Michael Roberts argues that the golden age of his youth, the 1960s and ’70s, is the exception, and that the capitalism of today, in which living standards for working people struggle to rise, is the norm. He says a depression lasting twenty years amounts to a generation, and that since 2008 young people have been worse off than their parents, reversing the pattern after the Second World War. In response to Marshall’s question about whether the postwar generation was the anomaly, Roberts traces the concessions of that period to profitability high enough to pay for them. With profitability much lower now, he says capitalism can no longer afford reforms, and he describes the counter-reforms on wages, union rights, privatization, and welfare that followed from the 1980s onward. [
FULL EPISODE URL — https://youtu.be/nQ5jCbGIyRA
#MichaelRoberts #Economics #Capitalism
