Latest Releases

Economic Update: Labor Unions and Political Power

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff devotes this week's episode to Labor Unions and Political parties. We explain why US & Western capitalism today provoke labor and unions into more and more social and political action. The latest examples are the recent Canadian Postal Workers strike and the Barnes and Noble bookstore workers rally in New York City. The Professor discusses the history of the standard practice of employers filing complaints with the National Labor Relations Board to dispute the results of elections that form unions.

Finally a major discussion on politics and the intersection of labor. What will be unions' relationship to political parties? Will we see general strikes and mass popular mobilizations? Only time will tell.

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Economic Update: The US Capitalist Class and the Election

In this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses how US foreign aid serves the interests of corporations and their profits. We highlight how San Juan County in Washington state handled its fiscal crisis by cutting its employees' work week to 32 hours. We update you on workers of Wells Fargo Bank who are currently conducting a unionization drive, which could lead to other US banks doing the same. We provide a quick analysis of the history of settler colonialism in New Zealand and how this practice informs and influences the Israel and Palestinian crisis. Lastly, we interview Professors Michael Hillard and Richard McIntyre for a Marxian analysis of the exceptional nature of the US capitalist class and the US election.

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Dialectic At Work: Class & Class Analysis

In this episode, the dialectic goes to work to explore one of the most fundamental concepts in Marxism: class and class analysis. What is class? What do Marxists mean when they deploy this term? In this episode we discover, via the seminal book Knowledge and Class, how the concept of surplus is used to develop a theory of classes in society. The fundamental and subsumed class framework, first developed by Resnick and Wolff, provides a non-essentialist approach to classes. Prof Wolff and Prof Azhar discuss how multiplicities of class processes can coexist at any point in time and pull and push individuals, communities, and nations in different trajectories.

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Economic Update: The Dangers and Opportunities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with RJ Eskow

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses how major pharmaceutical companies (CVS, United Healthcare, Cigna) are complicit in the opioid crisis in the United States. We highlight a successful food co-op in Minneapolis and explain the inauthenticity of mainstream discourse on the US economy.

Finally an interview with Richard "RJ" Eskow, Bernie Sanders' speechwriter, an expert on AI and the basic social issues its spread now raises.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Why Did Trump Win?

In this week's episode, Dr. Fraad explores why and how a convicted felon who was found liable for sexual assault was chosen to lead America. Americans and particularly white American men are frightened. They have lost family wages and their wives as well. White women have lost the lifetime financial support of their domestic labor and child care. Americans have no Left Party to explain their lesser lives. Why not? This podcast begins to explain it.

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Economic Update: The Global Movement for Cooperatives with Jerome N. Warren

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses U.S. Universities and Politicians' repression of student protesters, the continued global demands of indigenous people for liberation from colonialism's legacies, and Harvard's corporate administration sacrificing its students' and faculty's freedom of expression to pander to some of its donors. 

Finally, an interview with Professor Jerome N. Warren, editor of the newly published Routledge Handbook of Cooperative Economics and Management.

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Dialectic At Work: Knowledge and Class

This week, and in the next few weeks, the Dialectic goes to explore one of the most important texts in Marxian political economy in modern history: Knowledge and Class. The book, written in 1987 by Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff after decades of research and critical analysis, developed a new “non essentialist” Marxism. The Fundamental and Subsumed Framework, developed in this book, has been used to examine a host of economic settings and situations, including economic analyses of countries, and businesses. It is the method Prof Wolff uses to do economics.

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Economic Update: The Economics of US Labor Struggles and Gaza

In this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses the economic repercussions of Western sanctions and how the retaliations they provoke. We then turn to the latest labor strikes and wage & benefit gains achieved by unions at Boeing and East Coast dock workers. We highlight China's dominance of the global energy markets; and U.S. spending on military and police.

Finally, we close with an economic analysis of Israel's ongoing violence in Gaza.

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Capitalism Hits Home: History of Childhood

In this episode, Dr. Fraad discusses the history of childhood. To quote the most well-known historian of childhood, Lloyd deMause, "The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only begun to awaken." We all begin life as children. Our history must be claimed. Feudalism and capitalism cast children as private property to use, abuse, exploit, or love. This podcast explores our common history through a Marxist lens. In case we need the footnote it follows: Lloyd deMause The History of Childhood. Psychohistory Press, New York. 1974

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Economic Update: The Missing Economics of the 2024 US Presidential Election

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, with the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election 8 days away, Professor Richard Wolff explores the shared refusal of both major candidates and their parties to face and debate solutions to the major problems facing US capitalism in 2024: (1) Inequality, (2) instability and (3) a declining empire. Instead we are witnessing both Trump and Harris compete to be the "cheerleader in chief" for capitalism.

Missing from the discourse is a genuine opposition party that might dare to offer an alternative non-capitalist vision and solution to the system's deepening problems.

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Dialectic At Work: Nobel Laureates, Settler Colonialism and Hypocrisy

This week the dialectic explores the Nobel Prize in Economics, awarded to Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson for their “contribution to Institutional Analyses” of long-run economic development.

We critically examine the claim that “settler colonialism” results in progress and development. Professors Wolff and Azhar discuss how the real economic history of colonized and indigenous peoples rebelled against the “whitewashing” in Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson's work.

The dialectic revisits the work and contributions of Paul Baran, including his analysis of the historical tendencies within capitalist development, and how it leads to under-development in the Global South.

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Economic Update: Puerto Rican Crises and Left Political Unity

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses the new law signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom banning "legacy and donor" favoritism in private college admissions to foster a "merit system." We also bring your attention to Javier Milei and his regime in Argentina as they impose austerity measures on the country: the masses will suffer to pay off debts that enriched the elite few in classic ways.

Finally, we Interviewed economics Professor Ian Seda-Irizarry of the City University of New York about the conditions provoking the rise of the political left and left unity in Puerto Rico.

Ian Seda-Irizarry is an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director at the
Economics Department of John Jay College, City University of New York. His work
focuses on the current socio-economic crisis of Puerto Rico and its relation to the
island’s first fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Whole Societies Can Be In Denial, Ours Certainly Is...

In this episode Dr. Fraad discusses how the American Empire is Falling. That truth which is recognized throughout the rest of the world and in U.S. financial circles, is denied across America. However, the evidence cannot be denied. Where the denial expresses itself most is in "Spirit Level Afflictions". Glaring economic and social inequality, distrust between people, addiction, mental illness, lowered life expectancy, birth rate decline, suicide, homicide, imprisonment rates, and much more. All signs of a society in deep turmoil.

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Economic Update: Flint: The Water Crisis Persists W/Jordan Chariton

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses how FED Chair Jerome Powell admits capitalism's intrinsic instability, a Tennessee plastic plant won't let workers leave before storm Helene hits, we examine new drugs for obesity (Ozempic and Wegovy) which highlights the failures of for-profit medical care.

Finally, we interview Jordan Chariton on his new book "We, the Poisoned: Exposing The Flint Water Crisis Cover-up and the Poisoning of 100,000".

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Dialectic At Work: Why Does Dialectics Matter for Climate Politics?

In this episode, the dialectic discusses the rising temperatures, melting glaciers, droughts, and famines as we have never seen in history; this week the Dialectic at Work explores the position of Capitalism, our dominant economic system, in the Web of Life. Prof. Shahram Azhar discusses the issue with leading environmental historian and historical geographer, Professor Jason W. Moore.

Professor Moore is the author of numerous books and articles on the subject, including "Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital", "Anthropocene or Capitalocene", and "A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things".

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Economic Update: Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) with Eric Blanc

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses the modern political history in the United Kingdom as Conservatives protect UK corporations and the rich by employing
"Distractions": First Brexit, and now Ukraine. We then turn to the latest worker uprising this time in Washington state, as workers at Boeing strike demanding better wages and benefits, and state government employees who are legally prohibited from striking are demanding better conditions as well by demanding better pay and conditions. We turn to the United Healthcare Corporation's latest profit-driven "pre-payment information" scheme, which disenfranchises people in need.

Finally, in an interview with Eric Blanc, a founder of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) we discuss its phenomenal success in helping workers across the economy learn about organizing, and access to labor unions for help with forming unions

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Capitalism Hits Home: A Crime of Domination: Denial of Need & Dis-Connection from Other Human Beings

In this episode, Dr. Fraad juxtaposes our capitalist system with sexual assault. Capitalist exploitation, like rape, requires a lack of connection and empathy for the workers one exploits. Capitalism encourages domination and disconnection from workers' human needs and wants. The rapist does the same. Rapists refuse to see their victim as a fellow human but only as an object to be exploited and dominated. While the majority of rape victims are women 10 percent are men yet another remnant of patriarchy.

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Economic Update: Financializing Public Universities for Wall Street's Benefit

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff addresses the numerous requests for financial planning or investment advice that he receives from many of you. We touch on the truth about investing in the stock and/or bond markets. In addition, Professor Wolff offers a basic understanding of the economics of US capitalism's century-long, profit-driven failure to adequately provide housing to its people. Finally, an interview with Professors Eleni Schirmer and Sofya Aptekar about their new book "Lend and Rule", from Common Notions Press, and their fight against the financialization of US public universities, and why it is so necessary.

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Dialectic At Work: Crisis of Democracy: Revisiting Hegel, Rethinking Political Practice


In this episode, the dialectic goes on to explore how Hegel's idea of historical transformation and change in the world of consciousness and thinking can be used to understand the political and economic situation around the world. Drawing upon a host of examples from the past, and the present, from England, France, and the United States, as well as thinking about future possibilities and trajectories, Prof. Wolff and Prof. Shahram Azhar analyze how Hegel's idea of dialectical change can be used to understand and change the world for the better.

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Economic Update: Understanding Communism Part Two

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff offers a special episode to continue the previous discussion on communism. We will discuss how socialism's history evolved into separating socialism from communism and creating multiple, different meanings of what is considered communism today.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Birth Strike in the USA

American women are on a birth strike. The U.S. leads the developed world in reducing the global birth rate. Only well-funded government programs for families and children will change this phenomenon. U.S. women cannot be the national safety net. This week's episode explains why U.S. women are on a birth strike and what we can do to correct that.

 

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Economic Update: Understanding Communism Pt. 1

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff offers a special episode discussing the unscary origins of the ideas of communism and socialism before the Cold War demonized them. We will discuss how socialism's history evolved into separating socialism from communism and creating multiple, different meanings of what is considered communism today.

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Dialectic At Work: Crisis of Democracy: Marxism as a Critique of TINA

We live at a time when multiple crises surround us. Moreover, we are told that there is no alternative (TINA) so we must all accept the 'lesser of the two evils logic'. This week the dialectic goes to work to critically examine this claim. In particular, we dive into the political situation in France, Germany, and the United States in the context of the electoral process.

As always, we connect the story with key concepts within Marxist theory. Specifically, we ask why Marxists INSIST that 1) The abolition of wage-labor and its replacement with economic democracy, ie workers' self-directed enterprises is POSSIBLE and 2) that this goal set in step (1) is DESIRABLE, in the precise sense that it will solve the structural problems of our times by going to the ROOT of the issue. In other words, Marxism provides PRECISELY the THIRD alternative we need.

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Economic Update: Yanis Varoufakis on the Changing World Economy

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff draws attention to the 10,000 hotel workers who recently conducted a strike impacting major hotels across 19 US cities. We highlight the contested merger of the two largest grocery chains in America. Albertsons and Kroger threaten to become the third largest retail giant after Amazon, and Walmart plus the Canadian government forces 9000 Canadian railway striking workers back to work, with murmurs of a general strike looming. We also give a shout-out to a small Brooklyn pizzeria unionizing with Starbucks workers.

Finally, an exclusive interview with world-renowned economist, politician, author, and the former finance minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis discusses global economic change and the working class, topics discussed in his latest work "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism".

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Economic Update: Labor Day And Abe Lincoln, Honoring Both Together

On this week’s special Labor day episode of Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff honors both Labor Day and President Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln once said in 1861 that "Labor is the superior of capital." Yet, capital in the United States has only two major political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats who both are currently advocating for capital over labor and essentially operating as a two-party monopoly excluding all others.

In today's political discourse, Labor has no party advocating for what Lincoln once advocated. The injustice and inequality generated in and for society by capitalist economies is neither necessary nor welcome. A genuine labor party is the missing solution.

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Economic Update: Worsening Economic Inequality Yields Worsening Social Conditions

On this week’s Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses Kate Pickett's and Richard Wilkinson's best-selling study in the book "The Spirit Level" (2009), showing how economic inequality correlates with most of the major social problems of our time.

We will juxtapose their latest paper "The Spirit Level at 15: The Enduring Impact of Inequality" Which details how economic inequality has only gotten worse since the past fifteen years, despite government laws and programs aimed to "reduce" inequality.

Wilkinson and Pickett show how inequality leads to severe social ills, divisions, and disintegration. What we need is to face that it is capitalism that generates the inequality that generates the hostilities and social tensions intruding upon and damaging our lives."

 

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Capitalism Hits Home: Whither Family-Withered Families

Family was a mainstay of child development and emotional sustenance for both adults and children. US families are now falling apart. Today's episode asks the question: "What can be done to replace their sustaining power?"

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Dialectic At Work: Crisis of Democracy: Marxism and Dialectical Thought Part 1

On this week's episode of the Dialectic at Work, Professor Shahram Azhar and Professor Wolff discuss the crisis of democracy globally, the rise of far-right authoritarianism, the climate crisis, and finally how Marxism can address these issues.

This discussion took place at the recent No War but Class War Forum on May 31st at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus Sponsored by Historical Materialism and Institute for the Radical Imagination Conference

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Economic Update: Capitalism versus Marriage

This week's episode features updates on the UK and French elections showing dramatic shifts to the left contradicting US mass media, US self-induced global economic isolation in pursuit of punishing countries doing business with China, Trump and Biden equally unwilling to solve Social Security's financial problems by taxing incomes of the rich as Congress could and should. Professor Wolff closes with an interview with Dr. Harriet Fraad on global declines in marriage and birth rates and those declines' connections to capitalism.

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Dialectic At Work: Are You Guilty of Reading Capital?

In this episode, “Are you Guilty of Reading Capital?”, the Dialectic goes to work to begin a series of discussions on Marx’s magnum opus, Capital. This episode and the next few will build the foundations for an analysis of Capital and Marx’s theory of surplus-value.

Building on our discussion on Althusser and overdetermination in Episodes 2 and 3, we now turn to how this new way of thinking about dialectics will impact our reading of Capital.

We begin with the following idea: “There is no neutral reading of Capital. We are all guilty of a reading of Capital” (Althusser, Reading Capital). If indeed it is the case, then there is no ‘one’ singular reading of Capital. Rather, as Rick Wolff demonstrates, within the intellectual canon there can be and have been multiple trajectories that Marxist scholars have adopted in the last century-and-a-half while grappling with this text.

We then dive into the following issue: Why did Marx begin his intellectual journey in Capital with the commodity? What is it about the commodity that makes it such a ‘mysterious’ thing with mystical properties? Viewers will begin to see that Marx’s idea of the commodity, and labor-power as being a unique commodity within the world of commodities, is crucial to his overall project of understanding capitalism.

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Economic Update: How Deficits and Debts Rip Us Off

On this week’s Economic Update, Professor Wolff devotes the entire program to explaining clearly and accessibly what government deficits are, why they occur, and who benefits from them. We show how deficits and debts reward corporations and the rich at the expense of the mass of employees. This show will equip our audience to see through the misuse of deficits and debts in the 2024 election campaigns.

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Capitalism Hits Home: A Revolution in the Family Is Already Happening

There is a worldwide revolution that is already happening. It’s in the family, the primary site of creating and sustaining human life. Just as the nuclear family replaced the feudal family, new family forms are replacing the nuclear family as marriage breaks apart and children are born.

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Economic Update: Criminalizing the Homeless (With Rob Robinson)

On this week’s Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses a huge victory for Uber and Lyft drivers' struggling for better wages in Massachusetts; we also bring to your attention six United States senators who criticized Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase for failing to curb fossil fuel investments as he promised. In addition, we discuss the unfortunate new law passed by the new right-wing government in Greece extending the working week to six days.

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Dialectic At Work: On Making Sense: Let Everyone Tell Their ‘Story’

In this episode, “On Making Sense: Let Everyone Tell Their Story”, the Dialectic goes to work to further explore the Marxist idea of dialectics and ‘overdetermination’. Specifically, we deal with the following question: if indeed (as Prof. Wolff has argued in the previous episode) reality is ‘overdetermined’ by a complex interaction between a host of over-determinants then how can we say anything analytical about the real world? How can we still ‘tell a story’?

We argue that the only solution to the mess is to examine the ‘conditions of existence’ that mutually shape a given object of analysis by pulling it and pushing it in multiple trajectories. There are, therefore, no guarantees in this kind of Marxism.

Different analysts will choose to examine different aspects of the social totality by focusing on some part of it. This also leads us to a criticism of mainstream Economics and its emphasis on the ‘empiricist’ mode of reasoning. As Prof Wolff demonstrates here, the field of econometrics makes irrational claims of ‘one-way’ causality that are at odds with how the real-world works. Since ‘evidence’ is always examined in the light of theories, there is no ‘neutral’ way of discerning the truth from fiction. The empiricist focuses on the ‘evidence’ but forgets that evidence is mediated within a theory; the ‘rationalist’ focuses on ‘reason’ but forgets that reason is constructed within the evidence. Marxian overdetermination does not give supremacy to either, but rather understands the dialectic at play between experience and reason, and their impact, in turn, on a host of outcomes.

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Economic Update: Capitalism and Struggle Over Climate Change

On this week’s Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses the remarkable bursts of unionization at Starbucks in the US, award-winning New York nurse fired for referring to "genocide" in Gaza, and critique of Paul Krugman's argument that "democracy" is at stake in the 2024 election.

Finally, we close with a major discussion on the tension between the realities of climate change and the profit-driven fossil fuel industry that dominates our global economy

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Capitalism Hits Home: Trump As Totem

Donald Trump has morphed from a transgressive man into a "Totem", a symbol and embodiment of the rage of Americans at the erosion of white male privilege, and the economic and social devaluation of the their lives. He embodies the retribution for the ravages of capitalism.

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Global Capitalism: The Decline of the US Empire [July 2024]

Explore Global Capitalism with Richard Wolff as he talks about the decline of the United States Empire, examining its military losses, economic challenges, and changing global status. Wolff highlights the historical pattern of rising and falling empires, using the Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine conflicts as indicators of the US's waning dominance. Economically, he observes the fading hegemony of the US dollar and the rise of China and the BRICS nations as new global economic powers. Politically, he notes global shifts towards multipolarity and the immense opportunities and choices facing China as a potential new empire or an advocate for a more equal, multi-centered global community. Finally, Wolff discusses the systemic issues of capitalist structures and the potential transformative power of reorganizing workplaces into democratic, employee-run cooperatives.

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Economic Update: From The Old Socialisms To The New

On this week’s Economic Update, the entire program is devoted to how old socialism's rapid growth and global spread in the 19th and 20th centuries entailed a focus on the state. Key issues were: (1) would the socialist state limit itself to regulating capitalist enterprises and the market (as in many Western European nations) to enhance the well-being of the employee class or would the state itself own and operate enterprises and replace the market with state planning (as in the USSR), and (2) would the socialist strategy to acquire state power be reformist and electoral or revolutionary and armed. Concrete experiences in and with both kinds of old (i.e. state-focused) socialism led to self-criticisms from which a new socialism has emerged for the 21st century. The new socialism criticizes the state-focus of the old and prioritizes the transformation of the workplace over the social positioning of the state in and for the socialist vision and strategy.

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Dialectic At Work: A Theoretical Rupture: Overdetermination

In this episode, “A Theoretical Rupture: Overdetermination”, the Dialectic goes to work to explore the Marxist idea of dialectics and ‘overdetermination’. We begin by asking Prof. Wolff about the theoretical problems and conundrums he faced as a young Marxist thinker and how he, alongside Stephen Resnick, decided that a theoretical rupture was necessary within Marxian thought.

We learn about the problem of economic “essentialism”, and the fact that the complexities of reality cannot be reduced in a simplistic way to the economic dimension of lives. Rather, there is a complex interplay between multiple ‘conditions of existence’.

We learn that Marxian theory is a continuously evolving discipline that seeks to constantly reinterpret the world to change it. We discuss how Althusser imported Freud’s idea of overdetermination from The Interpretation of Dreams, Prof. Wolff’s meeting with Althusser in France, and the new set of ideas that were first presented by Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick in their book Knowledge and Class.

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Economic Update: State Senator And Socialist - Interview with Kristen Gonzalez (NY State Senator)

In this week’s Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses the rise of the Chinese car industry, the struggle between employers vs employees over in-person vs remote workplaces, and the US military's anti-vax program in the Philippines as part of the US-China Cold War that is already underway. In the second half of our program, we interview Kristen Gonzalez, New York State Senator, District 59, on progressives winning elections.

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Economic Update: Fracking vs Fossil Fuel Profits - Interview with Award winning Director Josh Fox

In this week’s Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses the latest US and EU tariffs against China's electric vehicles, 27,000 Virginia teachers vote to unionize, and students and workers at all 6 University of California campuses strike against attempted repression of students peacefully advocating a Gaza ceasefire.

In the second half of our program, we interview Oscar-nominated and Emmy Winning writer, director, and anti-fracking activist Josh Fox of the award-winning films GASLAND Parts 1 and 2 on his latest film "The Edge of Nature"

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Dialectic At Work: For Roses and Bread: On Marxism as a Theory of Overcoming Trauma

In this episode, "For Roses and Bread: On Marxism as a Theory of Overcoming Trauma", the Dialectic goes to work to explore the following question: Why Marx? Why Marxian Theory?

We begin with this, our inaugural episode, with a deep dive into Professor Richard Wolff's life. His upbringing, education and what led him to dedicate his life to the Marxian project.

We argue that among the diverse reasons why people choose to study Marxism is that it provides an analysis of the 'urgent living problems' that confront us as individuals, as societies, and as a global community. The great dialectician, Lukacs, famously remarked that the Marxist dialectic is revolutionary since it not only seeks to understand the world but also, as Marx rightly pointed out, to change it.

With that in mind, we explore the life and times of Professor Richard D Wolff as a point of entry into the theory we are about to explore. We dive into the sociohistorical circumstances, during and after World War II, that turned a man born to middle-class European immigrants who were fleeing to the United States to escape Nazism into a critic of capitalism.

This is crucial to the aims of the podcast since the theoretical and political concepts that we will explore in upcoming podcasts were shaped, in part, by the experience and backgrounds of Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick.

After watching this episode, viewers will begin to see how Marxism provides a way of dealing with an unjust and unfair world; not by imploding internally, nor by blaming ones' self for one's miseries, or by victimizing others. Instead, we examine our trauma as a manifestation of the larger problem, the historical bourgeois epoch called capitalism.

We should then be able to appreciate that Marx provided a disturbing yet profound critique of capitalism that is critical to understanding the real cause of our misery: it is just the way capitalism works. Marxist knowledge then is crucial for anyone who wishes to change it.

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Economic Update: The Political Economy Of Tariffs

In this week’s Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff devotes the entire program to an analysis of tariffs. We discuss why tariffs are not a workers' issue. why capitalism's continuous swings between free trade and protectionist periods/phases make little impacts of workers, and why contending capitalists seek to get workers to support their views of tariffs.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Voluntary Childlessness Is A Worldwide Trend. Why?

Women with access to birth control are increasingly opting out of bearing children worldwide. Women are now economically forced into labor outside of the home. Thanks to persistent male chauvinism women are then expected to perform a "second shift" of housework and childcare.

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Economic Update: Labor Vs Capital Struggle in US Intensifies

In this week’s Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses The Washington Post's exposure of the corporate rich sponsoring police repression against student protests and how Boeing rewards CEOs while it exhibits the airlines' worst safety record. In addition, the UAW loses union election as German capitalists and southern governors join forces to intimidate workers with job threats. Finally, we highlight why mass public transport is a better alternative to gas-powered vehicles than electric vehicles.

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Economic Update (Special Edition): Exclusive interview with Dr. Cornel West

We would like to present a special edition of Economic Update featuring an exclusive discussion between Professor Richard Wolff and Dr. Cornel West. This program was recorded in June, 2023, but unfortunately we were unable to air this important discussion at that time. You will hear Dr. West explain why he undertook the challenge and burden to run for President of the United States. Given the political reality of US politics, as exhausted by the two major parties, we thought it would be a public service to invite Dr. West to be heard in this form. No endorsement is intended.

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Economic Update: New Energies Organizing Unions

In this week’s Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff comments on US megabanks once again taking new off-the-books risks, Elon Musk endorsing right-wing undemocratic census proposals and Fossil Fuel industry executives bribe Trump with campaign donations. In addition, we highlight the many US and global labor unions and workers who have joined the movement in supporting of ending the Israeli military actions in Gaza.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Women’s Traditional Labor, Skills and Strengths Are Learned Behaviors

What are the Skills and Strengths Learned In Performing Women’s Traditional Labor of Caring
for Vulnerable Lives , and Creating Order and Cleanliness? Why Are These Knowledges
Unknown, No Less Uncelebrated? Ignoring these strengths and skills devalues women, devalues
caring, devalues life itself and perpetuates callousness towards others, a callousness that allows employers to exploit employees.

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Economic Update: Roots of a Surging US Labor Movement

In this week’s Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff discusses the reasons why the official United States unemployment rate is currently low in comparison to historic rates; We also highlight why U.S. restaurants are losing business. We then turn to the hypocrisy of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in the face of repression of growing American protest movement against Israeli policy in Gaza. In addition, we discuss Gabriel Zuckman's report on the economic impact of the dramatic cuts in taxes on billionaires vs rising taxes on the poorer half of the U.S.

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Ask Prof Wolff Live - May 15, 2024 with Jared Yates Sexton

Today on "Ask Prof Wolff Live" Professor Richard Wolff will be ready to answer your questions and will be joined by Jared Sexton Yates. They will start by discussing how we would allocate resources in a socialist or communist society to meet our needs and how union and worker demands can overcome the limits and constraints of the global labor market while maintaining their leverage?

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Economic Update: Prospects for a Political Turn Left

This week’s Economic Update Professor Richard Wolff discusses the successful unionization drives that is sweeping across US universities (example: Boston University), We highlight the facts that disprove Biden's "great economy" claims and why inflation is much worse in the United States than in China. Finally we have an exclusive Interview with Jared Yates Sexton, writer and political analyst, on prospects for a left turn in US politics

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Capitalism Hits Home: The Family - Does It Work? Did It Ever?

The family is a sacred cow, It is presented as instinctual, and eternal. It isn't. Family is breaking down. It's time to study it, question it, and create new alternatives and study the successful alternatives whose stories have been repressed. If we do, we can find ways to empower and free each other on every level.

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Global Capitalism: A Marxist Critique of Capitalism for 2024 [May 2024]

In this lecture, Richard D. Wolff discusses a Marxist critique of capitalism for 2024, delving into core issues such as labor, surplus, and exploitation. He explores the persistent problems of inequality and injustice, highlighting how these systemic issues contribute to economic instability characterized by cycles and crises. Wolff also examines potential alternatives to capitalism, aiming to provide a comprehensive analysis of the economic system's flaws and the possibilities for a more equitable future.

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Economic Update: Uneven Development a Key Problem of Capitalism

This week in honor of Karl Marx's birthday over this past weekend, Professor Richard Wolff offers a discussion of Marx's important theory of uneven development as central to capitalism. We show its widespread existence, using examples of it from past and present. We conclude by showing how uneven development helps cause key social problems in capitalism.

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Global Capitalism: On Labor - A May Day 2024 Special

Today's May Day Special, a collaborative effort with long-time contributor Charles Fabian, opens with the major causes for why May Day 2024 is so special. These include the fact that the great crash of global capitalism in 2008-2009 shook the world in ways that include shocking a declining US labor movement back to life and growth.

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Economic Update: The Phenomenon of China

This week’s Economic Update Professor Richard Wolff dedicates the entire show to the economic developmental achievement of China, together with the historical background that motivated that achievement. We analyze the uniqueness of both the economic philosophy and the politics of China.

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Economic Update: A Critique of Government Spending

This week’s Economic Update Professor Richard Wolff devotes this program devoted to how to understand government spending. How it shapes the larger society. We will focus on two questions 1) What is the government spending on? and 2) How is that money going to be used, and who benefits? If government spending only flows to capitalist corporations, they will use it to reproduce capitalism including its inequalities and injustices. This is a crucial impact of government spending but rarely examined. The alternative - spending on worker coops - is explained and explored as a better alternative.

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Capitalism Hits Home: The United Nation World Happiness Report

The United States has lost its position in the top 10 happiest nations? We have lost on every marker of life satisfaction. How do we regain our joy and hope?

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Economic Update: A Sea Change In US Labor's Militancy

In this week’s Economic Update Professor, Richard Wolff examines US spending on war materials for Ukraine and Israel, we will discuss Chinese Electric Vehicle imports and the US's protectionist response, and we will highlight the possible convergence of worker cooperatives as part of union negotiating strategies, and we discuss the impact of Harvard college workers vote overwhelmingly to join two unions. Finally, we Interview author and union organizer, Kim Kelly.

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Economic Update: The Myth of Black Buying Power

This week’s Economic Update Professor Richard Wolff discusses how the capitalist political economy can explain the Baltimore bridge disaster, we explain why raising minimum wages helps big vs small businesses. We highlight the recent court rulings in New York and how cities can lower rents for their citizens as Kingston, NY just did, (if tenants mobilize to do so). Finally an Interview with Professor Jared A. Ball on the myths of black buying power and black capitalism and the role such myths play in supporting capitalism

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Economic Update: Resurgent Labor Organizing In The South

This week’s Economic Update Professor Richard Wolff discusses the US Treasury Department charges Apple as monopoly, Georgia's state government sides openly with employers against unions, two union members decide to enter important elections as independent voices in Nebraska and West Virginia, and a critique of the FED's policy that keeps inflation and interest rates high. Finally we Interview Mike Elk, publisher of the Payday, on his views regarding the important UAW fight for union recognition at VW plant Chattanooga, TN.

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Economic Update: How Capitalism Distributes Power

Updates on resurging child labor in US, colleges athlete vote to join unions, unionization sweeping not-for-profit charities (hospitals, museums, etc) such as MassMoca in western Massachusetts. Major discussion of how capitalism concentrates power in mass media (including social media), in authoritarian internal structures of corporations, and via donations and other controls exercised over two major political parties and over politicians.
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Ask Prof Wolff - March 20, 2024

This week on Ask Prof Wolff Live, we explore anti-inflationary measures implemented by central banks, the rationale behind income caps subject to social security tax, and the potential implications of transitioning from a socialist or communist economy to a wartime footing.

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Economic Update: Patriarchy and Capitalism

This week’s Economic Update Professor Richard Wolff discusses the UAW union’s latest moves. Their organizing drives at auto plants, their efforts to form unions among employed and free-lance journalists. In addition, we will highlight New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to deploy national guard troops in New York City subways and what that means for everyday residents. Finally, an interview with psychotherapist Tess Fraad-Wolff on interactions between patriarchy and capitalism, today.

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Capitalism Hits Home: How Do We Change For A More Hopeful Egalitarian America?

We need to add to the powerful emerging union movement and unite it with all of our progressive movements whether Climate Justice, Black Lives Matter, the Feminist Movement, or the Sexual Rights Movement. We need one big multifaceted union and a political party that expresses that unity. In solidarity.

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Economic Update: Debris From A Declining Empire

This week's episode of Economic Update we discuss we discuss United Kingdom politician George Galloway by-election victory, and the raised minimum wage in UK. We will comment on Elon Musk's lawsuit against the NLRB, as Trader Joe, Starbucks, and Amazon also join to ask right-wing Supreme Court to gut regulation of business. We then look at US protectionism as the Biden administration raises tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, in an attempt to keep Chinese EV's from US markets. Then in labor news we discuss Starbucks’ negotiations with unions and how Michigan’s legislature killed "right-to-work" law after 58 years. Finally, we have an Interview Richard RJ Esjow on the current decline of the “US Empire”. Richard Eskow is a journalist and host of The Zero Hour. a syndicated radio and television program. A lead writer, speechwriter, and editor for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign, he was also a featured columnist at The Huffington Post. He worked for years in the corporate world, with governments and with multinational organizations as the World Bank, specializing in healthcare financing, policy, and information technology.

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Ask Prof Wolff Live - March 6, 2024

In this installment, Prof. Wolff discusses the impact on children's autonomy, explores the intersections of class struggle with other forms of oppression, and unravels the intriguing concept of "Scientific Socialism." Following the insightful discussion, Prof. Wolff addresses a range of questions from the audience, providing deeper understanding and perspectives on these critical topics.

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Economic Update: Capitalism, Gender, And A Split Society

This week's episode of Economic Update hosted by Professor Richard Wolff, we discuss the underemployed of US college graduates, failed anti-Russian sanctions, the collapsed UK birthrate, and expanding wars in the Middle East, we will dive into the costs and risks in absence of a ceasefire in Gaza. Finally we Interview Dr. Harriet Fraad, host of Capitalism Hits Home and a clinical therapist. Professor Wolff and Dr. Fraad explore the post 1970's deindustrialization in the US, its impact on white males versus other social groups, and resulting US social splits.

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Capitalism Hits Home: World Transformations Have Hit Our Homes Hard

The time for colonialism and settler colonialism is over! Whether it's in South Africa, America, Europe or Israel. The world is transforming. With the rise of China and the other BRICS nations, the United States have less power. The remaining US wealth is racing towards the billionaire class leaving the rest of us behind. What can we do about it?

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Economic Update: Breaking Up With Capitalism

This week's episode of Economic Update hosted by Professor Richard Wolff, we discuss the Philadelphia University of the Artist Faculty Union and its struggles; we clarify what declining inflation does and does not mean; we answer the question: as to why sanctions fail. Finally we interview Essence Magazine's senior news & politics editor author, lawyer Malaika Jabali and discuss her newly released book "It's Not You Its Capitalism".

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Ask Prof Wolff Live - February 21, 2024

This week's edition of Ask Prof Wolff covers a range of topics including the degrowth movement, labor and artificial intelligence, globalization's effects on national economies, and the promotion of worker-owned enterprises. Through historical context and economic theory, the discussion explores capitalism's intricacies, aiming to illuminate transformative possibilities for a more equitable economic system.

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Economic Update: Capitalism and Tax Injustice

This week's episode of Economic Update hosted by Professor Richard Wolff, we discuss Germany's recession, California fast-food workers unionize, How the war in Ukraine boosts US stock market, corporate stock holdings, while hurting most wage/salary incomes, In addition we ask what lessons from the protest/revolt of European farmers? Finally, the ongoing exposing of major injustices of the US federal tax system (tax exemptions for schools, churches, hospitals, and charities and social security's flat tax system)

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Global Capitalism: Europe 2024: Disunity, Decline, Despair

This month's discourse dives deep into the pressing issues facing Europe in 2024, exploring themes of disunity, decline, and despair. From the impact of Ukraine and sanctions leading to European de-industrialization to the resurgence of fascism and immigration challenges, we'll cover a range of pivotal topics. Join us as we analyze the geopolitical shifts with China's rise, the US's relative decline, and the significant protests of Euro-farmers that signal Europe's future directions. We'll also delve into the political landscapes of the UK, examining the collapses of both the Conservative and Labor parties.

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Economic Update: The U.S. Tax System Designed For Economic Injustice

[EU S14 E06]

This week's episode of Economic Update hosted by Professor Richard Wolff, we will be discussing the increasingly more common corporate threats to force remote workers back to working onsite. We then turn to Ukraine war economics, US vs BGI as anti-Chinese economic nationalism, US's escalation of war in the Middle East, and finally a critique of the US tax system's injustices.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Positive Changes: Connections & Community Development

[S07 E06]

Despite the sometimes depressing and unnerving problematic state of affairs we are seeing a growing number of people finding new connections and support systems amongst themselves, binding together and forming supporting systems to help them through these challenging times.

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Economic Update: The US Economy As An Apartheid System

[EU S14 E05]

This week's episode of Economic Update hosted by Professor Richard Wolff, we will be discussing the continuing decline of US manufacturing; a 29,000 person strike at California State Univ.; the Houthis disrupt Red Sea shipping in move against Israel; and Texas refuses to obey US federal government's rules in struggle over immigration and white supremacy. In addition we have a special Interview with leading economist Prof. Michael Hudson on basic crises facing US capitalism.

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Economic Update: US Capitalism At The Crossroads

[EU S14 E04]

This week’s Economic Update Professor Richard Wolff discusses the special dimensions and qualities of the US labor movement's current dynamism; Thomas Piketty’s analysis showing how capitalism generates widening wealth and income gaps leading to crashes or simmering, divisive, and domestic resentments. Leading to the system itself becomes destabilized.

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Economic Update: As The Empire Crumbles

[EU S14 E03]

In this week's episode of EU, Prof.Wolff delivers updates on the mass closing of Greyhound bus stations around the U.S., the escalating strengths of Russian obstacles in Ukraine, the choice the UK faces between paying for the bombing of Yemen or funding their National Health Service, how Boeing's safety debacle propelled China into the lead of global automotive exports and how Israel has also been aversely affected by the shifts and changes of the world economy caused by the decline of U.S. dominance.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Definitions & Intersections of White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, Hetero-Patriarchy & Capitalism

[S07 E05]

What exactly do these terms mean- White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, Hetero-Patriarchy and Capitalism? These are social divisions that function together. They separate us. They prevent us from uniting for a just socialist society that works for all of us.

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Ask Prof Wolff Live - January 17, 2024

In this edition of Ask Prof Wolff Live, the discussion focuses on what the capitalist class means when they claim to have earned their wealth based on merit rather than exploitation. The session delves into the effectiveness and equality in defining value, exploring whether demand and market evaluation or labor serves as a more accurate measure. Following this, Prof Wolff addresses live questions from the audience.

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Economic Update: Corporations vs Democracy

[EU S14 E02]

In this weeks show, Prof. Wolff analyzes the corporation. It stands as a basic institution blocking real democracy in our society. The corporation's structure and operations empower and enrich a tiny social minority at the expense of the people's wealth and democratic power. Like the critiques of slave plantations and feudal manors that preceded the disappearance of those systems, the growing critique of capitalism reflects but also informs critical social movements now.

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Economic Update: U.S. China Decoupling Myth

[EU S14 E1]

Happy New Year! For our first Economic Update of 2024, Professor Richard Wolff discusses the myth of the current narrative of the United States disconnecting itself economically from the Republic of China

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Economic Update: Facing The Human Rights Crisis

[EU S13 E46]

This week's episode of Economic Update features updates on an analysis of Philadelphia, PA's extreme income inequality, the number of workers on striker per year since 2017 in the U.S., the UAW organizing a strike at the VW plant in Tennessee plus other UAW unionization drives and the 400k public employees on strike in Quebec that are heading towards a general strike. In the second half of, Prof. Wolff interviews Rob Robinson, formerly homeless advocate/fighter for homeless housing rights, housing, official of Human Rights Network and Chairman of The Left Forum.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Addiction, Suicide, and Psych Drugs - Life Is Painful In Today's USA (2 of 2)

[S07 E04]

Addiction, Suicide, and Psych Drugs are all heavily marketed. Opioid medications like Oxycontin induce addiction, guns facilitate suicide, and pills numb justified anxiety and depression. Why are they now epidemics?

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Economic Update: Politics, Economics & Chocolate: Capitalism's Flaws & Failures

[EU S13 E45]

This week's episode of Economic Update features updates on the economic crises in Argentina and Germany, the graduate student unionization wave happening across U.S., how & where the chocolate industry is using child labor, a critical analysis of what "profit" means and a departed Kissinger.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Addiction, Suicide, and Psych Drugs - Life Is Painful In Today's USA (1 of 2)

[S07 E03]

Addiction, Suicide, and Psych Drugs are all heavily marketed. Opioid medications like Oxycontin induce addiction, guns facilitate suicide, and pills numb justified anxiety and depression. Why are they now epidemics?

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Economic Update: The U.S. Military Machine & What It Costs

[S13 E44]

We hope you all enjoy this week's episode of Economic Update featuring updates on Tesla vs the Swedish Unions, a teachers strike in Portland, Oregon, "food insecurity" in the U.S. today, how the King of Britain has been secretly profiting from assets of the dead and a Michigan "entrepreneur" failed in effort to buy electoral defeat of Rachid Tlaib.
In the second half of this week’s episode, Prof. Wolff interviews Norman Solomon on his latest book, "War Made invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine".

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Ask Prof Wolff Live - November 29, 2023

Join this special iteration of "Ask Prof Wolff" where we respond to your questions live! (November 29, 2023)

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Economic Update: American's Self Image VS Reality

[EU S13 E43]

Updates on the closing of a Florida plant that should be converted to worker co-op, oil company profits VS the social damage they do, how mega-corporations (Walmart, Amazon) are taking over the grocery business and the social purpose and the meaning of the "middle class". In the second half of this week's episode, Prof. Wolff interviews Jared Yates Sexton. The discussion focuses on his latest book, "Midnight Kingdom" and how the U.S. practices social control by spinning stories the public sees and hears.

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Economic Update: When Labor Movements Rise

[EU S13 E42]

Updates on U.K.’s King Charles in Africa, the unionization struggles at Starbucks, a growing strike against Musk’s Tesla and the Bangladeshi women’s labor strike. An analysis of the economic concept of "surplus" and how capitalism makes it possible.

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Capitalism Hits Home: What Are Some Life Supports For America's Failing Isolated Nuclear Families?

[S07 E02]

We can support our failing families. We can learn from attempts abroad and from our own history.

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Ask Prof Wolff Live - November 15, 2023

Join this special iteration of "Ask Prof Wolff" where we respond to your questions live! (November 15, 2023)

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Economic Update: Inequality Undermines Health & Healthcare in the U.S.

[S13 E41]

Updates on risks to UAW strike victories, realtors fined for collusion on real estate commissions, Bangladeshi strikes for higher minimum wages for clothing workers, China outmaneuvers Malaysia and US in rubber glove business, UN vote isolates USm Israel, Ukraine over Cuba embargo. Interview with Dr. Stephen Bezruchka on how economic inequality connects to stress, health problems, and inadequate healthcare.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Is the Nuclear Family An Eternal Ubiquitous Way of Organizing Personal Life?

[S07 E01]

In this episode of "Capitalism Hits Home," Dr. Harriet Fraad examines the intersection of the faltering American economy and the breakdown of traditional family structures. The discussion challenges narratives placing blame on individuals, particularly critiquing the tendency to scapegoat white men for societal shifts, and emphasizes the systemic issues of corporate greed. Fraad delves into the repercussions for children, highlighting the prevalence of poverty and hunger. Drawing comparisons with France, the episode explores historical factors like anti-communism and an authoritarian family structure as barriers to collective action in the U.S. Despite these challenges, there is optimism in the growing unionization efforts across various sectors, with a vision for a unified movement driving societal change.

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Global Capitalism: November 2023

[November 2023] New

In this episode, Professor Wolff discusses the 3 Kinds of State Role in Economy, 1 Kind of Workplace Revolution, Saving Capitalism from Itself, as well as Socialism, Fascism and Capitalism’s Decline.

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Ask Prof Wolff Live - November 8, 2023

Join this special iteration of "Ask Prof Wolff" where we respond to your questions live! (November 8, 2023)

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Economic Update: Social & Labor Movements Claim Real Victories

[S13 E40] New

Update on Nobel Prize in economics to Harvard Prof. Claudia Goldin; comment on Maine/Halloween shootings, global financial secrecy index and President Biden's pursuit of money for war. Major segments on (i) UAW strike victories at Ford, GM and Stellantis, and (ii) abortion access victory in France.

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Ask Prof Wolff Live - November 1, 2023

Join this special iteration of "Ask Prof Wolff" where we respond to your questions live! (November 1, 2023)

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Economic Update: What Socialism Needs to Succeed

[S13 E39] New

This week's episode features a discussion of (1) the crisis of today's real left; (2) the need to acknowledge, build upon, but also go well beyond the successful socialisms of the 19th and 20th centuries; (3) the macro focus on the state and the omission of a microfocus on the workplace; and (4) democratizing workplaces as 'what is to be done'.

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Capitalism Hits Home: US Empire Falls. Families Fail. Why?

[S06 E11]

All Empires rise and fall. America's empire is no exception. We need to admit it. To make Americans' lives better, we could start with cutting the military budget, and not just because we can, but because we should.

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Ask Prof Wolff Live October 25, 2023

Join this special iteration of "Ask Prof Wolff" where we respond to your questions live! (October 25, 2023)

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Economic Update: American Families Today Are Crisis Ridden

[ S13 E38 ] New

This week's episode features updates on President Biden's inadequate student debt relief, Bastille Day and the French Revolution, and alternatives to Artificial Intelligence being installed to increase profits and joblessness. Prof. Wolff also interviews Dr. Harriet Fraad on the causes and consequences causing the crisis facing U.S. families today.

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Ask Prof Wolff Live October 18, 2023

Join this special iteration of "Ask Prof Wolff" where we respond to your questions live! (October 18, 2023)

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Economic Update: Today's Agents of Change: Strikes, Unionization & Labor Militancy

[ S13 E37 ] New

Updates on how Social Security makes African-Americans subsidize whites, lessons from a new survey of young Americans' politics, the injustice of Europe's central bank raising its interest rates, Taylor Swift publicly supports Hollywood strikers, and Coco Gauff publicly supports climate change activists. Interview Mike Elk, Editor of The Payday Report, tracking the strike wave across America and especially the huge autoworker's strike.

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Ask Prof Wolff Live Oct 11, 2023

Join this special iteration of "Ask Prof Wolff" where we respond to your questions live! (October 11, 2023)

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Economic Update: Corporate Greed VS Labor: The Struggle Intensifies

[ S13 E36 ] New

Updates on writers (WGA) strike, auto-workers (UAW) strike, failure of US Federal Reserve, US govt subsidizes private capitalists. Interview Pete Dolack on his new book "What Do We Need Bosses For? Toward Economic Democracy".

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Ask Prof Wolff Live Oct 5, 2023

Join this special iteration of "Ask Prof Wolff" where we respond to your questions live!

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Economic Update: Private Profits vs Public Treasure with Eleanor Goldfield

[ S13 E35 ] New

In this week's Economic Update episode, topics include the successful unionization efforts at Starbucks stores across the U.S., challenges within the British university system, the United Auto Workers (UAW) gearing up for negotiations, and the vital importance of preserving the Redwood forests, featuring an interview with filmmaker and activist Eleanor Goldfield. These discussions shed light on workers' rights, education, labor solidarity, and environmental conservation.

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Global Capitalism: September 2023

[September 2023] New

In this episode, Professor Wolff discusses the resurging US labor movement, highlighting its recent prominence in sectors such as Starbucks, medicine, and autoworkers. He explores the underlying reasons for this resurgence, labor's objectives and strategies, its political partnerships, and the enduring debate between capitalism and socialism within the movement.

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Economic Update: Profit & Inequality: Two Driving Forces of Capitalism

[ S13 E34 ] New

Updates on economists favoring rent control, leading global capitalists resent/resist US's China-bashing, urgent drug shortages in US and a public pharma industry. Major discussion of causes of rising US economic inequality since 1960s and its socially explosive political effects.

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Economic Update: Today's Class Struggles with Chris Hedges

[S13 E25] New

Updates on US small/medium businesses converting to worker coops, strikes at west coast ports and UPS, an employer uses fake priest to get workers' confessions for employers' use, Delaware allows businesses to vote in local elections (alongside individuals). Interview Chris Hedges on class struggles here and now.

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Global Capitalism: July 2023

[July 2023] New

In this lecture, Prof. Wolff discusses the why private Capitalism makes that turn; why state Capitalism makes that turn; will the authoritarian state save or end Capitalism? (United States vs. China) Along with Socialism and the Authoritarian State.

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Capitalism Hits Home: Alternative Family Structures are Not New

[S6 E11] New

Socialist visions of communal shared domestic labor and child rearing have existed in the past and exist in the present. In 1917 following the Russian Revolution the government changed the rules and created a domestic revolution. At the turn of the century in the United States over 200 large and established socialist communes existed. Domestic revolution was then considered a valuable means of revolutionary change.

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Economic Update: Capitalism's Costly Contradictions

[S13 E24] New

Updates on real US unemployment problem; Congress betrays students on student debt issue; huge majorities polled support US teachers, increased teachers pay, teachers' freedoms to teach about race, and teachers' power vs boards of education and state governors, importance of ILWU strike shutting down west coast seaports. Major discussions of capitalism's contradictions around (1) capitalists forever "saving on labor costs,"and (2) capitalists celebrating self-correcting markets."

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Ask Prof Wolff: The Many Interpretations of Marx

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "I wrote an email response to someone who had a lot of strange ideas about Marx and all of the purported evil done in his name. He and others seem to hold Marx personally responsible for the crimes of Pol Pot, Stalin...

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Capitalism Hits Home: Capitalism’s Impact on Our Personal Lives

[S06 E10]

In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad continues speaking about the impacts of a corrupt capitalism system on mental health and personal lives.

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Economic Update: Varoufakis' Critique of Capitalism Today

[S13 E18] New

Yanis Varoufakis, elected member Greek parliament, joins Prof. Wolff on this week's show and offers his original, critical perspectives on (1) the banking crisis, (2) the decline of the US empire and US capitalism, (3) the mass uprisings of the French and Greek working classes in Europe, (4) the collapse...

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Ask Prof Wolff: The True Cost of Sanctions

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Are sanctions, which are detrimental to ordinary citizens, in some cases justified in order to try to pressure...

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Capitalism Hits Home: BRICS & The End of US Dominance

[S6 E09] New

In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad discusses the decline of the American empire, both globally and domestically. After WWII, the US was the only industrialized nation that stood strong, helping it ascend to global dominance. Today, however, the world order is shifting. The BRICS economic alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) is extremely powerful and widespread, with over 19 more countries hoping to...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Can Capitalism Be Reformed?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Have you looked into the concept of Collective Capitalism as theorized by G. Means and its influence on Japan (which has the largest Communist Party not in control of the government)? Also, the public private relationship in Singapore's economy seems very different from the Western financial capitalist system. Are these various "Eastern" economic models something that would...

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Economic Update: The Emerging New World Economy: A New Empire, a Multipolar World, or a Post-Capitalist System

[S13 E17] New

Four key changes drive a new world economy emerging from the old. First is Capitalism's transition from neoliberal, globalizing to nationalistic capitalism. Second is the end of the stale, old debate between private and state capitalism in favor of private + state capitalism hybrids. Third is the post-peak decline of the US empire. Fourth is the urgent question of what comes next...

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Ask Prof Wolff: How Treasury Bonds Help Corporations and the Rich

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Please explain the role of the bond market (US Treasuries) in the...

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Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: The Corporatization of Academia

[S5 E08] New

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey reflects on how universities in the US have shifted and evolved under advanced capitalism to function more and more like corporations. The ethos of the academic model is no longer about universities paying professors to teach, but rather that professors earn their keep by making money for the university. We are seeing increased bureaucratization, a push for entrepreneurialism among professors, and a growing corporate managerial structure. This reorganization of education around monetization...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Who Do Politicians Really Serve?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "It seems like you believe capitalists aren't just greedy and evil but in a system requiring them to do what they do. Is this also true of politicians who vote for and carry out...

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Cities After… From Exclusion to Gentrification: The NIMBY-YIMBY Politics

[S3 E07] New

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán examines the histories and ideological underpinnings of the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) and YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) urban development movements. On the surface, these movements may seem to have opposing politics. However, by looking closely at their evolution and participation, it becomes clear that both have been co-opted and obscured by politicians and the media in order to serve the corporate elites and capitalist developers. As the story goes, the NIMBYs are...

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Economic Update: Today's Medicare for All Battle with Dr. William Bronston

[S13 E16] New

In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff discusses US deaths from Covid, poverty in the US labor force, US and Canada cooperate against immigrants, US warfare vs China's peacemaking, Amazon profits from cutting back on "free" shipping. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Dr. William Bronston, advocate for single-payer...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Lessons from France’s Pension Struggle

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "In view of the French retirement proposals and the argument that fewer active workers are supporting more retired workers, can you address how changing demographics will affect...

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Capitalism Hits Home: Signs of a Declining Empire

[S6 E08] New

The US is out of control and we are in denial. The proof is abundant: Mass shootings, extreme inequality, lost wars, weak currency, high suicide rates, corporate greed, climate crises, deregulation, and more. In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad draws on decades of experience as a psychologist to remind us that...

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Ask Prof Wolff: AI & ChatGPT - What are the Economic Impacts?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "I am writing to seek your insights on the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) landscape, particularly with regards to its implementation by profit-driven companies. It is evident that AI technology has the potential to bring significant advancements in various sectors. However, there is a growing concern that AI's deployment by...

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All Things Co-op: Silicon Valley Bank and the Mania of Capitalist Banking

[S7 E12] New

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Larry, Kevin, and Cinar discuss the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, financial markets, self-regulation and the role of capitalist ideology in modern banking, the effect on...

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Economic Update: When We Put People First in US Politics

[S13 E15] New

In this week’s Economic Update, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the failures of GOP and Democrats to face or solve major crises; layoffs and stock buybacks by US hi-tech companies; a new study of "food insecurity" in LA county. The second half of the show is dedicated to a discussion of...
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Ask Prof Wolff: The Impact of China on Small U.S. Businesses

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "I am a pediatrician but like everyone in the medical field, we are tired of serving insurance companies and Medicine is not fun anymore. I wish we had public insurance as I don't see how health can go with...

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Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Housing in a Broken System

[S5 E07] New

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey shares major lessons he learned while studying the housing issue in Baltimore in the late 1960s and asking the questions: Why is housing quality so appalling in low-income areas? Why had past attempts to change that failed? How could the richest nation in the world tolerate this? Harvey explains how he came to...

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Ask Prof Wolff: The Illusion of Woke Economics

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Please discuss woke economics. I have seen YouTube clips using this term. After viewing a couple clips I concluded this is capitalism claiming to be the...

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Cities After… The Business of Homelessness

[S3 E06] New

The number of people experiencing homelessness has been dramatically increasing across the globe. This crisis has been exacerbated in the last decade by uncontrolled predatory real-estate speculation, the pernicious privatization of social or public housing stock, record levels of inequality, a miserable supply of affordable homes, and the erosion...

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Economic Update: The Marxist Tradition

[S13 E14] New

In this week’s Economic Update, Prof. Wolff discusses the history and diversity of Marxist theories and practices that comprise the Marxist tradition. Wolff also explores why Marxism draws renewed interest globally now. Finally, a detailed examination shows how some basic insights from Marx's...
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Ask Prof Wolff: How Capitalism Distorts The Immigration Issue

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "What do you think about the left's view of immigration and why do you think that seems to be the consensus view? Why are most on the left so in support of...

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Capitalism Hits Home: All Empires Rise and Fall, The US Is No Exception

[S6 E07] New

In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad traces a brief history of the rise and fall of the American empire. Throughout much of the 20th century, the US was the dominant global power, with strong unions, social programs, and a strong currency. Today, our wealthiest people are barely taxed, social services are...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Is the U.S. Dollar in Trouble?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "I'd love to hear your thoughts on what a world looks like if the US dollar loses its primacy. What does the "economy" look like...

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All Things Co-op: Lula's Brazil & The Landless Workers Movement

[S7 E11] New

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Larry, Cinar, and Kevin talk to Marcelo Netto, a Brazilian journalist and activist with the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil. They discuss Lula 3, the third term for Brazil's president Lula De Silva, the history of Brazil's...

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Economic Update: Why the US Constitution is an Obstacle to Change

[S13 E13] New

In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the US banking crisis, plant closing injustice, growing child labor in the US, Biden's budget's tax "proposals," and a new book that shows US homelessness is an economic problem. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Prof. Robert Ovetz...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Why Democratic Workplaces Are Better for Work-Life Balance

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Are Americans ready for Democracy (at work or anywhere else)? I have been a volunteer in a non-profit for decades. We are a 12 step program and have plenty of participation in our weekly meetings. We are nominally democratic in that we ideally hold a monthly group conscience in which we can make simple decisions like...

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Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Daniel Ellsberg, Government Dishonesty & Nuclear Weapons

[S5 E06] New

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey explores the contributions made by Daniel Ellsberg, the political activist known for releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Ellsberg gave the public a look into the ways in which the US government was lying about the Vietnam war with the Pentagon Papers, and offered a look into how the US military...

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Ask Prof Wolff: What Europe Got Wrong about Sanctions on Russia

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Why, in your opinion, did European countries go along with the USA on sanctions on Russia after the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year? Did European leaders miscalculate...

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Cities After… The Problems with Supply and Demand in the Housing Market

[S3 E05] New

"Housing is a basic human need and the market tends to ignore social needs, as it prioritizes individual profit.” - Prof. Robles-Durán

There is a widespread belief that the central culprit of the housing crisis in most metropolitan regions around the world today is the lack of supply. This notion has been well spread by mainstream media outlets and urban professionals, such as urban planners, architects, housing developers, and real-estate agencies. For those disseminating this idea, ending the housing crisis is...

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Economic Update: How Austerity Paves the Way for Fascism

[S13 E12] New

In this week’s Economic Update, Prof. Wolff interviews Prof. Clara Mattei on her new book "Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism"...

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Ask Prof Wolff: What Is Economic Nationalism?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "I would like Prof to explain what the meaning of Economic Nationalism is and...

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Capitalism Hits Home: The Impact of Gender Roles - Care Work, Mass Violence & the Way Forward

[S6 E06] New

In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad continues to explore the ways our upbringing within gender roles impact our relationship to society, and specifically, why it’s mostly men who commit acts of mass violence. Women traditionally occupy the role of “care worker” and learn to relate differently through the act of caring. Those care occupations, however, are some of the lowest paid and are highly undervalued. Other countries, such as New Zealand and Sweden, are exploring...

 

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Ask Prof Wolff: Does Our Education System Reinforce Capitalism?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "How could the education system transform under a worker-cooperative economy? What would schools look like for young children to young adults? How would it compare to a...

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All Things Co-op: People Power - Imagining a World without Bosses

[S7 E10] New

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin and Cinar speak with sociologist, political scientist, author and documentary filmmaker Dario Azzellini. They discuss recuperated workplaces—workplaces that have been abandoned by private capitalist owners and taken over by workers and reorganized to be democratically controlled—and why the process of...

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Economic Update: Social Security, Ohio Derailment, Puerto Rican Poverty - US Capitalism Provokes

[S13 E11] New

In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff focuses on the struggle over Social Security- real versus false alternatives- and the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment tragedy. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Alexis Colon about the colonial status of Puerto Rico...

 

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Ask Prof Wolff: Can Profits Be Excluded From Food and Healthcare? 

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Would you agree that for large monopolistic industries that the entire society depends on for survival, like food, energy, defense, and health care, worker coops would not...

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Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: The Circulation of Fictitious Capital

[S5 E05] New

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey explains Marx’s analytical techniques of presupposition and posit and applies them to today’s capital circulation system and the crises that may emerge from the ever-growing fictitious capital investments. By looking at the presupposition, or what came before a system, and the posit, what happens as...

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Global Capitalism: March 2023

[March 2023] New

Challenging Capitalism

with Richard D. Wolff  

Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work & Left Forum

In this lecture, Prof. Wolff discusses the following topics:

  • France’s General Strike March 7, 2023
  • Women, Unions and Strikes in the US
  • Inflation, Profits...
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Cities After… The Threat of Mega-Landlords

[S3 E04] New

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán discusses the growing prevalence of corporate landlords and their devastating impact on affordable housing and homeownership. The mass acquisition of single-family homes and apartment buildings by private investment companies, backed by global finance and, often, as Prof. Robles-Durán reveals our own...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Why Does a Piece of Lumber Cost More Today Than It Did 10 Years Ago?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "I don’t understand how inflation works. How can a 2x4 cost...

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Economic Update: Establishment Media & Russia with Aaron Maté

[S13 E10] New

In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff  presents updates on dying empires and climate crisis; mass shootings; fast-food mega-corps fund referendum to slow California plan to raise fast food workers wages and working conditions, and why the debt ceiling debate in Congress is a phony GOP-Dem political theater. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Aaron Maté... 

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Ask Prof Wolff: Why Do We Spend So Much on the US Military Industrial Complex?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "To what extent does the US Military Industrial Complex factor into the US economy as a whole? It seems like the US is at endless war and, in my opinion, there has to be a significant...

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Capitalism Hits Home: Where do Gender Roles Come From?

[S6 E05] New

In this episode of CHH, Dr. Harriet Fraad traces back the origin of gender roles to the beginning of civilization to explore how and why certain types of work have been historically and traditionally...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Why Can’t We Imagine Moving Past Capitalism?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "How should we answer when people say, 'capitalism is the only way there is, nothing else works.' How do we live without earning and profiting from our working and, in doing...

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Economic Update: Are Mega-Corporations Ruining Our World?

[S13 E09] New

In this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents a critique of monopoly and oligopoly; past efforts and success in popular control over mega-corporations - in US and abroad; the fight back by mega-corporations to nullify reforms and regulations. Finally, some real solutions...

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Ask Prof Wolff: How Do Austerity Politics Impact Policing?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "From a Marxist economic perspective, can you explain how austerity politics and austerity measures eventually...

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Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: The Impact of War on Civilians

[S5 E04] New

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey focuses on the impact of war on civilians, both today in Ukraine and historically. While it is a war crime to attack civilian populations, there is a long, deadly history of it. From the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the fire bombs in Dresden and Tokyo, the US is far from...

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Ask Prof Wolff: What Happens to the Stock Market After Capitalism?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "I, as a socialist myself, agree with the socioeconomic model that you advocate, with worker-owned cooperatives substituting today's private businesses. However, making the actual changes, reforms and, if you like, revolution, would also bring an end to stocks, stock-based companies, and the stock market. I can't get my head around...

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Cities After…Urban Activisms at the Border with Fonna Forman & Teddy Cruz

[S3 E03] New

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán interviews Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman about their work with public institutions and community partners on both sides of the US/Mexico border, in San Diego and Tijuana. Tijuana, as Cruz reminds us, has always been a geography of conflict and of crisis. Cruz and Forman’s work is deliberately situated at the intersection of formal, often exclusionary, American institutions and grassroots community organizing. By building coalitions, the interplay between various groups—researchers/political scientists and migrants/community organizers becomes more...

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Economic Update: Inequality’s Insidious Spread - COVID-19, India, Insurance

[S13 E08] New

In this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on India's extreme inequality and its lesson, employers squeeze employees with "non-compete" job contracts, and how the profit motive distorts the concept of insurance. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Dr Stephen Bezruchka...

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Ask Prof Wolff: BlackRock, Homeownership and Reverse Mortgages

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Based on the content that I consume, my expectation is that factions of the 1% like BlackRock intend to own all family housing in America and rent it to us. The prices of homes going down paired with higher interest rates makes the game even more favorable for those who...

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Capitalism Hits Home: Inflation & Manufactured Poverty

[S6 E04] New

In this week’s episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad continues her discussion of the personal effects of inflation. In a country that bombards all of us, even our youngest children, with images of wealth and prosperity as a symbol of worthiness, it is humiliating to struggle to make ends meet. Our culture blames the individual for being stuck in a cycle of poverty, yet...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Fascism, Keynesianism, and Military Spending

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "As we see billions once more go to Ukraine, as we have seen trillions upon trillions go to wars since WWII, isn't it correct to say that Military-Keynesianism is fascism? Technocratic fascism? If so...

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Economic Update: Unionization, Marxism and Education

[S13 E07] New

In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff shares updates on Starbucks union growth; Texas journalists and Yale graduate students/employees unionize, strike, win; Western Mass Labor Federation denounces Biden's denial of railway workers' right to strike; two major kinds of US tax injustice: (1) exempting bonds and stocks from property tax when 10% richest own 80% of stocks and bonds, and (2) failing to levy excess profits tax on war profiteers as UK and Portugal have already done. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Notre Dame Professor Emeritus David F. Ruccio...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Understanding Surplus & Capitalism’s Abuse of It

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Can there be another segment about surplus and economic sinks? If capital has to increase all the time, why is there a...

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Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Applying Marx’s Theories to Contemporary Struggles

[S5 E03] New

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey focuses on the concept of totality, conceptualized in Marx’s Grundrisse, and the importance of situating theoretical frameworks within on-the-ground struggles. Harvey explains how he’s spent his life’s work attempting to do this, focusing on issues such as...

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Ask Prof Wolff: How To Get People on the Right to Hear Your Arguments

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "The war of ideas is real and, as often as I can, I engage with opposing ideas. From my perspective, I find that socialistic approaches to most social/economic issues check the box of many of the purported ideals of my more/less conservative neighbors, however, I cannot pierce the armor of their preconceptions. I'm tired of blaming...

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Cities After... Neo-Imperialism & Neo-Fascism at the Border

[S3 E02] New

In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán takes a closer look at the ever-growing migrant crisis along Mexico-US border cities and its critical socio-environmental implications. It is an issue of urgency, particularly given the humanitarian disaster, the heightened American security impositions, the neo-fascist retaliations from Texas and other Republican states, as well as the political ramifications at both sides of the border.

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Economic Update: 2023 World Economic Trends

[S13 E06] New

Identifying and examining the larger economic dimensions and trends of three key aspects of today's global economy: Russia/Ukraine war, Europe's quandary, and the decline of the US empire. Attention focuses on the immense direct and indirect costs of the war in Ukraine; on Europe's desperate position and choices caught between the US and China blocs in the world economy; and on how the US empire is responding to its decline in the world economy. Our approach is to stress...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Is Capitalism a Religion?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Is capitalism a religion? Has it become the established...

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Capitalism Hits Home: What Are The Personal Costs of Inflation?

[S6 E03] New

In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad is joined by Prof. Richard Wolff, host of Economic Update to discuss inflation and the collateral damage it has caused Americans. In the first part, Prof. Wolff explains what inflation is and the real reasons behind the rising prices. Dr. Fraad then explains what inflation means to the majority of people. She explores...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Capitalism is Unstable… and It’s Designed That Way

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Are any complex systems eternally homeostatic? Cyclic behavior is a euphemism for millions of people will lose their jobs and homes, quit school, etc. I don't think that anyone imagines an economic system sans fluctuations. That would be truly Utopian. Or dystopian rather because fluctuations can be...

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All Things Co-op: Ask Live

[S7 E09] New

In this episode of All Things Co-op, hosts Kevin, Larry and Cinar answer questions from a live audience. This live event originally aired on Friday, January 27, 2023 at 1pm ET. Kevin, Larry and Cinar answered questions about the challenges and importance of cooperatives...

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Economic Update: A Corporatized America with Chris Hedges

[S13 E05] New

In this week's show, Prof. Wolff explains why capitalism does not deserve credit for improved living conditions, Home Depot billionaire blames US capitalism's problems on US workers being "lazy, fat, and stupid," Southwest Airlines as example of failures by both corporations and their gov't "regulators," George Santos as creature of capitalist advertising. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Chris Hedges...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Why Retired Individuals Are Critical For Social Change

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Hello, I am an officially retired person, although I continue to work on projects in the arts, in part to supplement Social Security and in part as a labor of love. I often feel that I...

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Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Making Sense of Today’s Inflation - Debt, Austerity and Tax Cuts

[S5 E02] New

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey uses the diagram of capital’s circulatory processes, shared in the last episode, and applies it to the pressing issue of inflation today. Harvey draws parallels to how inflation was handled during the Reagan and Thatcher administrations, with austerity politics and the resulting reduced standard of...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Shouldn’t We Have a Political Party That Isn’t Capitalist?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "I was wondering if there has ever been a political party that focuses primarily on the formation, maintenance and sustenance of worker co-ops? My understanding is that worker co-ops are all inclusive by design and would include folks that have been...

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Cities After… Urbanization as the Text of Inequality

[S03 E01] New

Welcome to Season 3! In this episode of Cities After…, Prof. Robles-Durán presents a personal account of his life in Tijuana, Mexico to illustrate how cities are central to understanding the ways in which capitalism materializes into our daily lives. By tracing his earliest experiences with capitalism’s complexities, Robles-Durán reveals...

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Economic Update: Economics for a New Year

[S13 E04] New

In this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses US spending for war in Ukraine paid for by higher interest rates and inflation hurting middle and small businesses ; a rational transport system is NOT electric cars; an appreciation of the "degrowth"...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Why Yale and Other Non-Profits Should Be Called “Tax-Exempt”

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "One issue I hope Prof. Wolff might address is a comparative analysis of the role of for-profit vs. non-profit corporations. For example, in the recent shows on inflation, he notes that raising prices by the employer is motivated by profit maximization. This dynamic can't play an obvious role for a non-profit, but they...

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Capitalism Hits Home: Ukraine War & Our Coping Mechanisms

[S6 E02] New

"Denial is a way the brain copes with a painful reality." In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad continues her discussion of how Americans are coping with a falling empire: by not facing it. Human brains have the capacity to look away or...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Consumer Co-ops vs. Worker Co-ops

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "You're known as an advocate of worker cooperatives. However, back in the 19th century, Friedrich Engels (as well as Eduard Bernstein, the father of Democratic Socialism) was very skeptical of worker cooperatives because of the power the workers at a company could still have over the general public to whom they were not responsible to, meaning they could still, for example, create a monopoly, jack up prices, and engage in protectionist tactics. Instead, Engels and Bernstein preferred...

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All Things Co-op: Law for Cooperative Movements

[S7 E08] New

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin talks to movement lawyer and Clinical Law Professor Julian Hill. Julian’s research and teaching focuses on how law can be used as a tool to support the solidarity economy and social movements. Kevin and Julian discuss Julian’s background and how they got involved in cooperatives and the solidarity...

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Economic Update: "American Midnight" Democracy's Forgotten Crisis

[S13 E03] New

In this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff presents updates on the French School of Economic Warfare and sanctions against Russia; how asset price declines threaten US pensions, electric replace fossil fuel private cars because of profit motive, instead of for a rational transportation policy; US police in elementary schools: bad for students, parents, teachers and even police; honoring Staughton Lynd, US radical academic and labor organizer who died on 11/18/22. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Adam Hochschild...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Labor Unions, Leadership Corruption, and Co-ops

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Can you please address the previous and current systemic collusion/connivance between the union leadership [of possibly every labor union] and the corporate management? And not just the fairly recent scandal of UAW/FCA regarding eroding solidarity and...

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Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Capital in Motion

[S5 E01] New

Welcome to Season 5! In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey discusses the ever-expanding circulatory systems of capital. He shares a diagram, designed by fellow d@w host Miguel Robles-Duran (Cities After…), which illustrates capital in motion. Like the human body, capital has many circulatory processes that can be analyzed both individually as well as...

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Global Capitalism: January 2023

[January 2023] New

The Second War in Ukraine

with Richard D. Wolff  

Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work & Left Forum

In this lecture, Prof. Wolff discusses the historical aspects of the ongoing war in Ukraine, and how it reveals how far along we are into a second, economic war between the U.S. and China. Wolff explains what he sees are the impacts of this second war on the US, Europe, and China.

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Ask Prof Wolff: A Socialist Solution to Oil Prices and Sanctions

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Hello Professor Wolff, here in Germany, gas prices are very high due to the sanctions policy with Russia. It is typical of a market economy that the gas that has become scarce is priced higher in order to alleviate the shortage. In this way, the scarce gas is distributed to the...

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Economic Update: What's Wrong With Capitalism?

[S13 E02] New

The year 2022 produced a daunting, long list of serious problems associated with the economy (inflation, rising interest rates, stock market decline, deterioration of the environment, war, labor uprising, etc.). More than ever, the victims and critics of the problems of 2022 identified them as symptoms of...
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Ask Prof Wolff: Why are National Infrastructure Banks Necessary?

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Dear Prof. Wolff, can you explain the value of a...

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Capitalism Hits Home: Waking Up to the Falling American Empire

[S6 E01] New

Welcome to Season 6! In this episode of Capitalism Hits Home, Dr. Fraad dissects a harsh reality: the American empire is falling and the signs of its decline are everywhere. High divorce rates, low wages and high unemployment, mass shootings...

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Ask Prof Wolff: Ethics in Capitalist vs. Cooperative Enterprises

Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Greetings Prof Wolff, my question is one of ethics. How does a collective remain competitive in a dog-eat-dog capitalist environment when the expectation is that a worker-owned enterprise would be presumed to follow the law? I'm not saying all privately-held enterprises are corrupt but it follows that if a...

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All Things Co-op: Developing the Co-op Sector

[S7 E07] New

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin speaks with Paul Hazen, executive director of the U.S. Overseas Cooperative Development Council (OCDC) and Cooperative Development Foundation hall of fame inductee. Drawing on a lifetime of cooperative development work, Paul shares his insights on the importance of cooperatives in rural communities, how he...

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Economic Update: Surging US Labor Activism

[S13 E01] New

In this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff discusses explosive labor militancy across 2022 in US and UK, Wells Fargo bank again fined for illegal practices on 16 million bank customers, US-Russia economic warfare undercuts European economies...

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