Author Archive: Richard D. Wolff

Richard D. Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, in New York. Wolff’s weekly show, “Economic Update,” is syndicated by more than 100 radio stations and goes to 55 million TV receivers via Free Speech TV. His three recent books with Democracy at Work are The Sickness Is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us From Pandemics or Itself, Understanding Marxism, and Understanding Socialism.

How Capitalism’s Dogged Defenders and Propagandists Defend It From Criticism

Released for Syndication: 01/20/2021

The more victims and critics of capitalism coalesce and thereby strengthen one another, the more that economic system is questioned and challenged. That in...

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The D.C. Political Monopoly Just Does Not Get It

Released for Syndication: 12/23/2020

The spectacle of political “leaders” disconnected from basic social realities survived Trump’s defeat. He and his GOP had shown little grasp of the two...

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Can Progressives Save Biden From Disastrous Economic Policies?

Released for Syndication: 12/10/2020

Since the 1970s, U.S. real wages have largely stagnated. After a century of real wages rising every decade, that stagnation changed the lives of...

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Why Capitalism Was Destined to Come Out on Top in the 2020 Election

Released for Syndication: 11/05/2020

No matter who “won” the U.S. election, what will not change is the capitalist organization of the country’s economy. The great majority of enterprises...

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How Fascism Has Converged With Capitalism to Redefine Government

Released for Syndication: 10/14/2020

The looming election has brought forward intensifying debates over a capitalism in crisis, rising nationalism and state power, and the possibility of a renewed...

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The U.S. Is Borrowing Its Way to Fascism

Released for Syndication: 09/10/2020

Viewing the GOP convention seemed a little like binge-watching the last several years’ parade of none-too-subtle signs of incipient fascism. We saw extreme nationalism,...

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Socialist or Capitalist—What Is China’s Model, Exactly?

Released for Syndication: 08/21/2020

Near the end of his life Lenin gave a speech that referred to the USSR as a transitional society. He explained that socialists had...

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Why Capitalism Is in Constant Conflict With Democracy

Released for Syndication: 08/07/2020

The capitalist economic system has always had a big problem with politics in societies with universal suffrage. Anticipating that, most capitalists opposed and long...

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The Consequences of Inequality Can Be Fatal

Released for Syndication: 07/29/2020

Capitalism, as Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century shows, relentlessly worsens wealth and income inequalities. That inherent tendency is only occasionally stopped or...

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Many Terms That Are Frequently Used to Describe Capitalism Simply Don’t Hold Up Under Scrutiny

Released for Syndication: 07/24/2020

“Free” and “unregulated” markets simply do not define capitalism, and are not marked by anything like “liberty.”

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