![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/images\/eartothegrounduploads\/Feudalism_390.jpg\")
<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\nteleSUR<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n In this episode of teleSUR\u2019s \u201cDays of Revolt<\/a>,\u201d Chris Hedges interviews Michael Hudson on the history of classical economics and explores Marx\u2019s interpretation of capitalism as exploitation.<\/p>\n Hudson is a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and author of \u201cKilling the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy.\u201d Before becoming a professor, Hudson worked for many years on Wall Street.<\/p>\n \u201cThe essence of classical economics was to reform industrial capitalism, to streamline it, and to free the European economies from the legacy of feudalism,\u201d Hudson said. \u201cThe legacy of feudalism was landlords extracting land-rent, and living as a class that took income without producing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Wall Street and the big-banking system have\u00a0inverted classical economics<\/a>. America is now over\u00a0$19 trillion in debt<\/a>, and the\u00a0Congressional Budget Office<\/a>\u00a0projects that the debt\u00a0will rise to $26.3 trillion<\/a>\u00a0by 2020. How did we\u00a0get to this point<\/a>?<\/p>\n \u201cSo we\u2019ve turned the postwar economy that made America prosperous and rich inside out,\u201d Hudson explained. \u201cSomehow most people believed they could get rich by going into debt to borrow assets that were going to rise in price. But you can\u2019t get rich, ultimately, by going into debt. In the end, the creditors always win. That\u2019s why every society since Sumer and Babylonia has had to either cancel the debts, or you come to a society like Rome that\u00a0didn\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0cancel the debts, and then you have a dark age. Everything collapses.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch\u00a0Part I of the interview<\/a>, posted by The Real News, below.<\/p>\n