Latest Releases
The Full Participation Economy: Viable Models — Looking Abroad and in the US [Part III]
This is Part III of a five-part series on worker-directed cooperatives as an autonomous community self-development tool.
Founded in 1956, the Mondragon worker cooperative, located in the Basque region of Spain, now employs over 75,000 people in 257 different businesses. Italy's Emilia Romana region has a high density of WSDEs due to favorable laws that support the formation of cooperative enterprises. And the United States has an increasing number of WSDEs, some of which date back to the 1970s.
More →The Full Participation Economy: Social Exclusion [Part II]
This is Part II of a five-part series on worker-directed cooperatives as an autonomous community self-development tool.
The wealth disparity between those labeled "the one percent" and the remainder of the population continues to provoke anxiety and anger. At the same time African Americans struggle with an unemployment rate double the white rate across all educational levels and experience disproportionately high rates of State-sponsored violence.
More →Do nonprofits need bosses?
The democratic organization of nonprofits is both possible and, in many cases, more desirable for workers. So why is it so uncommon?
More →The Full Participation Economy: Prison Workers, the American Worker and the Power of Cooperative Work [Part I]
This is Part I of a five-part series on worker-directed cooperatives as an autonomous community self-development tool.
American workers and prison laborers are both trapped in oppressive systems, but non-incarcerated workers are increasingly opting out of conventional business structures to become worker-owners in Worker Self Directed Enterprises (WSDEs).
More →Economic Update: Moving Beyond Capitalism
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on real corporate taxes, Canada's infrastructure maneuver, economics of real estate, foreign students leaving. Major discussions of...
More →Un Messaggio da Richard Wolff dopo le Elezioni
This article by Richard Wolff was originally published in English and is also available in Spanish. Questo articolo di Richard Wolff è stato originariamente pubblicato in inglese e spagnolo.
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The launch of 'Coop Talk' and a letter from the editor
The emerging new politics will work for democratizing enterprises, and thereby the economy. That's why we're launching Coop Talk — a blog that will disseminate knowledge, research, and analysis in support of the advancement of worker-owned cooperatives.
More →Economic Update: Economics of Trump
On this episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on big Texas worker coop, Audi deal to make cars in China, Pope's criticism of capitalism, Trump's Wall Streeters. Major discussions of...
More →EconoMinute: Election as a Weapon of Mass Distraction
In the EconoMinute, Prof. Wolff talks about the recent presidential election and what is needed for real change.
More →Un mensaje post-elecciones de Richard Wolff
Economic Update: Trump explained
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff explains Trump. Interview about worker coops with Dario Azzellini.
Global Capitalism: November 2016 Monthly Economic Update
Global Capitalism, Monthly Economic Update:
“Now What? The Real Economic Issues and the New Government”
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For November, these will include:
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Economic Update: Economy, Psychology, Mental Health
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Harvard's greed, corp megamergers, Germany outlaws GMOs, campaign fund-raising, Koch brothers fund Catholics fighting Pope's views, Portland, OR to tax...
More →Las Contradicciones de las Finanzas
This article by Richard Wolff was originally published in English in ROAR Magazine. Este artículo por Richard Wolff fue publicado originalmente en inglés en ROAR Magazine.
Como muchas cosas en Economía, las finanzas exhaltan el crecimiento de la economía y el desarrollo y lo subestiman al mismo tiempo...
More →Economic Update: Challenging Markets and their Results
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on cutting vaccine costs, shameful Harvard economics, Icelandic women on strike, and corporate merger mania. Major discussions of US medical care...
More →Coop Profile: Loomio, Part II
This profile is Part II of an interview with Alanna Krause, co-founder and worker-owner of Loomio, a online software worker cooperative based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Join the conversation on Democracy at Work's Loomio page as well: democracyatwork.loomio.org
More →Cooperativa Destacado: People's Ride
This article by Betsy Avila was originally published in English. Este articulo por Betsy Avila fue publicado originalmente en inglés.
People’s Ride es un negocio de compartimiento de transportación bajo demanda, como Uber...
More →Economic Update: Economics of Tax Avoidance
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on cutting funds for public higher education, Princeton avoids taxes, multinational corps get another...
More →Crisis – It’s How Capitalism Works
Revolutionary Workers Group hosts Prof. Wolff for a discussion of current world problems and possible solutions. Prof. Wolff talks about the instability of capitalism.
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Cómo el Capitalismo Perpetúa la Inmigración
This article by Richard Wolff was originally published in English on Truthout.org. Este artículo por Richard Wolff fue publicado originalmente en inglés en Truthout.org.
El Capitalismo tiene una larga y fea historia de criminalizar a los inmigrantes...
More →Prof. Wolff dissects Trump’s plan for trade, jobs on WMNF
Prof. Wolff joins WMNF's Radioactivity Friday to discuss the state of the economy, Trump's plan for trade and jobs.
More →KPFA presents Prof. Richard Wolff "A Cure for Capitalism"`
KPFA's Salima Hamirani speaks with Prof. Wolff about the state of politics in the US and his ideas for...
More →Economic Update: The Pension Crisis
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on strike of Harvard workers, big food capitalists, Berlin fights gentrification, collapse of US malls, pain mess for...
More →Quando i sistemi crollano: uno sguardo oltre il capitalismo globale
This article by Richard Wolff was originally published in English at Truth-out.org. Questo articolo di Richard Wolff è stato originariamente pubblicato in inglese a Truth-out.org.
Mentre il capitalismo globale barcolla dolorosamente, vacillando pericolosamente sulla scia del collasso nel 2008, i suoi critici si dividono in due grandi gruppi, uno dei quali si impegna ad aggiustare o riformare un capitalismo che in qualche modo ha deviato dalla retta via...
More →Global Capitalism: October 2016 Monthly Economic Update
Global Capitalism, Monthly Economic Update
"A Looming Crisis: Major Candidates Ignore It"
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For October 2016, these will include...
More →Coop Profile: Loomio
EconoMinute: US Median Household Income
In this EconoMinute, Prof. Wolff reveals the truth behind the latest headlines about median household income. Over the last 20 years, production has increased substantially. But...
More →Economic Update: Capital for Worker Coops
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on US workers' productivity rising while wages flat since 2009, US corps evading taxes, Gallup Poll on poor US job picture, wealth of billionaires enough, if redistributed, to change...
More →How Capitalism Perpetuates Immigration
This article originally appeared at Truthout.org
Capitalism has a long, ugly history of scapegoating immigrants. The pattern has been repeated often. For example, British capitalism's drive to empire helped force the Irish, as colonial subjects, to emigrate. Miserable colonial conditions, including horrific famines, drove many Irish to labor for capitalists in England at wages lower than English workers had won. English workers raged against and...
More →Economic Update: Economics and Red States: Arlie Hochschild
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Corbyn's victory in UK, Uber drivers unionize, state retirement systems sued for threatening pensions, hard facts about...
More →Economic Update: Higher Ed Class Struggles
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on top Corp leaders and top government officials as tight partners, British wages and...
More →The Contradictions of Finance
This article originally appeared at Truthout.org and Roar Magazine.
Like much else in economies, finance both enhances the economy's growth and development and undermines it. The balance between these contradictory effects depends on all the other aspects of an economy and society and how they all influence financial contradictions. From its first entrance into the economy -- that part of society concerned with the production and...
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Economic Update: Worker Coops Vs. Capitalism
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on declining US incomes, parental leave policies, rising medical deductibles...
Global Capitalism: September 2016 Monthly Economic Update
Global Capitalism, Monthly Economic Update:
"Labor Day: The Condition of the Working Class & Labor's Strategy"
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For September 2016, these will include...
More →Economic Update: Economics for Labor Day
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff, provides updates on dark money, Mylan drug scandal, air lines concentrating, capitalism and
More →Economic Update: Puerto Rico's Crisis is Systemic
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on US income inequality vs rest of world, Europe exposes Apple Corp's tax evasion; TTP and...
EconoMinute: Presidential Politics
In this EconoMinute, Prof. Wolff provides a commentary on the upcoming presidential election, the major party candidates and...
More →Porto Rico: Desiderata, Usata, Deperita
Economic Update: Capitalism's Craziness
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on universities, politicians, and grad student unions, Bill Gates obscene wealth, Harley-Davidson' illegal pollution and...
More →Economic Update: The System Exposed
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Olympic economics, mass transit, productivity truths, labor weakness and political parties, golden parachutes...
More →Richard Wolff Sobre El Cambio De Las Corrientes del Capitalismo Y El Socialismo
Economic Update: Economics of Worker Coops
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Macy's closing 141 stores, Clinton campaign economics...
More →Global Capitalism: August 2016 Monthly Economic Update
“Economics of this Presidential Campaign”
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For August 2016, these will include...
Los Teóricos Económicos: Los Altos Sacerdotes del Capitalismo
When Systems Crumble: Looking Beyond Global Capitalism
This article originally appeared at Truthout.org.
As global capitalism staggers painfully, unevenly and dangerously in the wake of its 2008 collapse, its critics divide into two broad camps. One commits to fixing or reforming a capitalism that has somehow lost its way. The other finds capitalism irreparably...
More →Puerto Rico: Deseada, Usada y Agotada
Economic Update: Profits, Families & Sex
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on more VW sleaze, Irish bankers to jail, US public pension economics, Yale worker wins back job, Yale exposed. Interview with...
More →Coop Profile: People's Ride
La Pobreza Siempre Ha Acompañado Al Capitalismo
Durante al menos los últimos 30 años, la masa de los estadounidenses ha visto salarios reales estancados aun cuando la productividad de los trabajadores aumentó de manera constante, las pérdidas de beneficios laborales y de seguridad, la reducción de los servicios públicos, y un sistema político cada vez más corrupto y comprometido por las desigualdades de riqueza e ingresos...
More →Economic Update: Economic Crisis, Fascism & History
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on India's inequality, Philly's poverty behind DNC front, new initiatives from unions, Starbuck's profiteering, gutting federal estate tax. Interview with...
More →Economic Update: Convention Economics
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on platform contradictions, the VW scandal, CEOs pay explosion, Italian banks crisis, scary US auto loans. Major discussions...
More →WIN Short: Minimum Wage Battles
This is Richard Wolff for Democracy at Work with a special feature for Workers Independent News.
On July 1st 2016, 14 US cities states and counties, plus the District of Columbia raised their minimum wage. They raised it from everything from 10.50 and hour all the way up to 15.00 an hour. Some raises go into effect immediately, others are...
More →WIN Short: Sweden: Shorter Work Days, Higher Productivity
This is special feature is produced by Democracy at Work for Workers Independent News. This is Richard Wolff for Democracy at Work.
I want to report to you today about an experiment made in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden by a work of workers supervised by the city council in that city. Under the pressure of a left wing political party that has seats on that city council, the experiment was as follows.
The argument was made that workers in Sweden...
More →Economic Update: Deepening Crisis and African-Americans
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff discusses leaders" exposed by crises: Johnson in UK, Dimon in US. Stagnant incomes for most. Interview with...
More →Global Capitalism: July 2016 Monthly Economic Update
“The Great Emerging Conflict: Capitalism vs Worker Coops”
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For July 2016, these will include...
More →EconoMinute: What Brexit Means
In this EconoMinute, Prof. Richard Wolff talks about the decision made by the people of Great Britain to...
More →Economic Update: Psychology, Economics, and Orlando
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on minimum wage raises, economics of prisons, evidence that notions of "economic recovery" are myths for most of world. Interview with Dr. Harriet Fraad...
More →Poverty Has Always Accompanied Capitalism
This article originally appeared at Truth-out.org.
Mark Karlin: Let's start with the a statement from the preface of your book: "Questioning the capitalist system, let alone discussing system change, simply does not occur to mainstream academics and the journalists and politicians they trained. Such discourses are repressed." How is an open public discussion of capitalism stifled?
More →Economic Update: What Brexit Means
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on new Puerto Rico deal, French street battles, German leaders' need humility, fake Cleveland revitalization, selling out national parks. Major analysis of...
More →Economic Theorists: The High Priests of Capitalism
People have always chosen among different co-existing economic theories to understand the world and to act within it. Who chooses which theory, consciously or not, shapes world history. Disagreements over Brexit emerged partly from different ways of understanding the British economy and its relation to Europe. Donald Trump's support...
More →Global Capitalism: June 2016 Monthly Update
“The Costs of Capitalist Decline in North America and Europe”
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For June, these will include:
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Puerto Rico: Wanted, Used, Depleted
Since Governor Alejandro García Padilla of Puerto Rico announced that its debts were not payable, mainstream media has shown a great interest in the archipelago. Combine a government debt between $70 and $73 billion, a shrinking population of about 3.5 million American citizens, and a subordinate political status, this US territory is at an unprecedented moment in its history. With all the attention Puerto Rico is receiving, most people are left scratching their heads, wondering how this economic crisis came about.
More →Economic Update: Small Victories, Big Lessons
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on victories (1) over US sugar industry and (2) in reducing Sweden's 40-hour workweek to 30 hours with no pay cut. Major analyses of jobs moving south...
More →Economic Update: Economic Change: Why and How
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on CEO pay, new book on inequality, US estate and inheritance taxes. Interview with...
More →Economic Update: Local Groups, Social Change
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on new book "Coming of Age in the Other America," new research shows superiority of worker coops over capitalist enterprises, negative results of profit-driven enterprises, "America" replaces Budweiser. Interview with Betsy...
More →Richard Wolff on the Changing Tides of Capitalism and Socialism
This article originally appeared at Truthout.org
Nearly 30 years ago, many capitalists were celebrating what political scientist Francis Fukuyama called the "ultimate victory of the VCR": where consumerism sank communism. However, they failed to calculate the effects of this consumerism on the environment. They also failed to predict how the public would...
More →Capitalism's Crisis Deepens: ESSAYS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN
Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens, Richard Wolff's newest release, provides new insight into the most recent economic developments of our time. While most mainstream commentators view the crisis that provoked the Great Recession as having passed, these essays...
More →Economic Update: Pro-environment, anti-capitalist
On this week' episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff. provides updates on fossil-fuel divestment, Zika virus economics, product recalls , and payday loan scandal. Interview with...
More →EconoMinute: The Greek Crisis
In this EconoMinute, Prof. Wolff discusses the debt crisis facing Greece, its causes, the role the Greek government, financial institutions and the European Union played.
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Economic Update: Listen, Prof. Krugman
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on car companies buying ride-share companies, Pope's latest, evidence against Prof. Krugman's rosy view of inequality. Major discussions of...
More →WIN Short: Iowa Cartoonist Fired for Speaking the Truth about Inequality
Hello this is Richard Wolff from Democracy at Work. I want to tell a story that is about America today but it is not about workers and factories or offices or stores. It’s about farmers and they are workers too and there news is important for us and never more than at this moment. I want to tell a story about Rick Friday. He is a cartoonist; he makes cartoons for the Farm News, a news services that goes...
More →Economic Update: The Idea of Revolution
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Alabama convicts strike against slavery, Greece's victimization, TTIP exposed, and taxing Yale. Interview with...
More →Economic Update: False Econ Recovery, True Journalism
In this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on "carry interest tax loophole," Miami's Marlin Park and state subsidies for business, negative interest rates, and banks' "bail-in" versus "bail-out." Interview reporter Bob Hennelly...
Global Capitalism: May 2016 Monthly Update
Crises Deepen: Shifting Socialisms, Exploding Debt, Strange Elections
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For the month of May, these will include...
More →Economic Update: What Inequality Does
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on rich tax evaders, Takata airbags, equalized wealth data, money in Chicago politics. Major discussions of...
More →WIN Short: Chobani Shares Profits with Employees
Hello. I want to tell you a story briefly of the Chobani Corporation, a company with 2000 employees that makes Greek style yogurt. It has been very successful over recent years and is now a company worth between 3 and 5 billion dollars. But what is important about that is not how successful the company has been but how it relates between the workers on the one hand and...
More →WIN Short: Automobile Industry and National Well-Being
Hello this is Richard Wolff from Democracy at Work. Today I want to talk to you about the automobile industry once again. Yes I know, they have been in the news for not telling us about ignition problems that killed and wounded a lot of people. I know they have been in the news for having problems with seatbelts. And I know they have been in the news, with VW particularly, having faked emissions tests. But now this last week...
More →WIN Short: VW And Mistubishi – Profit Over Public Health
Well the last few days have been full of reports about two global car companies, VW out of Germany and Mitsubishi out of Japan. These are among the handful of companies dominating the world automobile production process. And both of these companies have been in the news for the same reason. They got caught, cheating on emission tests. Deliberately installing on...
More →EconoMinute: The Crisis of Puerto Rico
In this EconoMinute, Prof. Richard Wolff discusses the current debt crisis facing Puerto Rico.
More →Economic Update: Poverty and the US Economy
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on slow US economy, money drives Yale, Chobani workers get profits, more car corps scandal, and...
More →How Capitalism and Racism Support Each Other
By Richard D. Wolff
This article originally appeared at Truthout.org
Capitalism's supporters use and benefit from a racism whose practice and consequences should be blamed on capitalism itself.
More →Prof. Wolff Lecture on Worker Coops: Theory and Practice of 21st Century Socialism
Prof. Wolff speaks to The Levy Economics Institute.
More →Economic Update: Gentrification: The Market Rules
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on pay of CEO's that fight $15/ he for workers, workers who get public assistance, facts on taxes paid and evaded, Mitsubishi like VW. Major discussion on...
More →WIN Short: Comparing CEO pay for CVS, L BRANDS, STARBUCKS AND WALMART TO $15 an hour
This special feature is produced by Democracy at Work for Worker Independent News. This is Richard Wolff from Democracy at Work.
I know that many folks have been paying attention to the rather heroic efforts of retail and restaurant workers across America trying to get fifteen dollars an hour. It’s is hardly good pay and it is hardly anything close to getting the American dream but...
WIN Short: The Panama Papers
This special feature is produced by Democracy at Work for Worker Independent News. This is Richard Wolff from Democracy at Work.
This last week has been a bombshell. Something called the Panama Papers is all over the news. What’s it about?...
More →Economic Update: Prisons and Sugar Babies
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on IMF, Panama Papers and tax evasion, workers fighting back. Major discussions of...
More →Global Capitalism: April 2016 Monthly Update
The Varieties of Socialism: An Economic Analysis
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this month, these will include...
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Economic Update: Efficiency: Capitalist vs Human
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on tax issues: Panama Papers, corp tax rates, tax-avoiding "inversions" and Yale's tax avoidance. Part 2 of interview with...
More →Economic Update: Worker Coops: Why and How
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on China's rising wages, lethal overdoses and economic crisis, courts worsen Puerto Rico's crisis, moving jobs to Mexico, and Florida governor tries to help Yale evade taxes. Major discussions of...
More →Economic Update: How Capitalism Changes Intimacy and Family
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on top bankers' pay, bad auto corps' decisions, deflation, and socialist economics. Interview with Dr Harriet Fraad...
More →The Empire Files: Understanding Marxism and Socialism with Richard Wolff
Despite a concerted effort by the U.S. Empire to snuff out the ideology, a 2016 poll found young Americans have a much more favorable view of socialism than capitalism.
Though he died 133 years ago, the analysis put forward by one of the world’s most influential thinkers, Karl Marx, remains extremely relevant today. The Empire’s recent rigged presidential election has been disrupted by...
Economic Update: Choosing Your Struggles
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on FED decision, struggles over China trade and Brexit, and fascism. Major discussion of...
More →Economy and Psychology: Real Depressions, Real Solutions Audio
Economist Richard Wolff and his wife, psychologist Harriet Fraad, will discuss how economic policies impact our psychological and social well-being...
More →Global Capitalism: March 2016 Monthly Update
Economics and 2016’s Presidential Politics
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this March, these will include...
More →Economic Update: Economics of our Politics
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Europe's new econ stimulus, French workers rally for job security, US airlines' rip-off fees. Response to question about government blame for economic crisis since 2008. Major discussions on...
More →Economic Update: Seeds of Fascism?
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on injustice of Argentina's default settlement, on Pope Francis's rejection of "exploiters," and on stagnating real median incomes in US. Major discussions of..
More →Economic Update: Good for Profits, Bad for Society
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Citibank calls "Recession" for 2016, Robert Gordon's new book "Rise and Fall of American growth, college students to Europe for free educations, drug and food companies profit at public's expense, economics of presidential candidates, pension struggles heat up, and why China's slowdown due to US/Euro/Japan economies. Major discussions of...
More →Economic Update: Capitalism is the Problem
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Bloomberg's money, negative interest rates, the oil market, Puerto Rico's cruel sales tax, Fed Reserve governor supports breaking up banks 'too big to fail,' and Apple borrows despite its huge cash hoard. Response to...
More →Economic Update: Economic Change, Economic Disorder
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on China achieves economic superpower status, profit produces drug scarcities, Ireland's unjust austerity, millionaire tax in Massachusetts. Major discussions of...
More →On the Meaning of Capitalism, We Don't Agree
This article originally appeared at Truthout.org
Within conversations on the left, many of us use the term "capitalism," but we aren't all using it to mean the same thing. Among both its champions and opponents, capitalism acquired too many different meanings over the 200 to 300 years of its global ascendancy. I am sometimes faulted for using the term as if everyone knew and agreed on its meaning, when that is not the case. My critics demand instead...
More →Economic Update: Lessons About and From Socialism
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on the economic significance of Sanders' Iowa vote, Keynes on risks of revolution against capitalism, costs of oil market collapse. Interview with...
More →Global Capitalism: February 2016 Monthly Update
Demands for Basic Economic Change Keep Growing
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this February, these will include...
More →Economic Update: How Markets Fail
On this week's Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Johnson Controls Corp evades taxes, Disney sued over abuse of HB-1 visa system, French workers strike against austerity and against socialist government; response to listeners on...
More →How Two-Party Political Systems Bolster Capitalism
This article originally appeared at Truthout.org.
The two-major-party arrangement both allows for disagreements yet also keeps dissent bounded by common commitments to reproduce capitalism.
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Economic Update: Capitalism's Results
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on Obama on/in Detroit, Walmart closing stores, Santa Fe and public banking, food-makers' profits vs people's health. Major discussion of...
More →Economic Update: Fighting Rightist Economics
On this week's episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff provides updates on worker actions by UK's "junior doctors" and Detroit teachers, Flint's poisoned water, Supreme Court struggle. More on...
More →Global Capitalism: January 2016 Monthly Update
Capitalism Delivers the...: Inequality, Instability, Insecurity
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For January these will include...
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Economic Update: What Capitalism is
On this week's episode Prof. Wolff provides updates on Obamacare scandal, bank errors threaten depositors, public pension looting, subsidizing religion. Major discussion of...
More →Economic Update: Economics & Real Issues
This episode provides updates on economics vs. the "free press," Nevada vs. public education and bikes displacing cars in Europe. We also respond to listeners' questions on...
More →Economic Update: Capitalism and/or Socialism
This week's episode of Economic Update includes updates on Spain's new left government, no NFL money for concussion research, Harvard runs like a business, Fresno research proves widespread hunger. Responses to questions on...
More →Debunking the Magnitude of Markets: A Holiday Story
This article originally appeared at Truthout.org
Like all human institutions, markets have strengths and weaknesses. Born in particular historical conditions, they alter over time as conditions change, and eventually die. Just as other institutions - monarchy, slavery, empire, feudalism, tribal society...
More →Capitalism - Not China - Is to Blame for the Current Global Economic Decline
This article originally appeared at Truthout.org
Capitalism, like a speeding train, barreled into a stone wall in 2008. Shocked and dazed, its leaders have been trying to "recover." By that, they mean to fix the mangled tracks, reposition the locomotive and cars on those tracks and resume forward motion. No basic economic change...
More →Global Center for Action Studies: Capitalist Decline and a Way Forward
Capitalism is relocating to new centers in China, India, Brazil, etc. In its old centers, e.g., the US, economic prospects darken. Middle and lower incomes stagnate. Multinational businesses and those they enrich force...
More →Economic Update: Economic Lessons from 2015
This week's episode of Economic Update includes updates on FED's interest rate hike, Peter Drucker on "like a business," gun business, and oil economics. Response to question on whether it is China that is slowing the world economy. Major discussion of...
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Economic Update: Transcending Capitalism
This week's episode of Economic Update includes updates on denying bailout for Puerto Rico and gross wealth inequality in US and Wisconsin. Response to listeners on...
More →Global Capitalism: December 2015 Monthly Update
"Saving Capitalism from Itself or Saving Us from It?"
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this December, they include...
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Economic Update: Austerity's Social Costs
Economic Update: Why Whites in Trouble
This week's episode of Economic Update includes updates on economics of immigration, economic alarmists, Ireland as tax haven. Response to listeners on...
More →Economic Update: Big vs Small Business
This week's episode of Economic Update includes updates on Japan's Recession, half of New York City economically in trouble, ACA deductibles undermine affordability, Million student March, another crooked capitalist. Response to listeners on...
More →An evening with Richard Wolff presented by KPFT 90.1 FM
Professor Richard Wolff appeared at a fundraiser for KPFT 90.1 FM in Houston.
More →Economic Update: Economic Power Struggles
This week's episode of Economic Update includes updates on Greek and Portuguese austerity struggles, obesity and Coca Cola, importance of U of Missouri, JC Penney's fake sales, and Macy's urgent sales. Response to listeners...
More →Global Capitalism: November 2015 Monthly Update
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For November, these will include...
More →Economic Update: How Capitalism Works
This week's episode of Economic Update includes updates on capitalism vs higher education, real costs of apps, how other half banks. In depth analyses of projected economic...
More →Economic Update: Teaching High School Economics
Today's episode includes updates on Obama's harshness regarding student debt, how much corporations and the rich abuse tax havens, MIT rejects fossil-fuel divestment and Tylenol's profit over safety practices. Prof. Wolff responds to listeners on where...
More →Economic Update: Capitalism v Democratic Socialism
Economic Update: Co-Ops vs Capitalism
This week's edition of Economic Update features discussion on: saving capitalism, looming economic downturn, 250,000 against TTIP in Berlin, US plan to give Puerto Rican taxes to banks, and a one-on-one interview with Ms. Laura Flanders, an independent journalist on co-ops vs capitalism.
More →Capitalism and Its Regulation Delusion: Lessons From the Volkswagen Debacle
This article originally appeared at Truth-out.org
Volkswagen (VW), we now know, systematically evaded pollution control regulations. Over the last decade it defrauded 11 million buyers of its diesel-engine vehicles, fouled the planet's environment and...
More →Global Capitalism: October 2015 Monthly Economic Update
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues...
Economic Update: Capitalism's Crimes
Economic Update: Meanings of Class
Updates on Swedish plan for peaceful transition beyond capitalism, ripoffs in car insurance, Ferguson, MO credit downgrade. Response to listeners on the CA drought and on best solution for corporate abuses like VW's. Major discussions of...
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Prof. Wolff on Tell Somebody, KKFI-FM 90.1, Kansas City community radio.
Prof. Wolff spoke in Kansas City, Missouri at the All Souls Forum on September 13, 2015, and at the University of Missouri – Kansas City on September 14.. Shortly after his forum appearance...
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Why Debates Over the Fed's Interest Rate Miss the Point
Sometimes public debates focus on important social issues; at other times, debates distract from them. Disputes over whether the Federal Reserve System should raise interest rates illustrate that second sort. Yes, "serious people" take...
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Economic Update: Puerto Rico as US's Greece
This week's updates include a look into new Detroit book, the Mayor's austerity policy in Chicago, homeless school children and soaring medical insurance deductibles. Prof. Wolff responds to...
More →Economic Update: Capitalism's Instability
This week's updates include the GM settlement, a look at why the Census Bureau proves there is no recovery for 90% and why GE is moving jobs overseas. Prof. Wolff responds to listeners on FED...
More →Global Capitalism: September 2015 Monthly Economic Update
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For September these will include...
Economic Update: Precarious Work = Capitalism's Inefficiency
This week's updates include the economics of refugees, Ford buys French political wife, LAs homeless, Labor Day history, Seattle Teachers strike and why Japan's jobs are ever more precarious...
More →Economic Update: When Profits Come First
Updates on extreme poverty, workers' victory over tech giants, NFL concussions, Trump's economics analyzed, and Oakland for worker coops. Response to listeners on...
More →Economic Update: Market Chaos Hits US All
Updates on Dismaland theme park, reghettoization, western fires, Amazon undercuts pensions, and analyzing market chaos vs blaming China. Major discussions of ...
More →Economic Update: Labor Day Economics
Updates on Labor Day's meaning, Amazon's workplace horrors, Dunkin Donuts' CEO against $ 15/hr, and how capitalism undermines recycling. Response to questions on shifting US federal tax burdens and on state's role in capitalist economies. Major discussion of criticism of capitalism and directions for a better system.
More →Global Capitalism: August 2015 Monthly Update
These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this August, these will include...
More →Déjà Vu: Germany Tightens Its Economic Power Over Europe
Germany's leaders herded their European counterparts into imposing harsh austerity on Greece. It was the price, they insisted, that Greece had to pay to...
More →Global Capitalism: July 2015 Monthly Update
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church, these programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this July...
Greece Needs Our Solidarity in Its Struggle Against Austerity
Not for many years has the issue been posed as clearly as it will be on July 5 in Greece's referendum: European capitalists, the political leaders whom the capitalists' money controls, and...
More →Socialism Means Abolishing the Distinction Between Bosses and Employees
Regulated private capitalism. State capitalism. Socialism. These three systems are entirely different from each other. We need to understand the differences...
More →Critics of Capitalism Must Include Its Definition
Most business leaders, mass media, politicians and academics keep defining capitalism, the main economic system in today’s world, as markets plus private (“free”) enterprises. That definition is wrong...
More →Economic Update: Higher Education in Crisis
Today's updates include an analysis of unemployment numbers to show what they hide as well as reveal. Responses to listeners' questions expose the economics of lotteries and why the largest US corporations have recently used their profits to buy back their shares in the stock markets. The second half of the show features an in-depth interview with Prof. Sohnya Sayres where we explore the end of free college and universities in the US, the rise of administrators dominating students and faculty and what these trends have meant for the quality of higher education in the US.
More →Global Capitalism: June 2015 Monthly Update
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church, these programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this June...
More →Global Capitalism: May 2015 Monthly Update
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church, these programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For May 13th...
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Economic Update: Children, Capitalism, Family Values?
Updates on Alberta election, Kansas closes schools early, Gallup polls on unequal US wealth and on average work weeks over 40 hours, Uber and markets, ignorance about USSR economy. Response to listeners on...
More →Economic Update: Capitalism’s Other Side
This episode of Economic Update includes updates on the May Day holiday, the Baltimore uprising, the Nepal earthquake and poverty, Varoufakis vs repression, Bud Light pushing beer by endangering women and responses to listeners' questions on varieties of coops, plus an Interview with Prof. Yahya Madra on Turkey, Capitalism, and Islam!
More →Economic Update: Capitalism and War
In this edition of Economic Update we will examine the potential impacts of the UK elections, the economic crisis' long-term effects, how Kansas demonizes the poor and the mustard-ketchup economic war. We’ll also have responses to listeners’ questions on child-support economics and US car production moving to Mexico.
More →Economic Update: Honest Economics
This edition of Economic Update include updates on: Bernanke's new big-bucks finance job, how GM is avoiding billions in victims' claims for faulty ignitions, how a Seattle capitalist raised all of his employees salaries to a $70k/yr, Americans' self-delusion on inequality, how private profit is trumping public policy and anti-student-debt activism...
More →Economic Update: The Worker Co-Op Alternative
In this edition of Economic Update, we take a look at inadequate unemployment insurance, where Ted Cruz's campaign money is coming from, a law that’s giving domestic workers real benefits and who’s demonizing the poor. We also hear responses to listener questions on the California drought and the US medical system's experiments on real people.
More →Global Capitalism: April 2015 Monthly Update
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church, these programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this April 8...
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Scapegoat Economics 2015
As economic crises, declines and dislocations increasingly hurt or threaten people around the globe, they provoke questions. How are we to understand the forces that produced the 2008 crisis, the crisis itself, with its quick bailouts and stimulus programs, and now the debts, austerity policies and deepening economic inequalities that do not go away? Economies this troubled force people to think and react. Some resign themselves to "hard times" as if they were natural events. Some pursue individual strategies trying to escape the troubles. Some mobilize to fight whoever they blame for it all. Many are drawn to scapegoating, usually encouraged by politicians and parties seeking electoral advantages.
More →Economic Change and Personal Life Crises
This episode of Economic Update features a look into the car parts industry, why and how German courts cut Uber, how Russia's economy is growing despite economic sanctions, why there’s no recovery in declining teaching positions in the US for new PhDs...
More →Global Capitalism: March 2015 Monthly Update
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church.
The program began with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this March 11...
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Jubilee, Denial and Beyond
Thousands of years ago, various religions developed an idea some called “jubilee.” It entailed the acts of canceling or reversing income and/or wealth inequalities (especially of land holdings and debts) that had developed in their societies. Often, jubilees were stipulated to occur periodically every 49 years, more or less. The point was not to change the socio-economic system; it was rather to redistribute property and then restart the same system again as a way to preserve it. Variations of the jubilee idea have survived and occasionally surfaced into public discourse ever since.
More →WPFW FM 89.3 Interviews Prof. Wolff
Prof. Wolff talks to David Rabin of WPFW, a Pacifica station in Washington, DC about his recent Truthout article on a class analysis of the lessons we need to learn from past revolutions.
More →Community Progressive Radio Interviews Prof.
CPR News interviews Prof. Wolff about the current situation in Greece, Syriza and the economic issues facing Europe.
More →Class, Change and Revolution
The winds of change are blowing harder. The crisis since 2007 has renewed criticism of capitalism, but pressure for change has built far longer than that. So it is time to draw some lessons from the major social changes of the past and apply them now. One of the most important lessons concerns class. How activists see and act on today's class system can make social movements more effective now than in the past - as a brief historical review can show.
More →Global Capitalism: February 2015 Monthly Update
“The Economics of a New Year”
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church, these programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this February 4, 2015...
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Richard Wolff on the Greek Crisis, Austerity and a Post-Capitalist Future
In the following interview, New School professor and economist Richard Wolff provides his analysis of the causes of the economic crisis in Greece and in the eurozone, debunks claims that the Greek economy is recovering and offers his proposal for what a post-capitalist future could look like for Greece and the world.
More →Global Capitalism: January 2015 Monthly Update
“The Economics of a New Year”
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum, and Judson Memorial Church, these programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Prof. Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For this January 14...
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Going Beyond Private Versus Public
The new, more Republican Congress may "privatize" the United States Postal Service: dismantle the public enterprise and turn mail services over to private enterprises. Such a privatization would mimic what the US military has done with part of its activities and what many states and cities did with utilities, transport systems and schools...
More →The Political Economy of Austerity Now
Government austerity for the masses (raising taxes and cutting public services) is becoming the issue shaping politics in western Europe, north America, and Japan. In the US, austerity turned millions away from the polls where before they supported an Obama who promised changes from such policies. So Republicans will control Congress and conflicts over austerity will accelerate. In Europe, from Ireland's Sinn Fein to Spain's Podemos to Greece's Syriza, we see challenges to a shaken, wounded political status quo...
More →The Wages of Global Capitalism
Wage growth in the world slowed to an average of 2 percent in 2013. That was less than in 2012 and far less than the pre-crisis rate of 3 percent. Starker still were the differences between wage growth in the "developed world" (chiefly Western Europe, North America and Japan) and wage growth in the major "emerging growth" countries, chiefly China.
More →Costs of Global Capitalism
The International Labor Organization (ILO) just released a report on December 5, 2014 (http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_324645/lang--en/index.htm) sharply exposing what the development of global capitalism means and costs. Here are its key conclusions:
More →System Change, or There and Back Again: Capitalism, Socialism, Fascism
Societies today where capitalist economic systems prevail confront government gridlock. Facing serious and deepening economic problems, even when their leaders can...
More →The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Failures of Actually Existing Economic Systems
Hype went wild coming into last week's 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. "Freedom" had been achieved. The German Democratic Republic (GDR)...
More →Young Democratic Socialists: Interview With Professor Richard Wolff
YDS National Organizer Betsy Avila recently sat down withRichard Wolff, Professor of Economics and visiting professor at The New School in New York...
More →Four-Day Workweeks: Change for the Better?
Changes in the capitalist system's operating procedures, rules and regulations are always presented as if they were in everyone's interest, a kind of "everybody wins" social progress. The changes usually turn out to be mostly or entirely in capitalists' interests since they run their system that way. Are we surprised and shocked?
More →Socialism and Workers' Self-Directed Enterprises
Global capitalism has huge problems coping with the second worst collapse in its history. Its extreme and deepening inequalities have provoked millions to question and challenge capitalism. Yet socialists of all sorts now find it more difficult than ever to make effective criticisms and offer alternatives that inspire.
More →Capitalism’s Deeper Problem
Recent press reports refer to troubling price increases for such assets as real estate, government bonds, companies targeted for acquisition and artwork. A New York Times front-page headline read “The Everything Boom, or Maybe the Everything Bubble.”
More →Giant Corporations, Giant Failures
General Motors recently released the report it commissioned from the huge Jenner & Block law firm. The latter's chairman, Anton Valukas, investigated how and why GM failed - for over 10 years - to recall cars it produced while knowing they had defective ignition switches. The eventual recall of 2.6 million Chevrolet...
More →Better than Redistributing Income
Widening gaps between rich and poor, the top 1% and the rest, are heating up debates, struggles and recriminations over redistributing income. Should governments' taxing, spending, and regulatory powers redistribute income from the wealthy to others, and if so, how exactly? As opinions and feelings polarize, political conflicts sharpen.
More →Why No Sustained Protests (Yet)?
The organized post-1945 destruction of the New Deal coalition - unionists, socialists and communists - and the failure to replace those organizations help explain the muted reaction to the bailouts, austerity and other anti-democratic policies pursuedby US governments at all levels.
More →The Progressive Interview
Richard Wolff has emerged as one of the most prominent progressive economists in America. He appears on Free Speech TV, Link TV, and Pacifica Radio, and has been a repeat guest on Bill Moyers’s program, as well as appearing on Charlie Rose’s show...
More →Interview with RoosterGNN: Is Capitalism Digging Its Own Grave?
NEW YORK CITY, U.S.A. The economic crisis of 2008 has shown the dark side of capitalism. Due to irresponsibility and risky behavior at the most powerful financial institutions...
More →Who needs a Boss?
If you happen to be looking for your morning coffee near Golden Gate Park and the bright red storefront of the Arizmendi Bakery attracts your attention, congratulations. You have found what the readers of The San Francisco Bay Guardian, a local alt-weekly, deem the city’s best bakery. But it has another, less obvious, distinction. Of the $3.50 you hand over for a latte (plus $2.75 for the signature sourdough croissant)...
More →Dialogos Radio Interviews Professor Wolff
An interview with renowned economist Richard Wolff, discussing the current economic situation in Greece, Europe and the United States, plus his proposal for moving on to a new, postcapitalist system. In English. Aired March 20-21, 2014.
More →Obama’s Economic Significance
President Obama's proven reliability as outsider president extraordinaire - putting a disarming smiley face on capitalism's depredations - is his administration's economic significance.
More →Enterprise Structure Is Key to the Shape of a Post-Capitalist Future
Richard Wolff talks about "The Shape of a Post-Capitalist Future," his entry in the new anthology Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA, and his conviction that making the transition from capitalism to socialism requires a deliberate critique of capitalist workplace organization.
More →A Lesson From Chattanooga
“…we’re outraged by politicians and outside special interest groups interfering…” – UAW Secretary-Treasurer Dennis Williams
More →Political Corruption and Capitalism
Nearly daily, mass media report political corruption across the world. Government bureaucrats, from local to national to international, are exposed for having abused their offices for personal gain. That gain is usually financial, but can involve...
More →Economic Prosperity and Economic Democracy: The Worker Co-Op Solution
Workers' self-directed enterprises (WSDEs) are a response to capitalism's failure to deliver economic prosperity and socialism's failure to deliver economic democracy.
More →Capitalism and Democracy: Year-End Lessons
2013 drove home a basic lesson: US capitalism's economic leaders and their politicians now regularly ignore majority opinions and preferences. For example, polls showed overwhelming popular support for higher taxes on the rich with lower taxes on the rest of us and for reversing the nation's deepening economic inequalities. Yet Republicans and Democrats, including President Obama, raised payroll taxes sharply on January 1, 2013. Those taxes are regressive; they take a smaller percentage of your income the higher your income is above $113,700 per year. Raising the payroll tax increased economic inequality across 2013.
More →Welcome to Econ… A Q&A with Richard Wolff
Recently, through an e-mail exchange I was able to ask Richard Wolff a few questions about economics and alternatives to capitalism. Dr. Wolff is a Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
More →Capitalism and Unemployment
Capitalism as a system seems incapable of solving its unemployment problem. It keeps generating long-term joblessness, punctuated by spikes of recurring short-term extreme joblessness. The system's leaders cannot solve or overcome the problem...
More →The Great Austerity Shell Game
Barack Obama speaking in March 2013 about the sequester, the automatic spending cuts mandated by Congress. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP
More →US Political Dysfunction and Capitalism’s Withdrawal
After 200 years of concentrating its centers in western Europe, north America, and Japan, capitalism is moving most of its centers elsewhere and especially to China, India, Brazil and so on. This movement poses immense problems of transition at both poles. The classic problems of early, rapid capitalist industrialization are obvious daily in the new centers. What we learn about early capitalism when we read Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Maxim Gorky and Jack London, we see now again in the new centers.
More →US Politics' True Bipartisan Consensus: Capitalism is Untouchable
The economic aim of both major US political parties is, in the end, the same: to protect and reinforce the capitalist system.
More →Capitalism Works (or Not) for Me
Curators of New York City’s annual arts festival called us a couple of months ago. Would we be interested in having a public discussion with the artist, Steve Lambert, whose work was a major part of this year’s festival? The festival’s title is “Crossing the Line 2013,” and Lambert’s large neon-lighted installation (9 feet by 20 feet by 7 feet) says “Capitalism Works for Me.” Observers can respond by pressing either a “True” or “False” button.
More →What GOP-Tea Party Risks With Block of New New Deal
Many Germans in the years before 1933 dismissed the little man with the mustache: He could never take power, let alone keep it. Tzarist Russia’s elites thought the small social democratic party posed little threat. Batista’s minions ridiculed the lawyer and his friends...
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