Marxism
Economic Crisis and Socialist Strategy Course
Published on October 22, 2008VIDEOProfessor Wolff's course on the Economic Crisis from the Socialist Perspective
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Part 5
Socialism's New American Opportunity
The US left today confronts a remarkable opportunity. George Bush and Sarah Palin effectively reopened the explicit debate over capitalism versus socialism. More than that, their interventions, combined with the current crisis of capitalism, disrupt the conventional, classic definitions of both isms. Thus, the debate over them is now transformed in advantageous ways for the US left.
The New Reading of Karl Marx’s Capital in the United States
Abstract: From 1975 to 2008, Richard Wolff participated in a collective effort to rethink and extend Marxian economics. Located at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, this effort generated many doctoral dissertations, books and articles, a new scholarly journal (Rethinking Marxism), and that journal’s academic publishing parent, the Association for Economic and Social Analysis. One central component of this collective effort concerned a new reading of Marx’s Capital.
Capitalism & Its Discontents
We begin with production and wealth. They grew fast in the US over the last 25 years, as capitalism’s boosters (from Bush on down) constantly celebrate. Yet polls show most people in the US to be unhappy—and wisely so—about the economy now and fearful about tomorrow. Real wages and salaries (i.e., adjusted for the prices people pay) in the US stopped their historic 150-year rise in the 1970s and have fallen since. Meanwhile, those same workers’ productivity rose; they produced ever more but got no more for doing so.
Marxism and Environmentalism
An immediate problem faces any discussion of environmentalism and Marxism today. The first topic is popular across many different political perspectives; it engages journalists; and it "concerns" the general population. The second topic has become once again unpopular; journalists treat it as an object of obituary; few seem "concerned" about it. Yet, to ignore Marxism today makes no more sense than ignoring environmentalism did for most of the twentieth century.
Anti-Slavery and Anti-Capitalism
When Marx referred to workers in capitalism as “wage-slaves” he meant more than a striking phrase. For him, the analogy between slavery and capitalism offered a powerful contribution to anti-capitalist movements. The clue to that contribution lies in the Communist Manifesto’s summary of what differentiated communists from other leftists: the latter seek to raise wages, the former to abolish the wage system.
Marxian Class Analysis and Economics
Class analysis predates economics. Long before modern economics emerged, ancient Greek thinkers, for example, analyzed their society by classifying people into groups by wealth. They viewed understanding the relationships between classes as crucial to improving their society and debated whether wealth should be distributed equally. While class analysis has a long history, no single definition of class has prevailed.
Class and Economics
Class analysis predates economics. Long before modern economics emerged, ancient Greeks, for example, analyzed their society by classifying people into groups according to the wealth they owned or the incomes they received. Understanding relationships between rich and poor classes (and possible middle classes) struck them as crucial to improving their societies.Ideological State Apparatuses, Consumerism, and U.S. Capitalism: Lessons for the Left
Althusser’s pioneering concept of ‘‘ideological state apparatuses’’ is extended to the unique role of consumerism as a particular ideology enabling and supporting U.S. capitalism. It is argued that rising levels of worker consumption have functioned effectively to compensate workers for (and thereby allow) rising rates of exploitation and their negative social effects. For such compensation to succeed requires that workers embrace an ideology stressing the importance of consumption--namely, consumerism. It is argued that the weakness of the U.S.
Dialectics and Class in Marxian Economics: David Harvey and Beyond
The clash of different Marxian theories infusing David Harvey’s work reflects a key transitional moment in the development of the Marxian tradition. He draws deeply from the rich accumulated literature of that tradition’s 150 years. At the same time, the new directions within Marxism that erupted in the 1960s and 1970s profoundly influenced Harvey. Transition within
The Diversity of Class Analyses: A Critique of Erik Olin Wright and Beyond
Class analyses are both very old and quite new. This essay argues that Marx contributed a new class definition and analysis focused on the production, appropriation, and distribution of surplus labor. Yet, that innovative, new class analysis was lost by being dissolved into either pre-Marxian conceptualizations of class in terms of property and power or later social theories in which class was determined by people’s consciousness and self-identifications. In this context, the essay pays special attention to the recent work of E.O. Wright.
