I was recommended Richard Wolff from an individual close to me. From my understanding, he is a popular Marxist but he is usually criticized by other academic Marxists. I’ll give some of my thoughts on a few of his arguments that float around:

In this video, he tries to refute Milton Freidman’s pencil argument, but the argument arises in other literature as the problem of coordination. As we find in Hayek:

This argument is based on a complete misapprehension of the working of competition. Far from being appropriate only to comparatively simple conditions, it is the very complexity of the division of labor under modern conditions which makes competition the only method by which such coordination can be adequately brought about. There would be no difficulty about efficient control or planning were conditions so simple that a single person or board could effectively survey all the relevant facts. It is only as the factors which have to be taken into account become so numerous that it is impossible to gain a synoptic view of them that decentralization becomes imperative. But, once decentralization is necessary, the problem of coordination arises—a coordination which leaves the separate agencies free to adjust their activities to the facts which only they can know and yet brings about a mutual adjustment of their respective plans. As decentralization has become necessary because nobody can consciously balance all the considerations bearing on the decisions of so many individuals, the coordination can clearly be effected not by “conscious control” but only by arrangements which convey to each agent the information he must possess in order effectively to adjust his decisions to those of others. And because all the details of the changes constantly affecting the conditions of demand and supply of the different commodities can never be fully known, or quickly enough be collected and disseminated, by any one center, what is required is some apparatus of registration which automatically records all the relevant effects of individual actions and whose indications are at the same time the resultant of, and the guide for, all the individual decisions.

F. A. Hayek. The Road to Serfdom (Kindle Locations 2399-2411). University Of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.

His initial objection is that this argument is just positing a utopia understanding of a market. I think that this is a strawman. It doesn’t rest upon nor it implies market failures don’t occur. It is to state that a market can provide great products through voluntary interactions. This is better than the alternative to think that a state should plan all these millions of interactions between all these individuals.
I find it a bit ironic to hear him complain about utopian societies when Marxism just presents communism in such magical and Eden-like ways.

He states that you can have quality products with a market but also without the market. That a market is a sufficient condition for a good product, but not necessary. The issue with that is the example he cites is ancient Egypt and the pyramids. The pyramids relied on slave labor. Is he positing we should have slaves? The point is that we can’t have a good product acquired in an ethically permissible way without a free market. To put it differently, that free markets are necessary conditions for ethical trade. Furthermore, they had markets in ancient Egypt. So, even his own example occurred only with assistance from slave trades, and with a market.

He states that most people will say that they aren’t doing their work voluntarily. While that might be true, it doesn’t actually mean that people aren’t doing their work voluntarily. It only means that people think they are not doing their work voluntarily, but usually, with reflection, they concede a silly position or they just have immoral complaints about what others ought to do. That they are owed food without working, that society owes them the job they want, or they should be paid whatever they want.

These notions are antithetical to the Christian faith. Certainly, the conditions of our life are outside of our control and therefore we don’t choose those things. In that sense, they aren’t voluntary. This is different from the notion of coercion that is used when speaking about moral responsibility. Coercion is usually meant that an agent is causing another to act on the threat of force to usurp the other’s will. That is different than the negotiations between employers and employees. While the employee can choose not to do what employers offer them on pains of not receiving benefits that come from such. A person under coercion has no such choice. So, it just results in an equivocation on the term coercion. At best, you can speak about the laws of nature “coercing” you to act in order to acquire food. There are several issues with this notion. Laws of nature aren’t some kind of agent. Secondly, this would entail that nobody makes actual voluntary choices because they have always been forced by factors like laws of nature, logic, etc to be what they are. The Apostles recognized that people don’t have the right to the bare necessities and ought to work for what they have:

2 Thess. 3:7-10

⁷ For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, ⁸ nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. ⁹ We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate. ¹⁰ For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

The type of reasoning would mean that nobody should have to work for food because that would be a coercive force. So, clearly, this contradicts the reasoning of the apostle.

He states that in capitalism you have instead of a centralized dictator, many small autonomous dictators that use their coercion to keep their workers in line. I have no issue with the notion that you don’t deserve an employer’s money if you won’t do the task you are trying to pay them for. Suppose you hire a person to cut your grass and this person decided to not cut your grass but took out your trash cans. Why should you pay him the money for a task he didn’t do? Does Wolff live in reality?

The point about dictators is that dictators only have power in a centralized system of governance. In a dictatorship, you often can’t quit them or simply switch them out as you please. That isn’t the nature of dictatorships through history.

Is Richard Wolff familiar with an expert on psychology? Is it clear that he is promoting psychological egoism? Well, I doubt one will need to believe that all human actions are driven by humans motivated by pursuing their self-interest.

The problem is that our self-interest is characterized by our ultimate goals and desire as well. So, it may be that understood altruism is for our self-interest in the light that reflects our ultimate goal for our life. Seeking to serve God leads to acting in your interest and others. In knowing God’s revealed plan we are able to guide our lives in such a way as to act in our self-interest.

He states an epistemological problem as a reason to suppose that agents don’t act in such ways. It often seems to be the case that some people don’t act in their self-interest. The problem is that I would just say those individuals will act off of their desires and often we do diverge from our ultimate goals for immediate temptations.

This problem backfires because if we cannot come to know what in our self-interest, then why think the state can?