The Dialectic At Work

This week, the dialectic goes to explore the question of ‘free trade, trade wars, and protectionism’. What did Marx think about the question? Is it something of concern to the working-classes? How should they respond to a situation in which the capitalists of one country engage in trade wars with capitalists of another country?  To help us understand how Marxian economists and activists view this debate, especially in the present context, we have Prof. Richard Wolff. Amidst all the noise about ‘bringing jobs back’ and all the rest of it, and the rhetoric of protectionism, how (if at all) will the American working classes benefit from this? I ask this, especially in the context of the cheap goods that we have been buying as consumers in America that were ‘made in China’. (Context of 1847: a Free Trade Congress was held at Brussels. It was a strategic move in the Free Trade campaign then carried on by the English manufacturers. Victorious at home, by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, they now invaded the continent in order to demand, in return for the free admission of continental corn into England, the free admission of English manufactured goods to the continental markets. At this Congress, Marx inscribed himself on the list of speakers.)    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

Welcome to another season, and the first episode of Season 2, of the dialectic at work: a podcast dedicated to understanding Marxian theory. Thank you all for your continued support.  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, Professors Shahram Azhar and Richard Wolff continue their discussion and analysis of the seminal book Knowledge and Class. Professor Wolff reflects on how he and his friend and co-author Steve Resnick developed their own language and theories around 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

In this episode, the dialectic goes to work to explore one of the most fundamental concepts in Marxism: class and class analysis. What is class? What do Marxists mean when they deploy this term? In this episode we discover, via the seminal book Knowledge and Class, how the concept of surplus is used to develop a theory of classes in society. The fundamental and subsumed class framework, first developed by Resnick and Wolff, provides a non-essentialist approach to classes. Prof Wolff and Prof Azhar discuss how multiplicities of class processes can coexist at any point in time and pull and push individuals, communities, and nations in different trajectories.   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, and in the next few weeks, the Dialectic goes to explore one of the most important texts in Marxian political economy in modern history: Knowledge and Class. The book, written in 1987 by Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff after decades of research and critical analysis, developed a new “non essentialist” Marxism. The Fundamental and Subsumed Framework, developed in this book, has been used to examine a host of economic settings and situations, including economic analyses of countries, and businesses. It is the method Prof Wolff uses to do economics.   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 explores the Nobel Prize in Economics, awarded to Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson for their “contribution to Institutional Analyses” of long-run economic development.  We critically examine the claim that “settler colonialism” results in progress and development. Professors Wolff and Azhar discuss how the real economic history of colonized and indigenous peoples rebelled against the “whitewashing” in Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson's work.  The dialectic revisits the work and contributions of Paul Baran, including his analysis of the historical tendencies within capitalist development, and how it leads to under-development in the Global South.    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 discusses the rising temperatures, melting glaciers, droughts, and famines as we have never seen in history; this week the Dialectic at Work explores the position of Capitalism, our dominant economic system, in the Web of Life. Prof. Shahram Azhar discusses the issue with leading environmental historian and historical geographer, Professor Jason W. Moore.  Professor Moore is the author of numerous books and articles on the subject, including "Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital", "Anthropocene or Capitalocene", and "A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things".   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 on to explore how Hegel's idea of historical transformation and change in the world of consciousness and thinking can be used to understand the political and economic situation around the world. Drawing upon a host of examples from the past, and the present, from England, France, and the United States, as well as thinking about future possibilities and trajectories, Prof. Wolff and Prof. Shahram Azhar analyze how Hegel's idea of dialectical change can be used to understand and change the world for the better.    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

We live at a time when multiple crises surround us. Moreover, we are told that there is no alternative (TINA) so we must all accept the 'lesser of the two evils logic'. This week the dialectic goes to work to critically examine this claim. In particular, we dive into the political situation in France, Germany, and the United States in the context of the electoral process.  As always, we connect the story with key concepts within Marxist theory. Specifically, we ask why Marxists INSIST that 1) The abolition of wage-labor and its replacement with economic democracy, ie workers' self-directed enterprises is POSSIBLE and 2) that this goal set in step (1) is DESIRABLE, in the precise sense that it will solve the structural problems of our times by going to the ROOT of the issue. In other words, Marxism provides PRECISELY the THIRD alternative we need.     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

On this week's episode of the Dialectic at Work, Professor Shahram Azhar and Professor Wolff continue to discuss the crisis of democracy globally, the rise of far-right authoritarianism, the climate crisis, and finally how Marxism can address these issues. This discussion took place at the recent No War but Class War Forum on May 31st at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus Sponsored by Historical Materialism and Institute for the Radical Imagination Conference   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