Economic Update: Is US Capitalism in Decline?

[S9 E26]

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on pay inequalities for CEOs VS average workers, the economics of mega-mergers, billionaires' idea of “charity”, the economic consequences of...READ MORE


Economic Update: China's Economic Record & Strategy

[S9 E25]

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff follows up with part two of his in-depth analyses of the USSR and anti-capitalist governments by providing (1) an overview of China's economic...READ MORE


Economic Update: A New Labor Movement Rising

[S9 E23]

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on U.S. church membership and its tax subsidies, Toyota and Merkel slam U.S. economic nationalism, 40 U.S. states sue...READ MORE


Economic Update: 3 Basic Kinds of Socialism

[S9 E22] 

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses the three basic kinds of socialism as anti-capitalist ideologies grow in the U.S. and more people are looking toward socialist alternatives. Prof. Wolff lays out the importance of...READ MORE


Evet, Kapitalizmden Daha İyisini Yapabiliriz

This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org.

Special thanks to Aydın ÖRDEK, member of Executive Board of Mulkiye Center for Education, for providing the Turkish translation.

Çeviri: Ekin Keskin*

Kapitalizm kendisini sürekli olarak daha büyük bir eşitsizliğe, istikrarsızlığa ve adaletsizliğe sürüklerken, kapitalizmi eleştirenler çoğalıyor. Kapitalizmin endişeli savunucuları iki şekilde tepki veriyor. Birçoğu eleştirileri önemsemiyor. Ne de olsa, kapitalizm uzun zamandır var ve daha önce de iniş çıkışlar yaşadı. Eleştirenler, hayal kırıklıklarına rağmen çok az bir değişim olması nedeniyle eleştirilerin sönümleneceğini tahmin ediyor veya umuyorlar. Şikâyet edenler ise sadece kaybedenler. Kazananlar kesinlikle sistemi ileriye taşıyacaklar. Kapitalizm savunucularının bir kısmı da basitçe kapitalizmin bir alternatifinin olmadığı konusunda ısrar ediyor, bu yüzden eleştiriler anlamsız hale geliyor.

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Heterodox Economics at John Jay College

Authors: Richard D. Wolff and Ian J. Seda-Irizarry

Richard D. Wolff (RDW): As a professor of economics, all my adult life I’ve had to struggle with a difficult sad fact about economics education in colleges and universities in the United States for the last half century. Because of the Cold-war, because of the years of struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the previous way of teaching of economics, which included the presentation of alternative theories, were repressed. Instead economics got narrowed to a very simple orthodoxy that excluded everything basically critical of capitalism. Capitalism, “economics” taught, was the greatest economic system since sliced bread, indeed the “optimum” imaginable. There were no alternatives worth studying from which one could learn. For example, Marxism, as the most developed critique of capitalism in the world, was simply excluded from 99% of all economics curriculum, as it remains today. It is an extraordinarily narrow orthodoxy.

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American History and the 2020 Election

This article originally appeared at Counterpunch.org

Whatever distractions candidates promote to win voters, some underlying issues will wield their influence on 2020 election outcomes in any case. The biggest of these are the historically accumulated anger and betrayal felt by millions of working class Americans. Since the 1970s, their relative position within income and wealth distributions has declined. Real wages stagnated while workers’ rising productivity made ever more profits for employers, widening inequality. That alone depressed the class, but US society is structured to add many political, cultural, and social demotions onto those whose relative economic position declines.

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Economic Update: Understanding Marxism

[S9 E21]

This special edition of "Economic Update" is devoted to Understanding Marxism, the title of a short new book just published by Democracy at Work. Today's program, like the book, explains...READ MORE


Economic Update: Living in a Socialist Economy

[S9 E20]

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on the college admissions scandal in the U.S., how lobbyists reflect and worsen inequality, North and South Carolina teachers’ strike for...READ MORE


Socialism and Workers’ Coops

This article originally appeared at Counterpunch.org.

Actually existing socialisms since the 1917 Soviet revolution leave a rich legacy: aspects to build on, aspects to reject. Collective consumption (free education, medical care, subsidized housing, transport, etc.) is among the first and party dictatorship is among the second. Those socialisms’ complex histories also leave a legacy of what went missing from them. Identifying and evaluating missing elements can provide today’s socialist movements with better means to surpass capitalism than earlier socialist movements had.

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What is class?

There is an entire body of political science thinking that has been unavailable in this country for many years because of its association with socialism and the left that have been demonized. Prof. Wolff joins Richard Eskow of The Zero Hour to talk about the insight that literature could offer us.

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Trade War Truce on the Horizon? & Bad News for Bitcoin

As Trump ramps up his rhetoric against China, one of the nation's top officials will visit Washington to talk trade. Professor Richard Wolff joins RT's Boom Bust to sift through the shipping stalemate and search for hope on the horizon.

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Global Capitalism: May 2019 Economic Update

Rise of Socialism in the US Today

with Richard D. Wolff 
Co-sponsored by Democracy at Work, Left Forum & 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 2019, these issues will include...READ MORE


Economic Update: Lawyers vs. The System

[S9 E18]

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on how U.S. college students have become share-croppers for investors, conservatives' fake opposition to government intervention in...READ MORE


US Unemployment Numbers and Other Ways to Hide the Truth

Prof. Wolff joins "By Any Means Necessary" to break down the good, the bad and the ugly of the latest US unemployment numbers, the media and political manipulation of economic numbers, American capitalism's multi-faceted debt crisis, and why it is time to move past capitalism.

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The Truth About Modern Monetary Theory

What is modern monetary theory? Richard Wolff joined Thom to explain. MMT or Modern Monetary Theory is becoming a point of contention in the Democratic Party,. But what is it and what does it mean? How does a government, or a political candidate use modern monetary theory, Can modern monetary theory help end the debt or the national deficit? What would the effects of modern monetary theory be on the average working person?

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Yes, We Can do Better Than Capitalism

This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org.

As capitalism drives itself into ever-greater inequality, instability and injustice, its critics multiply. Worried defenders react in two ways. Many dismiss the criticisms. After all, capitalism has been around a long time and weathered ups and downs before. They presume or hope that criticism will fade as little really changes despite the critics, and frustrations set in. It’s just losers who complain. The winners will surely carry the system forward. Some defenders insist that there simply is no alternative to capitalism, so criticism becomes pointless.

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In US and UK, the Working and Middle Classes Are Under Attack

This article originally appeared at Truthout.org

The crises affecting the political economies of the U.K. and U.S. are strikingly parallel. The 2008 capitalist crash hit and hurt both badly. Each arranged government bailouts of their major banks and many large corporations. After 2008, they both imposed real economic suffering — austerity — on the mass of their people. Finally, in both countries, pre-2008 trends toward greater economic inequality accelerated post-2008. Those trends in turn provoked deepening political and cultural divisions.

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Economic Update: Capitalism vs. Socialism

[S9 E17]

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff does something a little different. He dives deep into the 200+ year old debate and struggle between capitalism and socialism and looks into how it has...READ MORE


Trump Has Politicized the Fed. Now What Happens to Democracy?

Has the FED ever been politicized the way Trump is proposing now and what would be the result of that? Prof. Wolff joins The Thom Hartmann program to answer questions about Donald Trump's attack on the FED and what it means for our country and economy.

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Economic Update: The #MeToo Movement

[S9 E16]

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on Chicago in change, the decline of world trade, New York City’s "congestion pricing plan, the IMF comments on Trump’s trade war and the hi-tech monopolies, the 7...READ MORE


Prof. Richard Wolff on Organic Intellectuals

Prof. Richard Wolff joins RJ Eskow to discuss supply, demand, and customer service in today’s markets.

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Brexit Benefits?

Brexit has been a bane to the British economy, but could it have some benefits around the bend? Professor Richard Wolff joins BoomBust to discuss. 

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Bernie Sanders Makes “Big Impression” at Fox News Town Hall

Prof. Wolff joins Brian Becker and John Kiriakou on Loud & Clear to discuss Bernie Sanders' Fox News Town Hall meeting in Pennsylvania.

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Economic Update: Venezuela

[S9 E15]

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on Brexit and the Mueller Report, the new labor upsurge happening in Chicago, how income shapes education and thus “merit", the mistaken objections to...READ MORE


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