Michael Albert on capitalism and public perception of change

what film is that at the end?

Look back to the Asian Financial Crises of 1997. South Korea and Malaysia where badly affected. Being hurt in recent history meant that they were better protected having the pain of poor policy still in active living memory.

South Korea and Malaysia were indeed badly effected - as was every economy in the region. The point is that they're way better off.

Explain " exploitation (the expropriation of wealth)"

"Capitalism couldn't exist without it" (the government).
It depends on how you define capitalism. I define capitalism as a free markets where property rights are respected.

Wherever the government is active the market is not free because government is force.

I think you are defining capitalism as fascism, mercantilism, corporatism, etc. where the government uses force to co-opt and collaborate with businesses for the purposes of ruling.

"Free markets are by definition free of coercion."

And that they are - under the erroneous assumption that they are the only proper place to put our focus upon if we want to truly understand economic relations. If one fixates himself on the market, rather than on the broader nexus of interactions, then of course it's going to look "free". The fact that you can even utter something like that testifies to the superficiality with which you perceive economics.

"It is true that civilised society requires a mutual respect and recognition of private property."

But the second that PEOPLE come into the picture, rather than dead matter, it's "uncivilised" since then we're talking about "coercion". An extraterrestrial observing this sick inversion of logic (not to mention decency) would think that there was something profoundly perverse about our social arrangements, when respect for property is judged as the criterion for the level of "civilisation".

Explain a civilized society where property rights are not recognized.

Do groups, communes, or countries have the right to property? Or would the world be more civilized if these groups were also denied recognition of property rights?

Property rights aren't the BASIS of a civilised society, only a tiny part of it. Obviously private property should be respected. This is different to saying that exploitative property should be. I am entitled to my own belongings and personal space; what I shouldn't be entitled to is to have other people subordinate themselves to me.

"what I shouldn't be entitled to is to have other people subordinate themselves to me."

I quite agree. That is why politics and government is a immoral means and method of organising society and the free market and free people the better solution.

"I quite agree."

No you don't, because you have no problem with capitalists exploiting workers; ie. extracting surplus value from their labour.