A letter from Professor Wolff to his audience, on the 10th anniversary of Economic Update.
"Reading through the comments so many of you sent in to us was, I admit, a revelation. It was more than I had dared to hope for. Hearing that Democracy at Work’s output has become so meaningful and valuable to you provides the best imaginable support and encouragement."
Reading through the comments so many of you sent in to us was, I admit, a revelation. It was more than I had dared to hope for. Hearing that Democracy at Work’s output has become so meaningful and valuable to you provides the best imaginable support and encouragement.
When I first started Economic Update as a radio show for WBAI in New York back in March, 2011, I indulged in a fantasy of slowly building up an audience interested in economics from a progressive, left perspective. It seemed a daring fantasy back then, before Occupy Wall Street took off.
Yet here we are 10 years later with YouTube, radio, TV, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram audiences totaling hundreds of thousands. I can still not quite wrap my head around it all. And besides boosting my confidence that real change is coming, our remarkable, ongoing growth also really serves those audiences. You have told us that. We hear it with awe, pleasure, and pride. And it makes us that much stronger and more determined to build on the genuine social movement now underway and carrying us all.
Democracyatwork.info is a small team: our two full-time Directors of Communications (Liz) and Media (Maria), our part-time outreach person (Julieta), and our two contract associates (audio-engineer Bryan and video-engineer Shane) work closely together to produce and distribute our content. Our content can be broken down into two parts. The first is a comprehensive critique of capitalism as the root problem of our time. The second is advocacy for a democratic transformation of workplaces from their hierarchical capitalist forms to the worker-cooperative form as key to moving beyond capitalism.
Our chief goal in producing Economic Update and the rest of Democracy at Work’s content is to expand our reach, enlarge our audiences, and engage with more people. Your comments help to prove that our efforts to grow are working, and we are changing the world alongside all the rest of you. That is, in the end, what brought us together.
Throughout our 10th anniversary, and in the years beyond, we wish to do more, do it better, and reach more people. For those willing and able, we ask your financial support alongside your supportive engagement with our work. It is, in the end, a partnership that defines and inspires us, each side strengthening the other in a movement to change the world.
Thank you again for sharing what Economic Update means to you. Your enthusiastic response to our content – like that of our audiences in general – keeps us going and growing. Our gratitude to you is more than our words can convey.
In solidarity,
Richard D. Wolff