What Is Socialism? Puncturing Anti-Communist Myths w/ Prof. Wolff
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What is socialism? Did it fail? Prof. Richard Wolff & Brian discuss what socialism means, compare government systems like China, Cuba, and the USSR, and consider what elements constitute socialism.
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.
Join the The Socialist Program community at http://www.patreon.com/thesocialistprogram to get exclusive content and help keep this show on the air.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today we're going to talk about the theory of socialism. |
| 0:05.0 | What is socialism? What is communism? |
| 0:08.0 | What is communism? And what's the difference? |
| 0:11.0 | We need a new system. We need a new society. |
| 0:15.0 | We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, |
| 0:19.0 | but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. The We are excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us again for our regular weekly segment, where we talk about the biggest stories related to the economy, the state of |
| 0:55.6 | the working class, and the crimes of big business. I'm your host, Brian Becker. The Socialist |
| 1:01.2 | Program brings you content several days a week. Thanks to the support of our patrons at patreon.com |
| 1:07.3 | forward slash the Socialist Program. We appreciate all of your support and encourage you if |
| 1:13.8 | you're not yet to become a patron today. Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization |
| 1:19.4 | Democracy at Work. He's the author of many books, including understanding capitalism, which is |
| 1:25.6 | available at Democracy at Work.Info. Professor Wolfe, welcome back. Thank you very much, Brian. Glad to be here. Well, this is a big topic. People have theorized about socialism and communism. The advocates of socialism and communism have theorized on what socialism and communism |
| 1:47.8 | are or what they will be. The enemies of socialism and communism have also engaged in what might be, |
| 1:56.1 | well, I'm going to use air quotes, theorizing about socialism. Anyway, there's a lot to talk about here. |
| 2:03.4 | You know, at the time that Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, they were both |
| 2:10.1 | young men. They were coming out with a manifesto for the Communist League, which was a very small |
| 2:16.6 | group at that time in 1848, a group that played |
| 2:20.4 | almost no real role in the revolution that was about to unfold all over Europe during |
| 2:26.2 | 1848 and 1849. They talked about different forms of socialism. They talked about feudal socialism, Christian socialism, |
| 2:37.1 | petty bourgeois socialism, utopian socialism. And then they went on to define their own |
| 2:44.1 | theory of socialism, which they called communism. Since that time, there have been big political struggles |
| 2:52.1 | between different political trends and factions. |
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