Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Interview with John O'Donnell on PowerTradingRadio.com

Yesterday, April 29, I had the pleasure of being interviewed for half an hour by John O'Donnell on www.PowerTradingRadio.com. The interview was wide ranging, covering economic inequality, the 99% and the 1%, and the fact that the wealth of the 1% is the source both of the supply of the products that the 99% buys and the demand for the labor that the 99% sells, and thus operates in the self-interest of everyone.

We also discussed the fact that under capitalism the thinking and planning of all the millions of individuals and business firms, harmonized and integrated through the price system, constitutes the planning of the economic system. In contrast, socialism cannot plan, because it attempts to substitute the thinking and planning of the handful of members of the Central Planning Board for the necessary thinking and planning of everyone under the price system.

And we discussed the fact that contrary to Adam Smith and Karl Marx, profits, not wages, are the original and primary form of labor income, a subject which I gave an introduction to in my post of February 21 of this year, and fully explain in my book Capitalism in Part C of Chapter 11 (pp. 473-500).