Economic Theory
Housing Crisis, System Failure
This capitalist crisis resembles a certain kind of serious disease. Different symptoms keep flaring up at different locations. It began with sub-prime mortgages in residential housing. Then, sequential flare-ups hit the private banking system, forced millions out of their jobs and homes, drastically cut world trade, and undermined the public services and national debts of several European countries. Meanwhile, another symptom festered in the credit freeze crippling so much private borrowing.Critique of 'Financial Reform' Bill and of Republican Opposition
President Barack Obama had harsh words for "unscrupulous" lenders and others he said had taken risks that endangered the economy. He says that the newly signed bill was aimed at curbing abuses and excesses on Wall Street and stopping taxpayer bailouts of failing companies. Richard Wolff says that the reform doesn't do anything and this is nothing but theatre for the public which is unfortunate because nothing will have been learned.
Russia Today - TV
The Regulation and Reform Dilemma
With financial reform now newly passed, politicians who supported it go into overdrive to exaggerate its likely effects. Their cultivated enthusiasms culminate in the same promises made by every president and congressperson after similar reforms were enacted in the wake of earlier capitalist crises. “This reform,” they all insist, “will prevent crises in the future.” That promise has been broken every time as our current global capitalist crisis proves yet again.
Austerity: Why and for Whom?
Clearly, the global capitalist crisis that started in 2007 will be neither short nor shallow. The government rescue of the US financial industry pumped enough extra money into the economy and sufficiently reduced interest rates to give banks and the stock market the heavily hyped "recovery" that started March 2009 and is now over. What is worse, their recovery never reached much of the rest of the economy. Efforts to broaden the recovery or extend it beyond one limp year have failed.
100 Words on Heterodox Economics
To celebrate their 100th issue, the Heterodox Economics Newsletter editors asked about 100 heterodox economists, representing their school of thought, institution, association, country, or region, about the current state and future of heterodox economics. Richard Wolff was one of the individuals they asked and here is his repsonse:Orthodoxy, like heterodoxy, lies largely in its beholders’ eyes. Across the nineteenth century, Marxian economics contested the orthodoxy of classical political economy much as socialism contested capitalism.
Greece, Again: Demystifying "National Debt"
Yet again, business leaders, politicians, academics, and media are blowing smoke around Greece's efforts to cope with "national debt" problems. Something far more important for the world than this small country's financial travails is at stake. Indeed, what is at stake affects us all. What is happening in Greece parallels developments everywhere; only details and timing vary.
Teaching Capitalism’s Crisis
After teaching both graduate and undergraduate economics since 1969 at Yale, at the City University of New York, and, since 1973, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I retired at the end of 2008. The economic crisis that exploded across the second half of 2008 had suddenly created exciting new opportunities for Marxian critiques of capitalism to reach large audiences. As usual, the economics profession was far behind the flow of events; most economists continued to celebrate the private enterprises and markets that were so spectacularly imploding all around them.
The Effect of Distribution on the Crisis
Published on April 15, 2010VIDEOTalk at The New School for Social Research hosted by the Department of Economics
Reviving Keynesianism: a Critique
The global crisis has undermined the neo-liberalist phase of capitalism that dominated the last 30 years of the world economy. It has likewise challenged the hegemony of neo-classical economics as the theoretical rationale of neo-liberalism's celebration of private enterprise and markets. The form this challenge takes is a revival of Keynesian economics.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).
