Alternatives to Capital

Wolff on Wall Street

by Seth Weiss

Richard Wolff, an economics professor who taught for many years at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is now at The New School, spoke recently at the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park, just a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. [1] Wolff, one of today’s most prominent Marxist thinkers, argued that “there is a reality behind the concerns we all have” about “grotesque inequality,” “the attack on the natural environment,” and “the fundamental corruption of our political system,” and stressed that “the most important issue” for him is that “we have the courage to name and change the reality behind all of that … the economic system called capitalism.”

In drawing attention to our economic system rather than just the manifold horrors and inequities it generates, Wolff appears to be well in advance of the burgeoning Occupy Wall Street movement, which sparked demonstrations in more than 1500 cities across the globe, under the banner “From Tahrir Square to Times Square,” on October 15^th. [2] Indeed, much of the movement continues to focus on issues like corporate power and greed, corruption in the financial sector, and the obscene salaries and bonuses of bankers and hedge fund mangers instead of the system which engenders such phenomena. The “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City,” for instance, displays a strikingly singular focus on corporate power and malfeasance, offering up a veritable laundry list of grievances attributed to “corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality.” [3] Read More

Audio: Doug Lain interview with Andrew Kliman on his “Alternatives to Capitalism: What happens after the revolution?”

Number 99 in Doug Lain series of Diet Soap podcasts is an interview with Andrew Kliman about his 2004 essay, “Alternatives to Capitalism: What Happens After the Revolution?” The text of the essay is below. For the podcast, click here. Read More

Video: “Is an Emancipatory Communism Possible?”

“Is an Emancipatory Communism Possible?”
A talk by Allan Armstrong
Recorded Wednesday, April 13 at 7:00 PM at TRS, Inc. in NYC

Mention of the word “Communism” today conjures up visions of tyrants. Young people, even when they clash violently with the representatives of global capitalism in Seattle or London, call their protests “anti-capitalist,” not communist. However, anti-capitalism is not enough. Revolutions can lead to immediate feelings of intense liberation, but they are usually followed by much longer periods of defense, setbacks, and painful reconstruction. The 20th century was the “Century of Revolutions,” but it eventually produced so little for humanity at such a high cost, that it is not surprising that many are very cautious, despite growing barbarism. Read More