Richard D. Wolff

Startup funding, to me, seems to be the biggest road block to starting a co-op. Has anything like this before done before? And if not, why not? Is there anything I can do at a local level to make this happen?

Economic and social dysfunction in the U.S. can be directly attributed to the Federal government's reluctance to repeal gold standard rubrics like "the debt ceiling" and the prohibition on Treasury having the flexibility to use overdraft authority. Fear of deficits and debt are part of the problem but easily overcome if Congress understands that it ought to spend to achieve full employment. The fact that Mainstream economists are mired in fixed exchange rate policies has destroyed much of the middle class and exacerbated burdens for working-class Americans. When will the facts about fiat currency management be revealed by economists like yourself?

Honestly, I think that by 2020, a joint ticket of you Dr. Wolff, and Dr. Lessig, would be feasible in terms of the presidential election. People are clamouring more and more for choices farther to the left, and this ticket which would be the most academically qualified ticket EVER would help shift the discussion in that direction, and perhaps even pick up a lot of traction. I think that if you two ran in the Democratic Primary (granted, not a fan of the DNC or the Democratic Party, but in order to shift the narrative to the left, this would be the way to get the biggest voice), other democratic candidates would be forced to shift their positions to not allow you sole access to that platform. If Bernie is also running again, that would be two tickets running on the left, which would force all the others to shift even more. Just an idea, but I really think you should think into it!

Professor Wolff, I would appreciate your take on: https://aeon.co/essays/how-work-changed-to-make-us-all-passionate-quitters

Hello Dr. Wolff, I live in Corvallis, OR and I just picked up this small flyer in a coffeeshop yesterday. See it here: https://i.imgur.com/4zOq7ox.jpg?1. I thought you might find the topics that this event will discuss very interesting and worth looking into. The dichotomy between Burgerville and other large fast food chains is very telling. Best, Brandon

This seems to be a powerful and useful analysis. I love that the author gives access to all data (look for the link to his Gdrive spreadsheet) so readers can easily reproduce his findings and make their own plots to search for other interesting correlations. https://towardsdatascience.com/what-makes-a-country-prosperous-7cc213974bac

Since the New Deal Wall Street and the rich here have conspired to slowly dismantle the New Deal as they think ordinary folks do not deserve a good life as the middle class prosperity was brought on by capitalists brains and if middle class prosperity is allowed to to stay then labor unions, socialists and communists will come back and take more from the rich.

In India the British perfected the art of controlling large populations by manipulation and force as necessary. Wall street is constantly coming up with new instuments to fool ordinary folks and install debt peonage. money is going to the top, businesses and charities which are not taxed, so that they can contribute to republicans, thus effectivly crushing the middle class which will not able to do anything even if it wants to arise in arms as militarized police, guards, military and even justice system is in place to thwart all that.

Prison system is privatized and laws modified to make it possible to make prisoners generate income for capitalists with near zero wages. Leaders of labor, socialists and communists are searched for and put in separate isolation cells in order to torture them to insanity or death.

Health system, doctors, insurance and drug and medical manufacturers are allowed to form monopolies that squeeze the middle class so that it will keep working until they die and will not have time to think of doing anything!

They are doing this as this is the only way they can not only control the US but also rest of the world as demonstrated in last 50 years. Thanks. Bob Patil

I work for a currently profitable company but current owners are hell bent on running us into the ground and sell off what would be left how do we as under paid workers buy this company and turn it back around we were bought for millions are there organizations who would help us were do we start we are unionized would the help they are currently almost toothless any information is greatly appreciated

In conventional businesses, investors invest billions to a company to continue its growth. Thus, these investors begin to own the company they are funding as well. How does a worker coop manage this if the means of production are owned by the worker? Also, Professor, you mention that there will be an economic collapse greater than the recession, nine years have passed since the recession, and the economy is doing better than ever. So what is the issue?

I feel that my union wages and access to my wife's fantastic health insurance (she works for a hospital) strengthens my ability to live a very happy life based on morality and conservative values. Bernie Sanders' campaign for Democratic-Socialism felt like he promoted policies that would support conservative values of family, community, and morality... But feelings aren't facts. What are the principles or facts to support a claim that socialism is good for conservatives? Thank you very much for time and energy.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/this-city-hall-brought-to-you-by-amazon/

As someone has said marxism is like a chair that has 3 legs: political economy, scientific communism and philosophy; if you take one it will not stand on the remaining two. There's for example a series of detailed lectures on Capital by D Harvey, but he never touches on the subject of philosophy; in the meantime the "science of logic" is a really hard book. How/from which sources can a beginner study it to be able to really understand it?

What is the current state of debate on ‘The Monopoly Problem’ in capitalism? Can you refute more in depth on why the works of Hicks, Hayek, Friedman, Stigler, Coase, and Williamson have been used to say monopolies are not a problem, but rather an acceptable feature of capitalism and why monopolies don’t reduce competition and how they are self-limiting? What happened to the left-wing economists in this debate, did they simply get confused by those studies and by the evolution of globalization? Could worker cooperatives fit into this debate somewhere? Here is the article that gives reference to the history of this debate and the works of the economist involved. https://monthlyreview.org/2011/04/01/monopoly-and-competition-in-twenty-first-century-capitalism/

I want to start an online fitness business under the cooperative model; under which business structure (i.e. LLC, Sole Proprietorship, etc.) do cooperatives establish themselves?