Advanced & Applied Marxian Economics (Session 2) - Richard D Wolff 

Look at that sweaty bastard, hardest working economist on the planet! Vintage Wolff, he nails it as always! Cheers

You missed that part, he said that men ARE exploited; on the job. They are jobbed out of the surplus value that they create on the job. At the same time, the marriage relationship, is based upon the medieval lord/serf relationship. The wife also creates "surplus value" with her domestic chores, that is she does in excess than what she would for her own consumption. Both are exploited in one form or another.

I realize this particular RU-vid page has long segued into Democracy at Work, but I'm currently reading Capital v1 and watching these videos as well, and I'm gaining a deeper understanding of economics that I don't recall was ever taught me in college econ classes. Or any econ classes perhaps. Re the banks discussion, I'm reminded of what Karl Marx wrote in Capital v1. Quoting Aristotle, Marx says that because banks do not produce anything of concrete use (commodities), that their sole source of gain is money, that banks are inherently unnatural institutions because, again as Aristotle said, "money...is not used for the purposes for which it was invented." Indeed the very existence of banks, which can only profit in an indebted society, "is the most contrary to Nature." The only solution that I can think of is what Prof. Wolff stated in the first half of this video - to socialize/nationalize the banks. Because while I'm certain there would be problems there as well, let's not act like at this point there's this massive benefit to having private profiteers running the system. The country is in need of a change, that (and the healthcare system) is the first place to start. Unless of course American political leaders want this empire they call a democracy to continue collapsing.

Great videos on Marx. Is there reading that goes with these lectures? If yes, can you post the list of those books? Thanks in advance and thanks for uploading these brilliant videos.

At 1:16:00 it always cracks me up when he says "Bingo - it's called COMMUNISM!"

Extremely interesting. Thanks for this.

from Romania with love:D.thank you so very much.keep up the good work.im finally starting to understand some basic things about this crappy system we live in.

So the husband spending part of his wage on jewerly, expensive date night dinners, and other romantic gestures, is actually him investing to mantain the conditions of existence of his exploitation of the wife, by making it less likely that she'll leave and reinforcing the notion that she "owes him", and that he loves her etc?

This is gold

The proletariat needs to take back the air conditioning. Poor people sweating profusely.

is there any chance we move away from the banking system? or is it permanently engrained at this point?

Excellent!

Beautiful.

fascinating

The problem with this analogy is that marriage is optional and you can live without being married. With a job, it's not optional, you have to do it or else you cannot live. When all businesses use the same system, you are essentially being exploited without option.

I appreciate these lectures. they really helped

He looks and sounds like FDR. That's kinda cool though :D

No, I understand the argument that men are exploited at work. What I meant in my comment was according to this logic, how come men are not considered exploited by their wife because wives use a part of the husband's surplus (women use their husband's house, groceries, utilities, etc,)? The reason why marriage is not exploitation is because it is voluntary and fair!

1:16:06

BINGO!!

Though I really enjoy this series I am not fully convinced about the household economics. A capitalist system of employer employee necesitates a certain degree of exploitation for the survival of the employer. Example: if I work 5 hours I will get paid less than 5 hours for the survival of my employer. However, a marriage does not have to function in this manner (although it sometimes does) Example: I work 6 hours, she works another 6 hours. I take 3 hours of her's (as the proffesor correctly pointed out) thus I take her surplus, but then I give her my 3 hours thus she is taking my surplus. Put simply, half of the time I am at work I do it for her and half of the time she works at home she is doing it for me. What the proffesor is talking about is a scenario where the husband pays the minimum amount to reproduce her wife's labour, However this is not neccesarily true as I have shown above. By the way household expenses such as raw materials for the wife to labour cannot count as part of the womens budget otherwise it is exploitation.

The analysis he makes of the "class" relations in the household is clearly incorrect, and is not marxian. He didn't took in consideration the wealth that the husband brought home from selling his labor-power. And the value of the labor power is equal to the labor needed to reproduce it, according to marx. Wolff never talks about this definition. The total labor-power that the household produces is a team effort. The labor to reproduce the labor-power includes housework, raising children, studying, making meals. in a sense, even resting, regenerating the body and mind is something you got to do. Sometimes I'm just too exhausted (or even in pain) from work to do anything useful. In my view, the capitalist (as a class) extract the surplus produced by the whole household. Of course, the work to produce the labor-power may be unequally distributed among the integrants of the family, and that is hard to account. I would say that, in the 50% of the couples, where both work, on average, men have more power, do less work and have more privileges. But economic exploitation of working people over their spouse is not the case at all. The surplus goes to the capitalist, not the male worker. I'm surprised Wolff makes such a shallow and crude analysis of the house. And he has been saying this for years, even today.

At 36:35, a guy asks a question, could have sworn it's an NZ accent.

It may well be the case that the traditional wife is typically exploited by the husband. But no valid argument is given to this end. It all depends on how much labour went into producing the materials with which the wife works. Suppose, for example, that the husband works two hours to earn the money to buy some raw carrots. Then the wife spends one hour preparing them into a meal. They both eat half of the prepared food. Who has been exploited?

I think the analysis of marriage here is a bit one-dimensional as it doesn't really bother to look at what the wife gets back in return for doing housekeeping. AFAIK women in the US spend about 70% of the household income, so she's getting a huge amount of the man's surplus right there. Cleaning the house thoroughly requires a good day's work every week. other household chores combined take 1-2 hours a day. To act like housework is an equivalent drain on time/effort as a fulltime job is asinine.

it's weird. in another presentation you said that socialism is not when the state takes over capital enterprises (you called this state capiitalsm) and in this lecture your alternative to 2008 banking crisis was "socializing" banking and that the government takes over the banks. how is this not "state capitalism" as opposed to what you describe as Marx-described "socialsm" in which workers (society's elected workers to manage capital enterprises) of the banks would direct the banks activities? seems paradoxical

This makes no sense. Women are exploited when they work and provide a clean house, meals, etc. for the husband. But men are not exploited when they work and provide a house, car, clothes, etc. for the wife?? None of this is exploitation. The wife is getting paid a home, car, clothes, food, etc. in exchange for doing the labor of cleaning and cooking.

I love your videos but... The idea of class in the household is sheer nonsense. The capitalist class system did not create working to the benefit of more than yourself just as it did not create trade or work. It created a class of people for the first time that had only their labour to sell. The woman can work hard in the house and this will usually benefit both herself and others. This does not create a class system. Traditional households had the husband sell his labour and hand his pay to his wife who spent most of it and gave him a small allowance. It would be absurd to say that black slaves in the USA before the Civil War oppressed the slave owners because they had the jobs and the slave owners spent the money. It would be absurd to say that the worker oppresses the capitalist because the capitalist has the burden of spending most of the money out of the enterprise. The wife was a DEPENDENT. A dependent lacks autonomy and might have to contribute they way your children live, for instance, but that does not make a dependent like your children oppressed inside a class system. It might be inappropriate for her to remain a dependent with no autonomy after life is safe and comfortable enough that there is no need to bubble wrap and safeguard her any longer but it does not mean she is oppressed. Her labour for her family is not a commodity like her husband's is in the job market and it does not earn wages that can be a form of exploitation. Don't get me started on the emotional labour nonsense. Vague, unscientific, and really just a way of saying that her genuine love and empathy should be reframed through the lens of resentment. Emotional labour and these ideas feed identity politics which is antithetical to classical Marxism. Poverty is quantifiable. Marx is justified through economic theory. Identity politics is non-materialism. We would want to alleviate or cure poverty but we would not want to eliminate womanhood or blackness etc. A process of oppression based on genetic inborn traits and bottomless resentment based on fuzzy sentiments combined with no thought of eliminating the conditions is a recipe for poisoning society. This is based on poor, sloppy women's studies courses. Identity politics has destroyed class consciousness of the left and been extremely counterproductive. This is where modern types calling themselves Marxists went wrong. It has to stay a concrete economic analysis.