The Dialectic At Work

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.

Professor Wolff meets Louis Althusser 11/22/2025

A Socialist Win in NYC: How, Why, & What it Means 11/08/2025

Keynesian vs Marxian Economics 10/26/2025

What is Money? Bitcoins and Cryptocurrency 10/11/2025

No Risk, No Return: Capital VS Labor 09/26/2025

Ideology and Economics: Bourgeois Theories of Value 09/12/2025

Marx: the Business Analyst 08/01/2025

Marx: the Business Analyst 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 /episode/index/show/072a715f-d5e1-4547-9601-328202dda14e/id/37639920

Value & Prices: The Transformation Problem 07/18/2025

Marx's Capital Volumes 2 & 3 07/04/2025

Karl Marx In America With Andrew Hartman 06/20/2025

Karl Marx In America With Andrew Hartman 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 /episode/index/show/072a715f-d5e1-4547-9601-328202dda14e/id/37089880

The Mystery of Marx’s Capital Volume 2 06/06/2025

But Marx Didn't Account For... 05/23/2025

But Marx Didn't Account For... 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 /episode/index/show/072a715f-d5e1-4547-9601-328202dda14e/id/36692720

The Late Marx's Revolutionary Roads 04/25/2025

The Late Marx's Revolutionary Roads 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 /episode/index/show/072a715f-d5e1-4547-9601-328202dda14e/id/36309605

The Working Day and the Production of Surplus Value 04/11/2025

Marx’s Capital: Reading and Teaching the Three Volumes 03/28/2025

Capitalism, Class Consciousness, and Ecology: Towards a Dialectical Synthesis 03/14/2025

Marxism, Trade Wars, and the Working Class 02/28/2025

Marxism, Trade Wars, and the Working Class 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 /episode/index/show/072a715f-d5e1-4547-9601-328202dda14e/id/35483095

Capitalism hits the fan 2.0? 02/14/2025

Class & Class Analysis Part 2 12/06/2024

Class & Class Analysis 11/22/2024

Knowledge and Class 11/08/2024

Nobel Laureates, Settler Colonialism and Hypocrisy 10/25/2024

Why Does Dialectics Matter for Climate Politics? 10/11/2024

Crisis of Democracy: Revisiting Hegel, Rethinking Political Practice 09/27/2024

Crisis of Democracy: Marxism as a Critique of TINA 09/13/2024

Crisis of Democracy: Marxism and Dialectical Thought Part 2 08/30/2024

Crisis of Democracy: Marxism and Dialectical Thought Part 1 08/16/2024

Are You Guilty of Reading Capital? 08/02/2024

Are You Guilty of Reading Capital? In this episode, “Are you Guilty of Reading Capital?”, the Dialectic goes to work to begin a series of discussions on Marx’s magnum opus, Capital. This episode and the next few will build the foundations for an analysis of Capital and Marx’s theory of surplus-value. Building on our discussion on Althusser and overdetermination in Episodes 2 and 3, we now turn to how this new way of thinking about dialectics will impact our reading of Capital. We begin with the following idea: “There is no neutral reading of Capital. We are all guilty of a reading of Capital” (Althusser, Reading Capital). If indeed it is the case, then there is no ‘one’ singular reading of Capital. Rather, as Rick Wolff demonstrates, within the intellectual canon there can be and have been multiple trajectories that Marxist scholars have adopted in the last century-and-a-half while grappling with this text. We then dive into the following issue: Why did Marx begin his intellectual journey in Capital with the commodity? What is it about the commodity that makes it such a ‘mysterious’ thing with mystical properties? Viewers will begin to see that Marx’s idea of the commodity, and labor-power as being a unique commodity within the world of commodities, is crucial to his overall project of understanding capitalism. 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 /episode/index/show/072a715f-d5e1-4547-9601-328202dda14e/id/32400392

On Making Sense: Let Everyone Tell Their ‘Story’ 07/19/2024

On Making Sense: Let Everyone Tell Their ‘Story’ In this episode, “On Making Sense: Let Everyone Tell Their Story”, the Dialectic goes to work to further explore the Marxist idea of dialectics and ‘overdetermination’. Specifically, we deal with the following question: if indeed (as Prof. Wolff has argued in the previous episode) reality is ‘overdetermined’ by a complex interaction between a host of over-determinants then how can we say anything analytical about the real world? How can we still ‘tell a story’? We argue that the only solution to the mess is to examine the ‘conditions of existence’ that mutually shape a given object of analysis by pulling it and pushing it in multiple trajectories. There are, therefore, no guarantees in this kind of Marxism. Different analysts will choose to examine different aspects of the social totality by focusing on some part of it. This also leads us to a criticism of mainstream Economics and its emphasis on the ‘empiricist’ mode of reasoning. As Prof Wolff demonstrates here, the field of econometrics makes irrational claims of ‘one-way’ causality that are at odds with how the real-world works. Since ‘evidence’ is always examined in the light of theories, there is no ‘neutral’ way of discerning the truth from fiction. The empiricist focuses on the ‘evidence’ but forgets that evidence is mediated within a theory; the ‘rationalist’ focuses on ‘reason’ but forgets that reason is constructed within the evidence. Marxian overdetermination does not give supremacy to either, but rather understands the dialectic at play between experience and reason, and their impact, in turn, on a host of outcomes. 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 /episode/index/show/072a715f-d5e1-4547-9601-328202dda14e/id/32208582

A Theoretical Rupture: Overdetermination 07/05/2024

The Dialectic At Work

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