Richard D. Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, in New York.
Latest by this author
In reality, markets are useful institutions for capitalists to manipulate for profit.
Fascism can indeed “happen here,” but in unique fashion.
Capitalism’s hierarchy within workplaces contradicts democratic ideals. Learn how economic power undermines real democracy and freedom for most people.
Jobs, real wages, consumption, profits and investments are growing more in China, India and Brazil than old capital centers.
“Free” and “unregulated” markets simply do not define capitalism, and are not marked by anything like “liberty.”
The obscenely rich have thus driven the U.S. economy and society further from anything remotely resembling a “level playing field.”
The role of the state is central to this decline of capitalism in one area and form and its ascent in another area and form.
Raising the minimum wage can and should be one basis for a mutually beneficial alliance between wage workers and small businesses.
Every other economic system in human history was born, evolved, and ceased to exist at some point. The most reasonable expectation is that capitalism will also cease to exist one day.
Inflation deeply affects societies that suffer them, yet no democratic process determines where, when or how employers’ decisions to inflate prices lead to those impacts.
China concluded that in the United States, achieving prioritized social goals happened more when public and private resources were coordinated and focused to do so.
In China today, like the USSR a century ago, transition to a post-capitalist society has been stalled.
We could describe the transition from capitalist to worker co-op enterprise organizations as a revolution, the only way finally to secure progressive reforms.
There are alternatives to the Federal Reserve’s raising of interest rates and curtailing money supply growth but they are ignored.
Inequality isn’t a bug of capitalism; it’s a feature.
Capitalists claim credit for reducing poverty, but history shows that gains were won despite their opposition.
Defenders of capitalism criticize kinds of capitalism that lack the particular adjectives that matter most to them.
Democratic impulses, similarly provoked and suppressed inside workplace autocracies, have not yet matured into social movements that are strong and focused enough to overthrow autocracy inside workplaces.
Capitalism’s political problem arose from its intrinsically undemocratic juxtaposition of an employer minority and an employee majority.
A new socialism unites democratic workplaces, households, and governance—beyond state-only focus.
By Harriet Fraad and Richard D. Wolff in Economy | Independent Media Institute | English | September 1, 2023
Wolff’s weekly show, “Economic Update,” is syndicated by more than 100 radio stations and goes to millions via TV networks and YouTube. His most recent book with Democracy at Work is Understanding Capitalism (2024), which responds to requests from readers of his earlier books: Understanding Socialism and Understanding Marxism.
Publications by this author
Understanding Capitalism
Democracy at Work | July | 2024
Understanding Capitalism aims to answer the question of why capitalism fails us. It explores the different definitions of what capitalism is and is not—showing why definitions matter. It dissolves the many myths that make it hard to understand the system. Readers acquire tools needed to engage basic economic and social issues of our time by showing precisely how they depend upon the capitalist system. Then the book shows how and where we can go beyond capitalism to specific alternative systems. Doing that, we argue, can and should be part of solving today’s great issues, of making the world better than we found it.
Democracy at Work | 2020
The 2020 coronavirus pandemic, the deepening economic crash, dangerously divisive political responses, and exploding social tensions have thrown an already declining American capitalist system into a tailspin. The consequences of these mounting and intertwined crises will shape our future. In this unique collection of over 50 essays, The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself, Richard D. Wolff argues clearly that “returning to normal” no longer responds adequately to the accumulated problems of U.S. capitalism. What is necessary, instead, is transition toward a new economic system that works for all of us.
Democracy at Work | November | 2019
A blend of history, analysis, and theory, “Understanding Socialism” is an honest and approachable text that knocks down false narratives, confronts failures and challenges of various socialist experiments throughout history, and offers a path to a new socialism based on workplace democracy.
Democracy at Work | November | 2018
Why should we pay attention to the great social critics like Marx? Americans, especially now, confront serious questions and evidences that our capitalist system is in trouble. It clearly serves the one percent far, far better than what it is doing to the vast mass of the people. Marx was a social critic for whom capitalism was not the end of human history. It was just the latest phase and badly needed the transition to something better. We offer this essay now because of the power and usefulness today of Marx's criticism of the capitalist economic system.
Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian
Co-authors: Stephen A. Resnick | MIT Press | September | 2012
A systematic comparison of the three major economic theories, showing how they differ and why these differences matter in shaping economic theory and practice.
Contending Economic Theories offers a unique comparative treatment of the three main theories in economics as it is taught today: neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian. Each is developed and discussed in its own chapter, yet also differentiated from and compared to the other two theories. The authors identify each theory’s starting point, its goals and foci, and its internal logic. They connect their comparative theory analysis to the larger policy issues that divide the rival camps of theorists around such central issues as the role government should play in the economy and the class structure of production, stressing the different analytical, policy, and social decisions that flow from each theory’s conceptualization of economics.
The authors, building on their earlier book Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical, offer an expanded treatment of Keynesian economics and a comprehensive introduction to Marxian economics, including its class analysis of society. Beyond providing a systematic explanation of the logic and structure of standard neoclassical theory, they analyze recent extensions and developments of that theory around such topics as market imperfections, information economics, new theories of equilibrium, and behavioral economics, considering whether these advances represent new paradigms or merely adjustments to the standard theory. They also explain why economic reasoning has varied among these three approaches throughout the twentieth century, and why this variation continues today—as neoclassical views give way to new Keynesian approaches in the wake of the economic collapse of 2008.A Cure for Capitalism
Haymarket Books | October | 2012
Capitalism as a system has spawned deepening economic crisis alongside its bought-and-paid-for political establishment. Neither serves the needs of our society. Whether it is secure, well-paid, and meaningful jobs or a sustainable relationship with the natural environment that we depend on, our society is not delivering the results people need and deserve.
One key cause for this intolerable state of affairs is the lack of genuine democracy in our economy as well as in our politics. The solution requires the institution of genuine economic democracy, starting with workers directing their own workplaces, as the basis for a genuine political democracy.
Here Richard D. Wolff lays out a hopeful and concrete vision of how to make that possible, addressing the many people who have concluded economic inequality and politics as usual can no longer be tolerated and are looking for a concrete program of action.Media by this author
This bi-monthly YouTube lecture series is hosted by Professor Richard D. Wolff. These programs begin with short updates on important economic events of the last month, then Wolff examines a larger topic. This series was designed to develop all participants’ understanding and ability to explain current economic events and trends to others.
