Economic Theory
What Capitalism Delivers
Article first appears in MRZine on April 16, 2012.
Most Presidents preside over one or more capitalist downturns (recessions, depressions, crises, etc.). Every President since at least FDR generated a "program" to respond to the downturn -- as demanded by citizens and businesses. FDR and every later President promised that his program would "not only extricate the US from the present economic troubles but will also make sure neither we nor our children need face such downturns in the future." Obama is only the latest to do so.
Occupy the Mind: Progressive Moral Agenda for the 21st Century
Published on March 17, 2012VIDEOProfessor Wolff's lecture:
Video of full event:
Question and Answer:
Harvard Students Join the Movement
Over the last 10 days, Harvard students twice stopped business as usual at this richest of all US private universities. An Occupy Harvard encampment of tents followed a large march of many hundreds through the campus protesting Harvard's complicity in the nation's extreme inequality of income and wealth. A week earlier some 70 students walked out in protest of Harvard's large lecture course in introductory economics. They too explained that they were acting in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movements.
On KPFA's Letters and Politics - Nov 9, 2011
Published on November 14, 2011AUDIORichard Wolff joins host Mitch Jeserich on Letters and Politics for a primer on the Italian and Green Economic Crisis, as well as discuss the students of California beginning Occupations on campuses across the state.
Global Capitalism - A Monthly Update & Discussion (Nov 2011)
Published on November 8, 2011VIDEOThese Tuesday evenings will each begin with an update and analysis of major economic events of the last month and their contexts of longer-term economic trends shaping politics and society here and abroad. We will focus on the evolving global capitalist economic crisis and its consequences. We will examine topics such as
How Class Works
Published on November 1, 2011VIDEOIn the below animation and audio presentation, Wolff explains what class is all about and applies that understanding to the foreclosure crisis of 2007–2011. He argues that class concerns the "way our society splits up the output [and] leaves those who get the profits in the position of deciding and figuring out what to do with them...Schonberger Peace and Social Justice Lecture
Published on October 30, 2011AUDIORichard Wolff was invited to speak at the Schonberger Peace and Social Justice Lecture at the University of Maine on October 20th, 2011. The recorded audio touches on many of the normal analyses with some additional attention to recent events.
How the 1% got richer, while the 99% got poorer
It's official: wealth inequality accelerated over the past quarter century. The American dream was never a more hollow promisePublished on October 26, 2011Appeared originally in The Guardian "Comment is Free" on October 26th, 2011
A demonstrator tapes a dollar bill over his mouth in the Occupy Miami protest. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The just-released Congressional Budget Office report, Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007, supports a basic claim of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement sweeping the country: that deep economic inequality is corrupting politics, culture and American society as a whole.
Top Economists on How to Fix the Economy
On Wednesday, October 12th 2011, the New America Foundation released a bold new plan to pull the global economy back from the brink. Economists give The Daily Beast their views. Plus, read the details of the proposal.Published on October 25, 2011Jared Bernstein, senior fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
I think the authors are absolutely on the right track. and they’re smart to get outside the usual constraints—they essentially ignore issues like “shovel ready” or how our economy could actually absorb $240 billion a year in new infrastructure projects without trying to drink from a firehose. They say we will help underwater-mortgage holders who can ultimately service their loans but not the ones who can’t, when, of course, it’s not obvious which is which.
