Using Marxism to Understand the Ukraine War - Richard Wolff & David Harvey

If you read most mainstream media’s explanations of the war in Ukraine, you hear a lot about freedom, decency, and equity. You hear personalized psychological profiles of Mr Putin or Mr Zelensky. But what is missing is an explanation of how the functions and contradictions of capitalism are driving and fueling this conflict in many interconnected ways. Last week we held an event, “Marxism for this Moment,” featuring a conversation between Richard Wolff and David Harvey, experts with long histories of applying Marx’s ideas to our current politics in insightful and educational ways. In this video, the professors addressed some of the international conflicts that are often at the top of our minds, such as the war in Ukraine. “What Marxism does is say, ’there needs to be an underlying explanation.’ You have to root what you’re saying about Ukraine, China, and so on in the Marxian apparatus which puts the question of capitalism, and how it works, and why it works that way right in the core of the explanation. It’s not the only thing, it’s not it’s not meant to exclude all manner of other subjects. But the exclusion of the capitalism feature is what our counterparts, what our conservatives and liberals, are busy doing.“ - Richard Wolff Stay in touch with us to hear about future events like this: SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR EVENT SPONSORS: Mercedes Dollard George McKinney Will Cooper Z. Hranilovich Allen B. Kind Jonathan Dukes Arda Ungun Baris Ungun SUPPORT: Join our Patreon community at or donate on our website at Follow us ONLINE: Facebook: Twitter: Instagram: DailyMotion: Shop our CO-OP made MERCH: Want to help us translate and transcribe our videos? Learn about joining our translation team: