Want to turn a millennial or Gen Z member against socialism, and quick? Have them give a quick listen to what Richard Wolff says they’d have to go through — along with their beloved comrades — if they wanted to get a PlayStation 5 under Marxism.
Wolff is an emeritus professor of economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and one of America’s leading Marxist economic theorists. He’s the author of “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism,” “Understanding Marxism” and “Understanding Socialism,” among other books.
He’s also been a contributor to a number of leftist publications, including the U.K. Guardian. In 2013, for example, he wrote this article about his divergence with then-Federal Reserve chair (now secretary of the Treasury) for the outlet, saying, “Janet Yellen and I were taught to revere capitalism. But it’s a failing system.”
Yes, it turns out that both he and Yellen — not exactly an economic conservative — were “graduate economics students around the same time at Yale University,” but came to differing opinions on the value of the capitalist system.
However, after a debate with massively popular liberal videogame streamer Destiny — driver’s license name Steven Kenneth Bonnell II — people likely came away preferring Janet Yellen (or Destiny, for that matter) to be the one calling the shots.
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The video was streamed in April of 2021, but remains every bit as relevant as ever — particularly as the Democratic Party and the left move toward forced scarcity in the name of environmentalism. The difference is that Wolff wants it faster and for different reasons.
It’s impossible to entirely encapsulate the entirety of the debate in a short blurb, but the whole thing was best summed up by the final question posed to the economics professor: “Under your system of worker cooperatives, would I still get my PlayStation 5?”
Wolff apparently thought this was a pretty funny thing to be asked, chuckling at the start of his response. What came out of his mouth afterwards, however, was no laughing matter — at least to a comfortable generation that nevertheless flirts with Marxist ideals.
“Absolutely,” he began, before qualifying that in no way would you “absolutely” get a PS5, or anything else you wanted for that matter.
Is Marxism good for society?
“You’d have to struggle a little bit for it,” Wolff said. “You’d have to talk to your fellow workers, you’d have to talk about the distribution of income, you’d have to compare your desire for a PlayStation against all the other interests of all the other people.
“It wouldn’t be something you worked out on your own with your particular boss in any way,” he continued.
“It would have to be a democratic decision. You’d have to come to terms with that the way you do with democratic decisions.”
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
In other words, if everybody else wants you to have a PlayStation 5, you may get one. Wolff didn’t elaborate on how a worker’s cooperative would come up with a PlayStation 5 in the first place or maintain the same level of relative physical comfort most of the world lives in now that most of the world is post-communist.
But, of course, to Marxists like Wolff, it’s just Never Been Tried Right Before™. Until, of course, he describes how you’d get your PS5 — and then you realize it’s exactly how people got goods that might be “against all the other interests of all the other people” — like cars, televisions, simple things Westerners took for granted.
The full interview is here, and if it sounds any better it’s only because Wolff’s answer to that question couldn’t have been more revealing. The relevant portion begins about an hour and thirty minutes into the debate:
It’s rare when we get to say this, but it turns out that Janet Yellen was right — at least compared with Richard Wolff. In a country where a PlayStation 5 is affordable to most who have a stable income, he and other Marxists want to upend the system to make it “equitable,” by which they mean miserable.
Mr. Wolff has done capitalism one service, however: Any Gen Z’er and gamer who might be tempted toward Marxist theory need only look at this short clip to see what life looks like when the “cooperative” takes over.
