The Dialectic At Work

Marx, an analyst of real businesses? You must be crazy. Well, before you arrive at that conclusion, consider the following: Procurement time, lead time, inventory management, freight costs, and supply chain management: these are terms commonly encountered by business analysts and participants alike on an everyday basis. Contemporary corporations, such as Amazon and Walmart, have developed elaborate interconnected networks of warehouses and logistics management systems that reduce the 'turnover time' (the two-day delivery method) and facilitate the circulation of capital. Any analyst of the world capitalist system cannot help but notice how geopolitical tensions over supply chains, semiconductors, GPUs, and rare earths tie into the circuits of contemporary global capitalism. A serious analyst of capitalism must, therefore, pay close attention to the "CIRCULATION" of Capital.  But what is the circulation of Capital? How does the world capitalist system connect retailers and financiers with networks of direct-producers ---- Marx's exploited classes in Volume 1--- and suppliers that are spread out across the entire planet? What does Marx's theory say about the 'subsumed classes', or the classes in society that do not directly participate in the production of surplus-value, but facilitate or provide conditions of existence to it? How do we incorporate bankers, merchants, and financiers into the circuit of capital? Volume 1 of Capital deals with the PRODUCTION of surplus-value to demonstrate how MORE value is extracted from workers than they receive in wages. The core of capitalist accumulation is thus the stolen value of workers. But what happens once this value is stolen? Does the capitalist keep all of it? Does he make distributions out of it? To whom are these distributions made and why? These questions are at the heart of Capital Volume 2. With this aim, this week the dialectic goes to work to explore the amazing world of Marx's Capital, Volume II: The Circulation of Capital.   About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork

This week, the dialectic sat down with Professor Richard Wolff again to discuss the relational interplay between value and prices.   About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork

This week, the dialectic sat down with Professor Richard Wolff again to discuss Karl Marx's Capital, Volumes 2 and 3. The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxist theory. It employs the dialectical mode of reasoning, a method developed over millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis through dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work, intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community.   About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork

To read Karl Marx is to contemplate a world created by capitalism. People have long viewed the United States as the quintessential anti-Marxist nation, but Marx’s ideas have inspired a wide range of individuals to formulate a more nuanced understanding of the stakes of the American project. Historians have highlighted the imprint made on the United States by Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith, John Locke, and Thomas Paine, but Marx is rarely considered alongside these figures. Yet his ideas are the most relevant today because of capitalism’s centrality to American life.   In "Karl Marx in America", historian Andrew Hartman argues that, although Karl Marx never visited America, the country has been profoundly influenced, shaped, and transformed by his ideas. Since the beginning of the Civil War, Marx has been a specter in the American machine. During the Gilded Age, socialists read Marx as a remedy for the unchecked power of corporations. During the Great Depression, communists turned to Marx in the hope of transcending the destructive capitalist economy. Marx inspired the young activists of the 1960s as they gathered to protest a war overseas. Marx’s influence is also evident today, as Americans have become increasingly attuned to issues of inequality, labor, and power.   After decades of being pushed to the far-left corner of intellectual thought, Marx’s ideologies have crossed over into the mainstream and are more alive than ever. Working-class consciousness is on the rise, and, as Marx argued, the future of a capitalist society rests in the hands of the people who work at the point of production. A valuable resource for anyone interested in Marx’s influence on American political discourse, Karl Marx in America is a thought-provoking account of the past, present, and future of his philosophies in American society.   This week, the dialectic sat down with the author, Andrew Hartman, to chat about this new book. About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork

In the last episode, we discussed the importance of Capital Volume 2 to the project of Das Kapital. In this episode, we delve deeper into the first four chapters of the book, starting with the three circuits. We observe how the world of finance is interconnected with production and retail, and how these three circuits, in turn, interact to form the totality known as the world capitalist system.  The capitalist system comprises financiers, managers, bankers, and a host of non-producing members who benefit from the exploitation of productive workers, as they receive a share of their surplus value. With volumes 2 and 3, Marx has opened the analytical door to an appreciation of the complexity of class struggles in contemporary societies, and the struggles between the “RECEIEVERS OF DISTRIBUTED SHARES”. These struggles, which are extremely important for the real world, are a critical part of the toolkit of Capital Volume 2.   About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork

Most professionally trained neoclassical economists have never bothered to read Capital Volume 1—let alone know about the existence of its two companion theoretical volumes (2 and 3) and three historical volumes. While it’s generally advisable to refrain from speaking on topics one hasn’t deeply studied, bourgeois economics remains full of lively debates peppered with claims that begin: “But Marx didn’t account for [fill in the blank].”   This week on The Dialectic At Work, we examine these alleged “absences” in Marx’s Capital with Professor Richard Wolff. Since most such omissions stem from ignorance of Volumes 2 and 3, we’ll dedicate the next two to three episodes to these critical texts.   Recap: In our last discussion with Prof Wolff, we went over the structure of Capital Volume 1: the question of use-value, exchange-value, and Marx’s theory of surplus-value. We then zoomed into the site of the workplace and the working day, via an exploration of chapters 9 and 10 of the first volume. I also want to remind our audiences that in Season 1, we have already covered how Marx’s work in these chapters was extended and developed into a theory of class analysis by Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick in their book Knowledge and Class.   About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork2:25 Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork

Was Marx a Eurocentric thinker? Is his work only pertinent to Western societies? What were his views on colonized societies? What about the question of gender? How did Marx’s views on non-Western societies change over his lifetime? In this episode, Shahram meets Prof Kevin Anderson, author of “The Late Marx’s Revolutionary Roads”, a new book by Verso that analyzes Marx’s late works (1869-1882), some of which have only recently been published. These notebooks provide a new way of thinking about the Marxian project.  Professor Anderson explains that in his late writings, Marx went beyond the boundaries of capital and class in Western European and North American contexts. Kevin Anderson’s systematic analysis of Marx’s Ethnological Notebooks and related texts on Russia, India, Ireland, Algeria, Latin America, and Ancient Rome provides evidence for a change of perspective away from Eurocentric worldviews or unilinear theories of development. As Anderson shows, the late Marx elaborated a truly global, multilinear theory of modern society and its revolutionary possibilities.   About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork

Do you feel tired, alienated, bored, and powerless at work? Do you feel exploited? This episode of Dialectic at Work provides an economic theory that could explain your daily experiences at the workplace. It builds on the discussion with Professor Richard Wolff in the previous episode and dives into the first volume of Capital, which deals with the Production of Surplus Value. Prof. Wolff explains the conceptual apparatus of Volume 1: necessary and surplus labor. These twin concepts explain the precise process via which the work performed by workers becomes the “profits” of the capitalist class.    About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork

Professor Richard Wolff’s co-author, colleague, and friend, the late Stephen Resnick, would tell his students about his discussion, as a student at MIT, with Paul Samuelson. He asked Samuelson: “What is there in Marx that is both valid and absent in neoclassical theory”? To this, Samuelson responded: “Class analysis.” In this episode, Shahram and Professor Wolff use the dialectic to explore how Marx’s magnum opus, Das Kapital, is understood and its connection to class and class analysis. It begins by examining the overall project of Capital and discussing why beginners should read this essential text. Professor Wolff explains the importance of the three volumes in Marx’s theoretical scheme, the main differences between the first two volumes, and how they individually contribute to our understanding of the ‘capitalist totality’.   About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork

In this episode, the dialectic goes to work with a professor of sociology and environmental historian, Professor Jason Moore, to explore the following question: can the issues of climate change and class consciousness be isolated from one another? How did Marx conceptualize Nature, and where do human beings fit into the web of life? How does the notion of a 'climate emergency' benefit the ruling classes? What are the various approaches to thinking about the environment within the web of life? Is "man" (in the abstract) responsible for the planet's destruction? Or is it capital? Prof Moore and Prof Shahram Azhar discuss the 'web of life' and how progressives in the 21st century must appreciate the significance of this revolutionary new concept.   About The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork