The China Now special program informs about this country's news.
Telesur English presents a new episode of "China Now", a wave media's production that showcases the culture, technology, and politics of the Asian Giant.
China Now is a show that explores the past and future of the Asian Giant.
Join teleSUR's community and be part of a space where your ideas matter.
https://chat.whatsapp.com/KLABTE41aSj3ioYabXQQ6K
Don't be left behind, join teleSUR's Channel
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va98Z437Noa2tjytCt1N
Web https://www.telesurenglish.net/
X https://twitter.com/telesurenglish
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/telesurenglish/?hl=es
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/teleSUREnglishOfficial
Youtube ⏯ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmuTmpLY35O3csvhyA6vrkg
Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@telesurenglish?_t=8hMLCY0a6z7&_r=1
Telesur English presents a new episode of "China Now", a wave media's production that showcases the culture, technology, and politics of the Asian Giant.
China Now is a show that explores the past and future of the Asian Giant.
Join teleSUR's community and be part of a space where your ideas matter.
https://chat.whatsapp.com/KLABTE41aSj3ioYabXQQ6K
Don't be left behind, join teleSUR's Channel
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va98Z437Noa2tjytCt1N
Web https://www.telesurenglish.net/
X https://twitter.com/telesurenglish
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/telesurenglish/?hl=es
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/teleSUREnglishOfficial
Youtube ⏯ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmuTmpLY35O3csvhyA6vrkg
Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@telesurenglish?_t=8hMLCY0a6z7&_r=1
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome back to China Now.
00:12This week, Thinker's Forum welcomes Richard DeWolf, Marxian economist and founder of Democracy
00:17at Work, and the highlights of Thinker's Forum 2024.
00:21Let's see.
00:22It is an ideological game for the people who get the profits to convince the people who
00:29do the work that the most important thing is the profit.
00:34That's a swindle.
00:36That's childish.
00:37That should be understood for the ideological self-serving of the people at the top.
00:44I think the genius of Marx was to say the same logic can and should apply to the organization
00:56of the workplace.
00:58It doesn't need a king.
01:01It doesn't need a CEO.
01:05It doesn't need an emperor at the top.
01:09It doesn't need him to be there.
01:12It doesn't need him to become a billionaire.
01:15I've been a professor of economics at the university all my life.
01:28What China has achieved in the last 30 to 40 years, the transformation from one of the
01:36poorest countries on this planet to an economic powerhouse, is extraordinary.
01:46The argument that there is something unfair about competition between the state and private
01:53enterprise is a very strange criticism because in Britain and the United States, and indeed
02:01wherever you have private enterprise, you have terribly unfair competition between large
02:10corporations and small ones.
02:14The history of every capitalist country, including the United States, past and present, is a
02:23bitter, and I underscore that for you, a bitter struggle and conflict between large corporate
02:31enterprise and small ones.
02:34The small ones are always explaining how they are unfairly treated by big business.
02:44It is a theme.
02:46It has been a core part of the politics of every capitalist country.
02:52In fact, if you study the actual history of capitalist countries in Western Europe and
03:00North America, you will know that the small businesses have often mobilized to control
03:09the government in order to have the government reduce the unfair treatment they get from
03:17big businesses.
03:19For example, in France, the working class, the labor unions have organized with small
03:27business.
03:28The left wing in French politics, which did very well last Sunday, got 28% of the vote.
03:37That's an alliance between workers and medium and small businesses.
03:44They oppose the right wing of Macron because he is a leader of big business.
03:52And now I put on my hat as a Marxist.
03:57I would argue that one of the great lessons of Karl Marx, I would argue that what the
04:08future of Marxism and socialism are about is a transformation, a change in the organization
04:18of the workplace, the factory, the office, the store, whether it is owned and operated
04:27by private individuals or it's owned and operated by the government.
04:34In both cases, the Marxist argument is we do not need and we do not want a small group
04:46of people at the top of this workplace making all the decisions, being in a position to
04:54hire or fire all of us who are employees, telling us what to do, how to do it, when
05:04to do it, deciding how well we do it.
05:08That is not democratic and that is not necessary.
05:14And that human communities used to think they needed to have a king or an emperor or a czar
05:24who made all the political decisions.
05:27I think the genius of Marx was to say the same logic can and should apply to the organization
05:38of the workplace.
05:40It doesn't need a king.
05:43It doesn't need a CEO.
05:47It doesn't need an emperor at the top.
05:51It doesn't need him to be there.
05:54It doesn't need him to become a billionaire.
05:58If you look at the dispersion of billionaires in the world, the two countries with the most
06:04billionaires are the United States and China.
06:07If we make the power in the people, in the workplace, at the bottom of society, that
06:16the factory be run democratically, one person, one vote, the same for the office, the same
06:25for the store, that we give people the power over their own work and labor, that's the
06:34breakthrough.
06:36It's a democratization of work.
06:39That's why we call our organization, you know, Democracy at Work.
06:44And we think it's the best way for the United States to cope with the relocation of capitalism
06:55away.
06:56The idea that profit is the key is a misunderstanding.
07:01And let me assure you, as an economist, again, corporations in the West that have maximized
07:10profit have not done as well in the long run as corporations who didn't.
07:18I can see it over and over again.
07:22In the United States, one of the great heroes, Elon Musk, the head of Tesla.
07:29So he is a cultural hero, Mr. Musk.
07:34Okay, now what kind of a person is he?
07:37He has more children than he can remember.
07:40With as many different women as he has had relationships with.
07:46He was devoted to making a killing with his car.
07:50But Tesla is now in trouble because, for example, BYD in China produces a better electric car
07:59than Tesla can do.
08:01And that is changing the whole business.
08:04Really, the key issue is how are you shaping your whole economy?
08:11Look, every capitalist corporation eventually disappears.
08:17They all maximize their profit.
08:21General Motors and Ford maximize their profit, but they're disappearing as automobile companies.
08:28That was not their success.
08:30It didn't do that.
08:32So it's a little bit of an ideological trap.
08:36When you maximize your profit, you typically economize on other expenditures.
08:44And you do not know whether that is the right thing to do or not.
08:49I'll give you an example.
08:52Imagine a corporation that lowered its profits in order to provide really first class
09:01child care to its workers.
09:04So that every worker could bring his or her children to work because they would be well-fed,
09:13well-clothed, have lots of learning activities, and be happy together with other children.
09:20OK?
09:20They would hurt their profit, but they would do something spectacular for their workers.
09:27OK, now two years later or five years later, a crisis happens in the world market.
09:34Somebody else produces a better whatever it is this company did.
09:40And now the company turns to its workers and says,
09:44we need your help to survive this crisis.
09:48You know what?
09:49They're going to get much more help from people whose children have been taken well care of.
09:57They will realize later that it was a mistake to have maximized profit at the expense
10:06of your larger situation.
10:09For every company that you show me that has done well because it maximized profit,
10:17I will show you one that fell apart because it maximized profit.
10:23It is pro-capitalist ideology to think that maximizing profit
10:30is some sort of guaranteed arrival at the best situation.
10:35That was never true.
10:37And let me get it for you in a slightly different way.
10:41If you think about a capitalist corporate, any corporation,
10:46the revenue this company gets, it divides into different parts.
10:51Part of the revenue replaces the tools and equipment used up in production.
10:57Another part of the revenue pays the wages of the workers.
11:03And another part of the revenue goes to the investors and to the top executives as profits.
11:11All of those people participate in making that corporation successful.
11:17You therefore should maximize what you pay your suppliers,
11:22you should maximize what you pay your workers, the wages,
11:25and you should maximize profits.
11:27Why only one?
11:29All of them are needed.
11:31It is an ideological game for the people who get the profits to convince the people who do the work
11:39that the most important thing is the profit.
11:42That's a swindle.
11:44That's a swindle.
11:45That's childish.
11:47That should be understood for the ideological self-serving of the people at the top.
11:54That's why we are required in universities to teach business school graduates
12:01the importance of maximizing profit.
12:05It's no different than telling you the important thing that makes your business successful
12:11is if you go to the church and you talk to Jesus about your business.
12:17People used to do that and they used to think that speaking with Jesus was the route to success.
12:26Well, maximizing profit is just another variation on talking to Jesus.
12:31It's not the guarantee of anything.
12:34What it does do is make everything else less important than the people at the top.
12:41And that's what they want you to think.
12:44But don't be fooled.
12:52We're starting our thinkers forum to inform civilization, state, and multiple perspectives.
12:59Civilization, state, and the liberal world order, are they bound to collide with each other?
13:06Are you fighting exactly the same in your war or in your name?
13:11Saddam Hussein is going through his own transition.
13:14He's going through the typical challenges that India always goes through.
13:19They're looking to Russia for peace, for prosperity, for new world order.
13:29Good morning, dear colleagues, guests, friends.
13:36We're starting our thinkers forum 24.
13:39Civilization, state, and multiple perspectives.
13:42So we all know there are serious changes occurring in the world system,
13:47and there are a lot of different concepts shared by all of us
13:50who are representing the most important countries of BRICS.
13:54So the main question that stands among us is the definition of a civilization, state,
14:02and the proper understanding of this concept.
14:04Does it really exist?
14:06What are its criteria and special features?
14:08How does this concept fit into the diverse context of the emerging multiple world, etc?
14:16So a lot of our colleagues are involved in deep debates about this new concept,
14:24which fits actually in the general understanding of the world system and its evolution.
14:32It's indeed a great pleasure that we host for the first time the thinkers forum
14:40together with our Brazilian partners, the Oriental Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences,
14:47on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Sino-Russian diplomatic relations,
14:54and this particular Sino-Russian year of culture,
14:58and also this particular year of BRICS Summit to be held in Russia.
15:04So this is indeed fascinating in many ways.
15:08As we are aware, this discourse on civilizational state has now become a mainstream discussion
15:18worldwide.
15:20I remember the British writer, Eris Lucidius, said,
15:24the specter, he coined the phrase, together like the Communist Manifesto,
15:28the specter of the, the specter is haunting the liberal West,
15:33the rise of the civilizational state.
15:36And not long ago, the American academic, American Journal of National Interests
15:42also published a further article, it's called the Allure for the Civilizational State,
15:50Attracting the Civilizational State.
15:53And the specter is the civilizational state and the liberal world order,
16:00are they bound to collide with each other?
16:02I think with the world increasingly multipolar,
16:06we are witnessing the rise of civilizational states and civilizational discourse around the world,
16:12especially across the Eurasian continent, from China to Russia, to India, to Iran, to Turkey,
16:18and even to ASEAN countries, which represents 75% of the global population,
16:25and 60% of the world GDP.
16:28I think it's only natural that leading scholars from China, Russia, and the BRICS,
16:34and more, gather to discuss this hugely important topic.
16:39The very theme, civilizational state in multiple and multipolar perspectives,
16:44it involves three concepts.
16:46One is civilizational state, as just now, Professor Longking mentioned in our program,
16:52but it's a concept where we discuss its relation with multipolarity and more.
16:58And multiple perspectives, which means, say, theoretical, academic,
17:05policy-oriented perspectives, and the Chinese perspective,
17:10Russian perspective, Indian perspective, more.
17:13And a multipolar perspective, which means we put the whole topic
17:18into the context of a fast-changing world order, from unipolarity to multipolarity.
17:24That's how we have designed, together with our Oriental Institute, on the scene of the foreign.
17:31And I said many times, the United States is known for its deep state,
17:37which has done so much harm to American people, per se, and to the world at large.
17:43It's therefore important for leading scholars from this country to get together.
17:48And I said the United States is known for deep state,
17:52but civilizational states are known for their deep peoples and deep cultures.
17:57And it's particularly true for the Eurasian continent.
18:01And they all have their time-honored traditions for their own way of life,
18:05for organized family and social life, for individual collective relations,
18:09for state-societal relations, and for world peace and prosperity.
18:14So it's this kind of deep-rooted civilizational roots that are driving the rapid rise of a more
18:22humane, better-governed, and more just world order to replace this outdated and unjust,
18:30immoral unipolarity.
18:33So with this slightly optimistic note, I wish the forum great success.
18:38Thank you very much.
18:40Thank you, Professor.
18:42Now, I would like to introduce to you Professor Abhinav Singh from India.
18:48Thank you, Mr. V. Abhinav Singh, and thanks to our Chinese organizers from Fudan University.
18:56It's an honor to attend this very first forum in Moscow.
19:02This evening, I'm going to speak on why a country like India should go back to the original thought
19:10of the foundation of new India, that is, the thought of Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Nehru.
19:16When we're talking about civilizational states here, first of all, in India, we have a consensus
19:25that Moscow is the place where we're looking for a new IHS.
19:311917 is in deep memory of every Indian scholar, professor, especially the university where I come
19:40from. It's called India University.
19:42So all of my colleagues and my seniors and my professors, they have been to the end of
19:48Soviet Union.
19:50They may have been here, but they have been deeply influenced by Soviet political thinking.
19:58India is known for philosophers.
20:02If you want to make money, they say you go to USA.
20:07If you want to see wealth, you go to China.
20:11If you want to see the nature's beauty, you come to Russia.
20:15But if you want to see philosophers, you go to India.
20:19It is true, India, although we speak English and our education system is deeply influenced
20:27by the Western system, but if you have an Indian friend, his son is still Indian, no
20:35matter if he lives in Silicon Valley or he lives in Shanghai or in Moscow.
20:41This is something amazing about India.
20:43But we only see in India that India is not a country.
20:48India is an idea.
20:49So when we open the BBC and CNN, what's happening in genocide in Gaza and in Israel, we really
20:56thought of Mr. Gandhi, who was one of the first to talk about two independent states,
21:02specifically Palestine.
21:04But you know, in a democracy, when a leader is very strong, the current dispensation in
21:11India is not very vocal to support the way China is supporting the rights of Palestinians.
21:18So this is something that was very clear in the election result.
21:22He lost it.
21:22The state of UP, the largest state, is full of Muslim population.
21:28This is in awe.
21:30And I hope our leadership gets the message that we can't stand with any deeper state
21:36or state terrorism.
21:38I'm not sure this is the time to go for a dip.
21:40I really want to appreciate the stand of China, the stand of Russia.
21:46Yesterday evening, I had a long walk at the Red Square, Kremlin.
21:52The maximum number of people were from other states.
21:57This is the first time I see Africans and the Muslim population, they're looking to
22:03Russia for peace, for prosperity, for new world order.
22:07They're totally disgruntled and disappointed with the so-called double standards of the
22:12United States and the West.
22:14So in India, I'm not sure I present the diplomatic or the official version of Indian
22:20foreign policy, because now they're saying this again, like they stand both sides, something
22:26like non-alliance, you know.
22:28But the youth of India really thinks that we should have a clear stand that if American
22:35hegemonism is in decline, we should choose our side.
22:39We should work together, especially with China.
22:42I talk to many young people and they choose to learn Chinese language and go and work
22:47in China.
22:48This is the future of China.
22:50For Russia, they say no need to talk, it's the oldest friend.
22:54No need to even think about Russia.
22:56We are just one.
22:57There's no differences between Indian and Russian foreign policy.
23:01When it comes to China, where the Chinese philosophy of Chairman Mao Zedong starts
23:06with the power comes from the battle with the gun, but the Gandhian philosophy is very
23:11opposing.
23:12So at times we see that we are antagonistic, but in reality, if you go to the history of
23:18Chinese culture and Indian culture, I find in Chinese they say,
23:23I see everywhere the Chinese philosophy and Indian philosophy, a shared philosophy in
23:28Asia.
23:29And again, the Indian philosophy with the Islamic philosophy is so mixed that when my
23:35friends go to India and they ask for Indian saree, Indian dress, Indian suits, so impacted
23:41by Turkey, Mongols and different cultures, that I really cannot make a distinction between
23:46what is Indian and what is Arabic.
23:48So I look forward for the detailed discussion today about what kind of relations to China
23:55is putting on the table.
23:58We can be shared or is it going to be again the way Americans say American way, now you
24:04say Chinese way.
24:05So we have to be different from Americans, then only we have more followers.
24:10Thank you very much.
24:11Finally, we have another guest, esteemed guest and friend from South Africa, Dr. Bussani
24:21Ndiayeweini.
24:21Good morning to all the friends in Moscow and from India.
24:28I hope I will share the perspective from South Africa later today to see how South Africa
24:36sees the world as it evolves today and how the civilizational stage is evolving as a
24:44comeback to what we have seen over the last couple of decades.
24:50South Africa is going through its own transition.
24:53Now it's 30 years old and therefore, like all other 30 year olds, it has lost some innocence.
25:01It cannot be treated as an adult.
25:03It's going through typical challenges that 30 year olds go through.
25:07If you think of our own countries when they were 30, more or less similar transitions
25:14had to occur at various proportions.
25:18And I hope to share that perspective and thank you for convening this dialogue.
25:26This conversation ought to proceed given where the world is today and some of the challenges
25:33that many countries in the Global South are going through.
25:36Some are criticizing the idea of having India, as well as China and Russia in a conversation
25:44about the Global South because in a Global North, the concept is emerging that there
25:50is actually a Global East and they are calling China a Global East.
25:54So you remove it from the Global South and then they are trying to find another characterization
26:01geographic that is for Russia as a Global North East so that it also stands on its own
26:08and is not part of the Global South.
26:09So hopefully through this conversation, we can find some convergence and address some
26:14of the challenges that you see emerging from the Global North.
26:25And this was another episode of China Now, a show that opens a window to the present
26:29and future of the Asian giant.
26:32Hope you enjoyed it.
26:32See you next time.