during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember there was and most of my family were unemployed working class there wasn't it was bed you know much worse objectively than today but there was an expectation that things were going to get better. there was a real sense of hopefulness there isn't today. inequality is really unprecedented i'm sure that total inequality it's like the worst periods

of american history. but if you're a find it more closely the inequality comes from the extreme wealth in a tiny sector the population fraction of one percent. there were periods like the gilded age in the twenty's the early ninety's and so on when a situation developed by the similar to this. now this period 6 trillion because if you look at their wealth distribution the inequality mostly comes from super wealth . literally the cup 110th of a percent are just super wealthy. not only is it extremely unjust in itself. inequality has highly negative consequences on the so is. because the very

fact of inequality has a corrosive harmful effect markers if. you open by talk about the american dream or the american dream is chrisman deluded it will encourage you or kurt. ridge it was possible for a worker to get a decent job. in a corps of children who are school. collapse. imagine yourself in an outside position looking for mars. what do you see.

in the united states when there are professed to like democracy. in a democracy public opinion is going to have some influence on policy. and then the government carries out actions determined by the population and that's what democracy means. it's important to understand that privileged and powerful sectors have never liked democracy and for very good reasons. democracy puts power into the hands of the general population

and takes it away from them. as kind of the principle of concentration of wealth and power. concentration of wealth yields concentration of power particularly so as the cost of elections skyrockets which kind of forces the political parties into the pockets of major corporations. and this political power. clee translates into legislation that increases the concentration of wealth so fiscal policy like tax policy a deregulation. rules of corporate governance

a whole variety of measures political measures designed to increase the concentration of wealth and power which in turn to yield more political power to do the same thing. and that's what we've been seeing. so we have this kind of vicious cycle in progress. you know actually it is so traditional that it was described by adam smith in 776 he read the famous wealth of nations. he says in england the principle architects of policy are the people on the society in his day merchants and manufacturers. and they make sure that their own interests are very well cared for however greed is the impact on the people of england there are others. now it's not

a merger of manufacturers it's financial institutions and multinational corporations the people who adam smith told the masters of mankind and they're following the vile maxim over our selves and nothing for anyone else. they're just going to pursue policies that benefit them and harm everyone else. and in the absence of a general popular reaction that's pretty much what you'd expect. right through american history there's been an ongoing clash between. pressure for more freedom and democracy coming from below and the efforts that elite control and domination coming from above.

because back to the founding of the country. james madison the main framer who was as much of a believer in democracy is anybody in the world that they nevertheless felt that the united states system should be designed and indeed was his initiative was designed so that power should be in the hands of the wealthy. because the wealthier there are more responsible set of men and therefore the structure of the formal constitutional system placed most power in the hands of the senate or the senate was not elected in those days it was selected from the wealthy men as madison put it had sympathy for property owners in their right. to read the debates at the constitutional convention. madison says the major concern of the society has to be to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.

and hear argument suppose everyone had to vote freely as they will the majority of the poor get together and they would organize to take away the property of the rich and he said that would obviously be unjust so he can't have that so therefore the constitutional system has to be set up to prevent democracy. which is of some interest that this debate has a horror tradition goes back to the 1st major book on political systems aristotle's politics. he says of all of them the best is democracy and it only points out exactly the flaws that medicine put into.

if absent were a democracy for free men the poor would get together and take away the property the rich. well the same dilemma they had opposite solutions aristotle proposed what we would nowadays call a welfare state and try to reduce inequality. so the same problem absent solutions one is reduce inequality will have this problem and the other is reduced democracy. if you look at the history of the united states it's a constant struggle between these 2 tendencies democratizing tendencies that's mostly coming from the population pressure from below and you get these constant battle going on periods or gratian periods of progress in 1906 for example were a period of significant democratization.

sectors of the fucking lation that were usually passive avocet it became organized active story pressing their demand. and they became more and more involved in decision making and activism and so on. they just changed consciousness in ways. minority rights. we don't want. women's rights. or.

concern for the. american as. they say. safety nets survival opposition to aggression free to those who criticize us. dissent they are serious about law. provided for the vietnamese people for our own black people and people concerned for other people 1. 1000000 poor people in america when you begin. to raise a. system of distribution of wealth. these are all symbolizing say. that caused great fear. when.

i hadn't. anticipated the power of a should have but i didn't then to speak the power of the reaction to the civilizing effects of the sixty's did not anticipate the strength of the reaction to it was the backlash. i don't want to talk to a communist news agency forgive me i have to find someone to.

well with the trying to stay with this one stick. of the going to be just like the jews this is exactly where my father. so i. don't see him through that where. we have to be the bad guys 2. i think i acknowledge the.

fight fall through the it's an indication of how important one song. so without a soul to do because we're the left must move towards we are definitely winning it because we have the people they have people in power but we aren't them us. public well. when the ruling classes protect themselves. when the final clear your own lives only the one percent so. we can all middle of the room sick moves. from the real news

room. after conference for that's part of it it's a poor wealthy country a sum of all that you've got will make stock markets that are owned by let's call time percent of the population most of us. and there are what else is more and it's a condition that the poor americans don't want to cop to it's hard for but the fact is now you've got 150000000 more people america. this is a story about what happens auster a stray bullet kills a young girl in the streets. what happens to her family and daughters in florida know the mother daughter is very serious and terry it really messes with your head

what happens to the community the public was screaming for a scapegoat the police needed a scapegoat so why not choose a 19 year old black kid with a criminal record who better to pin this on than him and what happens in court be the. shock shock as far society we feel. we don't know childress is truthful. and of this trial unfortunately you too will still love no chill just. there has been an enormous concentrated coordinated business offensive beginning in the seventy's to try to beat back the egalitarian efforts that went right through

the nixon years and you see it in many respects and over on the right you see it in things like the famous pell memorandum. sent to the chamber of commerce major business lobby later supreme court justice powell warning them that business is losing control over the society. and something has to be done to counter these forces course it puts it in terms of the defense defending ourselves against outside powers. if you look at it it's a call for business to use its control over resources to carry out a major offensive to beat back this democratizing wave.

over on the liberal side something exactly similar the 1st. major report of the a trilateral commission is concerned with this. called the crisis of democracy. trilateral commission is liberal internationalists in their flavors indicated by the fact that they pretty much staff the corridor ministration. and they were also told that democratizing tendencies of the sixty's and so we have to react to it. they were concerned that there was an excess of democracy developing. previously passive and obedient parts of the population or sometimes called the special ed. trysts were beginning to organize and try to enter the political arena and they said that imposes too much pressure on the state can't deal with all these pressures so

therefore they have to return to a city becomes the politicized. and they were particularly concerned with what was happening to young people and young people get into free and independent. in the way they put it there's a failure on the part of the schools the universities churches the institutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young there for it is not mine. if you look at their study there's one interest they never mention private business and that makes sense they're not special interest they're the national interest kind of by definition so they're ok they're allowed to you know flub is by campaign staff the executive make decisions that's fine but it's the rest the special interests the general population who have to be subdued.

when that's the specter it's the kind of ideological level of the backlash but the major backlash which was in peril of this was just redesigning the economy. since the 1970 is there's been a concerted effort on the part of the masters of mankind the owners of the society to shift the economy in 2 crucial respects one to increase the role of financial institutions banks investment firms and so on insurance companies. but a 2007 break before the latest crash they had literally 40 percent of corporate

profits. far beyond anything in the past. back in the 1950 s. and as for many years before the united states economy was based largely on production. in the united states as the great manufacturing center of the world. financial institutions used to be a relatively small part of the economy and their task was to distribute unused assets like a bank savings to productive activity buying our way to. money. on the back of the reserve bank. to be highly providing any.

money. to the community by making. money for a manufacturer or on going. to a remodel are going to money on a why people are always needing more and i haven't. mediately available. that's a contribution to the economy. regulatory system was established banks were regulated the commercial investment banks were separated cut back or risk investment practices that could harm private people. there had been remember no financial crashes during the period of regulation by the 1970 s. that changed. the story getting that huge increase in the flows of speculative capital just

astronomically increased and enormous changes in the financial sector from traditional banks to risky investments. complex financial instruments money manipulations and so on increasingly the business of the country isn't production at least not here. the primary business here is business. you can even see it in the choice of directors so the director of a major american corporation back in the fifty's and sixty's was very likely to be an engineer and as somebody who graduated from a place like mit maybe industrial management more recently the directorship in the top managerial positions or people who came out of business schools learned financial trickery of various kinds and so on. by the 1970 s. say general electric can make more profit playing games with money than you could buy produce and in the united states. you have to remember that

general electric is substantially a financial institution today it makes half its profits just by moving money around in complicated ways and it's very unclear that they're doing anything that's of value to the economy. so that's one phenomena let's go financial ization of the economy. going along with that is the oh sure introduction. the trade system was reconstructed with a very explicit design of putting working people in competition with one another all over the world. and what it's led to is

a reduction in the share of income on the part of working people. it's been particularly striking in the united states but happening worldwide it means that an american workers in competition with a super exploited worker in china. meanwhile highly paid professionals are protected they're not placed in competition with the rest of the world far from it and of course a capitalist free to move a workers are free to move labor can't move but capital can well again going back to the classics like adam smith as he pointed out the free circulation of labor is the foundation of any free trade system but workers are pretty much stuck the wealthy in the privileged are protected so you get obvious consequences and they're recognized in fact praised. policy is designed to

increase in security. alan greenspan and when he testified to congress he explained his success in running the economy as based on what he called greater worker insecurity. a typical respond. time compensation increases has been evident for a few years but as i outlined to some detailed in testimony last month i believe that job insecurity has played the dominant role cheap workers and secured are going to be under control. they're not going to ask for say decent wages were a decent working conditions or the opportunity to free association meaning unionized. now for the masters of mankind that's fine they may show their profits but for the population it's devastating. for these 2 processes financial ization i'm sure are part of what led to the vicious cycle of concentration

of wealth concentration of power. are joining me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics small business i'm show business i'll see that. and you try and be professional you try and leave it outside the door you try and put it in a comma compartment and eyes it's in the brain and so you can forget about it but little by little these. these different responses come and for me it was actually putting some ice into my wife's glass of gin and tonic and the science and the sound of the ice going to the glass reminded me of how we had all these cool in bali which was with bags of supermarkets ice.

dish you will not obey the voice of the lord your god will be careful to do only school on months and the statutes which i come on here this day in all these cases shall come upon you and evan taking my legs and then. people are stolen property and must be returned to the people you. only. need within the. presence of the. people being tortured to death. in the. in the. white horse will find themselves affected by.

means and dreams it's all swept. through the ceiling they need to be asking for a. full fledged civil war in south africa never to. be in the total viewer and to prevent. it.

from comes under fire from us democrats for links to billionaire jeffrey epstein. child sexual abuse. and islamic terrorist involved in the 2015 paris terror attacks gets 500 euros compensation for legal terms of the prison cells partly under permanent surveillance will tell you more and. it's in the sense he says $24.00 people involved in a campaign of coordinated terror assassinations carried out by the us backed by the troops in south america in the seventy's and eighty's tens of thousands of political opponents are rounded up and killed across 6 countries that.