Click here if you wish to access the transcript of this interview with Michael Hudson from Real News.
Hudson sees that the economy is headed once again to a meltdown. However, as a liberal economist he avoids mentioning that the capitalist system contains within itself contradictions which inevitably lead to periodic crises. Although he often criticizes what capitalists do with the wealth that they extract from an economy which they "own", he must avoid talking about such contradictions in order to keep his well-paying job as professor at the University of Missouri.
Notice in this interview how he criticizes capitalists for not investing in more productive plants, instead using their appropriated wealth to increase ownership. He accepts the fact that capitalism requires growth to exist, but overlooks the inevitable result of such an economy: what is produced is decided by a small group of "owners" as well as who gets the resulting wealth that is created. Thus, the system creates a mal-distribution of wealth reflected in the extremes of wealth and poverty we see in today's world. Because wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of owners, ordinary people cannot afford to buy most products. So, why invest in plants to produce things that people can't afford? Capitalists may be immoral, but they are not stupid!
He also overlooks the fact that this planet does not need more growth--actually it needs less growth. What it really needs is a system in which the benefits are distributed in a socially just way. That requires a classless system whereby all people participate in such decisions about distribution of wealth and what things are needed to be produced to sustain their lives as well as the environment.
One of the most dramatic illustrations of a contradiction in capitalism is what is being produced to transport people--autos. Capitalists, particularly in the lead capitalist country of the US, have a long history of favoring autos to transport people in spite of their inefficiency and growing ineffectiveness. Now we are witnessing ever growing congestion in our major cities and longer commutes. However, it makes sense from a capitalist perspective that autos are produced, and sold with subsidized credit, because they make available a vast range of secondary profitable opportunities. Besides that, locked in their auto cocoons keeps people from interacting with each other, comparing notes about their lives which might enable them to consider ideas that would interfere with the profit requirements of capitalists.
