Economic Update

Economic Update: Who Will Likely Win and Lose the U.S.-China Trade War

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on Trump’s cuts to school mental health counsellors, the mass strike in LA County, why China is better positioned for a trade war with the U.S., and how profit is what drove corporate decisions to relocate U.S. factories overseas thereby making the US economy vulnerable to long, global supply lines.

Economic Update: The Corporatization of Universities and Trump's Attacks

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff begins by presenting updates on the death of libertarianism and the rise of US economic nationalism, and US universities are becoming big businesses, governed by money concerns. In this episode's second half, Professor Wolff interviews Professor Geert Dhondt, the Chair of the Economics Department and Economics Professor at John Jay College of the City University of New York, on how colleges and universities are reacting to Trump's attack on higher education. 

Economic Update: Reform Vs. Revolution

Wolff begins this week on Economic Update by analyzing the choice between reform and revolution through two historical discussions: the anti-slavery fight in the mid-19th century and the anti-Depression fight in the U.S. during the 1930s. He then explains the stakes in choosing reform or revolution as goals for social change and outlines how and why both options are now back on the working class's agenda in the U.S. He concludes the discussion by suggesting that revolution is the necessary guarantor of the duration of reforms in the U.S., offering an alternative perspective to consider when choosing reform over revolution.

Economic Update: Twin Failures Of Capitalism - The Homeless and Housing Crises

This week's Economic Update focuses on Trump's attacks on Harvard, Trump's "antisemitism" maneuver against educational institutions, and US universities becoming ever more " business-like." as well as looking into the economics of US dollar depreciation since Jan 20, 2025. Also featured is an interview with Mr Rob Robinson, to be awarded an honorary doctorate from the City University of New York at its Commencement, June 10, 2025, recognizing his multiple contributions to fighting homelessness and inadequate housing in the US.

Economic Update: Resisting Trump's Restoration Project

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on the Kaiser Permanente mental health workers' strike unfolding in California and the function of tariffs as an economic weapon that also undermines the living standards of U.S. workers. In the second half of the show, Professor Wolff sits down with Kali Akuno, co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, to discuss Trump’s controversial "restoration" agenda and the growing resistance against it.

Economic Update: Solidarity Cities as Alternatives to Capitalism

  In this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff speaks on employers blocking, delaying, and opposing improvements on general social welfare, highlights how Trump ends "affirmative action" for veterans (including those disabled) and remarks on how tariffs worsen uncertainty with seriously negative consequences. In the second half of the show, Professors Maliha Safri and Stephen Healy, co-authors of the new book Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation are interviewed.

Economic Update: Tariffs, the Working Class, and Resistance

In this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff critiques the DOGE practice of firing federal civilian employees, analyzes the Trump tariff program, and shows how both are presented as ways to solve deep economic problems in the U.S. but are actually an assault on the working class. The second part of the show features an interview with David Van Deusen, the former head of the Vermont state AFL-CIO and now an organizer of union-based resistance to the Trump program.

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Economic Update: Unlearning Market Idolatry

This week's edition of Economic Update explores the last 150 years of largely uncritical celebration of "the market," as if it were a perfect institution that must be protected from intrusion of other institutions such as the government, labor unions, and popular organizations. We compare an historical example and also the present to criticize today's peculiar mix of market idolatry and its rejection in the US.

Economic Update: Mounting Economic Problems

 In this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses certain minimum wages by the Trump administration, the costs of Germany's rearmament, and how Trump's tariffs and deportations have hit central America with economic catastrophe. The second half features a detailed discussion of the historical blaming of foreigners for the internal problems of capitalism in the U.S. 

Economic Update: How Marx's Class Analysis Could Solve Inequality Now

 In this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses how Marx's class analysis presents a solution to today's inequality and the challenges to overcoming it we have faced throughout history. In short, since the early existence of human society, people lived in tribes, clans, and villages that exhibited equality of wealth, income, and political power among their members. As modern history began to unfold, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism evolved as society as we know it took shape. In each of those three systems, huge inequalities separated people into masters vs slaves, lords vs serfs, and employers vs employees. Exploited and oppressed slaves, serfs, and employees opposed the inequalities of those systems but were unable to overcome them despite repeated efforts (revolutions). Marx questioned why modern societies failed to install and sustain systems of egalitarian wealth and power distribution (democracy). His answer lay in the understanding that class differences within the organization of production produce inequalities and sustain them. Overcoming those inequalities thus requires ending the class divisions within the organization of production and instead organizing in favor of a worker-cooperative structured method of production.