Ask Prof Wolff

A Supporter of Democracy at Work asks: "GDP accounts for what we produce, but abjectly fails to take into account what we destroy to produce it, nor does it accept in its estimation the vast value of the natural world, and how this plays out on the numerous beneficial aspects affecting humanity and especially, the environment and climate change. How would the cooperative democratic system deal with this problem?"

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "Hello Professor Wolff, I'm not sure how familiar you are with Canadian economics but things are very bad here. The average home price in 1980 was $47k ($163k adjusted for inflation), in 2000 it was $119k ($190k adjusted for inflation). Between January 2020 and March 2022, the average home price soared from $504,350 to $795,952. The average home price in my town, with a population of 100,000, is $1 million now. My entire generation has been bought out of the housing market. The annual average earnings of full-time employees in Canada is a little more than $54,630. Average hourly wages in Canada have barely budged in 40 years. Now, the Bank of Canada increased interest rates to 8.1%. We're told this is due to supply chain management issues, bottlenecks. Yet corporations are making record profits. Canada is experiencing neoliberalism on crack. What's the solution? Do we need more unions? What can be done? Why are they increasing inflation now?"

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "I noticed that in the Merriam-Webster dictionary result on Google Search for the word Marxism it listed antonyms as democracy, self-governance, self-government, self-rule. This seems very off and yet it comes from such a reputable source. Marxism is not by any stretch the opposite of democracy unless it's hijacked and distorted e.g. Stalin, Mao, etc. Why is the number one dictionary on the number one search engine continuing to say Marxism is the opposite of democracy?"

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "In college many years ago I took a couple introductory courses in economics. There I learned that a free market was a market with perfect competition where buyers and sellers could freely enter the competition. From this definition, it followed that a free market would set the price on a good so that supply equaled demand. And there was enough of a discussion on this definition to conclude that a monopoly or oligopoly could not exist in a free market; moreover it was generally understood that government oversight and regulation was needed to maintain a free market. Today, however a free market has been re-defined as a market without government interference of any sort. My question then is how economics is taught today; it would seem that with this new definition of a free market, just as with perfect competition, any significance of the supply and demand curve intersection would be irrelevant."

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "I'd like to ask a question because it seems to me that whenever a situation occurs where unionized workers try to take over a business from their employers, offering to buy it, the employers would rather shut down than sell to the workers. Is there an economic reason for this? Even small businesses have had this happen where I don't think they have a general anti-union strategy. Thank you!"

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "Can you imagine that journalist cooperatives could exist, function well, and possibly help us out of some of our current problems? (Maybe such have existed, or do exist, but I just am not aware of them?) We know that the present media system is ethically bankrupt, where corporate or government (or quasi-government) directed agencies distract, manipulate, and lie to us, to suit agendas of an anti-social and powerful class of people. Because of that situation, we also know that we need another way to gather, disseminate, and archive information, which would tend be more truthful and pertinent (as well as interesting and broadly available). I envision co-op news/information cells existing in most communities (or regions), around the planet, publishing digitally, and interconnected in a network. (I see funding, almost necessarily, via a nominal member/subscriber fee, with broader and historical information available for free). What do you think?"

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "I am confused by the 7/12/22 article in the Washington Post: 'Republicans threaten Wall Street over climate positions' by Steven Mufson (https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/12/republicans-threaten-wall-street-over-climate-positions/). Are Republicans really turning on their Wall Street backers? Are the big banks really concerned enough about climate change to do something meaningful at the expense of profits? It doesn't seem likely."

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "My question is about the wage-price freeze concept. If we are to assume that workers would have their wages frozen after decades of stagnated real wage growth and a collapse in purchasing power and we freeze prices how they currently are, then how would workers be able to pay for necessities when such a huge gap in wages and prices exist? Isn't the problem that wages are so low that we cannot afford rent, buy a week's worth of food, pay our bills, or stay out of default on student loans (of which I am in real danger of doing)? What would the effect be if we implemented a price freeze but left wages alone?"

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "I recall having heard you say that Karl Marx never really talked much about the State because he wasn't all that interested in the State. People tell me their beef with Karl Marx is that he advocated for use of the State to enforce communism or socialism. When asked where in Marx's writings that he advocated for use of the State, they never cite to Das Kapital (because they've never read it) but always reference the 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto. How would you respond to those people?"

A Patron of Economic Update asks: "This is a question that I hope Dr. Wolff will discuss regarding US profit extraction from basic necessities for workers and families. How much does the extraction of profit from basics like health care, energy, housing, transportation, communication and food hurt the competitiveness of US workers by increasing the needed wages? Should those be a priority for change to cooperative, democratic, worker-owned enterprises? Is it realistic to think that US worker cooperatives can be competitive with capitalism and cheap labor in other countries if most of the US profit extraction is eliminated from basic needs and the other areas of production? Will improving the quality and durability of produced goods be an effective way to compete?"