Laguna Beach Bikini

Here is an 11-minute animation of a lecture by radical sociologist Davis Harvey. He describes what happened that lead to the economic crises. Harvey asks if it is not time to look beyond capitalism.

Harvey contends that the financiers have gained all the power in the world economy at the expense of workers. Workers in developed countries like the U.S. have not seen real wages increase in thirty years. Meanwhile, actors in the financial industry are accumulating all the wealth as Hedge Fund managers receive 3 billion dollar bonuses each per year.

Harvey explains that the wages of the middle class are what is needed to fuel demand for consumption to allow economies to grow. The problem is that instead of wage increases, middle class workers were given access to cheap credit which made the financiers ever richer, but indebted the middle class. Way too much debt was accumulated, more debt than could be serviced.

As the debt was defaulted on, it resulted in the credit crisis which brought down the world economy. As Riccardo would say, (Ricky from I Love Lucy, not economist David Ricardo), Capitalism has some ’splainin’ to do.

David Harvey is a professor at City University of New York (CUNY). For best effect, right-click to open the context menu, and choose to Watch On Youtube. Then open it up fullscreen.

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