Marxism
Capitalist Crisis and the Return to Marx
Marxian analyses are now resurfacing in public dialogues about economy and society. A generation of marginalization is fading as a new generation discovers the diverse richness of the Marxian tradition’s insights. Just as an economic crisisin 1848 helped to provoke and shape Marx’s original insights, today’s crisis helps to renew interest in Marxism.In the century before the 1970s, the victims of capitalism’s recurring crises and its critics increasingly turned toward Marx’s and other Marxists’ works.
Transitions between Economic Systems
The transition out of feudalism to capitalism in Europe, mostly from the 17th to the 19th centuries, took multiple forms. It was uneven as well, happening in different ways at different rates in different places. Marx studied that transition's various dimensions because they offered valuable lessons for the different transition he was interested in: out of capitalism to socialism and communism. One such lesson needs restatement now.Class and Monopoly
Robert Pollin, Editor. Capitalism, Socialism, and Radical Political Economy: Essays in Honor of Howard J. Sherman. Cheltenham, UK and Northhampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2000, pages 154-176. Monopoly refers to a power or political process, whereas class refers to economic processes. This paper offers a systematic examination of the diverse possible relationships between monopoly power and class structure. The conceptual differentiation of power from class is central to the logic of our argument (Resnick and Wolff 1987, especially chapter 3).State Capitalism versus Communism: What Happened in the USSR and the PRC?
Since 1917 analysts have debated what kind of economic system existed in the USSR and the PRC. They mostly juxtaposed `socialism' there to `capitalism' in Western Europe and the USA. The two sides were defined chiefly in terms of private versus state property and markets versus planning. We challenge this debate by means of Marx's focus on the organization of surplus labor. That is, we distinguish capitalism, socialism, and communism according to how these systems differently organize the surplus.Healthcare and Politics
Published on September 1, 2009AUDIOAn interview with Jeff Farias on his AM radio show in Phoenix, Arizona [1010 AM Station KXXT].
The Reality Behind Economic "Recovery"
Mid-August, 2009, was a peculiar time in the US economy. Wall Street, big banks, and the media were mostly celebrating "economic recovery." Meanwhile, average Americans were suffering record levels of unemployment, job insecurities, home foreclosures, personal debt anxieties, and the upsets, tensions, and angers that inevitably result. One economist referred to the US as "one nation, two national economies." Two particular sets of August economic data reveal the deepening economic divide behind the "recovery" talk.
Marxian Economics
This course provides a working foundation in the core concepts of Marxian economic theory – necessary and surplus labor, labor power, surplus value, exploitation, capital accumulation, distributions of the surplus, capitalist crises, and the differences between capitalist and other class structures. In addition, these core concepts will be systematically used to understand current social problems (including political and cultural as well as economic problems).
Socialism's New American Opportunity
The US left today confronts a remarkable opportunity. George Bush and Sarah Palin effectively reopened the explicit debate over capitalism versus socialism. More than that, their interventions, combined with the current crisis of capitalism, disrupt the conventional, classic definitions of both isms. Thus, the debate over them is now transformed in advantageous ways for the US left.
The New Reading of Karl Marx’s Capital in the United States
Abstract: From 1975 to 2008, Richard Wolff participated in a collective effort to rethink and extend Marxian economics. Located at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, this effort generated many doctoral dissertations, books and articles, a new scholarly journal (Rethinking Marxism), and that journal’s academic publishing parent, the Association for Economic and Social Analysis. One central component of this collective effort concerned a new reading of Marx’s Capital.
Capitalism & Its Discontents
We begin with production and wealth. They grew fast in the US over the last 25 years, as capitalism’s boosters (from Bush on down) constantly celebrate. Yet polls show most people in the US to be unhappy—and wisely so—about the economy now and fearful about tomorrow. Real wages and salaries (i.e., adjusted for the prices people pay) in the US stopped their historic 150-year rise in the 1970s and have fallen since. Meanwhile, those same workers’ productivity rose; they produced ever more but got no more for doing so.
Marxism and Environmentalism
An immediate problem faces any discussion of environmentalism and Marxism today. The first topic is popular across many different political perspectives; it engages journalists; and it "concerns" the general population. The second topic has become once again unpopular; journalists treat it as an object of obituary; few seem "concerned" about it. Yet, to ignore Marxism today makes no more sense than ignoring environmentalism did for most of the twentieth century.
