Richard D. Wolff

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For other people named Richard Wolff, see Richard Wolff (disambiguation).
Richard D. Wolff
Marxian economics
Born April 1, 1942 (1942-04-01) (age 69)[1]
Youngstown, Ohio, USA[1]
Nationality  United States
Institution Yale University (1967-69)
City College of New York (1969-73)
University of Massachusetts Amherst (1973-present)
The New School (2008-present)[1]
Field Marxian economics, Political economy, International affairs
Alma mater Harvard College (B.A., 1963)
Stanford University (M.A., 1964)
Yale University (M.A., 1966, 1967)
Yale University (Ph.D., 1969)[1]
Opposed Neoclassical economics, Neoliberalism, Chicago School, Austrian School
Influences Baran · Keynes · Marx · Tobin
Contributions Marxian economics, economic methodology, class analysis

Richard D. Wolff (born April 1, 1942, Youngstown, Ohio) is an American economist, well-known for his work on Marxian economics, economic methodology, and class analysis.

Contents

[edit] Early and personal life

He earned a B.A. magna cum laude in history from Harvard in 1963 and moved on to Stanford (he attained a M.A. in economics in 1964) to study with Paul A. Baran. Baran died prematurely from a heart attack in 1964 and Wolff transferred to Yale University, where he received a M.A. in economics in 1966, M.A. in history in 1967, and a Ph.D. in economics in 1969. As a graduate student at Yale, Wolff worked as an instructor.[1] His dissertation, "The Economics of Colonialism: Britain and Kenya,"[2] was eventually published in book form in 1974.

In addition to his native English, Wolff is fluent in French and German.[1] Wolff is married to (and sometimes co-authors with) psychoanalyst Harriet Fraad with whom he has two adult children.[3]

[edit] Professional life

Wolff taught at the City College of New York from 1969–1973. Here he started his life-long collaboration with fellow economist Stephen Resnick, who arrived in 1971 after being denied tenure at Yale for signing an anti-war petition. Both would then be part, along with Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, and Rick Edwards, of the "radical package" that was hired in 1973 by the Economics Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where Wolff has been full professor since 1981. Wolff retired in 2008 but remains professor emeritus and that year joined The New School as a visiting professor.

The first co-authored academic publication of Wolff and Resnick was "The Theory of Transitional Conjunctures and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism"[4] which laid out the pillars of the framework that they have worked on ever since. In it, they formulated a non-determinist, class analytical approach for understanding the debates regarding the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Their topics have included Marxian theory and value analysis, overdetermination, radical economics, international trade, business cycles, social formations, the Soviet Union, and comparing and contrasting Marxian and non-Marxian economic theories.

Wolff's work with Resnick took Louis Althusser and Étienne Balibar's Reading Capital as its point of departure and developed a subtle reading of Karl Marx's Capital Volumes II and III in their influential Knowledge and Class. For the authors, Marxian class analysis entails the detailed study of the conditions of existences of concrete forms of performance, appropriation, and distribution of surplus labor. While there could be an infinite number of forms of surplus appropriation, the Marxist canon refers to ancient (independent), slave, feudal, capitalist, and communist class processes.

In 1989, Wolff joined efforts with a group of colleagues, ex- and then current students to launch Rethinking Marxism, an academic journal that aims to create a platform for rethinking and developing Marxian concepts and theories within economics as well as other fields of social inquiry. He continues to serve as a member of both the editorial and the advisory boards of the journal.

Wolff was a visiting professor in spring 1994 at University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. Wolff continues to teach graduate seminars and undergraduate courses and direct dissertation research in economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and, most recently, in the graduate program in international affairs (GPIA) at The New School.

Wolff was a founding member of the Green Party of New Haven, Connecticut, and its mayoral candidate in 1985.[5] In 2011, he called for the establishment of a broad-based left-wing mass party in the United States.[6] Wolff, especially since 2008, gives many public lectures throughout the United States and other countries. He is regular lecturer at the Brecht Forum. Particularly outside the United States, Wolff is increasingly a guest on television and radio news programs, and, within the U.S., has appeared on Democracy Now! and The Real News. He also writes for Monthly Review and contributes to Truthout.[3] Wolff hosts a weekly radio program on economics and society, Economic Update, at WBAI in New York City.[7]

[edit] Bibliography

  • Wolff, Richard D. (1974). The Economics of Colonialism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300016395. 
  • Resnick, Stephen A.; Richard D. Wolff, eds. (1985). Rethinking Marxism: Essays for Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy. NY: Autonomedia. 
  • Wolff, Richard D.; Stephen A. Resnick (1987). Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. ISBN 0801834791. 
  • Resnick, Stephen A.; Richard D. Wolff (1987). Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226710211. 
  • Fraad, Harriet; Richard Wolff, Stephen Resnick (1994). Bringing It All Back Home: Class, Gender and Power in the Modern Household. Pluto Press. ISBN 0-7453-0707-8. 
  • Wolff, Richard D.; Stephen Resnick, David F. Ruccio (1988). Crisis and Transitions: A Critique of the International Economic Order. Westview Press. ISBN 0813307570. 
  • Gibson-Graham, J.K.; Stephen A. Resnick and Richard D. Wolff (2000). Class and Its Others. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press. ISBN 0816636184. 
  • Gibson-Graham, J.K.; Stephen A. Resnick and Richard D. Wolff (2001). Re/Presenting Class: Essays in Postmodern Marxism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 0822327090. 
  • Resnick, Stephen A.; Richard D. Wolff (2002). Class Theory and History: Capitalism and Communism in the USSR. NY: Routledge. ISBN 041593317X. 
  • Resnick, Stephen A.; Richard D. Wolff (2006). New Departures in Marxian Theory. NY: Routledge. ISBN 0415770254. 
  • Wolff, Richard D. (2009). Capitalism Hits the Fan. Olive Branch Press. ISBN 156656784X. 

[edit] Talks

[edit] Films

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wolff, Richard D.. "Wolff C.V.". http://www.umass.edu/resnick-wolff/Wolff_curriculum_vitae.pdf. Retrieved 2011-10-05. 
  2. ^ Wolff, Richard D. (1974). Economics of Colonialism: Britain and Kenya, 1870-1930. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300016390. 
  3. ^ a b Wolff, Richard D.. "About Professor Richard D. Wolff". http://www.rdwolff.com/content/about. Retrieved 2011-10-05. 
  4. ^ Resnick, S. and Wolff, R. (1979)."The Theory of Transitional Conjunctures and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism", Review of Radical Political Economics, 11:3, 3-22 and 32-36.
  5. ^ "Green Party of Connecticut: Election History". Connecticut Green Party. http://ct.greens.org/electionhistory.shtml. Retrieved 2011-10-05. 
  6. ^ Wolff, Richard D. (13 March 2011). "What's left of the American left?". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/13/us-politics-us-unions. 
  7. ^ "Economic Update - Richard D. Wolff". WBAI. http://wbai.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11284&Itemid=141. Retrieved 2011-10-05. 

[edit] External links

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