Podcast
Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff
Hosted by Democracy at Work, Richard D. Wolff · EN
Economic 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.
435episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
U.S. Capitalism as a Crisis for Men
4d ago00:30:53Tap to summarizeThis week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on rising wages for app-based NYC food delivery workers, a wave of U.S. firms being sold to their workers, McDonald's disaster with an AI experiment, and how Canada's leader Carney is also a major campaigner for capital and against labor inside Canada. The second part of today's show features an interview with psychotherapist Tess Fraad-Wolff on the psychological crisis faced by men in US capitalism today.
Transcribe →Marx's Key Insight: Capitalism's Surplus
5d ago00:32:23Tap to summarizeThe central concept of Marx's contribution to a critical understanding of the capitalist economic system - the entry point into his distinctive analysis - is "the surplus." Today's show is devoted to making clear (1) what the surplus is, (2) how and why the surplus is central to understanding capitalism's key features, and (3) how the surplus explains such flaws in capitalism, such as the endless class struggles it provokes and the extreme inequalities of wealth and income it generates.
Transcribe →Supermarket Jobs, Super Exploitation
5d ago00:31:29Tap to summarizeThis week on Economic Update, Professor delivers updates on the so-called Social Security Crisis, the gross inequality of stock ownership in the U.S. today, the exploited and underpaid non-tenure track faculty ("adjuncts," etc.) who are joining unions, especially the UAW, which won a union election on June 3 at the University of Southern California, which includes 2,700 members. The second half of the show features an interview with Ann Larson, author of the new book, Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View Behind the Supermarket Register. You can find here book here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Cleanup-on-Aisle-Five/Ann-Larson/9781668094501
Transcribe →Lessons from China's Economic Development
6d ago00:31:55Tap to summarizeOn this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor devotes the entire program to the why and how of China's passage from abject poverty and colonial humiliation to become, in unprecedented, record historical time, a superpower economy challenging the US today.
Transcribe →The Yellow Vests Mass Movement in France
1w ago00:32:35Tap to summarizeThis week on Economic Update, Professor delivers updates on the big union wins for 40,000 workers in the UC system, the ongoing strike of graduate student workers at Harvard, and basic statistics on the extent of hunger in US households (between 1 in 7 and 1 in 5 households). In the second half, Professor Wolff interviews Professor Ida Susser, author of the new book, "The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy: Taking to the Streets of Paris in the 21st Century."
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Center for Popular Economics: Goals and Achievements
Jun 800:31:16Tap to summarizeOn this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor delivers updates on why and how worker co-ops are a strategic direction for socialism, and Europe's deindustrialization. The second half features an interview with Anne McGrew and Will Chaney about the Center for Popular Economics and its work since 1978, teaching economics in ways that neither college and university departments nor labor unions do.
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Economic Update: The Economics of Unemployment Today
May 2700:31:45Tap to summarizeThis week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff briefly discusses two current large strikes by workers fighting back: the British Columbia nurses in Canada and the commuter rail workers in New York (LIRR). The rest of today's episode is an analysis of the 7.4 million Americans who are unemployed today, the causes and effects of that unemployment, the irrationality of that unemployment, and the current failed "policies" to deal with it.
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Economic Update: The Global "Birth Strike" Changes Everything
May 2000:35:19Tap to summarizeThis week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on the tentative agreement reached by the unionized portion (85%) of the staff at the Los Angeles Unified School District (400,000 students, 83,300 workers), the three separate labor unions that unified to win major improvements in wages and working conditions, how capitalist versus socialist enterprises would install AI, and how progressive mayors like Mamdani of New York could counter billionaires' threats to evade taxes by moving their businesses if any political leader taxed the rich (or moved to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes). The second half of the show features an interview with Dr. Harriet Fraad, a practicing psychotherapist in New York City, on the global movement to not have children, its social causes, and its social consequences.
Transcribe →Causes & Consequences of the Iran War
May 500:29:49Summary readyThe d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so. You can support our work by joining our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else. We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week. We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info
SummaryMarx's Relevance for Today
Apr 2800:31:21Summary readyIn response to questions about Marx's relevance today, this program explains how Marx's criticism of capitalism was unique (more micro-focused than macro-focused analysis). It shows how Marx's critique of capitalism differs from his critique of slave and feudal class systems, on the one hand, and from post-capitalist ("socialist" or "communist") class systems, on the other. Marx's analysis is shown NOT to prioritize the private vs public enterprises dichotomy that has been debated as "the issue" over the last century. Instead, Marx's relevance for today lies in arguing for a post-capitalist system that is different from the slave, feudal, and capitalist class systems it seeks to replace. The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so. You can support our work by joining our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else. We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week. We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info
Summary