Economic Update

Economic Update: AMERICAN’S SELF-IMAGE VS REALITY

Updates on closing Florida plant that should be converted to worker coop, oil company profits versus social damage they do, megacorps (Walmart, Amazon) take over grocery business, social purpose of what "middle class" means. Interview Jared Yates Sexton on his book and other writings on how the US practices social control by spinning stories."

Economic Update- WHEN LABOR MOVEMENTS RISE

Updates on the U.K.'s King Charles in Africa, the unionization struggles at Starbucks, a growing strike against Musk’s Tesla and the Bangladeshi women’s labor strike. An analysis of the economic concept of "surplus" and how capitalism makes it possible. 

Economic Update- Inequality Undermines Health & Healthcare in the U.S.

Updates on risks to UAW strike victories, realtors fined for collusion on real estate commissions, Bangladeshi strikes for higher minimum wages for clothing workers, China outmaneuvers Malaysia and US in rubber glove business, UN vote isolates US, Israel, Ukraine over Cuba embargo. Interview with Dr. Stephen Bezruchka on how economic inequality connects to stress, health problems, and inadequate healthcare.

Economic Update- Social & Labor Movements Claim Real Victories

Update on Nobel Prize in economics to Harvard Prof. Claudia Goldin; comment on Main/Halloween shootings, global financial secrecy index, Biden's money for wars. Major segments on (i) UAW strike victories at Ford, GM, Stellantis, and (ii) abortion access victory in France.  

 

Economic Update- Capitalism Versus Democracy

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents an analysis of how and why capitalism is an undemocratic economic system. The first half is devoted to the micro-level, namely to the organization of the enterprise (factory, office or store). Its undemocratic character is exposed using examples and empirical evidence. The second half has a macro-level focus that shows how capitalism's generation of growing income and wealth inequality impels the employer class (a small numerical minority) to use their money politically. Their practice undermines real democracy leaving only its empty forms.

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Economic Update- How US Capitalism Uses Nationalism

From 1945 to 1990 we were told a great struggle pitted capitalism against socialism/communism (chiefly the USSR and China). Yet still today, US leaders demonize Russia and China despite the end of communism in the USSR and a huge growth of capitalist enterprises in China. The explanation lies in US capitalism's long history of using nationalism (i.e. foreign dangers) to justify tax-payer funded government actions to protect, subsidize, and support major capitalists' dominant position in the US economy.

 

Economic Update- Today’s Agents of Change: Strikes, Unionization & Labor Militancy

Updates on how Social Security makes African-Americans subsidize whites, lessons from a new survey of young Americans' politics, the injustice of Europe's central bank raising its interest rates, Taylor Swift publicly supports Hollywood strikers, and Coco Gauff publicly supports climate change activists. Interview Mike Elk, Editor of The Payday Report, tracking the strike wave across America and especially the huge autoworker's strike.

Economic Update- Corporate Greed VS Labor: The Struggle Intensifies

Updates on writers (WGA) strike, auto-workers (UAW) strike, failure of US Federal Reserve, US govt subsidizes private capitalists. Interview Pete Dolack on his new book "What Do We Need Bosses For? Toward Economic Democracy"

Economic Update- What Socialism Needs

Discussion of (1) the crisis of today's real left; (2) the need to acknowledge, build upon, but also go well beyond the successful socialisms of the 19th and 20th centuries; (3) the macro focus on the state and the omission of a microfocus on the workplace; and (4) democratizing workplaces as 'what is to be done'.

 

Economic Update- Marxism’s Ongoing Relevance

After clearing away the Cold War debris that blocked discussion of Marxism's insights since 1945, we focus on Marxism's core contribution to (1) thinking about and (2) changing modern capitalist society. That contribution is class structure and class struggle. Marxism explores how class struggle exists in capitalism, how it influences all of social life, and how it changes over time. Marxism also envisions the end of class struggles as its social change goal now.