Economic Update: Understanding Marxism

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Economic Update: [S9 E21] Understanding Marxism

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 Marxism's systemic insights into capitalism now. We discuss Marxism's basic criticisms of capitalism and also its complex relationship to socialism. Finally, we offer a survey of the last century of Marxism's huge, diverse influences on modern economics, politics and culture around the world.

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Prof Wolff's self-described "highly incomplete" survey from the 2nd half:

- In Austria: Hilferding, Adler brothers interacting with Freud
- In Russia: Lenin, Trostky, Gorky, Eisenstein
- In Germany: Kautsky, Luxemburg, Brecht, Frankfurt school (Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno) Einstein
- In Hungary: Lukacs and the critique of consciousness
- In Italy: Gramsci and the critique of culture
- In France: Surrealists, Sartre, Althusser, Derrida, Levi-Strauss
- In the UK: great economists Joan Robinson, Maurice Dobb
- Beyond Europe (connected to its anti-imperialism)
- US: Sweezy in economics, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn in labor organizing, Jameson in literature and criticism, Lewontin in biology, Cornel West and WEB DuBois in philosophy and racism, Chris Hedges,
- China: Mao and so many others
- Asia: Nazim Hikmet, the Dutt family in India, Ho Cho Minh in Vietnam
- Africa: Fanon in the north, ANC in the South, Nkrumah and Cabral in the middle
- South America: Rodney and Williams on slavery, Castro and Guevara and Zapatistas, Mexico’s muralists (Rivera, Orozco, Siquieros, Frida Kahlo), Pablo Neruda

[johnkesich]

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me... They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are..." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

[OMGAnotherday]

Things are soooo bad, its horrible to see what a mess we are all in! Hopefully we can get out of this mess, but I'm not holding my breath.

[zaco-kmsu]

Capitalism's biggest problem is that it offers short term benefits to self destructive tendencies. If you cut the salaries of the workers, they will spend less, and, even if they don't buy your product, you will still have smaller sales, reduced income and reduced profits because they buy your clients product. In other words, you cut salaries and you cut your own income. Although this affect doesn't appear immediately.


An important issue is that Mao made big mstakes. There will be criticism for the fact that Mao mismanaged China persecuted people. The same applies for Lenin.

[ramonalejandrosuare]

Good video, but a few critiques:


1. No mention of Jose Mariategui in South America.
2. No mention of CLR James in the Caribbean is a crime.

3. Frantz Fannon was transnational, you could call him Francophone since he was from Martinique and applied his critiques in North Africa/Algeria.

[jrammit]

Can't beleive anyone takes this guy serious

[jdt]

Understanding Marxism is a great little book. You can knock it over in an afternoon - quicker if you're a fast reader. Great introduction to Marxism with a modern interpretation. Highly recommend it.

[BallyBoy]

I've always criticised Marxism for being unrealistic, but when you relate capitalism to slavery and how people thought a society without slavery was unrealistic has really provided me with some food for thought. Definitely going to give Das Kapital and read and check out what Karl Marx said exactly.

[MetalMew]

Professor Richard P Wolff's analysis gets full Marx from me

[Gelbwyjbejki]

i love the way this guy talks. very concise and articulate. keep it up proffessor.

[naveenrajaka]

Finally I met someone who has answers to all my problems!

[comradeblanshard]

Me: starts learning about marxism
Youtube: starts recommending me prageru videos

[aquilarossa]

My undergraduate history courses here in Auckland, NZ went through a list explaining the massive influence of Marx upon modern history. One of the most influential writers ever. I went to the USA and married a woman in MI who was a teacher and liberal. She said Marx was a nobody and had achieved nothing. I was quite gobsmacked, because to think that you have to ignore history from the Communards to the Bolsheviks, Cuba and Vietnam, The labour movement and labour parties, welfare states and social democracy, and the decolonization of Asia and Africa. I tried to explain but she just brushed it off.
In the end she would no longer speak to me because I preferred Bernie to Hillary. Then she and her mom went and filed divorce accusing me of being a communist Russian spy working to get Trump elected. They seriously thought that is what I was doing in the USA. I was amazed that highly educated people could think that, but I should not have been. I have been down a few rabbit holes of thought myself I guess. My family in NZ got worried and flew me back to NZ.
p.s. I noticed in the USA that there is free speech, but only within a certain range. It seemed like the far right was almost more tolerated than communism. I would say something like 'imagine if Boeing was owned by the people of Seattle and the surplus was used to improve the city and lives of its people'. The idea was outrageous to some people and they would get very angry. But not all. I told a guy working at a bank that we have a bank in NZ owned by the public and its profits are used to help pay for schools and hospitals etc. He liked the idea and asked why they can't do that. Some are more open than others. It must depend on the level of anti-communist indoctrination. The legacy of the anti-communism campaigns still exist in US culture I think.

[itzenormous]

When you work for a Capitalist "employer" and you're paid - let's say $25 an hour - how long do you think it takes you, through your labor, to produce $25 for that enterprise?? Let's be kind and say 10 minutes. That's how much time, each hour, you're actually working for yourself. The other 50 minutes out of each hour you're working to pay the salaries of all of those in upper management, the shareholder's dividends, the salaries of those on the board of directors; and you're buying a 3rd vacation home for the CFO and a nice Bentley for the CEO.

[MathUDX]

I dunno if it's accurate to characterize Cornel West as a Marxist. I've seen him explicitly reject the label before. There's a lot clearer revolutionary black Marxists than he, such as Adolf Reed Jr. and Glen Ford.

[leopoldocapparelli]

your description of marxism and the marxist is more than perfect.

[randallhilburn]

Any concessions wrung from Capitalists will be taken back by them at the first opportunity. A worker may sometimes improve his position but he can never be secure under Capitalism as a result. Capitalism by its very nature must constantly strive to increase profits, and there are only three ways to accomplish that: drive down the cost of raw materials, overcharge customers, and finally Drive Down Wages. This is also why present day Capitalism in the West is beginning to resemble Feudalism and Slavery is starting to be practiced once again where they can get away with it. Under Capitalism the Worker can never take anything for granted up to and including his very freedom.

[IMarx]

Love the Gorky and Eisenstein shoutouts. My dad gave me Mother to read when I was 12, changed my life. Learning about Eisenstein’s montage theory was also life-changing.

[ThiagoFSR]

Unfortunately, Professor Wolff had forgotten Eric Hobsbawnm in England And to mention Brasil's artists and thinkers in Latin America, just to mention one: Paulo Freire.

[xmanrgil]

Thank you for the following information that brings me to an understanding of what Hitler was trying to do it makes sense song

[annford]

1.2K "Likes?" 'Nuff said. ;)