I've only watched the first bit, but I think people are missing what Harvey is saying. Harvey is talking about the difference between rent and profit coming from production. Saying that Harvey thinks production needs to be physical is totally misreading his statement. Yes, production can take the form of algorithms and time spent on technological development and so on, but the vast majority of the google's profit does not derive from this, but rent. While the enabling technology was developed by google to a large extent (at least in some areas) the actual profit mostly derives from the labor of others in the form of the content people find on google and ad exposure and so on.

@mrgoldie109

7 жыл бұрын

Round robin same-o same-o as in 1821 when -Adam Smith debated on land rent and profit......

@Goodspaceguy

6 жыл бұрын

Exactly. Weapons manufacturers create physical objects but are also parasitic. Their industry exists based purely on a continuity of conflict that can only be maintained through their products being used to extract wealth from others.

It is extremely important to bring such discussions out to reach a broader audience including myself. Thanks for uploading!

The argument of Google having the best search engine today is quite disputable. It certainly is the most profitable, for Google, and the SEO system that was created around it don't exactly feed the best content. The engine does not work to feed you the best content, but to funnel clicks into richer environments with best SEO.

I think the rebuttal to Harvey that Google creates ideas actually helps Harvey more than it harms him. Because in order for "ideas" to be treated as production in the same way as physical things, then one must treat ideas *as though* they are physical things. But everyone creates ideas; it is the physical employment of them that makes the world change. This leads to issues of copyright law, which has all sorts of insanities and exploitative relations built into it.

Buckminster Fuller said in 1952 that we now had the resources and the know-how (technology) to provide for everyone on Earth at a very high standard of living. This 'theory' was proven by some 1500 scientists in 1970, changing, for the first time in human history the context of life on Earth, from a context of "not enough for everyone or scarcity" to a context of "plenty or abundance". Fuller said we could all be living the lifestyle of a billionaire within a decade or two as soon as we reorient our production from "killingry" to "livingry" ... we invest way too much on trying to "manage our scarce (old context) resources" rather than innovatively and creatively building the future we want to live in. Today, our job is to develop ways to distribute wealth (to everyone) and that will stimulate amazing growth and wealth or life support. Fuller was of course a futurist; and he said our existing cities (many designed and built in the 19th and 20th centuries) must be demolished and the materials recycled with new technology to build new cities. Two of Fuller's books "Critical Path" and "GRUNCH of Giants" ought to be compulsory reading for everyone.

Rent: A mode of compensation garnered for the utilization of a precious resource or mode of production. It is not complicated.

Harvey is pretty badass here.

@ggc7318

3 жыл бұрын

He should move to Cuba or North Korea if he loves communist that much.

Harvey Harvey Harvey #beastmode

Harvey is pretty bad ass period.

David Harvey, cutting through the bull! Atta boy!

amazing, master david harvey...

If Fifth avenue was zoned properly for maximum efficiency there wouldn't be homes for people to live in, the homes would probably be situated in a better area to allow for business not to interfere with housing and minimize traffic.

Unique New York Unique New York Unique New York Unique New York 35:23

The people talking to Harvey are giving the typical clueless American response. "Well, search engines were slow before, then Google came and made them faster, and I'm grateful." Talk about sycophancy...

Professor harvey seems to assert that google is creative in the way of how a financial institution is creative but that is a fallacy. Google is more akin to a domestic service that reproduces our mental life for us. similarly to how you have a housekeeper or a custodian who keeps your physical life at work or at home in order, google provides this service for our mental life, which is a far better analogy for google than a financial institution.

@RandomRND

10 жыл бұрын

Really? Maybe for the end consumer, Google can be seen as a "custodian," but that's because it's free to the end consumer. Of course it is. What's the most you've paid for a phone book? It's true that Google makes algorithms, but they don't sell algorithms. Those are secret so they themselves can't be exploited by businesses. The algorithms are their own business practices in the form of math discovered to aggregate data. What they sell is advertising space. Just blank void in ephemeral, digital space. They're more like the world's biggest billboard. They are fabulously wealthy because they can tell other businesses that they have an absurd amount of information that they've been given to by consumers and what they are looking for, and that they can give your company name to those customers if you pay them. Fast forward to today, and if you're a business not showing up in Google search results, you might as well not exist at all. Why do you suppose they've gotten into email, youtube, and now smart phones? Because they've paid some of the world's smartest people very well to figure out how to get and process information, so they can continue to be in this position of extreme power as a kind of middleman between us and other businesses, and as a byproduct, us and information. It's genius and extremely well executed, but the product they make and sell for a profit is less tangible, which I'm guessing is what Harvey is talking about.

@kharyrobertson3579

10 жыл бұрын

evan fresk Interesting take Evan. The way I see it, Google successfully exploits add space to remove the necessity for end user payment which is a great idea i think. And the audience they seek to receive rents from is the advertising industry who ends up paying the vast majority of their revenue. They then use innovation to direct revenue from advertising to provide their custodial service to the world free of charge. They have exploited the advertising industry to such an extent that they can even purchase large high end manufacturing firms like boston dynamics to improve the service they provide to the world. they have branched into so many other industries because it is part of the domain of personal arrangement that they seek to dominate, not because of some capital goal. Any business person knows that R&D is not a money making venture, ever, and those are the types of ventures that they are embarking on. As such they may garner profit from advertising but what they produce is a service, plain and simple, the advertising "space" however ephemeral, is ancillary. As for what Google does wrong, the main complaint should be their rampant tax evasion.

@josephshumake5989

5 жыл бұрын

Reproduces our mental life...? Ewwww. The analysis is poor on many levels here and especially this level of alienation from our own "mental lives". Gross...might want to rethink that one a bit.

@josephshumake5989

5 жыл бұрын

@@kharyrobertson3579 you're nearly there, just keep going. You're not outsmarting Harvey here like you think you are. He's pointing to the furthest point on the chain of dispossession and exploitation; to publicly funded educational institutions, factory workers that make any actual commodities, and so on. The amount of wealth extracted here is far greater and often times much more difficult to quantify and qualify.

@kharyrobertson3579

5 жыл бұрын

@@josephshumake5989 well since you are so butt hurt by your own lack of understanding of my point, then i will just let you wallow in your crapulence. If you have a genuine disagreement though, i would be happy to have a discourse with you

Like virtually all things we try and have intelligent conversations about, they can usually not be looked at in isolation. You can not have a useful and holistic conversation about cities, a major institution of modern society, without discussing ideology and values and how this institution integrates with the rest of the world at large. As an example Harvey does not believe in inequality of outcomes based on things like intelligence, personal creativity etc. where my guess is the other two do. When Harvey mentions housing should be a fundamental human right you can see the Harvard economists brow furrow, IMO suggesting he is internally disagreeing with this value (but not saying it as part of the well established rules of polite talking heads and in an attempt to stay on topic). Harvey reciprocates by not delving into their ideological differences in supply and demand under capitalism versus a different system. Harvey does not believe in TINA or TINBA but I am guessing the other two do. The moderator desperately tries to keep the group on topic and understand, as a self proclaimed capitalists economist and admittedly ignorant of Harvey's views and values , what the hell Harvey is saying. If there is some minor bedrock of consensus to be reached here they are not getting there in an hour with these individuals. My suggestion for the next topic with this set of panelists is "Reasons we do not want our finger nails pulled out with a set of pliers today".

Did you really think you might get some comfort from those red socks, knowing that you had chosen that thin sleeve of fabric for your feet in the same breath as you chose that you wouldn't have any love, and though cold, you'd just curl up with money because it was better than the love you wanted anyways, and besides, it would always be there for you?

I watched a KZread video on my Chromebook where an economist said that Google doesn't make anything.

@compassrose8706

9 жыл бұрын

The Chromebook is made by Samsung Electronics and Acer. Google just writes SaaS adware which can be distributed infinitely at virtually no cost to them.

@josephshumake5989

5 жыл бұрын

Simpleton...

@MatthewJohnHayden

4 жыл бұрын

@@compassrose8706 SOFTWARE ISN'T REAL! DATA CENTERS AREN'T REAL! INTERNET SEARCH ISN'T REAL! CHROME OS ISN'T REAL! I suggest you not use products developed by Google because Google didn't develop them and thus they don't exist.

@darrenprentice7934

4 жыл бұрын

​@@MatthewJohnHayden The point is that Google is a monopoly that buys up their competition. They haven't developed an original or successful in-house product since Search and Gmail. Everything else has been mergers and acquisitions. Same can be said for the other big fives.

Google is the middleman of the Internet. Millions web site owners produce information and work hard and one major way to get money through advertisement is Google. So Google treats you like a middleman and gives you 1% of your profit. Google is not a parasite, is something like Godfather.

Harvey really failing to grasp the difference between goods and services.

@chanegun

8 жыл бұрын

I've only watched the first bit, but I think people are missing what Harvey is saying. Harvey is talking about the difference between rent and profit coming from production. Saying that Harvey thinks production needs to be physical is totally misreading his statement. Yes, production can take the form of algorithms and time spent on technological development and so on, but the vast majority of the google's profit does not derive from this, but rent. While the enabling technology was developed by google to a large extent (at least in some areas) the actual profit mostly derives from the labor of others in the form of the content people find on google and ad exposure and so on.

@saxz99

8 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the thorough reply. I was rewatching the video and although I appreciate your comment I still think that Harvey is completely lost here. I have enjoyed many of his books and lectures but this time his arguments are reduced, he sounds like a broken record, he bends over backwards to make some old ideas fit new markets and overall sounds like someone out of place... Even when he is trying to defend vulnerable populations he sounds like run off the mill marxism. I mean one of his last comments is about how anyone should be able to have affordable housing in 5th Ave...

@robertwill23

7 жыл бұрын

Run off mill marxism? LOL. If you've ever read Marx you'd know that he predicted many inherited flaws of capitalism and how it operates. Harvey was right here on all of the things they discussed. Three fucking corporate hacks and one reasonable person. Google does not produce anything. Google is parasite and rentier. As all the so called new economy (that is "share" economy). What services Google provide? Service is a labor from. You provide labor so as content creator of certain site. But Google gets all profits. Economic growth is about production. Google is all about rents.

@josephshumake5989

5 жыл бұрын

@@saxz99 Haha, what a shitty analysis of this discussion. Harvey is doing what he does best. He's exposing the dark underbelly of what these two bootlickers are parroting back and forth. I dont think you actually understand what they are saying either but you're choosing sides out of you're own shallow perception anyhow... this discussion is deeply troubled by the enormous rifts in perspective and point of view. You're failure here is that you seem to see this as a discussion in the "market place of ideas" which is something that doesn't exist. These are fundamentally very different approaches to political economy and human life. When choosing sides, you should really think carefully and choose more wisely. What kind of world do you actually want to live in? One that sounds good or one that actually feels good to be a part of?

@josephshumake5989

5 жыл бұрын

This comment is proof that you've failed to grasp the scope of this discussion... watch it again, perhaps? And listen.