RSA ANIMATE: Crises of Capitalism
David Harvey
Marxist geographer David Harvey examines the root causes of financial crises and asks whether it's time to look beyond capitalism.
Why we picked this
Whether you agree with Harvey or not, this is the most lucid 11-minute critique of capitalism you'll find anywhere.
David Harvey doesn’t waste a second. He walks through five common explanations for why financial crises happen — human frailty, institutional failure, obsession with false theories, cultural origins, and the nature of the system itself — before making the case that crises aren’t bugs in capitalism but features of it.
The RSA Animate format works beautifully here because Harvey’s argument is structural. Watching the illustrator sketch out flows of capital and feedback loops makes the abstract feel tangible. You can see the system he’s describing, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Two million views and still one of the sharpest primers on Marxist economic thought available online.