Advanced & Applied Marxian Economics (Session 1) - Richard D Wolff 

I just love how Dr. Wolff transforms the profession of teaching economics into a sweaty, emphatic and labor intensive exercise. Marx would approve!

When you listen to Richard Wolff, you know you're learning something.

By a large margin Professor Richard Wolff is the best teacher of economics. He’s simply the best economist. Thank you Richard Wolff.

I love how Professor Wolff explains the irony in capitalism.

I stand, in my own living room, to applaud Dr. Richard for his lectures. Thanks is not enough for you, good sir

@Freedem, for whatever reason it won't let me reply directly to your comment, but in any case I'll address what you said: "Much here is illogical, what he calls unproductive is as much productive as those swinging a hammer. The problem is one of power. Management is as necessary as swinging the hammer, unlike the swinging the hammer it has power, and thus needs accountability, as much as roving security." Dr. Wolff isn't saying the "unproductive workers" don't provide a necessary role. He's actually saying the opposite. They provide a critical role in the capitalist quagmire. They're an unintentional necessity of its own flawed mechanisms. I think you're getting caught up on the adjective "unproductive". I wish I had a good analogy. Anyways, "Unproductive workers" are just roles that wouldn't necessarily need to exist under other circumstances. For example, in a strictly barter society; "you give me this, I give you that".

You should wear a microphone so the audio is easier to hear. Very fascinating thought!

Α better definition for non-productive workers is a worker employed in re-production, the one that works to preserve and reproduce the necessary conditions for the system to keep functioning as it is (managers, security etc). It is mentioned as the conditions of productions in the lecture although the term reproductive is not used but it is very common in literature.

A professor giving his experience and knowledge freely... is this not what we should be doing with everything. Free education for everyone. except computer and internet bills :P .

Totally. And in addition, while the employer may bear responsibility and may suffer economically from his risks, the employee also suffers from the vicissitudes of the risks, while having no agency in the risk-taking process.

The fact that you feel that most economics isn't scientific at all would suggest that you have understood it quite well.

What is the reading material for this course ??

Thank you for your work!

1748, Again Professor Wolff editorialises too much by arguing that Marx started with exchange (commodities) by popular demand. This is simply nor supported by the preface which says the first element of the argument is the most difficult to grasp and once you've understood this, the rest is straightforward. He started with commodities because unless you understand commodities you can't understand the rest of the argument.

what is the reading list for the course?

I am vigorously taking notes professor. I do have a question. If Marxist working conditions like co ops were applied to relieve the burdens you describe and things did improve, there would still be the matter of the deep suffering placed upon the citizens previously trapped in a capitalist society. Ex/ slavery. How would you address these things. Can Marxist or socialists concept address inequalities so profoundly hurtful as slavery, the 3 5th clause, Jim crow etc. I see these things as still being an issue even with economic change in place. Am I over looking something?

it would have been wonderfull if you have added a subtitle on it.

the reason i say we have a depression already -is it seems to me that income and wealth distribution is so unequal - that the top 1-2% can actually increase gdp by their income alone - most people are stagnated -while there is a boom in luxury purchases by the few. and if real inflation was known - then in real terms gdp would be in contraction. - in any case i think nationalization - taxation - or elimination of the fed is a must

For non English speakers, to understand the speech without a micro is a drama. Unhappyly.

There is one aspect I don't get; Setting the capital aspect aside for the procurement of EL, why is the effort of organizing and procurement not ascribed a value..? It takes time, knowledge, and effort to find the raw materials, secure their purchase, evaluate what tools are the best value and which are junk, etc. How is that effort just assumed not to add value? I get the incentive to find more and more ways to take LL from the people producing it. I don't get how organization does not add value. (Notice I said nothing about risk because that is BS. If there is risk, capital does not take it)

Very, very interesting lecture ... but much too bad a quality of sound !!!!!!!! PLEASE, make it better next time !!!!!!!!!!

51:00 *I have a question concerning unproductive workers. How are they exploited in capitalism? They do not produce any surplus just like productive worker*

Just wondering, In a co-op environment that deals in higher education, would a teacher earn the same pay as a janitor?

I wish if he had been the god of English professor. I wish he were the doctor that free cure. High quality alarm English. Love it.

I wonder if calculus is a prerequisite for this course

WOLFF FOR PRESIDENT

The argument about governments being beholden to creditors seems to ignore QE.

But banks don't work the way Wolff describes anymore - they don't use their depositors' money to lend - they just lend willy nilly. Depositors' money just serves as a reserve - and that's only required by government regulation (isn't it?)

watched

It's true though in school they teach neo classical economics. It's kind of boring courses,nobody in my class was really good at it.I wish I have learned from prof Wolff before that , I would have paid more attention to classical economics. How do I suppose to know, I just assumed that high place of learning,universities supposed to provide the best economic courses for students. What a big mistake 😢

Someone should reduce the noise

we have one now - i believe we have stagflation - that is if you consider food and gas - we've had about 9% for 4 years in a row. worsening wage stagnation wolff mentions . but most people are not aware how bad things really are - and even if they become aware -its not sure their conditioning and confusion can be overcome to reach a consensus for a new direction. either co-ops or socialist like transition to a resource based economy or some syrian like revolution with no consensus idea

The FED merely "secures" each loan banks give, which in effect means that if 40 dollars are lent, the FED gives 40 to that bank in DIGITAL money, which is then lent out again. The reason for this is because the rates of profit have been falling and was just one of the countless ways needed to get Capital to invest into the economy. But we are now hitting a limit to the amount of debt that can be carried by the economic actors; next 2-4 years we will have a global Depression, Exitus Kapitalismus.

I think what Quantumsingularityup is implying isn't that he doesn't understand it well, it's that it doesn't make sense within the context of Physical Science: how to efficiently and optimally reduce environmental damage while allowing the most amount of goods to reach the most people... which is really what an Economy is supposed to do, right? An economy is the practice of "economizing" or ensuring the preservation of our environment. He's implying that our current economy doesn't do that.

What Professor Wolff does not discuss is where the person he describes as the "capitalist" obtains the financial resources with which to invest in the acquisition of what is needed for production: a location, a building, machinery, technologies, etc. etc. The funds may be earned from past labor or acquired because of force, fraud, theft or monopoly privileges enjoyed under law. In at least some instances, the provider of capital goods -- whether one individual or many individuals -- also contributes labor as organizer and manager of the entire production process. In simple relationships of the past, where the factors of production were acknowledged to be land, labor and capital, the owner of land captures rent without producing anything in exchange. Land has a zero cost of production in terms of labor and capital goods. Marx joined the long list of political economists who preceded him in agreeing that the rent of land belongs not to any individual but to the community or society. Thus, the failure of societies to collect the rent of land gives to holders of land a monopoly privilege to collect income without either the expenditure of labor or application of capital goods. The analytical problem Marx did not address is the fact that many businesses own both land and capital goods as assets. As an owner of land the business enjoys imputed rent, an income flow that provides a lower cost of production than must be expended than a competitor leasing land from a landowner. Those individuals who neither own land nor own capital goods, who offer their time and activity in return for money wages, are competing with one another for the opportunities offered by those who control land and/or capital goods. Do they get the full value of what they contribute to production? The real world and history suggest that some do and some do not. When the demand for people with specific skills and abilities is greater than the supply of persons able to perform the required tasks, wages and benefits will rise until more people obtain the necessary skills or the owners of business introduce new technologies in order to reduce the need for workers. What I urge Professor Wolff to consider are the benefits to workers that would accrue if the people could somehow get the system of public revenue reformed to distinguish between unearned (i.e., rent-derived or monopoly-derived) and earned income.

I have great respect for Richard Wolff, and have read a few of his books, watched many videos and Economic Update. I am also sympathetic to leftist economic analyses- however, to call the content in this course 'advanced' is... wrong, I guess. I did intro and intermediate Micro and Macro, and it was quite a bit harder than this. I will say that it is possible to integrate the incrementalist, neoclassical, quantitative economics in the leftist analysis- in fact, it is preferable, since a lot of is accurate and correct. Those on the left should not dismiss econ, but embrace it and seek to show how when a community (as opposed to money power) is *empowered* with economic knowledge, then real change is possible

35:00

I suppose ... objective view on economics ?

It sure would be cool to have a global minimum wage based on Maslow's Pyramid of Needs. Then the capitalists wouldn't be able to pit workers against workers like that with global wage competition and labor undercutting. Maybe if there were a law that mandated all corporations include 50% labor on corporate boards of directors labor might get a fair shake, for once. Maybe if corporate profits were all taxed at the same rate no matter where on Earth they are produced, maybe that might help. Do business in the United States, you're taxed by the United States. You hire labor from another country and wish to sell in the United States, you pay the labor there at the same rate as labor in the United States. Never shall that Global Minimum Wage be a poverty wage.

I'm not supposed to know this. I shouldn't be thinking the thoughts I'm thinking right now. Shame on you Richard D. Wolff!

@Defenstrator What level of education did you get? What's your profession? To what depth do you understand economics? There's no shame in learning. Whenever a comment like yours comes along one can be sure it's due to a lack of understanding basic and deeper economics.

hes wrong about banks lending deposits - they dont - they lend out of thin air - supposedly not more than 1000% of deposits. but that is a guideline at best.

The Sami are The Northern Norwegians who joined Russians on The Kola Peninsula. And they are no different from Marxists for joining Russians. They didn't have to care about Noble Savages either. Noble Savages is only a Chinese with a coarse-face, and Swedish by Ethnicity, or otherwise known as The Hua-Yi Distinction.

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If I'm understanding you correctly, are you saying that the amount of surplus value the Capitalist takes is merely a matter of degree on how much "stealing" is appropriate? If so, then I must disagree because a "matter of degree" isn't a sufficient argument; it's subjective. How can we one moment say wages need to be "fair", yet contradict that by saying Capitalists should be able to take more than he put in? The issue is systemic.

I love Richard Wolff and Karl Marx, but to be fair, the boom - bust of capitalism would be eliminated by remedies proposed by Henry George and his single tax. Doubly so if you update George's ideas to include taxes on all private use of nature, and all monopolies; in other words, eliminate all forms of economic rent from society.

Lol, the British government chose to impose austerity on itself. It's only funny in a dark way because I live in the UK.

Bro has not aged 1 year (except for his voice it's dropped more than the global economy under neoliberal policy)

"in any case i think nationalization - taxation - or elimination of the fed is a must" Yes, and not just the FED. 1% of the US population own 70% of all shares, 500 Corporations control 53% of the world economy; all these monopoly capitalists that wield this incredible power from their ownership must be expropriated. About he luxury boom: in Germany, workers consumer spending has decreased by 20% in the last four years while what you say is true.

The chart has EL+LL= TL but it ignores the M . It should be ML for the labor the capitalist expended making the money, maybe he worked at a chair factory for 30 years then stared his own factory. So if we add up the ML(10)+EL(5)+LL(5) =TL(20) . He makes 1 per chair from the added value and enough capitol to keep making the chairs if he is able to sell them for 21. If he cant sell them for 21 he is out of business and has lost all his labor . He could sell them for 100 and make 80 per chair, hire more employees or buy a chair making machine or give his employees a bonus. In ether case ignoring the labor required to get the capitol is just silly. Also from the standpoint of personal finance it is a terrible idea fro the workers invest in the companies the work for (own the means of production) . You should invest in things that are unrelated to your primary source income so if say nobody wants chairs anymore you dont loos all your savings and your job. You can ask former Enron workers about that.

I think the future of Marxian theory lies, ironically, not with ideological Marxists. The future of Marxian theory has a less radical and revolutionary face. Reformists who merely wish to tweak capitalism are discovering that Marxian economics may hold clues as to just how to do it. Meanwhile, the one "radical" idea of Marx that deserves attention right now are worker self-directed enterprises, which Prof. Wolff devotes his entire book DEMOCRACY AT WORK to covering.

So the person that took the time to get the materials, took the time to get the workers should then make nothing for that time and effort? From this theory he paid 5$ for materials, 4$ for the worker, and made 1$ off the work done. So if we do this x100 the material provider made 500$, the worker made 400$, and the capitalist made 100$. So if I offered you a job in which I would pay you 40% and only make 10% I would then be ripping you off? Let's not add up A) the time it took to make the money to start the effort (materials, workers, etc.) B) the time it took to gather materials C) the time it took to get employees. The capitalist should then make nothing while the worker makes 50%????? How then are we going to do the next job? Capitalism is flawed no doubt but Socialism doesn't work it's been proven by the countless times it's destroyed countries.

Much here is illogical, what he calls unproductive is as much productive as those swinging a hammer. The problem is one of power. Management is as necessary as swinging the hammer, unlike the swinging the hammer it has power, and thus needs accountability, as much as roving security. What is needed is to have power recognized as the AGENT of the entire enterprise and have institutions to enforce the agency, and restrain embezzlement just as embezzlement is restrain anyone else who has trust

Marx was a fat piece of shit and so this guy.......

I love this guy's lack of understanding of capitalism (well maybe it's Marx's lack of understanding). How would an employer actually go about reducing an employees wage? He implies that people frequently have their pay reduced and constantly get paid less as time progresses. If I told my employees they were taking a pay cut, I wouldn't have employees the next day...

Wolff gives away his complete lack of interest in finding the truth regarding the workings of economies, in favor of promoting his own dogmatic beliefs, in the way he frames the other side of the argument. He tries to diminish his intellectual opponent's position as something that only "toddler's dividing up cookies at a picnic" could possibly believe. However, even if we're to accept this point, all it serves to do is prove that Richard Wolff has a predisposition towards accepting cynical explanations of economic phenomena over charitable explanations. Wolff's tendency to view every interaction in the marketplace as one person trying to screw over another says far more about what a bitter, paranoid person he is--probably guilty of navigating interactions harboring the very motives he accuses everyone else of having--than it does the reality of human relationships within a capitalist system.

Marx did not take into account that if the productive worker (the guy who makes the chair) also had to spend his time looking for a buyer and some of this money to pay for the tools, equipment, resources, and rent that is provided to him by the capitalist, he would have less time to produce chairs (therefore produce fewer chairs) and get to keep less of what he made selling them (because of all the bills he would now have to pay). So Marx's reasoning is fundamentally flawed.

Since Marxism was definitively shown not to work as a practical application in the 20th century I'm not really sure what the point of this is. If you want to teach fiction the class should be labeled as such, not pretending to be about serious study.