Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

In this week's episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff discusses the "catalog" of 2024's economic problem areas: (1) Slow growth relative to China/BRICS; (2) the war in Ukraine; (3) the crises in Gaza and the greater Middle East; (4) Biden & Trump tariffs policy; (5) scapegoating immigrants; (6) corporations disinterest in climate change and DEI initiatives; (7) rising U.S. labor militancy and public suppor...

This week's episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff delves into key global developments, including President Trump's looming tariff wars, the collapse of Emmanuel Macron's government in France, and massive strikes by Volkswagen workers in Germany. He also examines the fall of governments in South Korea and Syria and its implications, along with the public reaction to the assassination of a prominent healthc...

In this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff dives deep into why socialism remains a popular and successful economic system. Professor Wolff highlights new laws passed by the government of Spain that punish airline companies who employ 'unjustified' airline passenger fees. We then debunk the unsubstantiated and nonsensical myth we hear so often that: 'Socialism has never worked,' and finally we juxtapose the history ...

On this week’s episode of Economic Update, Professor Wolff devotes this week's episode to Labor Unions and Political parties. We explain why US & Western capitalism today provoke labor and unions into more and more social and political action. The latest examples are the recent Canadian Postal Workers strike and the Barnes and Noble bookstore workers rally in New York City. The Professor discusses the history of the standard practi...

Throughout capitalism's history, the big topic in economics was how far the government should intervene in the economy. Conservatives wanted minimum intervention while liberals and socialists wanted much more. In fact, government intervention mostly aimed at saving, protecting, supporting capitalism. The genuinely "great debate" could and should have been about the strengths and weaknesses of capitalism versus those of ...