Anyone else get the impression that Richard Wolff is “hiding his power level” so to speak and is actually way more radical than he lets on? He seems to be more of a co-op, market socialism guy on the surface because he talks about workplace democracy a lot, but i remember him during an interview with Hakim saying pretty positive things about economic planning. Recently he has also been praising the People’s Republic of China a lot in various interviews, and in the latest interview i watched him give to Briahna Joy Gray he even snuck in a Lenin quote at the end (uncredited of course saying just “a famous political leader once said”) basically paraphrased the well known “there are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen” line. Is he a closeted ML or what? Is his focus on workplace democracy just a smart strategy to appeal to “baby leftist” Americans and introduce them to basic Marxist concepts without scaring them away?
You are correct. He is very much aware of how propagandized his viewers are so it seems like he’s come up with a system where he can give them some good information without them feeling like they’re trying to be converted to communists.
communism is such a bad word in the US. Wolff knows it. So he offers praise for the CPC and USSR, but only based on their economic achievements which are objective facts. Liberals/progressives will acknowledge this because they love statistics and shit. Wolff keeps away from trying to make any moral arguments for socialism because he knows he will lose the liberals there, and as a liberal your guard is up and you’re almost expecting him to do that. Instead he starts talking about the benefits of worker co-ops and trade unions.
Wolff knows how far behind the US is as far as working class solidarity. I think that he believes we need class consciousness before we can even consider talking about socialism. Trade unions and co-ops are thought of positively in the US so that’s his way of trying to improve conditions for workers right now. It also respects the viewer’s intelligence because he knows many people are going to google some of the things he said about China and USSR. He doesn’t need to shove it down your throat.
It worked for me. I was a Bernie bro before I started watching his videos. Thank you comrade Wolff