Thom Hartmann interviews Professor Wolff on the economic crisis ending its third year with no real end in sight.

Host Per Fagereng interviews Professor Wolff, author of the book "Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It." He recently wrote the piece "Austerity: Why and for Whom?"

From Law and Disorder: "We are very pleased to have with us Professor Rick Wolff to update us on where we’re in this ongoing global capitalist crisis.  Austerity has appeared in the titles of many recent articles on the global capitalist crisis. What is it? Rick Wolff writes in his article titled Austerity: Why and for Whom? the efforts to broaden the recovery beyond one year have failed and that failure has cost Washington trillions in borrowed funds from lenders. Those lenders now demand guarantees that those loans will be repaid to them with interest.

We've heard plenty about the recession in the U.S., but what about the rest of the world?  Countries across Europe have faced budget crunches and conservative governments are using the crisis as an excuse to roll back the social safety net that most have enjoyed for decades.

Professor Wolff joins Michael Smith on WBAI's Law and Disorder radio show along with National Lawyers Guild Attorney Eric Poulos.  Both have recently returned from Greece. Rick Wolff’s recent articles outline an economic theater playing out in Greece and across the globe. There is no alternative and this is all the worker’s fault, is the mantra from rulers who are cutting wages and pensions in Greece. It’s deceptive and false says Rick Wolff,  and the economic conditions in Greece is an old pattern that is replicating everywhere.

  Efforts to ally religion (and especially Christianity) with Marxism (and other sorts of socialism) built on their converging social criticisms as capitalism achieved global hegemony over the last two centuries. The specific objects of those criticisms included inequalities of wealth, inequalities of income, the fetishism of commodities, the idolatrous worship of material objects (and their accumulation) at the expense of spiritual values, and the calculating treatment of human beings as mere means to economic goals.

Talk at The New School for Social Research hosted by the Department of Economics

JK Fowler of The Mantle, interviews Professor Wolff.

The key topics include the concepts of "class" and "overdetermination" as they figure in the new kind of Marxian analysis that Wolff applies to the current crisis in capitalism and to answering the question of what can and should be done in response to such crises.

 

Professor Wolff speaks with Kevin Brown on his History for the Future radio show about the origins of the current economic crisis, especially changes in the system since the 1970s, and how we can do better than capitalism.

On March 3rd, 2010, the Graduate Program for International Affairs at the New School hosted a screening of Capitalism Hits the Fan. Here you can watch as Professor Wolff answers some questions from the audience after a screening of his film.