An anti-BS economist: Quick lessons from two great socialist interviews

Learn from the answers received from questions asked; why I admire the Marxist economist, Dr. Richard Wolff.

Dr. Richard Wolff isn’t just an “economist.” The word “economist” evokes images of a stuffy academic, detached from real-world problems as they luxuriate in abstract academic theories.

Wolff, by contrast, keeps his feet on the ground even as his mind grasps toward the (figurative) heavens. For this reason, I want to provide snippets from two of his best interviews, as he himself argues in a recent video compilation. Speaking with Stephanie Kelton, a former adviser to the 2016 democratic socialist presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, as well as former Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis, Wolff asks questions that prompt important answers.

There are two fundamental questions that define modern politics, American and international alike. The first is, why are so many people alienated with the status quo? The second is, where is Europe — which has dominated world politics since the days of Christopher Columbus five centuries ago — in addressing these issues?

Stephanie Kelton (during Trump’s first term):

“I'm not terribly surprised, to be honest, in terms of what the economy's been doing. It's been sort of slogging along at a kind of anemic pace for most of the recovery. So nine now, going on 10 years, I don't think I expected much to change over the course of this year. The big surprise maybe is how little the Republicans, given that they run the table — they've got the White House, they have both houses, the Senate and the House, how little they've been able to accomplish in terms of legislation — I think that's been surprising to me, where we are as a country.

Look, the people who put Donald Trump in office were in some ways the kinds of people who were sympathetic to the [Bernie] Sanders campaign. That is, they felt like something wasn't working. They knew that the economy wasn't working for them. They knew that something wasn't right, it didn't feel right. Maybe it had to do with trade. Maybe it had to do with the tax cuts. Maybe it had to do with big banks, I don’t know. But they knew something was wrong, right?”

Yanis Varoufakis (last year):

“Europe is irrelevant, absolutely irrelevant… I could be talking about this forever, with a lot of pain in my heart…

Imagine, and I wish it happened, but at the moment it stays at the plane of the imagination. Imagine that there was tomorrow at the United Nations or somewhere else, a peace process of Ukraine. We know who would represent Russia, Putin. Ukraine, Zelenskyy. The United States, Biden, if he's still capable of engaging with anything, or Kamala or Trump or whoever. China, Xi. India, Modi.

Who is going to represent Europe? Once upon a time, you know, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 6 years ago, we could've said Angela Merkel, who is a very powerful German chancellor. Today, the German chancellor is not even in control of the German government. The French president is a lame duck, and he has completely lost it in every sense of the way. The people who are actually running the European Union when it comes to foreign policy are the Estonians, Romanians, the Polish who actually want a war with China, with Russia.

Tomorrow there are war mongering idiots who, if they had a button to press it and destroy Europe, they would tomorrow morning. So there is no such thing as Europe. Europe has become a figment of our imagination, which is extremely dangerous because we remain the most wealthy continent in the world. A a very cultural continent, a continent with 500 million people, and yet we are irrelevant. And that is a clear and present cause of instability worldwide.”

I’ll close with an interview conducted not by Wolff, but by your humble author. Earlier this year I spoke with Nightmare Magazine with Kevin Greutert, the director of the 2009 pro-health care reform horror film “Saw VI.” Even though that is merely the fictional story of a serial killer targeting health insurance executives, and we live in a non-fictional world of madness and mayhem, I still feel these words capture the essence of our age.

After all, at least one real-world serial killer is already acting on this ethos.

Rozsa on “Saw VI”:

One person who noticed this renewed attention was director Kevin Greutert, who has been involved with the Saw series since the first film. “Saw VI” was his directorial debut; because of its high quality, Greutert was later hired to direct “Saw VII” and “Saw X.”

“Fast forward and Luigi Mangione has allegedly killed Brian Thompson, the health care executive, and suddenly Saw VI is back in the news,” Greutert said. “I found that interesting and exciting, even though I definitely do not in any way endorse what Luigi did.” He was instead moved that his film became part of a “culturally relevant moment,” noting that Saw VI had entered the same conversation evidenced by a Saturday Night Live audience erupting into applause at the mention of Luigi’s name. Greutert even marveled that a musical has been made about Mangione.

“There is something going on here that’s worth noticing,” Greutert said. “There is a lot of anger in the country right now over this topic and lots of political topics. I’m just glad to have made a film that has sustained relevance.”

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Back Seat Socialism

Column by Matthew Rozsa who is a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently he is writing a book for Beacon Press, "Neurosocialism," which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.

Twitter (X) @MatthewWRozsa