My Stuff

https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0

Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Sunday, March 24, 2024

WHAT CAN BIDEN DO TODAY?

What can Biden do right now, today, to avoid even more deaths of innocent people in Gaza? I am not asking what he can do if he gets Congress to approve a bill in two weeks when they return from their break; I am not asking what the United Nations can do in a week; I am not asking what America’s negotiators can attempt to achieve in the next several days. I am asking what Biden can do today about the starvation now afflicting 2 million people in Gaza?

 

Here is what I think he can do. First, he can take all of the food on the aircraft carriers in the Middle East, put it on airplanes, and airlift it to an Egyptian airport, telling the Egyptians to get out of the way.  He can commandeer trucks, cars, whatever in Egypt and announced that the aid is being taken into Gaza, regardless of whether they have permission to do so. He can tell the Egyptians to get out of the way and my guess is that they will. At the same time, he can ship more food by air to the carriers to replace the food sent to Gaza. Meanwhile, he can underwrite the efforts of anybody, any organization, attempting to help the Gazans and announce to the world that American troops are going to take the food into Gaza. Meanwhile, he can cancel all military aid to Israel until they stop the creation of illegal settlements in the Palestine Authority.  He can tell Israel that if its troops fire on American troops bringing food to the Gazans, he will cancel all further military aid to Israel for as long as he is president.

 

Will he do any of these things? No. Could he do them? Yes.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

TERRIFYING

Thank you to whomever it was who posted this link to the New York Times story.  It is terrifying and all quite plausible. Keep in mind that these terrible descriptions concern the effects of fission bombs, not fusion bombs which are a thousand times more powerful.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

LET US REMEMBER

The decision by the Supreme Court to take the case only grants Trump de facto immunity if he wins the election. If he loses the election, the trials continue and sooner or later he will go to jail. But if he were found guilty in the January 6 case on or about the time when he was nominated as the Republican candidate for president, he would still stand for office and if he won, the rule of law would end and he would be dictator for life.


So the fact remains, we have to beat him at the polls and we have to hang onto that victory in the Congress in whatever way we can so that Biden is inaugurated for a second term.


If Trump wins election it does not matter what happens in Georgia – even if the trial were held and he was found guilty, he would simply refuse to abide by the decision and deploy the military to quell any attempt to force him to abide by it.

Monday, February 19, 2024

QUESTIONS

Can anybody point me to someplace where I can get information on the value of capital in the United States not including homeownership? As a start perhaps could anybody point me to a site that would tell me the dollar value of all publicly owned companies? Piketty is quite useful but he includes homeownership in his figures (because that is the way it is listed in the sites that he uses as sources for his information). 

Sunday, February 11, 2024

NODDING IN

It has been quite a while since I have posted on this blog, and I thought that as I wait for the Super Bowl to get started I ought to just say a few words about where I have been and what I have been doing.


I have been right here in Chapel Hill, of course, even more limited by my Parkinson's than previously, but I have been working very hard on my lectures at Harvard on volume 1 of Capital.  This is for me an extremely exciting coda to my career, and I am putting everything I have into it. I only hope those who are attending and participating are enjoying it as well.


I am so appalled and distressed by the carnage in Gaza that I cannot speak about it rationally. I  have no idea what it is going to happen and of course I have no influence on it at all so all I can do is anguish.


As for American politics, I am both optimistic about the election and terrified. I remain convinced  that Biden will beat Trump more decisively this time than last, helped by the total dysfunction of the Republican Party and by the issue of abortion, which is our secret weapon.  


Perhaps if I do a good enough job in my lectures, it will inspire one or two of those listening to take up the struggle as I pass from the scene.


Be well, all of you, and try to be nice to one another. In the larger scheme of things, we are all on the same side.

Thursday, January 25, 2024

UPDATE ON MY LECTURE SERIES

I gather that the lectures will be recorded and that it is quite possible to remove from them any indications of the identities of the people listening to them. Let me emphasize that my concerns grew out of my anxieties, not out of theirs. For all I know, everyone planning to attend the study group would be happy to have his or her name published.  I pursued my career during a time when it was almost impossible not to succeed. In the immortal words of Ann Richards, we were born on third and thought we had hit a triple.  But these are times when grand jury members have their personal details posted online and members of the House Republican caucus who do not support Jiim Jordan for the speakership get death threat calls.


I will let you know whether I can make the  lectures available, and if I can I will.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

WHY I WILL NOT BE POSTING MY HARVARD LECTURES

This morning I read through the enormously long series of comments you folks have posted to my last blog post. Hidden in that series were several requests, from Jerry Fresia and others, that I make my Marx lectures available to all. Let me explain why I have decided not to do that.


There are now 37 people signed up for the study group, including large numbers of undergraduates, several graduate students, and 10 or 11 members of the faculty. It is going to be hard enough to get the undergraduates to speak up in the presence of the faculty. I plan to make a little joke about it, suggesting that I am so old that they all look the same age to me, but I am sure we all know that the norm would be for the undergraduates to sit quietly and wait to hear what the faculty ask or comment.


I am genuinely fearful that if I make available on the Internet lectures on Karl Marx in which the faces of undergraduates are clearly visible and in which some of them actually ask questions or make objections, it is entirely possible that they will be identified, attacked, have their futures compromised professionally, and so forth. In light of what has been happening in this country lately, I do not think my fears are irrational. My primary commitment is to those students and I simply will not take the chance that some of them may be targeted or harmed, either professionally or personally, by their participation in the study group.