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 in american history. but if you're a find it more closely inequality comes from the extreme wealth in a tiny sector of 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 train because if you look at their wealth distribution the inequality mostly comes from super wealth . literally the top 110th of a percent are just super wealthy. not only is it extremely unjust in itself. inequality has highly negative consequences on the so it is awful. because the very

fact of inequality has a corrosive harmful effect markers that. you opened by talking about the american dream or the american dream is closed and deluded it will infer that you were card. the average it was possible for a worker to get a decent job. at a core 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 poesy. 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. to not proceed 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. translates into legislation that increases the concentration of wealth so fiscal policy like tax policy 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 1776 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 called the masters of mankind and they're following the vile maxim all for 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. it'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 the 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 the major concern of

the society has to be to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. and here 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 you 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 horrid 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 at any point said exactly the flaws that medicine put into.

if athens 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 to 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 democratising tendency that's mostly coming from the population pressure from below and you get this 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 and always. ready minority rights. we don't why are our. women's rates. if we force it's

a. concern for the. american as. they say boring atlantic city survive opposition to creation through to those who criticize us on the militancy bondeson they are serious about lawn on the provider of the vietnamese people grow our own black people and what people can turn for other people one day we must ask the question. for the 1000000 poor people in america when you begin. to reason across the mouth the system of distribution of wealth the question of research. american society these are all symbolizing say. that caused great fear.

when. i had. anticipated the. earth should have but it didn't then to spit the power of the reaction to the civilizing effects of the 60s did not anticipate the strength of the reaction to it. the backlash. live.

lead. play. play. play. play play. play. oh.

so. clever. and very well welcome to you watching us inside. sashing stressed to a lot of us like this or that the but as far as i'm at the ball of the trap that must have. stopped russia was so you're saying that it is that they stood to seize anything i which quite awesome. damage that i thought at which the death and i'm not watching. them investments to check our moment of their

fortunes shan't. want to talk to you so if you're my it's your bonus for syria. it's a mystery although it's a border i'm still with interactive spirit over for this interview but you both that is that it's a stupid chile of course an apostle of the wrong could or should step up and spit it. expressed. there has been an enormous concentrated coordinated business offensive beginning in the seventy's to try to beat back the golan tarion efforts that went right through the nixon years 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 but later supreme court justice powell warning that business is losing control over the society. and something has to be done to counter these forces course we put it in terms of the defense defending ourselves against an outside power. 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 ways. over on the liberal side something exactly similar the 1st. major report of the trial lateral 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 carter administration. and they were also called the democratizing tendencies of the sixty's and so we have to react to that. they were concerned that there was an excess of to not receive developing. previously passive and obedient parts of the population or sometimes called the special interests who 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 and become the politicized. and they were particularly concerned with what was happening to young people the 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 led to you know that flub is. it's a good buy campaign staff the executive make decisions that's fine but it's the rest of the special interests the general population who have to be a subdued. one that's the specter it's the kind of ideological level of the backlash but the major

backlash which was unparalleled 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. 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 ekta. getting a bank car when you had on hand to reserve money on holders and to monitor on the matters of the reserve bank can create granite wall behind providing an. auditing money on banks serve the community by making additional credit available for many purposes for a manufacturer to meet and going. to unlock and remodel her car and her money on

a good reason why people are always needing more cramming and they have immediately available. that's a contribution to the economy. regulatory system was established banks were regulated the commercial investment banks were separated to back very risky 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 sort of getting the shoe to increase and the flows of speculative capital just astronomically increased an 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 in the sixty's was very likely to be an engineer because 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. by the 1970 s. say general electric can make more profit playing games with money than you could by producing in the united states. we 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 sort 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 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 chattel 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. unstuck 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 restraint on compensation increases has been evident for a few years but as i outlined in some detail in testimony last month i believe that job insecurity has played the dominant role 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.

where in fact. in out some people referenced the very end on that one let them eat cake and then you know historians have gone back and they said you know it's actually like a free all free os you know that so i brought in actual my god what a mess we brought in axe. brioche this is a brioche just by the slice there at the touch of siri and so this is what she suggested that the peasants should be eating because they run out of the say this is a brioche is a slightly nicer version of that there's a few in the cupboard let's throw that to the peasants and maybe that'll shut them up. i'm.

ready ready ready ready sure to stop at the continuing to grow. i just never know very good about the idea of bringing. it into the world because i didn't feel like things were in very good shape. life was just going to be a lot of software programs. there's no reason to. take things that are to me the. movie is a myth something else that. everybody's scared to talk about is survival is really dependent on us addressing this issue and if we can even talk about it if we can even have a conversation of that it then. we're in trouble. ready

and i think pain your existence crosstalk started 10 years i think it's time to shake things up maybe change the branding maybe the format here's what i've been thinking about next season related episodes filmed on an island 10 experts fight it out for a trophy what do you think ok a more affordable option $25.00 text for. one red rose another suggestion geopolitical jeopardy parity no. cookout where we will literally. be elite. late night show it's a rare form of these days and it's cheap all you need is an old microphone in a printed banner but actually me with one of my i guess i can do this and laughter politics gone wild like music. ok crosstalk is not about

hype it's about meaning 10 years of talk and still going strong. peter if you want to change something why don't we get rid of the gotye you know that is too much. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking together for the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then.

united states good times baby smuggling tons of weapons and ammunition the 2 militants in syria according to leaked documents obtained by a builder and journalist. by the key leaders from on the 2nd day eastern economic forum in advance dealt with the iranian deal. on the agenda. and. also in an all too exclusive we speak to the nation's foreign minister on the sidelines of the forum as he continues to criticize the international investigation into the downing of flight time in 17 and outlined his country's early concerns over the probe. so. will renie.