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