Understanding Capitalism // Haymarket Books, December 2025

“Earlier in the twentieth century some critics called fascism ‘capitalism with the gloves off,’ meaning that fascism was pure capitalism without democratic rights and organizations.” (Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order)

Here is a book worth buying. It might be a yearly read or a book to give a friend or stranger. It is a starting point for understanding capitalism from a Marxist/Socialist lens, or simply understanding capitalism at all. It is a first course on understanding world politics. It’s an accessible, historical account of Western capitalism with myth-busting and suggestions for a better future through alternative social and economic systems.

The thesis of Richard D. Wolff’s book is that, whether you are a supporter of capitalism or not, capitalism has problems and you should know and care about them and their solutions. What made this book so accessible for me was that it reads more like a conversation with a friend than as an economics textbook.

I think this book should be a required read for every high school student in the US. If so, we could begin to transition away from capitalism and all of its consequences.

Understanding Capitalism—Read this book at least twice.

Here, I have briefly reviewed each of the three books in Richard D. Wolff’s recent trilogy about Marxism, socialism and capitalism through Haymarket Books. I would suggest reading Understanding Capitalism first, then Understanding Socialism, then lastly Understanding Marxism. There is a natural progression in this order of reading in a thesis/antithesis/synthesis sort of way. Of the three, I think Understanding Capitalism is the most profound as it guides the reader through common pitfalls of capitalism and arguments by its supporters.