Richard D. Wolff | |
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 Wolff in 2015 | |
| Born | Richard David Wolff (1942-04-01)April 1, 1942 (age 83)[1] |
| Spouse | Harriet Fraad[8] |
| Children | 2 |
| Academic background | |
| Education | |
| Influences | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| School or tradition | Marxian economics |
| Institutions |
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| Notable ideas | |
| Website | |
Richard David Wolff (born April 1, 1942) is an AmericanMarxian economist known for his work oneconomic methodology andclass analysis. He is a professor emeritus of economics at theUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor in the graduate program in international affairs atThe New School. Wolff has also taught economics atYale University,City College of New York,University of Utah,Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, andThe Brecht Forum in New York City.
In 1988, Wolff co-founded the journalRethinking Marxism. He made the 2009 documentaryCapitalism Hits the Fan.[9] In 2012, he released three new books:Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism, withDavid Barsamian;Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian, withStephen Resnick; andDemocracy at Work. In 2019, he released his bookUnderstanding Marxism.[10]
Wolff hosts the weekly 30-minute-long programEconomic Update, produced by the non-profit Democracy at Work, which he co-founded.Economic Update is onYouTube,Free Speech TV,WBAI-FM in New York City (Pacifica Radio),CUNY TV (WNYE-DT3), and available as a podcast. Wolff is featured regularly in television, print, and internet media. He is considered by a number of media outlets to be influential in the field of Marxian economics,[11] andThe New York Times Magazine has named him "America's most prominent Marxist economist".[12] Wolff lives in Manhattan with his wife and frequent collaborator,Harriet Fraad, a practicingpsychotherapist.
To escapeNazism, Wolff's parents emigrated from Germany to the United States duringWorld War II.[13] His father, a lawyer inCologne, Germany, became a steelworker inYoungstown, Ohio.[14] The family settled inNew Rochelle, New York.[14] Wolff has described his European background as shaping his worldview:
"Everything you expect about how the world works probably will be changed in your life, that unexpected things happen, often tragic things happen, and being flexible, being aware of a whole range of different things that happen in the world, is not just a good idea as a thinking person, but it's crucial to your survival. So, for me, I grew up convinced that understanding the political and economic environment I lived in was an urgent matter that had to be done, and made me a little different from many of my fellow kids in school who didn't have that sense of the urgency of understanding how the world worked to be able to navigate an unstable and often dangerous world. That was a very important lesson for me."[15]
Wolff earned a Bachelor of Arts,magna cum laude, in history fromHarvard College in 1963.[14] He studied atStanford University withPaul A. Baran, earning a Master of Arts in economics in 1964.[14] After Baran's death in 1964, Wolff transferred toYale University, where he received a second master's degree in economics in 1966, a Master of Arts in history in 1967, and a Doctor of Philosophy ineconomics in 1969.[14] At Yale, he worked as an instructor.[14] His dissertation, "Economic Aspects of British Colonialism in Kenya, 1895–1930",[16] was published as a book in 1974.[17]
Wolff began teaching at theCity College of New York in 1969, where he collaborated with economistStephen Resnick, who joined in 1971 after being denied tenure at Yale for signing ananti-war petition.[18] In 1973, Wolff and Resnick, along with economistsSamuel Bowles,Herbert Gintis, andRichard Edwards, joined the Economics Department at theUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst, where Wolff became a full professor in 1981.[19] He retired from UMass Amherst in 2008, becoming professor emeritus, and joinedThe New School as a visiting professor in the graduate program in international affairs.[20] Wolff has also taught as a visiting or guest lecturer at institutions includingUniversity of Utah,Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, andThe Brecht Forum in New York City.
Wolff and Resnick's early co-authored publication, "The Theory of Transitional Conjunctures and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism," appeared in theReview of Radical Political Economics in 1979.[21] The article explored the transition fromfeudalism tocapitalism, focusing on class dynamics and economic structures. Their collaboration extended to works likeKnowledge and Class, which drew onLouis Althusser andÉtienne Balibar'sReading Capital and interpretedKarl Marx'sCapital Volumes II and III.[4] They analyzed Marxian class theory as the study of surplus labor's performance, appropriation, and distribution, identifying class processes such as ancient, slave, feudal, capitalist, and communist.[4]
Marx used the word "exploitation" to focus analytical attention on what capitalism shared with feudalism and slavery, something that capitalist revolutions against slavery and feudalism never overcame.
— Richard D. Wolff[22]
In 1988, Wolff co-foundedRethinking Marxism, a journal dedicated to exploring Marxian concepts in economics and social sciences.[23] He served on its editorial board for over two decades and remains on the advisory board as of 2025.[24] In 1994, he was a visiting professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University.[14] Wolff continues to teach graduate seminars and undergraduate courses at The New School and lectures at various institutions.[25]
Wolff was a founding member of theGreen Party branch inNew Haven, Connecticut, and its mayoral candidate in 1985.[26] In 2011, he called for a new left-wing political party in the United States.[27] He is a regular lecturer at theBrecht Forum and appears on television, radio, and in print media.[28] Since 2011, he has hostedEconomic Update, a weekly radio/TV show and podcast onWBAI in New York City.[29]
One of Wolff's students,George Papandreou, served asPrime Minister of Greece from 2009 to 2011. Wolff described Papandreou as a student interested in socialist economics.[30] However,CUNY professorCostas Panayotakis noted that Papandreou, despite campaigning againstausterity, implemented a criticized austerity program after Greece's debt crisis.[31]
Unlike most modern economists, Wolff is sceptical of the use ofmathematical methodology in economics, writing with Stephen Resnick inContending Economic Theories that "There is certainly no necessity to use mathematics. Everything in economics can be explained just as clearly and logically without it."[32] They further speculate that usage of mathematical methodologies is motivated by "the desire of neoclassical economists to bestow on their work the aura of 'science' and 'truth' that surrounds mathematics", and that its purpose is often to "suggest that their respective economic theories have the force of mathematical necessity, the absolute truth often associated with the so-called hard natural sciences, rather like the claim that 2 + 2 = 4."
Wolff is a co-founder ofDemocracy at Work, a non-profit that produces media and live events advocatingworkplace democracy and critiquing capitalism.[33] The organization is based on his 2012 book,Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism. Wolff also hosts the nationally syndicated programEconomic Update with Richard D. Wolff, produced by Democracy at Work.[34]
In a review of Wolff's bookDemocracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism, Hans G. Despain, writing forMarx and Philosophy, argued that the ideas presented in the book "deserve wide support and wide debate to repoliticize the American population and rejuvenate the American workforce and citizens."[35]
In addition to his native English, Wolff is fluent inFrench andGerman.[14] Wolff lives in New York City with his wife,Harriet Fraad, apsychotherapist. They have two children.[28]
In an interview onThe Jimmy Dore Show in January 2021, Wolff stated that he is a distant relative of the German political activistWilhelm Wolff, to whom the first volume ofKarl Marx'sDas Kapital was dedicated.[36]
