Weekly Roundup: March 23, 2022

Check out the latest content from Democracy at Work.

New this week: Economic Update, Capitalism Hits Home, Cities After..., Global Capitalism & Ask Prof Wolff...

Check out the latest content from Democracy at Work!

Economic Update: Ukraine, Race and Class

This week's show on Economic Update, Prof. Wolff talks about the emerging new world order, Ukraine and inflation, and the economics of sanctions. On the second half of the show, Wolff is joined by Prof. Adolph Reed, Jr. to discuss race, class and the US left.

Reed Jr.: "Frankly, I blame the rise of white supremacy, or resurgence if you want to call it that, of white supremacy as much on the neo-liberalized Democratic party as I do on the right."

Capitalism Hits Home: The Origins of Racism - An Untold History

Our nation's racism was a deliberate policy developed in response to rebellions in the 1600s when white indentured servants, free black men and women and enslaved black people rose up together against their exploitation. In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad shares the story of this hugely important, yet often untaught, historical moment and its implications today.

Fraad: "It was a united revolt of whites and blacks against a class system of ownership and dispossession so the dispossessed rose up together."

Cities After…Oligarchy and the Dark Side of Urbanization - Pt. 1

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán discusses how the western oligarchy has been intrinsically interconnected with its Russian counterpart through massive urbanization projects around the world. Oligarch Business Districts have been developed in major cities at the command of dark money in the search for legal loopholes, fiscal gymnastics, and money laundering. By looking closely at two of these development districts, New York’s Hudson Yards and Russia's Moscow International Business District, Robles-Durán reveals how they render the invisible web of dark money visible and enable an immense service industry of lawyers, accountants, architects, creatives and financiers dedicated to supplying the wants and needs of the global neoliberal oligarchy.

Robles-Durán: “Suddenly, in their static architectural form, all the oligarchs of the world and those that have enabled their economy become next door neighbors.”

Global Capitalism: Inflation: A Slap in the Face of the Working Class

Richard Wolff criticizes this economic system for allowing a minority of people to profit off of the working class, especially after the past two years of economic hardship and pandemic. He explains why inflation is a fundamental flaw of capitalism.

Wolff: “The working class of America, the vast majority of people who are employees, they don't set prices. They have the prices set over them. Prices are dictated by a tiny minority, the dictatorship of that class of people as administered to the American working class after two years of COVID and two years of stunning economic lack of activity. A very harsh slap in the face. That's what the inflation is."

Ask Prof Wolff: Critical Theory & Critical Race Theory

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "I’m writing because I’m curious about Critical Theory and its relationship to a current hot topic, Critical Race Theory. What are Critical Theory’s roots? What were its originators in the Frankfurt School trying to achieve? What strengths and weaknesses did Critical Race Theory receive by being founded on Critical Theory?" This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.

Wolff: “[Critical Theory] is a kind of Marxism that explores the way people think in order to see whether it is consistent with and supportive of a revolutionary breakthrough coming out of the economic base of society or whether it is a break on all of that, countering all of that. Where Critical Race Theory comes in is to say, ‘That last point is crucial’. In the United States particularly, race has become an idea that has worked to undercut, to block, to thwart revolutionary transformation.”