Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Latest Episodes:

Twin Crises of Housing and Homelessness May 06, 2025

Show notes

On this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on Trump VS Harvard, Trump's "antisemitism" maneuver, how higher education in the U.S. is becoming ever more " business-like," and the economics behind the depreciation of the U.S. dollar since Jan 20, 2025. The show's second half features an interview with Mr. Rob Robinson, who is to be awarded an honorary doctorate from the City University of New York at its Commencement on June 10, 2025, in recognition of his multiple contributions in the fight against homelessness and inadequate housing in the U.S.

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

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Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

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Resisting Trump's Restoration Project with Kali Akuno Apr 29, 2025

Show notes

This week on Economic Update, Professor Richard Wolff examines a major labor strike unfolding in California, where 2,400 Kaiser Permanente mental health workers are fighting for better conditions. Next, we break down how tariffs function as an economic weapon, undermining the living standards of U.S. workers.

Finally, 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.

Kali Akuno is the co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, a network of worker cooperatives and community-led programs that sustain and grow a democratic, just, and sustainable economy in Jackson, MS. Among these programs is the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust, which enables community members to collectively steward the land and creates opportunities for affordable property ownership.

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

Solidarity Cities as Alternatives to Capitalism Apr 22, 2025

Show notes

**** SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT **** For those of you in the New York area, we'd like to invite you to join us for another presentation of "Global Capitalism Live with Professor Richard Wolff" taking place on April 30th. Professor Wolff will be giving a lecture on the impact of President Trump's economic policies and explaining how they are an attack on working people as part of a reflection on May Day. This event will be held in person in the main lecture hall at the Women Building Up campus at 401 State Street in Brooklyn, NY. Seats are limited but you can still get tickets to the event by going to our website: democracyatwork.info and clicking the link in the banner image at the top of the homepage or by going to: bit.ly/3YEZOu8

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on employers that are blocking, delaying, and opposing improvements on general social welfare, the Trump administration putting an end to "affirmative action" for veterans (including those disabled), and how the Trump tariffs are worsening uncertainty with very serious negative consequences. In the second half of the show, Professor Wolff interviews Professors Maliha Safri and Stephen Healy, co-authors of the new book "Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation."

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

Tariffs, the Working Class, and Resistance Apr 15, 2025

Show notes

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.

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

Unlearning Market Idolatry Apr 08, 2025

Show notes

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

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

Mounting Economic Problems Apr 01, 2025

Show notes

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.

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

How Marx's Class Analysis Could Solve Inequality Now Mar 25, 2025

Show notes

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.

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

Build and Fight: The Resistance Forms Mar 18, 2025

Show notes

In this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses the economic causes and effects of the global demographic's decline, the Trump administration's colonial plans for Greenland, and examples of resistance and fighting back as the Trump/Musk firing of federal workers gets underway. In the show's second half, Professor Wolff interviews the activist, organizer, and people's lawyer, who is organizing multiple fronts of resistance, David Cobb.

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

Federal Employees Fight Back Mar 11, 2025

Show notes

This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on the firing of government workers by Trump/Musk with an economic analysis showing it to be an attack on the U.S. working class followed by a discussion of Trump's foreign policy of turning against Europe as merely an adjustment to an "American Capitalism First" project that is as old as the U.S. The second half of the show, features an interview with U.S. federal employee Colin Smalley, a sixteen-year member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and an IFPTE union member who discusses how and why workers are fighting back.

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

The Nobel Prize in Economics Exposed Mar 04, 2025

Show notes

This week's episode of Economic Update features updates on the economic risks and costs Europe faces from deporting or blocking immigrants as compared to Spain's prosperity through a pro-immigrant policy, the work of Michael Burawoy, a Marxist sociology professor at UC Berkeley, and how the inflation of meat prices is affected by a four-company oligopoly that controls 85% of the U.S. meat supply. In the second half of this week's show, Professor Wolff interviews economics professor Shahram Azhar of Bucknell University on his recently published critique of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics.

The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so.

You can support our work by joining our Patreon community:

https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate

Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else.

We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01

We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info

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