Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff
171 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★★ - 1.8K ratingsEconomic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a weekly nationally syndicated program produced by Democracy at Work and hosted by Richard D. Wolff. The program explores complex economic issues and empowers listeners with information to analyze not only their own financial situation but the economy at large. Beyond focusing a critical eye on the economic dimensions of everyday life - wages, jobs, taxes, debts, interest rates, prices, and profits - the program also explores systemic solutions to our economy's problems including alternative ways to organize production and distribution of the goods and services we all depend on.
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Episodes
Unemployment: Cruel, Wasteful, Unnecessary
May 07, 2020 04:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBOn this week's show, Prof. Wolff criticizes unemployment - as a specifically capitalist irrationality - and advocates "re-employment" as a far better policy. Gov't jobs and worker-coop development are key means for re-employment. Very socially necessary jobs are detailed that further encourage re-employment, instead of unemployment.
Honoring May Day, 1886 and 2020
April 30, 2020 12:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBFrom May Day 1886 to 2020, workers wage long, hard struggles to reform capitalismFrom the fight for an 8-hour workday to the fight for a safe, Corona-free workplace now. Employers block and delay reforms, and try to undo them once won. They use what capitalism gives them: dominant power, incentive (profit), and means (profits). If we change the system from capitalist to worker-coop, workers alone democratically make and secure reforms. Employers, the constant enemy of reform, vanish as a sep...
Capitalism's Unemployment Problem
April 23, 2020 10:26 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBCapitalism's recurring unemployment problem was never solved and makes the system fundamentally unstable. Today's high levels of unemployment are hugely costly in both human and financial terms. We analyze why capitalism prepares so poorly for and then endures its recurring unemployment. We also examine several alternatives to unemployment that would serve society better but threaten capitalism.
Virus Triggers Capitalist Crash
April 16, 2020 04:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBAnalysis (part 1): how, why capitalism - especially in US - failed to prepare for or cope with a virus thereby enabling it to trigger another crash of capitalism (third this century: dot.com in 2000, sub-prime mortgage in 2008). Analysis (part 2): how to respond to crash better than the US govt by emphasizing re-employment in millions of new jobs rather than unemployment, emphasizing worker-coops, etc.
The Psychological Aspects of Today's Crises
April 09, 2020 04:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBSocial divisions undermine the solidarity needed to fight both virus and economic crash: an analysis. A sense of out-of-touch, non-caring, inconsistent leaders provokes millions to feel society is literally falling apart. Widespread loneliness and powerlessness are psychological factors making the existing crisis worse. The mental health profession has important knowledge to contribute on how to understand and respond creatively to the psychological aspects of today's crises. We talk with Te...
Corona and Our Mental Health
April 02, 2020 12:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBThe Corona virus's threat to physical health is clear. Far less well known are the virus's serious impacts on mental health (loneliness, depression, feelings of isolation, anxiety) worsened by the total failure of private and government leaders to anticipate, prepare for, or cope with the pandemic. With Dr. Harriet Fraad we explore the psychological costs of the pandemic and some ways we can better cope with them.
#MeToo and Corona: System is Key
March 26, 2020 04:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBThis week's program focuses on how the capitalist economic system plays crucial roles in the #MeToo examples of Weinstein and Cosby and also in the failed response to the Corona virus crisis. The organization of capitalist enterprises - power and wealth concentrated at the top in a tiny minority - invites and enables sexual harassment and abuse by people positioned like Weinstein and Cosby. A profit-driven medical-industrial complex did not invest in preparing for the virus and a profit-subs...
Comedy and Tragedy of Capitalism
March 19, 2020 12:03 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBUpdates on capitalism's failures exposed by the Coronavirus; Sanders and the re-entry of socialism into US politics; US social mobility goes down; and Macron evades democracy to try to force pension cuts (alias "reform") onto French people. Interview Lee Camp on his comedy and his critique of capitalism.
US Capitalism and the Family: Myth vs Reality
January 02, 2020 13:43 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBUpdates on Job Quality Index and its US decline, the French activism against President Macron's effort to cut pensions, Gartman Letter urges investors to sell stocks in face of Trump's policies deteriorating the economy, Obamas purchase $11.5 million Martha's Vineyard mansion, and Kansas City cuts public transport fares to zero. Interview with Dr Harriet Fraad on myth vs reality of US capitalism and the family.
Beyond Basic Universal Income
December 19, 2019 05:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBREPEAT [S9 E13] In-depth analysis of UBI shows its advantages over most welfare, safety net systems. An even better alternative would avoid capitalism's unnecessary production of unemployment because it utilizes technical progress (rising productivity) for profits. The alternative benefits workers' leisure rather than profits. It is more democratic and avoids splitting people into unemployed vs employed, non-poor vs poor. population.
[S9 E47] Libertarianism, Capitalism and Socialism
December 12, 2019 05:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBLibertarians defend capitalism by saying its many current flaws/faults flow from the state's economic interventions, not from the system itself. Libertarians oppose socialism as even more state-dominated. We criticize libertarians based on capitalism's long history of strong state interventions and socialism's long-standing anarchistic components. We conclude by inviting consideration of possible agreements between some libertarians and some socialists.
[S9 E46] Competition and Monopoly in Capitalism
December 06, 2019 02:36 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBThis week’s special topic discusses capitalism's growing problems, such as inequalities, instabilities, and unsustainability. That leads some defenders to argue that the causes of these problems are monopolies displacing competition in many industries. We disagree: capitalism's history is oscillations between competition and monopoly, each causing the other. Capitalism itself is the problem, not its oscillating forms.
Fascism: An Analysis for Today [REPEAT]
November 28, 2019 13:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBThis is a REPEAT episode. An in-depth analysis of fascism as massive government intervention to protect and save a crashing capitalism. We focus on today's examples, historical parallels (in Germany and Italy), and how "strong men" leaders push fascist agendas. We discuss how fascism and socialism differ and how nationalism serves as fascism's social "disguise.
[S9 E45] Teaching Economics: A Revolutionary Approach
November 21, 2019 05:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBUpdates on Sawant's victory in Seattle City Council election, the US obesity problem's costs and causes, critiquing libertarian arguments for capitalism. Interview Dr. Amy S. Cramer, Prof of Economics, Arizona, on her accessible education project "Voices on the Economy.
Teaching Economics: A Revolutionary Approach
November 21, 2019 05:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBUpdates on Sawant's victory in Seattle City Council election, the US obesity problem's costs and causes, critiquing libertarian arguments for capitalism. Interview Dr. Amy S. Cramer, Prof of Economics, Arizona, on her accessible education project "Voices on the Economy.
Political Strategy for Transition
November 14, 2019 05:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBToday's program discusses a political strategy for transition beyond capitalism to an economy based on democratic worker-cooperatives. The first half explores the history of how transition was achieved from feudalism to capitalism. The second half draws lessons from that history to provide a strategy for a transition now beyond capitalism.
[S9 E43] U.S. "Profit-driven Medicine"
November 07, 2019 05:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBUpdates on Berlin, Germany's law freezing all rents for 5 years, overindebted corporations threaten world economy, prisoners' slave labor in Los Angeles, French inequality and yellow vests, Bernie's push to put workers on corporate boards. Interview with Dr. Michael Magee on US medical-industrial complex.
The Human Agenda
October 31, 2019 04:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBUpdates on costs of NBA offense to China, worsening global inequality, poverty mocks Nobel prize for 3 economists working on "incremental solutions" to poverty, why Google donated to global warming deniers, and latest crisis in defaults on US auto loans. Interview with Richard Hobbs, Human Agenda Director, San Jose, CA, expert on worker co-ops.
The Capitalist Corporation
October 24, 2019 04:00 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBThis program examines the structure and functioning of the large capitalist corporation dominating modern economies. We discuss their basic economics and influence on politics. We criticize rationales for corporate profits such as "risks" and "entrepreneurship" and explore parallels between corporate structures and monarchies.
Making Critical Arguments
October 17, 2019 11:59 - 28 minutes - 66.3 MBUpdates on US housing crisis as systemic failure (the homeless LA opera singer), Greta Thunberg's critics exposed, Europeans gain from US-China trade war, Sackler family "donations" to museums, universities, capitalists take over Sports Illustrated. Interview on Left's critical arguments with Prof. Ben Burgis of Georgia State University.
Economic Update: The Contributions of Karl Marx
May 26, 2018 16:36 - 1 hour - 61.2 MBProfessor Wolff takes a deeper look at the life and work of Karl Marx in celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth.