Richard D. Wolff

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.

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.

This article originally appeared at Counterpunch.org.  The Spanish version can be found at sinpermiso.info

El capitalismo estadounidense vuelve a precipitarse a un callejón sin salida. Ya se había estrellado en la Gran Depresión, desde 1929 hasta 1933, antes de sacudirse con el New Deal. Después de 1945 se concentró en hacer retroceder el New Deal hasta convertirse bruscamente al neoliberalismo y al "globalismo" en la década de 1970. Esto proporcionó la reconfortante ilusión de unas décadas de "próspera normalidad". Cuando en 2008 ocurrió el segundo gran derrumbe en 75 años se puso de manifiesto la realidad deudo-dependiente de esas décadas. Que además llevó al capitalismo a una nueva depresión seguida por un devastador régimen de austeridad. El derrumbe económico provocó el político: su centro sistémico no pudo sostenerse.

This interview originally aired on CounterPunchRadio

Prof. Wolff joins CounterPunch Radio's Eric Draitser to discuss capitalism, its inefficiencies, and its discontents. They examine how the US and European economies have evolved in the era of neoliberalism, how financialization has pervaded every aspect of our economic lives, and how debt has become the central pillar of modern capitalism's house of cards.