well I've been thinking for a while  we need to do one about Capitalism  

because we get asked it a lot right "Capitalism is the problem!"  

it's a bit frustrating for me because it's like  it's so non-specific it's like okay well... yes...

problem with capitalism is different people have  very very different ideas of what the word means  

all right um so it can become difficult to do  any sort of analysis of it because different  

people have different ideas um so I'm going  to say provide the basic working definition  

which some people disagree with but it's what I'm  going to use for this purpose of this discussion  

which is capitalism is a system which has  a relatively small government relatively  

low taxation people are expected to take  care of themselves with their own money  

um yeah and then there's freedom to trade  freedom to own things basically it's a  

people call it 'laissez-faire' system there's  not a lot of government control people do  

whatever they want everybody's free to do  what they want it's important to realise once  

you use that definition none of us live in fully  capitalist countries right the UK has NHS that's  

not capitalist institution the UK has public fund  education that's not capitalist you know so we're  

not about living a perfect capitalist system but  let's talk about capitalism which is the idea of  

freedom to own freedom to trade and also  means freedom to generate inequality right  

now there's something which is good about  capitalism which is that capitalism rewards  

people for doing things that other people want so  if you can if you're making a lot of paintings and  

nobody wants them you're going to make no money  but if you're making a lot of paintings that  

people want then you are going to make money right  why'd the footballers make money in the capitalist  

system because tons of people are willing to pay  to watch them so in a sense capitalism is good  

because it incentivises all these people to play football and people want to watch football

these kind of things right so there's like a philosophical idea behind it which is that  

because everybody is free then you will get  rewarded if you do things other people want which  

means in theory people should start doing things  that other people want which is good because we're  

all helping each other out this is the this is  this is the idea behind it right the problem is

if you actually look at the outcomes of capitalism  lots of people have things which they really  

really want or even need that they don't get so we  have a capitalist system and a lot of people can't  

afford to feed their kids all right so you know  they want to feed their kids and there's enough  

food for them to feed their kids, well you know, why  are they not feeding their kids? we have people who  

work at jobs for homeless you know of course  they want homes but they're not getting homes  

and what this reveals is there's one key flaw of  capitalism which is that capitalism doesn't reward  

you for doing what people want, capitalism rewards  you for doing what people with money want right  

you know there are people in poor countries  in the world that are blind and they just need  

relatively inexpensive surgery to fix their  blindness but they don't get that because  

they've got no ****ing money right, capitalism  doesn't give back to those people you know  

you know you know you're a dentist right you  will see there are dentists that spend all  

of their days doing expensive cosmetic  surgeries for wealthy people and at the  

same time there's people who are in agony  of toothache who can't get a dentist right  

and this is because capitalism doesn't reward you  for doing what people want capitalism rewards you  

for doing what people with money want, if you  can do something that rich people want you can  

make a ton of money right but if you can do you  know if you want to provide dental work for like  

poor people in Africa or in Southeast Asia you're  not going to make no money for that because they  

don't have any money right so once you understand  this then what you see is inequality is absolute  

cancer at the philosophical root of capitalism  because if you have a broader equal society then  

it works right because everybody has money so you should do the thing which lots of people want  

but once you have inequality then it doesn't  matter if 99% of people hate something  

you know if you do a job which sucks wealth  out of the poorest 99% and gives it to the 1%  

you can get paid a ****ing ton of money for that, I know because I did it right! capitalism works for the  

people with money there's this phrase right which is "Freedom for the Heron is Death to the Fishes" 

right if you allow everybody freedom and what the most powerful wants is to, what the most  

powerful people want is to take everything from  everyone else then that's that's freedom right  

that is freedom the problem is capitalism  is great when you have a broad distribution  

and even then it's not necessarily great  right if you look at for example the US  

the US is a very capitalistic economy for a long  period of time right and it has a lot of resources  

so it did provide a great standard of living for a lot of people, not if you're black right  

if there's groups of people that don't have any  wealth, then they will not get well served under  

capitalism and then if you make it really unequal  then that can be 90-95% of people that don't get  

served under capitalism you see what I'm saying  so capitalism works philosophically & theoretically  

when everybody has money, when everybody has  wealth, but we're moving towards the situation  

that is why capitalism works relatively well  in Western Europe and did for the last 70 years  

because lots of people have wealth so everybody...  capitalism is democracy but one pound = one vote  

you see what I'm saying so if everybody has an  equal amount of money then everybody will get a  

decent amount of what they want, but once you move towards extreme inequality then capitalism   

will only serve the rich of course it will why would  capitalism give you anything if you have nothing  

to offer for it? it's about freedom of trade  and if these people have all the power then  

they will get all the stuff and what you start  to see is capitalism is so dynamic it creates  

the physical infrastructure to perfectly mirror  the distribution of wealth because capitalism  

serves the people with wealth so if you have  a broad wealth holding society then capitalism  

will produce lots of middle-class houses and middle class cars and middle class appliances  

and middle class services and middle class theatres  and middle class cinemas right but if you have ex.. 

an economy where all of the world is with the very  rich then capitalism will give you extreme luxury  

and poverty it will give you a extremely wealthy town centre surrounded by impoverished slums which  

is what the case in Mumbai, which is the case in  Johannesburg, the case in Sao Paulo, is the case  

in every unequal country in the world and is  becoming the case here in London as well right  

so the way I see capitalism (sorry I've  hit my mic) the way I see my capitalism  

the way I see capitalism is it produces  good outcomes when everybody has wealth  

when you are in a very unequal Society  It generally produces terrible outcomes  

so you need to protect the wealth distribution  you need to protect the wealth distribution and  

the problem you have is that capitalism tends  to destroy the wealth distribution so I'm not  

saying I'm anti-capitalist that to me I think you  bring me a car and the car's not working I'm not  

going to tell you I'm anti-cars you know I I have  studied this system it is broken in a specific way  

that I think is fixable I know there will be people out there saying 'ah no capitalism is broken' 

you need to destroy everything to bring it in okay that's fine show me the blueprint for the  

new society I'll have a look at the moment I do want to prevent this disaster from happening and  

it's the problem that they have right now is what  is most frustrating is the problem is so fixable  

the problem is so fixable, it is a problem with the  wealth distribution we fix the world distribution  

we fix the problem we can see a massive increase  in living standards a massive increase in living  

standards you don't fix the wealth distribution  you won't fix the living standard so for me

you need to protect the distribution  the system and we're not doing it  

um and you know like if people want to have a  discussion about what is the ideal system you  

know is capitalism the best system could we have  other systems we can have that discussion but at  

the moment the system that we have is falling  off of a cliff and I would prefer to prevent  

that disaster from happening first because if we don't do anything about what's happening now  

it's going to be real real bad, it's going to be real real bad and um I there's this phrase you know 

'don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good' you know we're in a situation but I would say  

don't let the perfect be the enemy of preventing the collapse of society at this point cos that's what  

we're looking at, that's what we're looking at, so listen let's let's fix the problem that we have  

and then we can talk about is there a better way  to do this is there a better way to do this but  

listen I'm not, I'm not a philosopher you know um I just don't want things to be really really ****

and they're gonna be and we can stop them If we fix the distribution

housing could be so much more affordable, wages  could be so much higher and we could have so  

many more options in how we live our lives some of them put a lot of money into paying 

economists and think thanks to tell you that inequality  is important for the economy that is not true