Understanding Socialism // Haymarket Books, December 2025 (Originally published with Democracy at Work, 2019)

“Socialism is about democratizing workplaces, making them worker cooperatives rather than hierarchical places where small minorities of employers dominate and exclude from major decisions an employee majority” (pg. 86).

In this reader-friendly book about socialism, Richard D. Wolff explores its history, setbacks, enemies, and possible futures. The goal of this book is to offer a starting point for understanding socialism, an economic framework opposed to capitalism. Wolff starts with a Marxist interpretation of capitalism as a relationship between employees and employers, then argues for a viable alternative in socialism.

“The strategy of socialism’s enemies became simple and obvious,” writes Wolff. “First use military threats, economic sanctions, covert interventions, and political isolation to worsen the conditions of a nation run by socialist, and then identify those conditions with socialism.” (pg. 71). This description of anti-socialism aligns with US foreign policy post-WWII, not only to deter possible threats of socialism, but to deter general nationalism abroad. It’s important to recognize that socialism is demonized in our US propaganda system to undermine socialism, to carryout aggression at home and abroad, and to bolster the capitalistic status quo.

What I learn from this book has something to do with the history of production from slavery to feudalism to capitalism (and beyond)—how the first two were overcome in turn, and that capitalism is no different; it too can be overcome. I also learned that socialism is an evolving term that means something different now than it did in the 19th century, but in general, as Wolff puts it, “socialism is a yearning by people living in a capitalistic economic system, whether private or state capitalist, to do better than what that capitalism permits and enables” (pg. 21).

Understanding Socialism—Read this book if you want to understand more about how the world works.