kind of possibilities that
we need for the kind of worker co-op project
that you’ve been talking about for so long
with such insight and caring, my brother.
He would open up the critique of the privatization
of education, the privatization of healthcare,
and the need for healthcare for all. So part
of my sadness has to do with looking and seeing
how black middle class leadership has betrayed
the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., has
betrayed the legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer, betrayed
the legacy of Paul Robeson, W.E.B. du Bois,
C.L.R. James, all those old great freedom
fighters who were always connecting the critique
of white supremacy with the critique of capitalism,
with the critique of empire, with the critique
of patriarchy. We’re in a moment now where
this post-Obama moment is very difficult to
get black leadership courageous enough and
visionary enough to have the kind of critiques
of capitalist failures that you put forward.
WOLFF: And why is, Cornel, why? Why is that
happening?
WEST: I think that the black bourgeoisie is
like any bourgeoisie. It’s a comment in
of itself to empire and capitalism and a status
quo that is unjust. And so, they may talk
about the legacy of Martin Luther King, or
Malcolm X, but they’re not serious about
it. They want inclusion, they want incorporation,
they want colorful, symbolic representation
in a dying class hierarchy and imperial hierarchy,
and think that somehow that’s the best we
can do with black poor and black working,
let alone all poor and all working people
left out. And so they’re willing to become
captains on this Titanic rather than transform
the ship itself. And that’s what is sad
to me. But I guess I could be surprised either
though.
WOLFF: Alright, let me turn to the thing that
I think you and I most care about. What are
the prospects for a renewal of a real left
in the United States? How do you see the Occupy
Wall Street initiatives, the Black Lives Matter
initiatives, Bernie Sanders’ two campaigns,
pluses and minuses? Do you see something emerging
here and where do you think it might go?
WEST: Well, you know what I think of the [inaudible]
and Phil Agnew’s, so many others but the
younger generation. I think that they know
that without massive opposition to the economic,
political, and cultural status quo in place—the
critique of capitalism and white supremacy
and the empire—that people are not going
to be able to live lives in dignity, and therefore,
the younger generation, more and more, I think,
is acknowledging the need for multi-racial
solidarity, I see it in DSA. I see it among
even the further left, you’ve got intra-left,
[inaudible] and dialogs going on. It’s intense.
And that’s always been the case, as you
and I know. In the end, it’s got to be anti-fascist
coalition against the gangster neo-fascist
in the White House. And it’s got to be radically
left, democratic opposition that brings together
the cultural and social issue with the critique
of capitalism at the center, and the critique
of empire and militarism in Latin America,
in Middle East, in Africa as its center. And
I’m hoping that the legacies of the people
that I talked about before, Paul Sweezy, and
the voices and others, and I would add even
Toni Morrison in terms of her serious left
critique as a literary artist, can play a
very important role here, my brother.
WOLFF: Is the word “socialism” coming
back? Is the concept of an alternative part
of what you see emerging?
WEST: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. But as you
know, you and I go back so far, as with sister
Harriet [Fraad] who I also have a great love
and respect for just as I love and respect
you. As a revolutionary Christian, brother,
to me, a lot of this superficial talk about
“ism” ought to be worn like a loose garment.
What I mean by that is when people talk about
“capitalism” they mean so many different
things. What they really need to focus on
is the ancient and magic relation of power
and domination and exploitation at the workplace.
When you talk about socialism, you’re really
talking about the empowerment of working people
for people, against any form of domination.
So that there’s a moral and spiritual dimension
that needs to be incorporated by the people
that call themselves “socialists” or “anarchists”
or what have you. So that the “ism,” I’m
hoping, doesn’t get in the way. But thank
God, people are now open to what the great
Sheldon Wolin always talked about, and brother
Stanley Aronowitz too, which is how are we
going to make sure that the plight and predicament
of the weak and vulnerable would begin with
class analysis and embraces anybody catching
hell that they’re at the center of our vision,
of our analysis, and therefore we’re able
to come together in mass opposition without
this one narrow “ism” or narrow ideology,
but rather a movement, motion, momentum, against
the greed, against the hatred, the contempt,
the indifference to the suffering of others,
the callousness of the plight and predicament
of the weak and vulnerable, that’s what
really at the center of the left, of a genuinely
progressive movement, not just in the American
Empire, but all around the world. It’s got
to be an international. Frantz Fanon was right
about that.
WOLFF: Yeah, I think that one of the things
that America is frightening me about. And
I want your thoughts about it. There seems
to be a growing effort, right at the top but
spread through Republicans, Democrats alike,
to scapegoat the Chinese at this point, to
try to create another kind of Cold War mentality
to justify—God knows what they have in mind—domestically
by a scare program about evil Chinese. It’s
kind of horrible, at least for me, to watch
and I wondered what you thought.
WEST: Rick, you’re absolutely right. But
this is part of the neoliberal wing of the
ruling class. They started with the tragedy
in Russia. We know that Russia is authoritarian
and Putin’s a gangster, there’s no doubt
about that. But it was a distraction from
having to come to terms with what it meant
to run such a weak and feeble neoliberal candidate
in 2016, sister Hilary against the gangster
Trump. Now you get the kind of scapegoating
of the Chinese in both parties again, and
recognizing though that Trump represents the
neo-fascist wing of the ruling class, that
the Democratic Party establishment represents
the neoliberal wing of the ruling class, and
then brother Bernie and others represent the
progressive neo-populist wing, not even the
Democratic Socialists, but the progressive
neo-populist wing of the ruling class. But
now what we’re trying to push out the gangster
and therefore the question becomes how do
we proceed in such a way that we don’t engage
in the kind of xenophobia you’re talking
about that we’re able to push out the neo-fascist
gangster in the White House, Trump, but also
tell the truth about the level of indifference,
callousness for poor working people that you
get in a neoliberal society. And it’s a
different issue in terms of with endorsements
and so forth. I respect people who are integrating
[the] party or other left parties. I think
that a vote for Biden, especially in those
swing states would be important, but recognizing
who you’re voting for. I come from a prophetic
Christian tradition. But we have deep class
analysis, we understand the relation of class,
and race, and empire, and we always have been
willing to come together. I remember you even
ran for mayor in 1985. Didn’t we have a
good time doing it, my brother?
WOLFF: Right.
WEST: Just standing right there next to each
other, 35 years ago, man.
WOLFF: Yeah, that’s true.
WEST: And here we are again. Standing there
together. Being consistent. Trying to have
a constant. That’s why it’s such a blessing
to be in conversation with you today.
WOLFF: I only wish we had more time, Cornel.
We’ve come to the end. I want to thank you.
I know you have a busy schedule, even in your
sequestration like us, but it’s a joy to
reconnect with you and to proceed as they
used to say, in agreement as we go forward.
Thank you very, very much for your time and
your wonderful intelligence.
