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.

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

Dialectic At Work: For Roses and Bread: On Marxism as a Theory of Overcoming Trauma 06/21/2024

Dialectic At Work: For Roses and Bread: On Marxism as a Theory of Overcoming Trauma [Season 1 Episode 1] For Roses and Bread: On Marxism as a Theory of Overcoming Trauma In this episode, "For Roses and Bread: On Marxism as a Theory of Overcoming Trauma", the Dialectic goes to work to explore the following question: Why Marx? Why Marxian Theory? We begin with this, our inaugural episode, with a deep dive into Professor Richard Wolff's life. His upbringing, education and what led him to dedicate his life to the Marxian project. We argue that among the diverse reasons why people choose to study Marxism is that it provides an analysis of the 'urgent living problems' that confront us as individuals, as societies, and as a global community. The great dialectician, Lukacs, famously remarked that the Marxist dialectic is revolutionary since it not only seeks to understand the world but also, as Marx rightly pointed out, to change it. With that in mind, we explore the life and times of Professor Richard D Wolff as a point of entry into the theory we are about to explore. We dive into the sociohistorical circumstances, during and after World War II, that turned a man born to middle-class European immigrants who were fleeing to the United States to escape Nazism into a critic of capitalism. This is crucial to the aims of the podcast since the theoretical and political concepts that we will explore in upcoming podcasts were shaped, in part, by the experience and backgrounds of Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick. After watching this episode, viewers will begin to see how Marxism provides a way of dealing with an unjust and unfair world; not by imploding internally, nor by blaming ones' self for one's miseries, or by victimizing others. Instead, we examine our trauma as a manifestation of the larger problem, the historical bourgeois epoch called capitalism. We should then be able to appreciate that Marx provided a disturbing yet profound critique of capitalism that is critical to understanding the real cause of our misery: it is just the way capitalism works. Marxist knowledge then is crucial for anyone who wishes to change it. 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: Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork /episode/index/show/072a715f-d5e1-4547-9601-328202dda14e/id/31814722

The Dialectic At Work

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