Podcast
The Dialectic At Work
Hosted by Democracy At Work · EN
The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community.
About
The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community.
Follow us on social media:
X: @DialecticAtWork
Instagram: @DialecticAtWork
Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork
Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info
Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Professor Wolff meets Louis Althusser
Nov 2200:38:43Tap to summarizeIn the 1960s, Louis Althusser imported the concept of 'overdetermination' from Sigmund Freud into the domain of Marxian analysis. In the 1980s, Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick developed this idea into a Marxian Critique of Political Economy in their seminal book Knowledge and Class. Yet, many of the premises of the concept and its applications remain fuzzy to people, even students of Marxian theory. This week, the dialectic goes to work with Professor Richard Wolff to explore this important idea. What is overdetermination? How does it liberate analyses from determinism and essentialism? How can we use this idea in the 21st century to make sense of the world? About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
Transcribe →A Socialist Win in NYC: How, Why, & What it Means
Nov 800:43:56Tap to summarizeZohran Mamdani was declared the winner of the New York City mayoral election on November 4th, 2025. He ran as a Democratic Socialist. He ran as an immigrant. He ran as a Muslim. He ran on a platform of affordability, and he ran without taking a dime from corporations. He defeated a member of a political dynasty and the billionaires who backed him, and he did so with a resounding majority of the vote. He has set an example for others to follow and given hope to many in a tumultuous political era. In this episode, the dialectic goes to work with the world's leading Marxian economist, Professor Richard Wolff, to examine how and why this monumental moment happened and what it could mean for New York City and the rest of the world. About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
Transcribe →Keynesian vs Marxian Economics
Oct 2600:30:41Tap to summarizeState intervention or private interest? Public investment or private? More taxation or less? More regulation or less regulation? We are often asked to comment on these questions because, in popular perception at least, they are the 'central' concerns of left-leaning economists. But, as we will discover in this episode, while these may be essential concerns (particularly for Keynesian economists), Marxian economists and thinkers have provided an alternative way of thinking about the project that goes beyond these naive binaries. In this episode, the dialectic goes to work with the world's leading Marxian economist, Professor Richard Wolff, to make sense of the differences and similarities between Keynesian and Marxian thinkers. About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
Transcribe →What is Money? Bitcoins and Cryptocurrency
Oct 1100:43:28Tap to summarizeMost things in life--- automobiles, lovers, cancer --- are essential only to those who have them. Money, in contrast, is equally important to those who have it and those who don't. Both accordingly have a concern for understanding it. Both should proceed in the complete confidence that they can.", so writes John Kenneth Galbraith in his famous book "Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went." But what is money? This question may seem obvious at first glance; however, as we discover in this episode, there is more to it than meets the eye. Some claim that we are now entering a new monetary world with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. To make sense of all of this, this week the dialectic goes to work to explore the question of 'money' with Prof. Wolff. About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
Transcribe →No Risk, No Return: Capital VS Labor
Sep 2600:24:37Tap to summarizeA popular myth propagated ad nauseam may begin to sound like the truth to some. It is no different for the "risk" theory of profit: the claim that capitalists "create" profits by assuming risk to capital. This theory was born out of the rise of the financial bourgeoisie as a dominant class; from the standpoint of this class, as Marx points out, "production is just an unavoidable middle". For the financial bourgeoisie, it is a pure case of M to M", the attempt to convert money into more money by buying and selling financial assets. But the "modern portfolio theory" is an extension of the same ideas on risk theory that Frank Knight first posited in the 1920s. Its irrationality can be best understood by quoting the popular investor Charlie Munger, who famously remarked that "much of what is taught in corporate finance is, frankly, twaddle". In this episode, we explore the risk theory of profit with Prof. Wolff and ask: Is this theory a good representation of profits under capitalism? About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
Transcribe →Ideology and Economics: Bourgeois Theories of Value
Sep 1200:38:43Tap to summarizeIt is often argued, naively in our view, that "economics" is a science. Yet, it is easy to see that while discredited and unscientific theories, such as the Phlogiston theory in chemistry, can easily get replaced by better ideas, there has always been resistance to the development of revolutionary thought in Economics. This has earned the discipline the title of the "dismal science". In this episode, we argue that economics is "ideological" in the precise sense that different groups in society conceptualize economic value (and hence profit) from their respective standpoints: the merchant in the perspective of selling things, the industrialist from the standpoint of hiring labor power and buying means of production, and the financier in the perspective of "risk to capital". These ideological positions correspond to the class positions held by individuals within the capitalist circuit. In this episode, we discuss bourgeois theories of value with Prof Rick Wolff. About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
Transcribe →Marx: the Business Analyst
Aug 100:55:32Tap to summarizeMarx, an analyst of real businesses? You must be crazy. Well, before you arrive at that conclusion, consider the following: Procurement time, lead time, inventory management, freight costs, and supply chain management: these are terms commonly encountered by business analysts and participants alike on an everyday basis. Contemporary corporations, such as Amazon and Walmart, have developed elaborate interconnected networks of warehouses and logistics management systems that reduce the 'turnover time' (the two-day delivery method) and facilitate the circulation of capital. Any analyst of the world capitalist system cannot help but notice how geopolitical tensions over supply chains, semiconductors, GPUs, and rare earths tie into the circuits of contemporary global capitalism. A serious analyst of capitalism must, therefore, pay close attention to the "CIRCULATION" of Capital. But what is the circulation of Capital? How does the world capitalist system connect retailers and financiers with networks of direct-producers ---- Marx's exploited classes in Volume 1--- and suppliers that are spread out across the entire planet? What does Marx's theory say about the 'subsumed classes', or the classes in society that do not directly participate in the production of surplus-value, but facilitate or provide conditions of existence to it? How do we incorporate bankers, merchants, and financiers into the circuit of capital? Volume 1 of Capital deals with the PRODUCTION of surplus-value to demonstrate how MORE value is extracted from workers than they receive in wages. The core of capitalist accumulation is thus the stolen value of workers. But what happens once this value is stolen? Does the capitalist keep all of it? Does he make distributions out of it? To whom are these distributions made and why? These questions are at the heart of Capital Volume 2. With this aim, this week the dialectic goes to work to explore the amazing world of Marx's Capital, Volume II: The Circulation of Capital. About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
Transcribe →Value & Prices: The Transformation Problem
Jul 1801:06:27Tap to summarizeThis week, the dialectic sat down with Professor Richard Wolff again to discuss the relational interplay between value and prices. About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
Transcribe →Marx's Capital Volumes 2 & 3
Jul 400:50:26Tap to summarizeThis week, the dialectic sat down with Professor Richard Wolff again to discuss Karl Marx's Capital, Volumes 2 and 3. The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxist theory. It employs the dialectical mode of reasoning, a method developed over millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis through dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work, intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
Transcribe →Karl Marx In America With Andrew Hartman
Jun 2000:58:02Tap to summarizeTo read Karl Marx is to contemplate a world created by capitalism. People have long viewed the United States as the quintessential anti-Marxist nation, but Marx's ideas have inspired a wide range of individuals to formulate a more nuanced understanding of the stakes of the American project. Historians have highlighted the imprint made on the United States by Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith, John Locke, and Thomas Paine, but Marx is rarely considered alongside these figures. Yet his ideas are the most relevant today because of capitalism's centrality to American life. In "Karl Marx in America", historian Andrew Hartman argues that, although Karl Marx never visited America, the country has been profoundly influenced, shaped, and transformed by his ideas. Since the beginning of the Civil War, Marx has been a specter in the American machine. During the Gilded Age, socialists read Marx as a remedy for the unchecked power of corporations. During the Great Depression, communists turned to Marx in the hope of transcending the destructive capitalist economy. Marx inspired the young activists of the 1960s as they gathered to protest a war overseas. Marx's influence is also evident today, as Americans have become increasingly attuned to issues of inequality, labor, and power. After decades of being pushed to the far-left corner of intellectual thought, Marx's ideologies have crossed over into the mainstream and are more alive than ever. Working-class consciousness is on the rise, and, as Marx argued, the future of a capitalist society rests in the hands of the people who work at the point of production. A valuable resource for anyone interested in Marx's influence on American political discourse, Karl Marx in America is a thought-provoking account of the past, present, and future of his philosophies in American society. This week, the dialectic sat down with the author, Andrew Hartman, to chat about this new book. About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork
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