Richard D. Wolff

I came up with this question when prof.Wolff answered a question last meeting in january about socialism being inefficient in Venezuela. So the Austrian school blames the state and the goverments and their strong participation in the market, and for the Austrian school that is  what really causes capitalism to be inefficient.

I was wondering of the details of the relation between inflation and unemployment and how central banks affect it. Do central banks have a role in pushing down prices? How does it work? If yes, how is it possible to push down prices with monetary policy when we barely saw any inflation with the quantitative easing following the financial crisis ten years ago? Or was it a prevention of an even more severe deflation? Thanks in advance!

Richard do you have an opinion on the "Resource Based Economy' that I've discovered while watching a popular film called Zeitgeist?

Let’s take a baker. Abby devises and tests out various recipes. She invests all her savings in her new business – she rents out a storefront in a well-researched location; she buys displays and counters for the front of the store and buys the commercial cooking equipment needed in the back; she applies for and ultimately gets local health department approval to open her bakery. She does some advertising; she offers free samples at farmers’ markets; she develops a following. Business picks up – to the point where operating her bakery all alone is a bit overwhelming. So she hires her first employee, Joe, to do the baking in the back while she staffs the front of the shop herself. Joe bakes the goods in the back in strict accordance with the recipes developed and tested by Abby. He uses the commercial oven purchased by Abby in the space rented by Abby, using ingredients purchased by Abby. Joe gets paid whether the goods he bakes get sold or not. A bag of cookies at this bakery sells for $5. The bakery sells about 400 bags each week for a total of $2,000 per week or $104,000 per year. Abby pays Joe $25,000 per year. After rent, ingredients and the like, Abby nets $40,000 in “profits.” The full “value” of Joe’s services exceeds $100K since Joe is doing all of the baking. Most of the “wealth” created by the fruits of his labor go to Abby. How much say should Joe have in the distribution of the wealth he is creating?

I have recently seen Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) mentioned in several articles. What is you assessment of this school of thought and is it worthy of study. If so, what resources would you recommend to learn more?

Professor Wolff: You have noted that, under capitalism, individuals are defined by their economic profile. That made me want to share with you my experience indicating that people who don’t owe money to a credit card company, don’t exist. I live within my modest means. I have a checking account and money market account at my local credit union. I use a debit card, but have never had a credit card. Last November, I flew to another state to help my dying sister, and needed to rent a car. I had heard that some rental companies will not accept clients without a credit card, so I did some research and found one that did not require it. However, when I arrived at the office and presented the Visa debit card, the worker ran it through a database and said they could not rent to me. Out of caution, I carried with me a printout of my bank balances (more than enough to replace a car), which I showed to the clerk. I also offered to make a cash payment in advance. However, apparently because there is no record of me in Equifax, I was refused. A friend of my sister agreed to rent the car and have me assigned as a designated driver. (I paid the friend the estimated amount the same day.) Without this act of kindness and rationality, I would have been severely hamstrung in helping my sister, unable to drive back and forth to the hospital during her last weeks of life. I guess this is my punishment for not paying interest unnecessarily to credit card companies that now define consumer interaction.

Dear Mr. Wolff, I was greatly surprised by having found you on YouTube last night. Thank you for your work! I do have on comment on the video above (the one where you begin speaking about the airline that offers 2 full beds) and if there was turbulence people would be thrown from their beds; equating it to a “mental institution.” Please don’t use this language. I’ve had 9 hospitalizations in my lifetime of 59 years. I still struggle with my own stigma and fears of instability. I’m only sticking around because I refuse to leave this planet without having achieved some semblance of autonomy. If you would have equated the owners of this airline, including bedrooms with 2 full beds to travel only from Singapore to Sydney, that would have been a better fit. I have found that it’s often the “un-diagnosed” who cause the most problems on this earth. Trust me, no one ever wants to go into a psychiatric unit; especially since the HMO’s decimated psychiatric care in this country. Thank you again for all your work. Respectfully, Pat Nicholson

Hi Professor Wolff, I am an avid listener of Democracy @ Work and I thoroughly enjoy your program. I especially appreciated your coverage of the recent developments in Ontario (Canada) related to the minimum wage increase and the shady dealings of the Tim Horton's owners to undercut its frontline workers. I came across an article exposing the sheer hypocrisy of former Toronto chief-of-police (Juliano Fantino) who while in office saw it fit to criminalize pot use and possession to the highest extent of the law. And, now, suddenly grows a change of heart not for the benefits, but for the profits that legalization will bring forth. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/11/14/it-stinks-to-high-heaven-when-top-cops-are-shilling-pot-james.html Much appreciated, Justin R.

My systems design for a crash-proof economy that reduces inequality is here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Common-Economic-System-Architecture-Re-designing/dp/1493749048/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1516629777&sr=1-1&keywords=A+Common+Economic+System+Architecture

From what I can see, most Marx bicentennial events are outside the US. We need one in NY and/or Washington.

I have dealt with workplace discrimination in the past and continue to do so as a female with a disability. Can you speak to any concrete findings that this is a problem and how to address this problem through changing the workplace to a more democratic operating workplace?

Since quantitative easing in 2008 the currency supply (M1, etc) has increased about 500%, and this goes for all of the major economies of the world (Russia, China, India, Europe, etc). The currency was mostly handed to the major banks with the purpose to e.g. loan to people to buy homes, but instead the banks just accumulated assets, and the consequence is it has been an enormous transfer of wealth upwards. Historically governments often solve their problems by printing currency, leading to the fact that every single FIAT currency has gone to zero value. The FED says their plan for 2018 is to try to reduce the currency supply. I interpret all of this as a perfect example of the internal contradictions of Capitalism that Marx describes, the wealth is transferred to the top so there is no one left to buy and so markets collapse. Part of me thinks this time it will be different and I wanted to see your opinion on the topic, which I trust much more than my own speculations. Part of me thinks it will be different this time because the concentration of assets, such as housing and stock ownership has gotten to these obscene levels (the 8 richest people in the world own as much as the bottom 3.6 billion, i.e. 450 million per person, i.e. populations the sizes of continents per person), but also the currency inflation is undeniable. The massive transfer of wealth upwards means the general population can't afford anything and so profits for the billionaires will go down (interal contradiction of Capitalism), but at the same time the billionaires can't just pull their wealth out of the stock/housing market like in 2008 because currency is losing its value due to the FED printing (again currency supply is 500% higher since 2008). There seem to be 2 possibilites, a.) they continue printing and b.) they scale back printing. a.) the FED/Treasury keeps printing to infinity, continuing the transfer of wealth upwards, in which case it will lead to the collapse of the current monetary system as the FIAT currency goes to 0. b.) the FED/Treasury scales back the printing (as their stated plan for 2018). The demand side from the general population still isn't there because of the enormous concentration of wealth, but now the billionaires can pull their wealth out of the stock/housing market without worrying about inflation depcreciating their wealth, causing a market collapse as in 2008, and leading to a new round of quantitative easing as in 2008 and increasing the currency supply as in a.) and thus collapse of the current monetary system. Am I missing something? It seems either way the current FIAT monetary policy must collapse because ownership over resources is just so highly and irrepairably, at which point the only way out is to redistribute assets (people own their homes, their work etc.). This is a very long question, I just wanted to be as clear as possible, but thank you for your input, I very much appreciate it.

Dear Dr. Wolff: Looking at a chart of the DJIA for this period, in early 1966 it was close to 1,000 and after a 17-year period of declines and recoveries, it hit 1,000 again in early 1983 at which point it has taken off to 26,000 and still climbing. This seems counter-intuitive as the 1966-1983 period in the U.S. had strong manufacturing at home, decent employment, FT jobs with good benefits, etc. Is there an inverse relationship between company profitability and good jobs at home? Could you please address this topic on one of your shows or via a video response? Thank you.

If the state forces a private enterprise to sell their company to the employees as a co-operative, how will the new co-operative enterprise compete with the original company after it moves overseas and takes advantage of cheaper labor?