Marx's Capital Vol. 2 w/ Richard Wolff and Shahram Azhar

18 snips

Jul 29, 2025

Guest

Shahram Azhar

Guest

Richard Wolff

Join Richard Wolff, a seasoned economist and educator, alongside Shahram Azhar, a political economist and musician, as they unravel the complexities of Marx's Capital Vol. 2. They discuss the transition from understanding surplus value to examining the entire process of capital circulation. The conversation dives into economic nodes' dynamics, the contrasting worlds of merchant and productive capitalists, and the impacts of retail giants like Walmart on small producers. Tune in for insights that challenge common profit narratives and dissect the nuances of class dynamics in capitalism.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Capital as Circulation Process

Capital Volume 2 highlights how capital circulates through various forms beyond production.
It problematizes the working class concept by showing workers producing surplus versus those who don't.

ANECDOTE

Merchant vs Industrial Capitalists

Merchant capitalists earn by buying low and selling at a higher price without producing new value.
Productive industrial capitalists depend on merchants for selling goods, forming an interdependent relationship.

INSIGHT

Expanding Working Class Concept

Productive and unproductive labor are analytical categories, not insults.
Class solidarity should include all workers who sell labor power despite differences in production roles.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

In our inaugural episode on Marx’s Capital, we took a deep dive into Capital Vol. 1, the first of three volumes on political economy written by Karl Marx in the late 19th century. Capital Vol. 1, though, is just the beginning—and unfortunately most people stop there. But Vol. 1 really just looks at one aspect of capitalism—how surplus value is produced. It doesn’t dive into the entire circulation process—or what we refer to as the circuits of capital. Vol. 2 provides the full picture of how capitalism functions—and we’ve brought on two terrific guests to help us make sense of it all.

Richard Wolff is an economist, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School in New York, host of the Economic Update and The Dialectic at Work podcasts, and founder of Democracy at Work.

Shahram Azhar is a political economicst, musician, Associate Professor of Economics at Bucknell University and host of The Dialectic at Work podcast.

In this episode, we talk about the process that went into writing and compiling Marx’s Capital Vol. 2. We talk about how Capital Vol. 2 builds off of Vol. 1, going from an analysis of how surplus is produced in the productive circuit of capital to really looking at the whole process of capital circulation. We talk about capital as a process as opposed to a thing, the various stages it passes through, what the implications are for the concept of the working class, the different antagonisms between the various kinds of capitalists—industrial, merchant, banking—and much more.

Further resources:

Related episodes:

Intermission music: Ultrabonus

Covert art: Berwyn Mure

Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support

If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship

For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.