The Dialectic At Work

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

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