Wolff Debates a Liberal on RT

I think that Wolff backed off when he shouldn't have. He should have been open about his socialist views, but he's the one on TV and wants to bring new people in. I just think that they way that he dodged the question of what he proposes made him look a little weak. He could have won that argument but maybe he just wanted to focus on workplace democracy and ownership instead of the broader ideology that he holds.

I think that it is awesome that he would have even been on the program since RT has such a libertarian - in the US's use of the word.

AFAIK, Wolff is about economic democracy, workers' control over production, and is also a marxist. How does he connect the two, is there any specific text by him about the connection of marxism and economic democracy?

I think that you are associating Marxism with Stalinism or the like. Why don't you try reading Pannekoek's Workers' Councils for a Council Communist point of view? It is all about communal ownership as opposed to state ownership.

If you want something by Wolff I suppose that you could read his Contending Economic Theories if you want his overview of Marxian economics.

I know what Council Communism is, but libertarian marxism is not marxism per se, it is it's development. Marx and Engels surely weren't council communists, and Pannekoek rarely quotes them, and never on the questions of party, elections and state, he only quotes some general statements that he then interprets in a libertarian matter, which Marx and Engels never did, the specific actions that they proposed are somewhat a mix of social-democracy and leninism, for a wining the elections and using the state for gradual nationalization.

Libertarian marxism on the other hand, is similarly to anarchism all about direct action, and I haven't gotten the impression that Wolff is an advocate of a violent revolution. He seems to be more of a mutualist and that's why I don't get his talk about marxism.

Leveller wrote:I know what Council Communism is, but libertarian marxism is not marxism per se, it is it's development. Marx and Engels surely weren't council communists, and Pannekoek rarely quotes them, and never on the questions of party, elections and state, he only quotes some general statements that he then interprets in a libertarian matter, which Marx and Engels never did, the specific actions that they proposed are somewhat a mix of social-democracy and leninism, for a wining the elections and using the state for gradual nationalization.

Libertarian marxism on the other hand, is similarly to anarchism all about direct action, and I haven't gotten the impression that Wolff is an advocate of a violent revolution. He seems to be more of a mutualist and that's why I don't get his talk about marxism.

Professor Wolff's Marxism is rooted in the manner by which he analyzes capitalism. And on that point, he shares the sort of heterodox, post-Keynesian approach that is characteristic of Marxian economics.