Capitalism Is the Crisis
Capitalism Is The Crisis: Radical Politics in the Age of Austerity examines the ideological roots of the austerity agenda and proposes revolutionary paths out of the current crisis.
The film features original interviews with Chris Hedges, Derrick Jensen, Michael Hardt, Peter Gelderloos, Leo Panitch, David McNally, Richard J.F. Day, Imre Szeman, Wayne Price, and many more!
The 2008 financial crisis in the United States was a systemic fraud in which the wealthy finance capitalists stole trillions of public dollars. No one was jailed for this crime, the largest theft of public money in history.
Instead, the rich forced working people across the globe to pay for their crisis through punitive austerity programs that gutted public services and repealed workers' rights.
This documentary explains the nature of capitalist crisis, visits the protests against austerity measures, and recommends revolutionary paths for the future.
Special attention is devoted to the crisis in Greece, the 2010 G20 Summit protest in Toronto, Canada, and the remarkable surge of solidarity in Madison, Wisconsin.
"Any person who willingly submits to the deprivations of capitalist private property must be extraordinarily stupid"
Oscar Wilde
1898
I have been an activist for 25 years and here is the crux of the problem is stupid white people.
Average global GDP growth per annum since WW2 is about 3%
At 3% our economies and demand for energy doubles every 23 years, while 57 of the 65 oil producing nations of the world have used more than half their oil reserves, and as of 2008 oil production went into a permanent 9% decline per annum.
We use 1 billion barrels of oil every 11 days, and for every 6 to 8 barrels of oil we consume, we are producing just one. This is what triggered the war in the middle east and America's reckless attempts to manufacture reasons to attack both Iran and Venezuela, as the USA uses 27% of the world's oil. The remaining oil is sour crude that is far more expensive to mine and refine. This means we cannot meet current economic demands, much less furture demands and as a result, the UN World food organization is now warning of imminent famines of "biblical proportions"
The worst growth figures on record of -0.1% occurred during the great depression and also in 2008. According to the IMF negative growth for 2020 stands at -4.7%.....in other words the world economy is collapsing, it is in free fall, exacerbated by COViD 19.
It is the unparalleled energy density of oil that has fueled the machines that has allowed for
the explosion in human population from a relatively steady 2 billion since the (supposed) birth of Christ to what it is today. As no infrastructure is in place to transfer to renewables, and we do not have the oil reserves to build all the required turbines etc...............
In retrospect, our response as sentient human beings to our government's genocidal invasion of Iraq was the litmus test in our commitment in standing up for the right of all people to live free of oppression and the threat of war. Instead of holding mass murdering genocidal war criminals to account, and preserving our democracy and our own rights at home, we turned our backs on our fellow man and each other, as we have continually sanctioned genocide at the ballot box.
As the chickens now come home to roost, we have no one to blame but ourselves, and our continued failure to act rationally to the threat posed by our insane leaders can only have one outcome.
Lot of comments from angry capitalists here. Get ready! We're coming for your toothbrush!
I understand that we need capitalism to make our economy grow but to what extent should a corporation be able to grow there needs to be caps to how many companies they build or factories to control how much they grow and controlling how much profit they make I believe that socialism with capitalism could work question would be what should be socialism and what should be capitalism and with capitalism there should be regulations to the extent of their growth so that smaller businesses can grow to
this doco confuses true capitalism with cronyism, which is what Marxists typically do to demonize capitalism in pursuit of communism. It was cronyism which caused the GFC 2008, will be the cause of the next big crash and is responsible for draining the wealth from the middle classes to enrich the already wealthy classes. The main players in cronyism are the investment banks on Wall Street and government-central banks. Neither contributes anything tangible or productive to our society. The main purpose of the banks is literally to increase their profits which they do by creating currency out of nothing, loaning it to other investors, who in turn gamble it on financial markets, which causes massive inflation, asset bubbles, debt and financial crashes. They reap the rewards from their gambling and easy money creation, while the rest of us get debt and inflation.
Because human nature won't look into removing personhood from corporations.
Too lazy, and lazy is human nature.
Human nature is the problem.
corporation personhood
there's the problem
Marx, the silliest father of all silly Marxists, invented the terms "Capitalists", to deride and deflect a free people from the very American term, Free Enterprise. A note to Marx minions, an economic system dependent upon capital ("money" for you minions) is by definition, a capital-ist system. I bet you'd be aghast that Marx would likely be thrilled with today's Big Government and yes, by extension, Crony Capitalism. He was juiced at the thought that a central "authority" that could run all of your asses. But then again, perhaps he was too idealistic to understand that a very powerful government protects only the very powerful. I might have to concede that...
We need a revolution all right...one just like the American Revolution that made possible the greatest advancement in human history. The first limited government that existed by the consent of the governed. A Republic (not Democracy) established to protect, not destroy or confiscate personal property, necessary for an free, enterprising and entrepreneurial people.
But it's too bad we've apparently forgotten the value of freedom & personal responsibility. In ignorance, envy and greed we blather on about fairness and have to a large degree embraced once again, the most dangerous and deadly lie called socialism.
I'm sure I'm assuming a lot here and I'm even more certain I'm being far too generous to suggest that you genius socialists must have shared your hard-won grades at the university with others that were just there for the coeds, pot and beer.
You didn't? Shame on you, you disgusting capitalists...
Are negative comments trashed on this site?
This film is a piece of Marxist Communist garbage.
The are really mentally ill people narrating this video.
Rife with conspiracy theories and doom and gloom predictions, none of which have any factual merit, they spout on about the evil empire of rampant capitalism.
The quality of life in the Western world has never been better. Where these fools would take that world would be a dream no one would like to imagine. Think of Pol Pot's Cambodia. China's Red Revolution, Soviet Russia, Castro's Cuba, modern Veneszuela, Zimbabwe, et .al. The perfect Marzist Communist societies. All total failures. Even the hard core Chinese communists have given on the Maxist ideal as being just that, an ideal, functually flawed when applied.
The danger with the message of this film is that that message is being embraced by Western World politicians, media outlets and educators. A message of folly leading to devastating results. What makes these fools think for a moment that their Marxist path to slavery is any better then the Capitaists. On any scale weighing the Western World ideals against third world ideals which would you prefer?
Ah, but sadly the film shows the new path of Marxist Communists. A path where all peoples of the world are equal. Brought to their knees by the weight of of communism. Forced to suffer equally for the right to be human. Equality for all at the expense of all.
This is a great film. I can't understand how "in your face" the corruption is, you can't tell me that millions of people out of work and a few thousand of other people with billions of dollars is good and just how the world works. I really like how it was said in the film "if you can find billions of dollars to bailout the banks "from nowhere" then you can do the same to help the people who are homeless, out of work etc." GREAT STATEMENT!!!!
I liked it for two reasons:
1) it showed the protests our US media ignored
2) it interviewed someone who actually runs a successful worker coop saying out loud that there has to be a management system for the worker coop to survive
Good music too.
I like the fast food protests! Had Martin Luther King, Jr. lived through his poor people's campaign, he would have had every low wage worker walk off the job for days until commerce stopped.
corporations, the wealthy think they are doing well, because they are on the last part of the ship that's going down
As the documentary itself goes, I think it's fairly good, just not in the way the creators intended. It shows the embarrassing state of the only opposition that exists: pedantic professors yakking about Marxism, too eagerly outraged students, and unions chanting "power" in the face of losing their member's elite, privileged position in the workforce. This coalition does not resonate with the public at large, despite the crisis - yet refuses to adapt (predictable, given its composition).
I especially liked the parts where it turned into a sort of music video, romanticizing all this. Another amusing part was where they visited the tent city and talked to the construction worker. Almost the entire film focussed on student loans - this part was just thrown in there in a disconnected way, almost like showing a clip from a wildlife video to prove a point, but without actual concern. Once it was shown, people living in tents didn't come up again, because it was only a side point being made about debt; those people aren't really important except as they relate to the main point about student loans, and how somebody should do something to help those kids get the money to buy enormous homes and expensive cars like their parents.
Nowhere was any sort of solution articulated, the closest it got was a few eulogies for the Washington Consensus and Keynesian economics - a Golden Age when the middle class in the West thrived at the expense of the rest of the planet. Forward to the past!
Marx was right about at least one thing: the middle class is not a revolutionary class, merely afraid of backsliding and having to fall in with the riff-raff. Oh, the indignity!
I think the video was good, felt the same way about the ''Anarchists'' they should've called themselves protestors, which is what most of them were. Other than that it got back on track.
Excellent Film but went a little off the beaten path with the ramblings of the anarchists :)
This is a good film. I wonder why a couple of people who were interviewed on national TV allowed themselves to be called anarchists, such a negative term, it is bound to strike terror in the average citizen, they should refer to themselves as protesters.
Terrible documentary, if there is a better way to do it then lay it out for us. I as well as any normal person wants a better way to do things, but guess what there isnt one. Do we just keep taxing the working people to pay for the non working people? I have an idea, dont have kids if you cant afford it. Population control should be the topic on everyones mind. Less people means more resources, am I the only one who thinks this?
Amazing contributions by all the key activists!! Accurately describes where we are politically and economically--and that right now we have lost the class war--so we better get with it before we lost it all---
you have to TAKE it, I know what government is doing is wrong, you know it.
So the question is why do we allow it? for safety? fear of being thrown in a cage?
The war is here ladies and gentlemen either you choose to realize it or not.
the only way to fight back is simply not pay your taxes. claim 10 on you dependents and take your money back.
we have enough numbers. We the People MUST speak NOW!!
I just finished watching your documentary, “Capitalism is the Crisis”; I must say that I appreciate being able to view it online.
What I most appreciated was not only was I given an insightful analysis of the development of capitalism, but also some great ideas for implementation for change.
One sentence stood out for me: “all resistance begins with a reorientation of how we relate to the world.” I have heard economics defined as “the relationships between people”. I would reword your statement to: “all resistance begins with a reorientation of how we relate to one another.” It is our wrong relationships with each other that bring disequilibrium to the entire world.
The workers’ cooperatives seem ideal transitions from our current system. When we correct relationships between us, we will be able to provide everyone with everything that we need – all of us around the world. Thanks for giving such great examples!
A poorly executed documentary. Anyone can gather headline articles and flash them up on the screen in PowerPoint fashion. Didn't get past the ten minute mark.
Capitalism is not the cause, its GLOBALIZATION!