TRANSCRIPT
SECTION 6
WHY RICHARD WOLFF ENJOYS TUCKER CARLSON
Version 1 ... February 2025
- 42:01
- need some nice close to the soral farm or to give it valid validity it's very
- dangerous I do think that Victor is a very careful thinker and he's not here so yes for sure I can't speak for him
- but when I next speak with him I will certainly raise some of these points to
- to it to get his opinions that's what I if I were in a room with him right right right right of course and but before we
- move on I am curious to hear I mean I take it I assume I I know that you're somebody who likes to hear both sides of
- 42:32
- Why Richard Wolff Enjoys Tucker Carlson
- an issue who likes to think about things care I want to learn are there any right-wing thinkers out there today or
- political pundits or commentators who you do find to be genuinely insightful
- and interesting I don't know what generally quite means uh genuinely I yeah no I I I
- don't know what it means and I'm no Jud of how genuine they are but
- 43:01
- um the the guy who used to be on Fox News and then was kicked off and then
- now Tucker Carlson yeah for example I think sometimes he's very good really yeah you like Tucker well like might be
- a strong word no that's why I said genuine how genuine I don't know but I
- find it interesting that he sometimes is able to
- say do a piece of analysis very close to my own um from which I have learned and so
- you know he does it in his way it's not quite the way I do it but he alerts me
- to a relationship that I didn't give that much weight to so I'm grateful I'm grateful to anybody who teaches me so he
- has on occasion taught me I mean other times he says things that I find
- laughable and no interest you know other than the pathology of this kind of
- 44:01
- thinking that's why I don't know about genuine or general but he he's one from
- whom I have learned and when I when I play with the internet and I come across right I usually stop and listen and try
- to see how they construct for for example these days I'm
- very interested in people whose work uh I have a occasionally learned
- from as they in my judgment slavishly admire Trump in a kind of lopsided
- enthusiasm that they don't normally show to anything including ideas and
- personalities on the right but for Mr Trump they have really a almost an
- adoration that makes them stop being as critical as I know they have been in
- other circumstances I assume that will fade it after a walk maybe not but I have always made sure to look
- 45:04
- at that point of view to listen to it I do that in you know I'm interested
- in Europe particularly so I've paid attention to the right-wing Marina Leen
- I read her work sometimes her statements the uh in Germany your deuts I you may
- remember I read French and German so those things are accessible uh to me and
- I make sure to when there's a character who comes to my attention Victor Orban
- in in Hungary um mostly though the leaders of these
- countries are they're not very it's not an impressive group put it that way uh
- there are some exceptions but not many and among the contending
- 46:00
- politicals um the most sophisticated discussion of
- the French and German as far as I can tell I mean to take
- seriously uh Mr Storer in England is is an effort there's nothing there just
- there's nothing there I it just but it I don't want to be unfair I
- mean it's no more or less and Mr Biden so something I find funny is that the
- one reason I asked you about right-wing thinkers is I'm always looking to I'm
- looking for for new and and interesting guests and I thought you might mention somebody I hadn't heard of but you
- mentioned Tucker Carlson which is uh funny to interpret that obviously this wasn't your intention as an invitation
- to have Tucker Carlson on the show no but but he do you know he doesn't need
- exposure he doesn't need opportunity because he writes his own and he
- 47:01
- right now I'd like to ask just two more questions about the election before we
- move on from the election and these are things that have come to mind as you've been speaking I remember that your wife
- is a therapist yes and I also know that you have some interest in psychoanalysis
- yes and you have mentioned a couple of times in this conversation that involved
- in Trump and his policies is this hodg podge of contradictions and what this makes me
- wonder is whether you think that there's something that psychoanalysis as a form of cultural
- analysis might tell us about the election is there something going on in America's
- subconscious that led them to that led people to vote for Trump some sort of
- contradictory sure I the reason I focus on
- 48:02
- economics is not that I'm an economist it's I'm an economist
- because I became fascinated by the economic dimension of things
- so I would like to say that it's not you know the old joke if you're a carpenter
- then everything looks like a nail it's not that it's that the economics and I
- can tell you just for myself as I as I went through when I arrived as a
- freshman in college I wanted to be a
- biochemist that was my intention I had been a science kind of person in high
- school and I wanted to be and my first semester was all math physics
- chemistry second semester biology um so here I am an economist I obviously
- 49:01
- didn't do that didn't make that my career and that's
- because I discovered that the questions I
- had about the economic system which came out of my
- life my family my conversation particularly with my father and so on
- and that those most questions were never answered by the
- teachers that I would say and I think I mentioned this to you before that those
- teachers either didn't know the answer which was often the case or they did and either told me
- rarely or showed me more often that they really didn't want me to
- pursue this in the class with my hand up I was a good student I got all a and
- blah blah my parents made sure of that uh so I had the teachers were friendly
- 50:05
- to me they weren't wasn't oppositional um a couple of exceptions
- but not many they were afraid and I think the fear in their
- eyes which I pursued by going to their offices and just sitting one on-one with them where they told me what they were a
- I realized that was right I saw fear and they told me well that they were afraid
- they didn't want this they wouldn't mind talking with me in their office but and then they basically explained to me what
- I verified later anyway that and this is Harvard so you might think it wasn't
- you'd be wrong it was not good for your career this you they were concerned they
- don't know how a conversation in which I ask questions dealing with Marxism and
- they answered them would lead students to begin to say oh not teacher without meaning the teacher any harm but the
- 51:05
- students would chitchat and and all that they were afraid and I
- think my interest combined with their unwillingness or
- incapacity to answer them drew me into the F so if you ask me
- why do I focus on economics because the environment in which I was educated
- couldn't handle it it was a taboo you know it's like saying to someone why are
- you interested in sex if they're honest they'll tell you whatever the manifold
- reasons might be one of the reasons is is a big taboo and when they ask
- questions Aunt Louise freaked out or their father told them to go talk to the mother and vice ver all the we all know
- this and that's that's part of why we're interested in Saints because it has been
- 52:02
- handled in the bizarre ways that our culture does that I'm I'm interested in
- economics because I think it helps explain things but much more important
- it's the missing thing in the explanations otherwise we're stuck with
- work at the level of your representation I want to hold Mr Hanson but the way you
- representative which I assume is the perfectly reasonable way of doing it
- that I don't want to work at that level that that that's for me that's not serious
- stuff and by the way Tucker cson sometimes really goes after the
- economics you and you can see that even even today what did I see today oh yeah
- coming here in the taxi there was a little ad a poit iCal
- ad bust the slogan was bust big
- 53:03
- Pharma okay I found that interesting I am agreeing with I would I
- would like to bust big farmer too but I'm surprised that somebody raised the
- money to do this sort of thing okay that's sort of interesting and I I have
- noticed in some right-wing pieces I've read a immense hostility to Big
- farmer a hostility which the rightwing didn't use to do but it's doing it now
- yeah what's what's that they've just that's an allowable area yet to watch the inauguration of Mr
- Trump and to see immediately in the front row of the people sitting behind him the billionaires of our time not the
- governors not the Supreme Court Justice who who's who is the celebrate and their
- 54:00
- achievement is they have a lot of money and they're going to be with this President he wants them there that's why
- they're there they want to be there and he wants them there this is very
- interesting and so he can go after big Farmer they don't stop him they
- don't they carefully avoid going there but big farmer is not that far from big
- high tech which is what coming next anyway and we'll see how Mr Trump deals
- Why Unemployment Tanked Harris in the Election
- 54:32
- with it since economics is I mean naturally it keeps coming up I the the
- last thing I wanted to ask about this election specifically is whether you
- also account Beyond this large scale change narrative for the outcome of the election with an appeal to economic
- factors like I know inflation for instance plagued Biden for very long time but are there other economic
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