Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism
$15
In these eye-opening interviews with prominent economist Richard Wolff, David Barsamian probes the root causes of the current economic crisis, its unjust social consequences and what can and should be done to turn things around. While others blame corrupt bankers and unregulated speculators or the government or even the poor who borrowed, the authors show that the causes of the crisis run much deeper. They reach back to the 1970s when the capitalist system itself shifted, ending the century-old pattern of rising wages for U.S. workers and thereby enabling the top 1% to become ultra-rich at the expense of the 99%. Since then, economic injustice has become chronic and further corrupted politics. The Occupy movement, by articulating deep indignation with the whole system, mobilizes huge numbers who seek basic change. Occupy the Economy not only clarifies and analyzes the crisis in U.S. capitalism today, it also points toward solutions that can shape a far better future for all.
Authors
Richard Wolff
Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and currently a visiting professor at the New School in New York. The New York Times calls him “America’s most prominent Marxist economist.” He is the author of numerous books including Democracy at Work, Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens and Occupy the Economy with David Barsamian.
David Barsamian
One of America’s most tireless and wide-ranging investigative journalists, David Barsamian has altered the independent media landscape, both with his weekly radio program, Alternative Radio—37 years and running— and his books with Noam Chomsky, Eqbal Ahmad, Howard Zinn, Tariq Ali, Richard Wolff, Arundhati Roy and Edward Said. His latest books are Edward Said: Culture and Resistance, Retargeting Iran, Noam Chomsky, Chronicles of Dissent Interviews with David Barsamian 1984-1996. And the latest book with Chomsky is Notes on Resistance: Interviews by David Barsamian 2019-2021. David lectures on world affairs, imperialism, capitalism, propaganda, the media and global rebellions.
In 2017 Radical Desi in Vancouver presented him with their Lifetime Achievement Award. He has collaborated with the world-renowned Kronos Quartet in events in New York, London, Vienna, Boulder and San Francisco. David Barsamian is the winner of the Media Education Award, the ACLU’s Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism, and the Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. The Institute for Alternative Journalism named him one of its Top Ten Media Heroes.
Robert David STEELE Vivas –
SIX STAR (my top 10% across 2000+ non-fiction book). This is an extraordinary book full of straight talk and common sense that sets the stage for a socio-economic revolution, first in the USA and then elsewhere. It does not address the many isolated incidents of collaborative capitalism and the commons that are in motion around the world — for that look up Michel Bauwens and the work of others on the economic commons — and it neglects the coincident need for a political revolution which is what my latest book on Open Power is about — but on balance this is easily a six-star offering.
The author’s focus is on asserting democratic process and privilege within the workplace — restoring the unions, giving workers and their communities rather than the 1% the decision-making power over what is made where at what cost to what end. The author does not present the concept of true cost economics as pioneered by Herman Daly in many books including Ecological Economics, Second Edition: Principles and Applications and For The Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future but the learned reader will see that true costs — the destruction of families, neighborhoods, and societies — is a very clear focus with the book.
I must mention the co-creator, David Barsamian, whose questions are brilliant and elicit answers that are world-class.
Thom Hartmann –
“Richard Wolff and David Barsamian truly understand, at the deepest levels, both the need for political, social, and economic change in this nation, and the ways such change can happen. This is an essential read for everybody concerned with the future of the world, from academics to concerned citizens, it’s also a brilliant and thoughtful manual that every activist must own.”
David Ruccio –
“Capitalism has hit the fan and now, thanks to the decisions by and for the 1 percent, we’re now mired in the Second Great Depression. In this accessible and engaging set of interviews, Richard Wolff explains the tremendous damage inflicted upon the 99 percent in trying to fix the mounting problems by attempting to reform capitalism and how the movement to occupy the economy can move us in a healthier, more democratic direction–beyond capitalism.”
Steve Early, labor activist, journalist, and author of The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor –
“Occupy activists everywhere are heatedly debating the question, ‘What’s next for our movement?’ In his collected interviews with David Barsamian, radical economist Richard Wolff lays out a compelling framework for further anti-corporate organizing that focuses on the root of the problem: capitalism and its never-ending assault on the 99%. Occupiers (past, present, and future) now have an intellectual guide to a different kind of economy–one that’s equitable, sustainable and, let’s hope, politically achievable, sooner rather than later. Wolff’s deep but conversational synthesis of recent practice and older theory couldn’t be more timely, persuasive, and readable. This book should be required reading for all labor and community organizers newly inspired by Occupy Wall Street!”