Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff argues that preparing and coping with the Corona pandemic was inadequate: medical supplies were seriously deficient. It simply was not profitable for firms to produce or stockpile the supplies. Neo-liberal governments were complicit with private profit capitalists rather than compensating for their inadequacies. The lesson: many basic social needs are needed, like public health. We cannot, need not, and should not rely on capitalists to meet them. Alternatives are available.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on why US record on Covid-19 so much worse than most others'; corp buys Trump; US billionaires got much richer during pandemic and 42 million lost jobs; sharp rise to 66,433 homeless in LA. The second part of the show features an interview with creative activist and journalist. Eleanor Goldfield on her new film "Hard Road of Hope" on working class radicalism.

Updates on mismanaging Covid-19 and US system's crash; reactions to econ decline; sharing gains of firms profiting from the virus; the mistake of "dominating;" mass joblessness = class war. Interview with comedian and podcast host Jimmy Dore on today's crises and roles of GOP and Dems.

US has 5% of world's population but 30% of world's Covid-19 deaths. US capitalism did poorly against the virus. Today's program explores how socialism could and would prepare for and respond to Covid-19 differently. We include both the logic of socialism's different policies and examples of socialist-influenced policies in other countries.

Updates on how pandemic and capitalism are combining to worsen social divides in the US. Interview with Cornel West on (1) how pandemic + economic crash are affecting US society and (2) the prospects for social change.

A special program: interview with Kali Akuno, leader of Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi. As a leader of national May Day actions, he discusses their size, diversity, motivations and goals (including planned monthly national actions). He analyzes organizational challenges and prospects. Finally, he explains why he believes this May Day was a major strengthening of the US left.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff criticizes unemployment - as a specifically capitalist irrationality - and advocates "re-employment" as a far better policy. Gov't jobs and worker-coop development are key means for re-employment. Very socially necessary jobs are detailed that further encourage re-employment, instead of unemployment.

From May Day 1886 to 2020, workers wage long, hard struggles to reform capitalismFrom the fight for an 8-hour workday to the fight for a safe, Corona-free workplace now. Employers block and delay reforms, and try to undo them once won. They use what capitalism gives them: dominant power, incentive (profit), and means (profits). If we change the system from capitalist to worker-coop, workers alone democratically make and secure reforms. Employers, the constant enemy of reform, vanish as a separate group dominating society."

Capitalism's recurring unemployment problem was never solved and makes the system fundamentally unstable. Today's high levels of unemployment are hugely costly in both human and financial terms. We analyze why capitalism prepares so poorly for and then endures its recurring unemployment. We also examine several alternatives to unemployment that would serve society better but threaten capitalism.

Analysis (part 1): how, why capitalism - especially in US - failed to prepare for or cope with a virus thereby enabling it to trigger another crash of capitalism (third this century: dot.com in 2000, sub-prime mortgage in 2008). Analysis (part 2): how to respond to crash better than the US govt by emphasizing re-employment in millions of new jobs rather than unemployment, emphasizing worker-coops, etc.

Social divisions undermine the solidarity needed to fight both virus and economic crash: an analysis. A sense of out-of-touch, non-caring, inconsistent leaders provokes millions to feel society is literally falling apart. Widespread loneliness and powerlessness are psychological factors making the existing crisis worse. The mental health profession has important knowledge to contribute on how to understand and respond creatively to the psychological aspects of today's crises. We talk with Tess Fraad-Wolff, psychotherapist practicing in New York City for the last decade.

The Corona virus's threat to physical health is clear. Far less well known are the virus's serious impacts on mental health (loneliness, depression, feelings of isolation, anxiety) worsened by the total failure of private and government leaders to anticipate, prepare for, or cope with the pandemic. With Dr. Harriet Fraad we explore the psychological costs of the pandemic and some ways we can better cope with them.

This week's program focuses on how the capitalist economic system plays crucial roles in the #MeToo examples of Weinstein and Cosby and also in the failed response to the Corona virus crisis. The organization of capitalist enterprises - power and wealth concentrated at the top in a tiny minority - invites and enables sexual harassment and abuse by people positioned like Weinstein and Cosby. A profit-driven medical-industrial complex did not invest in preparing for the virus and a profit-subservient gov't failed to mobilize private and public resources to test for, contain, and overcome the disease.

Updates on capitalism's failures exposed by the Coronavirus; Sanders and the re-entry of socialism into US politics; US social mobility goes down; and Macron evades democracy to try to force pension cuts (alias "reform") onto French people. Interview Lee Camp on his comedy and his critique of capitalism.

On this week's episode of EU, Prof. Wolff presents updates on Vancouver, BC, taxing its richest; JP Morgan Chase recognizes climate change threat and market's failure to cope; ways money shapes US politics today; why US women's soccer gender discrimination lawsuit helps all soccer players vs profit-driven soccer federation. The second half of the show features an interview with psychotherapist Tess Fraad-Wolff on why our jobs get us depressed and what to do about it.

Updates on high US maternal death rate, wealth inequality and the Pope, #MeToo hits the banks, Macron and Black Rock plot French pension "reform," dying Newsweek caught in corruption scandal using bible college. Interview Perf. Gertrude Goldberg on US unemployment, its social costs, and struggle for a universal job guarantee.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents updates on how air-bnb reflects workers' falling living standards, price-gouging anti-virus masks, purpose of Trump's record deficit, end of Brexit distraction makes UK face its real problem: capitalism, and cause of San Diego's pension crisis. The second half of the show features a major discussion of the economics' centuries-old, #1 debate - more vs less govt economic intervention. That debate mostly distracts from the feared debate over capitalism vs really alternative systems.

This program responds to a criticism that D@W focuses too much on the transition from capitalist firms to worker-coop firms with too little attention paid to the larger social changes needed to get beyond capitalism. Discussion focuses on the broader social changes needed to sustain a worker-coop based economy including a government that administers an economy-wide democratic sharing of profits and resources among the worker-coop enterprises.

Updates on Trump's 2019 $ 1 trillion plus deficit, burden of poor countries' debt, Amsterdam forgives young peoples' debts, "strong man" governments' fund-raising strategy, and gross failures of Trump/GOP's 2017 tax cut. Interview Karen Ranucci (Center for Critical Thought) and Rob Robinson (Left Forum) on their programs and their collaboration to serve the rising US interests in socialism and building a movement for transition.

Introduction to capitalism's systematically uneven economic development. From Marx's original criticism of capitalism for producing and reproducing unevenness to the many historical examples, today's program argues that there are heavy social costs that flow from capitalism's uneven development. Those costs then become bases for arguing the need to move beyond capitalism.

Discussions of (1) "unemployment rate" as inadequate measure of economy's well-being; (2) decline of real value of US minimum wage; (3) multiple failures and flaws of markets, (4) corporations as less economically efficient than worker coops.

Updates on France's successful mass uprisings (Yellow Vests in 2019; mass union strikes in 2020) that forced gov't to back down on changes that workers opposed; how endless wars impose huge debts; and how US Catholic Church uses bankruptcy law to keep assets from compensating victims of pedophile priests. Interview with journalist Bob Hennelly on military spending and debts in the US economy.

Updates on sale of coop craft brewery, US medical costs highest in world, and the "overcoming poverty" defense of capitalism's inequality and instability. Interview Laura Flanders on independent media.

On this all new episode, Prof Wolff discusses three major criticisms of Economic Update: (1) that we don't praise capitalism for reducing world poverty, (2) that we don't admit that "socialism has never worked anywhere," and (3) that no inventor of a new product or technique who starts a business will ever accept that employees in such a business are equal partners with the inventor, originator of the business. Today's program answers these criticisms, refuting their arguments systematically.

Updates on Job Quality Index and its US decline, the French activism against President Macron's effort to cut pensions, Gartman Letter urges investors to sell stocks in face of Trump's policies deteriorating the economy, Obamas purchase $11.5 million Martha's Vineyard mansion, and Kansas City cuts public transport fares to zero. Interview with Dr Harriet Fraad on myth vs reality of US capitalism and the family.

REPEAT [S9 E13] In-depth analysis of UBI shows its advantages over most welfare, safety net systems. An even better alternative would avoid capitalism's unnecessary production of unemployment because it utilizes technical progress (rising productivity) for profits. The alternative benefits workers' leisure rather than profits. It is more democratic and avoids splitting people into unemployed vs employed, non-poor vs poor. population.

Libertarians defend capitalism by saying its many current flaws/faults flow from the state's economic interventions, not from the system itself. Libertarians oppose socialism as even more state-dominated. We criticize libertarians based on capitalism's long history of strong state interventions and socialism's long-standing anarchistic components. We conclude by inviting consideration of possible agreements between some libertarians and some socialists.

This week's special topic discusses capitalism's growing problems, such as inequalities, instabilities, and unsustainability. That leads some defenders to argue that the causes of these problems are monopolies displacing competition in many industries. We disagree: capitalism's history is oscillations between competition and monopoly, each causing the other. Capitalism itself is the problem, not its oscillating forms.

This is a REPEAT episode. An in-depth analysis of fascism as massive government intervention to protect and save a crashing capitalism. We focus on today's examples, historical parallels (in Germany and Italy), and how "strong men" leaders push fascist agendas. We discuss how fascism and socialism differ and how nationalism serves as fascism's social "disguise.

Updates on Sawant's victory in Seattle City Council election, the US obesity problem's costs and causes, critiquing libertarian arguments for capitalism. Interview Dr. Amy S. Cramer, Prof of Economics, Arizona, on her accessible education project "Voices on the Economy.

Today's program discusses a political strategy for transition beyond capitalism to an economy based on democratic worker-cooperatives. The first half explores the history of how transition was achieved from feudalism to capitalism. The second half draws lessons from that history to provide a strategy for a transition now beyond capitalism.

Updates on Berlin, Germany's law freezing all rents for 5 years, overindebted corporations threaten world economy, prisoners' slave labor in Los Angeles, French inequality and yellow vests, Bernie's push to put workers on corporate boards. Interview with Dr. Michael Magee on US medical-industrial complex.

Updates on costs of NBA offense to China, worsening global inequality, poverty mocks Nobel prize for 3 economists working on "incremental solutions" to poverty, why Google donated to global warming deniers, and latest crisis in defaults on US auto loans. Interview with Richard Hobbs, Human Agenda Director, San Jose, CA, expert on worker co-ops.

This program examines the structure and functioning of the large capitalist corporation dominating modern economies. We discuss their basic economics and influence on politics. We criticize rationales for corporate profits such as "risks" and "entrepreneurship" and explore parallels between corporate structures and monarchies.

Updates on US housing crisis as systemic failure (the homeless LA opera singer), Greta Thunberg's critics exposed, Europeans gain from US-China trade war, Sackler family "donations" to museums, universities, capitalists take over Sports Illustrated. Interview on Left's critical arguments with Prof. Ben Burgis of Georgia State University.

On the first half of the show, Prof. Wolff focuses on how, why socialism has changed from what it meant in the 19th and 20th centuries (public enterprises + state planning vs capitalism's private enterprises + markets). The second half explores why 21st century socialism aims to democratize capitalist workplaces, replacing their top-down undemocratic organization with worker cooperatives.

Updates on California events (LA Times labor union, 80,000 Kaiser workers to strike, new state public banking law), gross inefficiency of private car industry, anti-left politics in US labor history, wide global use of wealth taxes vs "conservative" claims. Interview: Michael Brooks, host of Michael Brooks Show podcast.

Updates on ICE raid in Mississippi, global comparisons of gun violence, conservatives on Dem's wealth tax ideas. Interview With Dr Harriet Fraad on how capitalism affects mental health in US."

Analysis of the state of the US economy at summer's end, 2019: a decidedly mixed picture. Critique of the institution of the market that focuses on its structure, social effects, and particular beneficiaries: a counter to the imaginary "free market."

Updates on parallel declines of UK and US capitalisms; denials of their systemic problems worsens them. Longer segments on (1) political economy of immigration, and (2) why the basic problem of Central and South America is 2-3 centuries of capitalism producing and reproducing extreme inequality, staggering poverty, and corrupt government elites. That is the crucial context for the Cuban and Venezuelan efforts, however imperfect and against US opposition, to break out of that capitalism.

Updates on politicians' "blame game" of scapegoating to avoid blaming capitalism, middle class squeezed by prices, limits of workers on corporate boards of directors, lessons from a courageous Puerto Rican people. Interview Rob Robinson, global advocate for the homeless.

This is a repeat episode. No new episode in observance of the Labor Day Holiday. An all new EU will return next week. On this episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff begins with socialism's history especially in the US: from being widely discussed up to 1945, then repressed in the Cold War, and now vigorously revived since 2008. He then examines socialism's basic economic criticism of capitalism in the 20th century. And finally, he shows how and why the socialism emerging now is new and different.

Updates on 3 deadly failures of capitalism, DOJ investigation of hi-tech monopolies, worker coops franchised, how income inequality breeds social inequalities. Interview with Bob Hennelly, investigating reporter on Garner, Epstein and Kushner cases.

This special program discusses how the history of the US working class shaped US politics. We start with how and why the 1930s Great Depression married the US working class to FDR's Democratic Party (New Deal Coalition). We next show how and why after 1945, US business leaders and Republicans broke up that marriage to undo the New Deal. By re-building working class divisions - especially around race and gender - males and whites moved toward the GOP. A weakened Dem party responded by appealing to (and thereby dividing) business interests to support them. The two parties thus became almost identically pro-capitalist and both presided over growing inequalities in income, wealth and political power between the richest 10% and the working class. Building to 2016, working class disgust with both parties showed in disinterest, ambivalence, and the growing role of "cultural" differences in place of working class solidarity. It boiled over when an "outsider" (Trump) defeated first the Republican and then the Democratic establishment candidates, an expression of the working class's history since 1929. We end on the implications of this history for the 2020 election.

Updates on economics of 2 million home health aides, extreme Uber inequalities, Alaska universities 41% budget cuts, Michigan governor during Flint Water Crisis says his critics are "uncivil," a British district's labor party proposes a worker-coop sector to UK Parliament using resources from our "Economic Update" programs. Major topics discussed: economics of reparations for African-American slavery and economics of Bernie et al proposal to cancel student debts.

Updates on Trump as distraction vehicle, Macron's corruption, coffee price collapse drives immigrants to US, why rightists oppose free tuition and student loans, and why Trump/GOP do not stop jobs exodus from US. Interview Dr. Harriet Fraad on implications of US women's soccer victories.

Depriving non-white students, fast food made worse for profit, Wayfair workers demand power, more scapegoating of immigrants, firms' promises of gain to workers from Trump 2017 tax cut proved false. Interview Lee Carter, elected socialist from 50th District to Virginia Legislature.

20th century socialism is now behind us. Socialists continued to evaluate both its achievements and failures via extensive self-criticism. A changed socialism has emerged, focused on a transition of workplaces from top-down hierarchical capitalist structures into democratic worker cooperatives. The powerful appeal of worker coops as grounding a new 21st century socialism is presented.

Updates on "regulatory capture" in the US vs EU, IMF report on the US economy today finds major negatives, and how Trump's desperation for re-election shapes his aggressive policies toward the Federal Reserve, China and Mexico. Interview with John Duda from the Democracy Collaborative and one of the founders of Red Emma's Booskstore Coffeehouse, a 30-member worker cooperative in Baltimore.

On this episode of Economic Update, Prof. Wolff presents updates on inequalities in pay for CEOs vs average workers; economics of mega-mergers; billionaires' idea of "charity;" economic consequences of attacking Huawei Corp; Bernie leads on two new bills in Congress to expand and provide loans to employee-owned businesses and worker coops. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff interviews Prof. Ric McIntyre on basic problems of US capitalism today.