Gene Epstein

“In early May, Knut M. Wittkowski, who specialized in biostatistics and epidemiology for twenty years at Rockefeller University, posted a video on YouTube. He offered sane and sober arguments against the American lockdown. YouTube memory-holed it.20 In April, when Wittkowski first began speaking out, his former employer felt compelled to respond, announcing that his views “do not represent the views of The Rockefeller University, its leadership, or its faculty.”21 Now, that normally goes without saying. We’re not aware of any university that says their faculty speak for it. But in the age of social mania, many universities fear the diverse and critical dialog that used to be the essence of higher education. Evidently, Rockefeller University is one of them.”
― Jay W. Richards, The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe

“In capitalism, as I have noted, productive workers add more value to the commodities produced in and sold by the enterprise than the value of their wages paid by the capitalist who hired them. That additional value or surplus is appropriated by the capitalists. They distribute portions of that surplus to a variety of others (and to themselves) to support activities they believe are needed to keep the capitalist enterprise in business. This particular way of organizing the production and distribution of the surplus is capitalism. What, then, is socialism? If socialism is to be a distinct economic system, then it must clearly differentiate itself from capitalism in terms of how surplus is produced and distributed. Marx’s critique of capitalism offers a clue as to the defining characteristic of socialism in his suggestive references to “associated workers” and other images of workers having replaced capitalists as directors of productive enterprises. The”
― Richard D. Wolff, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism

“(what combination of greater leisure for workers or greater quantities of output). Since workers in WSDEs decide the size and distribution of surpluses, that includes deciding whether and when to use a portion of their appropriated surpluses to purchase and install technical changes. In capitalism, where workers are excluded from choices about technology, they choose between labor and leisure based on the wage given by their competition in the labor market. In contrast, workers in WSDEs make their labor/leisure choice together with and as part of their decisions about technological change.”
― Richard D. Wolff, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism

“still up at Medium. Again, it’s your alignment that makes you right, not your credentials or the quality of your arguments. Take Knut Wittkowski, for example, one of the victims of YouTube censorship mentioned above. He’s the former head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design at Rockefeller University’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science. He has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Stuttgart and a Doctor of Science degree in medical biometry from the University of Tübingen, both top German universities. He has as much expertise as anyone from WHO. But he was a staunch critic of the lockdowns and the logic behind them. That made him one of the wrong people.”
― Jay W. Richards, The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe