Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff Democracy at Work, Richard D. Wolff

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses Congress Bills H.R.51 giving statehood to Washington, DC, and H.R.1 countering GOP efforts to restrict voting; and Biden's tax reforms to help pay for new and expanded government programs. In the second half of the program, Wolff interviews Prof. Michael Hillard on the role of labor in the dramatic rise and fall of Maine's paper industry, a parable for the economic difficulties facing the US today.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff discusses Bernie Madoff's $ 82 billion swindles and capitalism's incentives for swindling, the economics of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US government's racist housing policies, and refuting the defense of capitalism as "lifting people out of poverty." On the second half of the show, Wolff is joined by Professor Nina Banks to talk about economics and correcting the undervaluing of community building work by women of color.

On this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents an analysis of how and why capitalism is an undemocratic economic system. The first half is devoted to the micro-level, the organization of the enterprise. The second half has a macro-level focus that shows how capitalism's generation of growing income and wealth inequality impels the employer class to use their money politically. Their practice undermines real democracy.

Professor Wolff takes a deeper look at the life and work of Karl Marx in celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth.