Richard D. Wolff

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Richard D. Wolff on the Laura Flanders Show , July 2015

Richard D. Wolff (born April 1, 1942 in Youngstown , Ohio ) is an American economist . He conducted research on economic methodology and class structure in the United States at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst . He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts , Amherst and Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Politics at New School University in New York. He has taught at Yale University , City University of New York , University of Utah , University of Paris I (Sorbonne) and at the Brecht Forum in New York City. His book "Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism" became famous through the " Occupy Wall Street " movement.

In 1988 he co-founded Rethinking Marxism magazine . In 2010 he published Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It. In 2012 three more books appeared: Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism with David Barsamian (San Francisco: City Lights Books ), Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian , and Marxian with Stephen Resnick (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT University Press) and Democracy at Work (Chicago: Haymarket Books ).

Wolff moderates the weekly one-hour radio program Economic Update on WBAI, 99.5 FM, New York City ( Pacifica Radio ) and is a frequent guest on television or interviewees in the print and internet media.

The New York Times Magazine called him "America's Most Prominent Marxist Economist".

resume

Richard Wolff's parents emigrated from Europe to the USA during World War II. His father, a French lawyer, had worked in Cologne until he left. He found work as a steel worker in Youngstown, Ohio (in part because his European qualification was not recognized in the US) and the family eventually settled near the city of New York. His mother was German. Wolff expressed that his European origins influenced his worldview:

"[E] verything you expect about how the world works probably will be changed in your life, that unexpected things happen, often tragic things happen, and being flexible, being aware of a whole range of different things that happen in the world, is not just a good idea as a thinking person, but it's crucial to your survival. So, for me, I grew up convinced that understanding the political and economic environment I lived in was an urgent matter that had to be done, and made me a little different from many of my fellow kids in school who didn't have that sense of the urgency of understanding how the world worked to be able to navigate an unstable and often dangerous world. That was a very important lesson for me. "

Everything you think about how the world works is likely to change when unexpected things happen, often tragic things, and being flexible to be aware of all the different things that are going on in the world isn't just a good idea for a thinking person, but absolutely necessary for survival. I grew up differently in this sense than many of my schoolmates who did not have the same sense of the importance of understanding the world in order to find one's way in an unstable and often dangerous world. That was an important lesson for me.

Wolff's father was known to Max Horkheimer .

Education

In 1963 he completed his history studies at Harvard with a BA with the assessment magna cum laude and moved to Paul A. Baran at Stanford - where he received his MA in economics in 1964 . When Baran died unexpectedly in 1964, Wolff switched to Yale University , where he received his MA in economics in 1966, in history in 1967 and his PhD in economics in 1969. As a graduate, he taught at Yale as an "instructor". His dissertation "The Economics of Colonialism: Britain and Kenya" was published in 1974 in book form.

In addition to English, he speaks fluent German and French.

Professional career

Wolff taught at the City College of New York from 1969 to 1973 . It was there that he began his lifelong collaboration with economist Stephen Resnick , who came to New York in 1971 after being turned away at Yale for signing an anti-war petition. With Samuel Bowles , Herbert Gintis and Rick Edwards they belonged to the so-called "radical package", which was accepted in 1973 by the department of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst , where Wolff was permanently employed from 1981. He retired in 2008 but remained professor emeritus and joined The New School as a visiting professor that same year .

The first joint publication by Wolff and Resnick was The Theory of Transitional Conjunctures and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. She set out the framework for her further work. They elaborated a non-deterministic class analysis to understand the conflicts in the transition from feudalism to capitalism . Her subjects included Marxist value theory, overdetermination, radical economics, international trade, business cycles , social formations, the Soviet Union and the comparison of Marxist and non-Marxist theories.

Wolff's collaboration with Resnick took the work of Louis Althusser and Étienne Balibar 's Reading Capital as the starting point for an in-depth study of Volumes II and III of Karl Marx 's Das Kapital , the result of which they presented in Knowledge and Class in 1987 .

In 1989, Wolff founded the academic journal Rethinking Marxism with friends and professors , which aims to provide a platform for reflection and further development of Marxist concepts in economics, but also takes other areas of social research into account. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of this journal.

In 1994 Wolff was visiting professor at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne . He also teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the International Politics Graduate Program (GPIA) at The New School .

He was a founding member of the Green Party of New Haven, Connecticut, and ran for Mayor in 1985. In 2011 he called for the establishment of a left-wing mass party. Especially after his retirement in 2008, Wolff gave many public lectures in the USA and other countries. He also lectures regularly at the Brecht Forum . He is also a frequent guest and author in the public media. Wolff moderates an economic program on the radio at WBAI in New York City.

One of his students, Giorgos A. Papandreou , later became Prime Minister of Greece (2009-2011). Wolff remembers him as someone who wanted to become a socialist economist. CUNY economics professor Costas Panayotakis noted that after his 2009 election, which he won by criticizing the austerity program, Papandreou later changed direction and implemented the most brutal austerity program the country had ever seen.

Projects

Wolff is co-founder of Democracy at Work , a non-profit organization that advocates co-determination in the company, which she sees as an important factor in the transition from capitalism to a new and better form of economy. This organization emerged from his book Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism, published in 2012 .

politics

In July 2015, Wolff supported the doctor and candidate for the Green Party in Massachusetts, Jill Stein , in her candidacy for president.

Private

Wolff lives in Manhattan with his wife and colleague, Dr. Harriet Fraad , a psychotherapist. They have two grown children.

bibliography

  • Richard D. Wolff: The Economics of Colonialism . Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1974, ISBN 0-300-01639-5 .
  • Stephen A. Resnick , Richard D. Wolff, eds .: Rethinking Marxism: Essays for Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy . Autonomedia, NY 1985.
  • Richard D. Wolff, Stephen A. Resnick: Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical . Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1987, ISBN 0-8018-3479-1 .
  • Stephen A. Resnick , Richard D. Wolff: Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1987, ISBN 0-226-71021-1 .
  • Harriet Fraad, Richard Wolff, Stephen Resnick: Bringing It All Back Home: Class, Gender and Power in the Modern Household . Pluto Press, 1994, ISBN 0-7453-0707-8 .
  • Richard D. Wolff, Stephen Resnick, David F. Ruccio: Crisis and Transitions: A Critique of the International Economic Order . Westview Press, 1988, ISBN 0-8133-0757-0 .
  • JK Gibson-Graham , Stephen A. Resnick, Richard D. Wolff: Class and Its Others . Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis, MN 2000, ISBN 0-8166-3618-4 .
  • JK Gibson-Graham , Stephen A. Resnick, Richard D. Wolff: Re / Presenting Class: Essays in Postmodern Marxism . Duke University Press, Durham, NC 2001, ISBN 0-8223-2709-0 .
  • Stephen A. Resnick , Richard D. Wolff: Class Theory and History: Capitalism and Communism in the USSR . Routledge, NY 2002, ISBN 0-415-93317-X .
  • Stephen A. Resnick , Richard D. Wolff: New Departures in Marxian Theory . Routledge, NY 2006, ISBN 0-415-77025-4 .
  • Richard D. Wolff: Capitalism Hits the Fan . Olive Branch Press, 2009, ISBN 1-56656-784-X .
  • Richard D. Wolff, Stephen A. Resnick: Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian . MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 2012, ISBN 978-0262018005 .
  • Richard D. Wolff: Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism . Haymarket Books, Chicago 2012, ISBN 978-1608462476 .
  • Richard D. Wolff: Capitalism's Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown . Haymarket Books, Chicago 2016, ISBN 978-1608465958 .

Movies

See also

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Richard Wolff, David Barsamian: Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism. City Lights Publishers, 2012, ISBN 978-0-87286-567-9 . (online at: rdwolff.com ) ( Memento of the original dated December 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / rdwolff.com
  2. ↑ The historical roots of the current crisis. on: Heise Online. Telepolis March 2012 Interview with Tomasz Konicz
  3. ^ Adam Davidson: It Is Safe to Resume Ignoring the Prophets of Doom ... Right? . In: The New York Times Magazine , February 5, 2012. Retrieved August 3, 2013. 
  4. ↑ a b Amy Goodman: Democracy Now! March 25, 2013 Watch Extended Interview with Economist Richard Wolff on How Marxism Influences His Work . Pacifica radio. Retrieved December 23, 2013.
  5. ^ A b Richard D. Wolff: Wolff CV . Retrieved October 5, 2011.
  6. ^ Richard D. Wolff: Economics of Colonialism: Britain and Kenya, 1870–1930 . Yale University Press , 1974, ISBN 978-0-300-01639-0 .
  7. ↑ Resnick, S. and Wolff, R. (1979). "The Theory of Transitional Conjunctures and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism," Review of Radical Political Economics , 11: 3, 3-22 and 32-36.
  8. ^ Green Party of Connecticut: Election History . Connecticut Green Party . Retrieved October 5, 2011.
  9. ^ Richard D. Wolff: What's left of the American left? . In: The Guardian , March 13, 2011. 
  10. ↑ a b Richard D. Wolff: About Professor Richard D. Wolff . Archived from the original on October 5, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 5, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rdwolff.com
  11. ^ Economic Update - Richard D. Wolff . WBAI . Retrieved October 5, 2011.
  12. ↑ Interview in "To Vima" Newspaper - Greek Publication ( Memento of the original from March 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , January 24th, 2011, translated by and uploaded on RDWolff.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rdwolff.com
  13. ^ "Capitalism, Socialism, and Economic Democracy: Reflections on Today's Crisis and Tomorrow's Possibilities," by Costas Panayotakis, Envisioning a Post-Capitalist Order , December 2010
  14. ^ Endorsing Jill Stein for President: Professor Richard D. Wolff Economist . Retrieved July 13, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Richard D.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American economist
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Youngstown , Ohio