Richard Wolff's plenary at the opening of the 2009 Rethinking Marxism Conference held at the University of Massachusets on November 5th, 2009, stressed that the crisis is not "financial" but rather rooted in the explosion since the 1970s of the capitalist surplus (difference between labor productivity - constantly rising - and real wages - basically flat since 1970s). This produced surplus explosion for all capitalists that spun off as always into speculation, excess risk, and corruption, while driving masses to work exhaustion and unprecedented consumer debt.

From the official beginning of the current economic crisis in December 2007 to the present, the number of unemployed workers has risen roughly from 7 to 15 million members of the US labor force.  But there is no government program directly to hire these millions of the unemployed.  The Bush and Obama administrations quickly and boldly addressed the crisis by socializing a major part of the credit system, replacing or guaranteeing private debts with a ballooning US government debt.

Wolff assesses how the crisis is evolving with special attention to its broad social effects. He covers these topics: where is “recovery” underway and where further decline? What are the successes and failures of government intervention in the economy? How is Obama’s program different from FDR’s in the 1930s and different from government programs today in Europe, China and elsewhere? Have the underlying economic and social causes of this crisis been altered?

Richard and Tony discuss the American workers' roles in the economic crisis on the Tony Walker WLTH radio show.

Richard Wolff discusses the polticial economy of the current crisis with Jeff Farias.