Richard D. Wolff

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/worlds-biggest-economies-in-2017/

A UN specialist on poverty and human rights is currently visiting various locations in the United States, I would be very interested in hearing Mr. Wolff discuss the findings of this trip, to be discussed 12-15-2017 at 12:00p.m. at a press conference and later released in print in the spring of 2018. More information on the UN special rapporteur and his itinerary here: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22465&LangID=E He's not visiting Pine Ridge, SD or Blackwater, AZ.... Still, I hope his report will bring to light the economic reality, as often discussed by Professor Wolff.

The more I study Marx, currently I am reading Lenin's 'The State and Revolution', it seems that it might not be possible to have revolution without violence. I do not advocate violence at all. Though, if we take the perspective that the state implements different degrees of violence all of the time as a primary way to maintain and sustain the conditions for capitalism, how can that possibly be overturned through reforms alone. It is a disturbing realization to realize that a non violent revolution may not be possible to achieve a truly equitable society. I know this is a complicated and sensitive topic. If you could please comment on how to understand this in a historical and current context that would be very helpful. Thank you so much for all of your work. I have learned so much from you. Regards, Paul

If you will, address the current and integral issues of Net Neutrality. As we know, the flow of information is cornerstone critical. The following video seems over-the-top complex and leans to deregulation. If you will, comment on Thomas Hazlett's presentation, The Law and Economics of Net Neutrality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTX6nxfVKs0

BTW: Professor Wolff, thank you for allowing comments. The powers at Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford seem to keep ordinary folks from contributing comments. Surely, their disabling comments is signal that they're pushing an agenda. 

Many thanks

-Patrick

Please make a video (or a few!) about charities, non for profits and social enterprises regarding your views on them, how corrupt they can become and whether they would play a bigger or smaller part in a future economy.

How do they reflect on the market overall and what would it take for them to become a legitimate currency that could be used for purchases? Thanks Prof. Wolff! From a big fan and and listener for the last few years in Salt Lake City.

Is there any way to prevent that? Say walmart pays off 51% of the voters/workers of a co-op is there a way to prevent it, or should you follow the votes? Can/should a co-op have senate like rules of 2/3 or 95% etc to do something like that? Another question if I may. Can you setup a loan in such a way that if the above were to happen, could that affect a loan. - specifically, if say a bank gives a low to no interest loan to a co-op and they sell the co-op to a private corporation, can you structure the loan in such a way that all low to no interests terms are no longer valid and the interest goes up. Or another way, can a bank offer a loan with low interest for just co-ops with the stipulation that it is only valid for co-ops?

Perhaps Professor Wolff would like to comment on the report in The Atlantic ("California is Running Out of Inmates to Fight Its Fires." Annika Neklason, Dec 7 2017) . This strikes me as a form of modern American slavery. The inmates supposed "volunteer" for the work. They work 72-shifts. Volunteers may include juvenile inmates. Several inmates have died fighting fires to save the houses of the rich. Do they receive any training in firefighting, or are they just thrown to the flames?

I am asking you because you usually find the causality in every action that take place...is this sustainable or it will be another blow to the economy and people

The US empire is the worst atrocity against humankind ever to exist, and yet you call for corporations and rich people to feed the beast. Why?

Should we stand in solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution and buy the Petro cryptocurrency, or should we try to maximize profits and buy Bitcoin?

How it is possible to implement cooperatives within a system that allows the existence of the market, and more important, the existence of competition. The existence of this voracious competition between capitalist would not impede the normal functioning of a cooperative, which would end up acquiring capitalist habits in order to compete? It is not necessary to overthrow first capitalism and then implement cooperatives? I write this from spain, where cooperatives enterprises like Mondragon are supposed to be different from the capitalist ones but they are really the same thing.

Please go into detail about which type of currency is most efficient, especially for a future socialist economy. If you can, please discuss why or why not Libya could have gone in the direction Gaddafi envisioned with his new African currency. Thank you.

Professor Wolff, I'm in a graduate course called Climate Change in American Politics. We are at the end of the semester and each of us is writing an essay about the way forward in fixing this horrific problem. We are facing a crisis of existential magnitude and it makes me want to vomit. Capitalism isn't working and now we know it never has for the vast majority of us but now we have wasted the planet with green house gas emissions through fossil fuel use. Many Americans deny the existence of climate change because they can't imagine a way of life without them even though they see the effects all around them on longer summers, dying insects, changes in bird migrations, increased use of AC in the summer and other smaller effects in the natural world. Most of the environmental movement has focused on greener energy technology and carbon sequestration like planting trees and improving soil. They have all believed they could "fix" climate change by working within the dominate system. Obama's Paris Climate Accord fits this standard. It let companies keep polluting into the future and put no real teeth into mobilizing change while he used some legislation to increase green power subsidies. Green house gas emissions haven't come down and we need a more radical solution that the free market can't and won't provide. I think those environmentalists are wrong. Energy companies have no incentive to change in capitalism. If we had owned energy cooperatively the way you suggests with our workplace (and who makes energy! No one, not the energy companies. They merely took what the earth created), then wouldn't we have avoided climate change altogether? The fossil fuel companies knew climate change was real and they committed the whole system nonetheless. v/r Alex https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

How do we proceed? How do we provide Americans, repair the damage to our system and build a new one that won't let this happen again?