David Harvey's Anti-Capitalist Chronicles Democracy at Work - David Harvey

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey explores how geopolitical conflicts escalate into war, both historically and today with the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Harvey looks at NATO’s role in escalating this crisis, lessons to be learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and the looming possibility of nuclear war and its global impact. Mutually assured destruction will continue to be a threat until the West and NATO decide to de-escalate, demilitarize, and negotiate rather than to continually operate offensively. 

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey offers his perspective on two questions being debated in leftist circles: are we entering a new kind of capitalism? Is the current capitalism a type of new feudalism? In order to approach these questions, Harvey looks to capitalism’s past and present—at the rentier class, evolving roles and relationships between industrial, market, and finance capitalists, the creation of the stock market, monopsonies, and more. Capitalism is in constant flux and always evolving. Instead of wondering if we are entering a new feudalism or not, Harvey argues we must analyze the current, unique conditions and then consider how we can be anti-capitalist towards this contemporary type of capitalism.

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey points to some hopeful changes in the political landscape of various countries: Columbia, Peru, Brazil, France. Drawing a parallel from Marx's argument of the 10-hour work day as a first step, he argues that, given the current US conditions, an anti-capitalist agenda should perhaps shift its focus to small, incremental changes and begin to mobilize around important issues like the right to decent housing, a decent wage.

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey looks at the conditions of labor in the US today: the supply and demand as well as the characteristics capital requires from its labor force. If those characteristics are not met, Harvey explains, or can be met for a cheaper wage, capitalists will often seek it out in other countries. This parasitic nature results in an underinvestment and underdevelopment of resources such as health care and education for the domestic workforce. Instead, Harvey argues that we must utilize the surplus labor and surplus capital in the US in order to create a society in which basic needs are met and towards productive work with a social purpose.

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey examines the current US inflationary crisis and suggests that its cause goes beyond the mainstream explanation of supply and demand. He argues that the crisis has been engineered by capital in an effort to protect profits, weaken the power of labor and discipline social movements. Harvey looks back at the inflation of the 1960s and the 1970s and the relationship that existed between wage rate, profit rate and inflation rate. He predicts this current wave of inflation to be with us for some time, and urges us to consider whether the resulting recession is caused by a lack of opportunity, or if it is simply a means for the capitalist class to seize more power and control.

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey talks about the ever rising mass - the rising quantity of money, debt, GDP, military expenditures, greenhouse gas emissions, plastic waste, etc. - and asks what are the qualitative transformations and the costs of the ever expanding mass. He cautions that the degree of expansion needed to revive capital to its pre-pandemic levels is not sustainable given the finite resources of our planet and a capitalist economy with its endless drive for profit and accumulation, and argues that an alternative system is desperately needed.