most people don't have the time to really study plato and hobbs and moore and karl marx or, on the otherlocke on

most people don't have the time to really study plato and hobbs and moore and karl marx or, on the othere on the americannism, montescue. you do it. i think it's

even as karl marx, no fan of capitalism he, even as karl marx noted, industrialization and capitalism point in human productivity. that was the main change was human productivity. and that's why that chart looks the way it does. i mean the chart is not wrong. the average wealth of the average person began to take off first in britain as a result of this invention, and then as other countries grew industrialized, there too, as in china today. but i think this is a separate question from the question of how equal or unequal incomes are within a given country. >> i don't think it's a separate question, harold. i think you give a lot of credence to the industrial revolution as it should be but you dismiss the effects of capitalism going on simultaneously. and i think that the problem here is when we talk about inequality, we start to erode the concept that allowed that chart to go through explosive growth 200 years ago. when you constantly evaluate relative wealth, you threaten absolute wealth. the fact is, we have all gotten vastly more wealthy over the last 200 years with a total ignora

think this sense all around the world and in the nineteenth century and in the eighteenth sixty's karl marx identified the problem i think fairly well actually. his solution . you could argue didn't work out but. that there was a lot of social upheaval that came around that and then you could argue also that in the one nine hundred thirty s. my late twenty's or early one nine hundred thirty s. here in the united states and around much of the rest of the world the great depression there was a rather crisis of the system and yet it seems like the system always adores it always reinvents us and always you know this kind of neo feudalism always comes back how do we break that cycle and what's what's at the core of that system and what's the alternative to where there are two questions there are really three the wonderful questions at what drove me to write america beyond capitalism i think that something at this point in history and i don't say this lightly i think this is the most interesting and maybe most important period of our history and for the following reasons obviously oversimplified

their fanny packs who -- they think trotski, some communistic -- >> a guy who was a communist, reads karl marxknows how to play to this crowd quite well. but i tell you -- >> i envy you guys. it's fun out there. jonathan martin and nia-malika henderson. let me finish with the joy i'm getting watching this fight from here between newt and mitt. you're watching "hardball." c'mon, michael! get in the game! [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t. so talk to your doctor about low t. hey, michael! [ male announcer ] and step out of the shadows. hi! how are you? [ male announcer ] learn more at isitlowt.com. [ laughs ] hey! with listerine® whitening plus restoring rinse. it's the only listerine® that gets teeth two shades whiter and makes tooth enamel two times stronger. get dual-action listerine® whitening rinse. building whiter, stronger teeth. [

the world capitalism was created by karl marx to dedemonize people who make a profit. and suddenly they're trying to defend something at that-- look, if mitt romney is the nominee, i don't know who the nominee is going to be, i haven't supported any of the candidates and stayed neutral and keep putting them on the air and giving them as much air time as we can. this is the very narrative that barack obama and the democrats have already started. >> i think that's-- if you figure this is the big issue, the economy, the debt, the-- which is an extension crisis, america is broker than everyone has ever been ever and yet, we're now having in the republican party, in the right wing party, in the conservative party we're having an argument that's essentially being played out on occupy wall street. >> let me ask you this, isn't the bigger problem, you talk about, you know, crony capitalism, but it's really the alliance that mark was talking about and that is that the government plays a big part in this because the government has made regulations for their friends, solyndra is

that sounds like a karl marx criticism of democracy. you are just the rich guys spending money on these campaigns to pretend it's the average person voting. >> no, it's not. the system is definitely flawed and crumbling to an extent. and the conversation is limited between the republican candidates. it's not great. >> joe? 16 million bucks to destroy another guy's reputation. >> if you used the 16 million bucks to say this is how i'm going to save medicare. this is how i'm going to balance the budget. this is how i'm going to get the troops home. >> that's not how you win. >> that helps. the problem here is you get mitt romney that is running a campaign without meaning. negative attack ads using democratic ethics and attacks against gingrich and then he goes on the campaign trail and his punch line is reciting the words to "america the beautiful." >> what if your staff put out word that your candidate was a puppet and you had to pull the strings. >> i'd fire him in a second. i'd call -- >> fire him? you are a republican. >> i'd say, you

with those little known and so the other people, some of the other characters in your book like karl marxnd friedrich engels, you tell their story and try to explain how their lives difficult ideas, too haven't you? >> i have a lot of fun with marks and ingalls because again, look, all these people that i write about, there are dozens of biographies and i am not pretending to, you know, come up with great original facts or insights, but again, i never realized that karl marx never went dark in the door of a factory to respect the was the one shocking the tell to me he stayed in his room writing and was cut off while essentially ingalls to all of the hard work. >> that's right. if he was also the world's biggest slacker because the one job he held in england which is constantly being described he was a columnist supposedly for the new york apparel and it turned out they go through it every single one. the other thing that really blew me away is that the income which can largely from inheritance, and of course from his guardian angel put him in the top 5% of british council. so this was --

because i was, like, i got to take carl karl marx, you know? and i read him, and i was lake, this stuff makes some sense. and one of the things i remembered reading was his point about religion being the heart of a heartless world. and at that point i had earlier been raised up in the church, and folks were like, oh, this is going to be the new head of the church, this is going to be like the pastor because at the age of 10, i would do all the school, all the church plays and, you know, the nativity things, and i'd know all the roles if people would forget their lines, and i would whisper to them. so they're, like, he's going to go far with this. but then i was up against questions that i could not deal with in the context of religion. and then i read marx's thing, you know, and i dropped out of the church, but i didn't go to atheism. i was just, like, i don't know about it. but then i read this thing about the heart of a heartless world and that what needs to be done is we need to put heart in the world by getting rid of capitalism and all tha

but i must tell you if anybody takes karl marx i will fill them. [laughter] okay, now this teacher, she doesn't know me very well because i got to take karl marx. you know, i read him and i was like, vista nixon's sense. one of the things i remembered reading with his point about religion being the heart of a heartless world. and at that point, i had earlier been raised up in the church and folks are like, this is going to be the new head of the church. this is going to be like to pass because at the age of 10 out of two other school, all the church plays in the nativity things than i would know all the rules and people would forget their lines. he's going to go fire at this. but then i was at the guns questions that it could not do within the context of religion. and then i read marx thing and and got out of church, but i didn't go to the dsm. i was just like i don't know about it. but then i read this thing about the heart of the heartless world end up it needs to be done is we need to the heart in the world to getting rid of capitalism and all t

that is a leftist idea that karl marx would have loved to of written about and seen past and our countrytry and it takes away from the idea that we can produce an be self-governing. if you want to be governed completely, then there are countries that believe in that and it is easier to go there. this country believes in self- reliance and responsibility. and president obama is feeding that idea that we're going iraqi from cradle to grave. -- that we are going to rock you from cradle to grave. and you pour baby cannot take care of yourself. it goes against everything that i believe and in every fiber of my being. host: how many electoral votes to is the state have? guest: 9 votes. there are seven congressional districts -- are you talking about votes for the presidency itself? yes, we are a winner-take-all state. but we have been penalized and lost half of our delegates because to keep our first in a nation spot, we had to move it. the florida decision forced us to move into january to keep the first roll and we were penalized. we will lose half of march 50 delegates. -- we will lose half

in that sense karl marx was right. unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force. human beings become commodities, the natural world becomes a commodity that you exploit until exhaustion or collapse and that's why the environmental crisis is in a minimally entwined within the economic rise because we don't find a way to break the power of those corporations, they will trash and continue to trash the ecosystem to the point at which life or huge segments of the human species will be unsustainable. >> host: chris hedges, david e-mailed in to you from new york city. you see today's economic and political climate as somewhat resembling that which existed in germany during the 1930s? >> guest: noam chomsky, and an great admirer of chomsky, has made that comparison. i think in some ways yes, it's always difficult to make those historical analogies because one has to be very cognizant of the major differences, including the massive war reparations, the defeat of world war i, the fact that germany had no real tradition of illiberal democracy under its monarchy, but i think

the world capitalism was created by karl marx to dedemonize people who make a profit.ething at that-- look, if mitt romney is the nominee, i don't know who the nominee is going to be, i haven't supported any of the candidates and stayed neutral and keep putting them on the air and giving them as much air time as we can. this is the very narrative that barack obama and the democrats have already started. >> i think that's-- if you figure this is the big issue, the economy, the debt, the-- which is an extension crisis, america is broker than everyone has ever been ever and yet, we're now having in the republican party, in the right wing party, in the conservative party we're having an argument that's essentially being played out on occupy wall street. >> let me ask you this, isn't the bigger problem, you talk about, you know, crony capitalism, but it's really the alliance that mark was talking about and that is that the government plays a big part in this because the government has made regulations for their friends, solyndra is another big example. isn't that crony capi

that is a leftist idea that karl marx would have loved to of written about and seen past and our country. it undermines the fabric of our country and it takes away from the idea that we can produce an be self-governing. if you want to be governed completely, then there are countries that believe in that and it is easier to go there. this country believes in self- reliance and responsibility. and president obama is feeding that idea that we're going iraqi from cradle to grave. and you pour baby cannot take care of yourself. it goes against everything that i believe and in every fiber of my being. host: how many electoral votes to is the state have? guest: 9 votes. there are seven congressional districts -- are you talking about votes for the presidency itself? yes, we are a winner-take-all state. but we have been penalized and lost half of our delegates because to keep our first in a nation spot, we had to move it. the florida decision forced us to move into january to keep the first roll and we were penalized. we will lose half of march 50 delegates. we will have 25. 11 of them will be g