Podcasts about keynesianism

Honey, I shrunk the stimulus! In their third entry on the Great Recession, the Shuffle Bois trace President Obama's response to a cratering economy. After introducing the cast of neolib ghouls with whom Obama surrounded himself, they go through the history of Fall and Winter 2008/9 up to Obama's signing of the stimulus package. They also discuss Keynesianism, the Cassandras of the time, what might have been, and the Clintonite presidency that we actually got. Check out our website to search for episodes at: remembershuffle.comGive Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. And don't forget to check out our patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffle

9. The Official Russian Economic Recession and Fiscal Deficits Guest: Michael Bernstam Summary: Russia has officially entered a recession as "military Keynesianism" exhausts its economic potential. Budget deficits soar while military equipment shortages force the Victory Parade to proceed without its traditional display of tanks and planes. 91865

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our episodes. Derek speaks with Danny and Mike Brenes about Cold War liberalism, its shaping of the American empire, and more from their new co-edited volume. They talk about the meaning of “Cold War liberalism,” the book's essays, the relationship between liberalism and mass democracy, emergency politics, the continuity between New Deal liberalism and Cold War liberalism, military Keynesianism, U.S. empire, neoconservatism, Joe Biden, and the persistence of Cold War liberal ideas in long after the end of the Cold War itself. Buy the volume Cold War Liberalism: Power in a Time of Emergency and use discount code BESSNER26  Don't forget to download our Marx Prestige miniseries. Final episode out today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Derek speaks with Danny and Mike Brenes about Cold War liberalism, its shaping of the American empire, and more from their new co-edited volume. They discuss the meaning of “Cold War liberalism,” the book's essays, the relationship between liberalism and mass democracy, emergency politics, the continuity between New Deal liberalism and Cold War liberalism, military Keynesianism, US empire, neoconservatism, Joe Biden, and the persistence of Cold War liberal ideas in long after the end of the Cold War itself.Buy the volume Cold War Liberalism: Power in a Time of Emergency and use discount code BESSNER26 Don't forget to download our Marx Prestige miniseries. Final episode out today!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jesús Huerta de Soto traces the Austrian school's intellectual roots from the Spanish scholastics to Rothbard, making the case that anarcho-capitalism is the natural endpoint of the classical liberal tradition.The Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Yousif Almoayyed.The Austrian Economics Research Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian school, bringing together leading scholars doing research in this vibrant and influential intellectual tradition.Full Text version of the Lecture (Submitted by Prof. Huerta de Soto):Thank you very much to the Mises Institute and Joe Salerno for his kind introduction as well as for inviting me to deliver this “Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture” to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Murray N. Rothbard's birthday. It is the second time I visit the Mises Institute to deliver this most important lecture: The first one was almost thirty years ago, back in April 1997, when I delivered a lecture on “The Scholastic Roots of the Austrian School”. In this second opportunity I am very happy to have been able to accept Joe's invitation and to come with a very well represented retinue of ten of my colleagues and doctoral students. All of them are teaching as professors or making their research at our more than twenty-year-old Doctoral and Master Programs in Austrian Economics at King Juan Carlos University back in Madrid, and which is the only one officially approved and with full validity inside the whole European Union. You have already had the opportunity to hear from each one of them a detailed description of the so-called “Madrid Austrian Research Hub” and of all the activities we are developing every year, including the 54 Doctoral Theses on Austrian Economics that have been read up to now in our program. And here you have also copies of the English version of our main books published by Routledge, Edward Elgar, and by the Macmillan Austrian Series edited by my Madrid Colleagues, the German professor Philipp Bagus and the Canadian professor Dave Howden. And you will have the unique opportunity to buy these books that, as you know, have a hefty price of almost 100 pounds each one, at the almost “stolen property” and symbolic price of 5 dollars per copy, thanks to the most generous help of the Spanish Jesús Huerta de Soto Foundation that is helping to finance our participation in this important event.And now what I will do in the next forty minutes is to try to summarize not only my main contributions, but also “The Libertarian Vision of the Scientific and Moral Truth” as we see it from our Austrian School Hub in Madrid. And I will do it by focusing on a series of fundamental points.Precisely, the youngest of all sciences, Economics is the one that has provided Humanity with the most important scientific contributionThe first one is that Economics, being the last science to arrive, or as Mises said, "the youngest of all sciences," has nevertheless achieved the milestone of providing Humanity with the most important scientific contribution. For the first time, and thanks to Economic Science, human beings have discovered and understood that voluntary social cooperation, free from all institutional and systematic external coercion, generates a spontaneous order that cannot be designed nor organized by anyone, and that peacefully and without limits drives the prosperity and expansion of Humankind.This transcendental message of Economic Science, on the one hand, resolves the impossible antithesis of attempting to apply, within the realm of interactions carried out by human beings endowed with free will, the manipulative approach of external entities that human beings have no choice but to use, supported by technology and the natural sciences, in order to dominate the subject of the material world. And on the other hand, this is a radically revolutionary message: for the first time, it has been scientifically demonstrated that states, in any of their forms, are neither necessary nor viable; that Society, understood as a process of voluntary human interactions, does not need anyone to govern it, because it regulates and organizes itself spontaneously; and that the attempt to coordinate Society on the basis of social engineering and state coercive commands is impossible, doomed to failure, and gives rise to all kinds of distortions, social conflicts and violence, that continually hinder and block human progress.Economic science is generalized into a complete Theory of Liberty that makes it possible to reinterpret History and promote the expansion of civilizationThe second point is that Economics has been generalized into a whole Theory of Liberty, understood as the most essential attribute and requirement of human nature. Liberty means that all human actions are carried out voluntarily, based on the principle of non-aggression, and free of external coercion or violence imposed and organized from above by the always minority group of human beings who, under whatever title, exercise any kind of political power.Moreover, Economics dismantles and turns upside down the erroneous and biased account of Thomas Hobbes and his followers. Neither was the "state of nature" a terrifying situation, nor did a supposed "social contract" ever exist or was it necessary to create and maintain a State that would impose order and guarantee peace. What happened was precisely the opposite: natural evolution consisted, above all, in the spontaneous discovery of the great advantages provided by voluntary exchanges and peaceful trade. Systematic and generalized violence, war, and terror arose only with the appearance of States, as coercive institutions composed of the most antisocial and violent human beings, who wanted (and still want) to live at the expense of plundering those citizens who earn their living by working and trading peacefully with each other (Oppenheimer, 1926).Thus, Economics, demonstrates that what Étienne de La Boétie named "voluntary servitude", is an anti-human aberration to which human beings have been subjected for centuries. And that it is not necessary to continue with the resigned habit of obeying the State; nor do governments enjoy an aura of prestige (but are literally "stripped" of any attribute of intellectual or moral superiority); nor is the caste—or “praetorian guard”—of intellectuals, “experts”, and acolytes that surround states and rulers to be regarded as untouchable; nor should we allow ourselves to be seduced and deceived by subsidies or perks, whether supposed or real, with which they seek to purchase the will and secure the loyalty of exploited human beings, so that they will consent, voluntarily and permanently, to their exploitation and servitude (De la Boétie, 1975).Economics is the Science developed by the Austrian School of Economics, which should in fact be known as the Spanish School, as it has its origins in the thinking of our scholastics of the Spanish Golden AgeThe third point is that Economic Science has reached its highest level of development thanks to the Austrian School of Economics. As you know, our school is based on the realism of its analytical assumptions, in the dynamic approach based on the entrepreneurial, creative, and coordinating capacity of every human being, and in the study of the spontaneous and self-regulated order of the social process of voluntary human interactions (Huerta de Soto, 2008). The institutional and multidisciplinary approach of the Austrian School is also very relevant. As a result of the spontaneous social process important institutions emerge which, in turn, make it possible and drive it forward: Law and property rights rooted in human nature and discovered and developed spontaneously outside the state; the family, a basic and essential institution, on which the expansion of Humanity is made possible and consolidated; moral principles, which act as a true "automatic pilot" for liberty and which human beings internalize and transmit from generation to generation, thanks to the family and other community or religious institutions; economic institutions, and in particular, money, which also evolves spontaneously outside the State, and which can and should be considered the social institution par excellence, since by overcoming the problems of barter, it enables the exponential multiplication of voluntary exchanges and human interactions, within which the rest of the social, linguistic, moral, legal, economic, and religious institutions are discovered, shaped, and perfected.Our fourth point is that the first theorists of the spontaneous order emerged in the field of law, led by the great jurists of classical Rome. They were the first ones to understand the organic and evolutionary nature of the social process, and so they became, without being aware of it, the first economists. Their tradition was kept alive throughout the Middle Ages thanks to the Catholic Church and, through thinkers such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Antoninus of Florence, and Saint Bernardino of Siena, eventually came to influence the Spanish scholastics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gathered around the University of Salamanca. As Rothbard demonstrated (Rothbard, 1976) these thinkers of the Spanish Golden Age should be considered the most immediate precedent of the Austrian School of Economics, which, precisely for this reason, should be called the Spanish School of Economics. And in fact, these Spanish scholastics were already able to articulate the following ten essential principles which constitute the theoretical foundation of the Austrian School:Firstly, the subjective theory of value developed by the Bishop of Segovia, Diego de Covarrubias, who as early as 1555 clearly explained that, although the objective nature of wheat is the same in Spain as in America, its price was higher in America because there human beings subjectively valued it much more highly; from this follows the correct relationship between prices and costs set out by Luis Sarabia de la Calle, in the sense that it is market prices that determine costs and not the other way around, as equilibrium theorists mistakenly believe; the Scholastics also realized that equilibrium models and prices lack realism and theoretical meaning because they presuppose a degree of knowledge “so complex that only God, and in no case human beings, could ever acquire it” (in latin “pretium iustum mathematicum licet soli Deo notum”), as already explained by the Jesuit cardinals Juan de Salas in 1617 and Juan de Lugo in 1643, more than three hundred years earlier than Hayek could conclude that “a science which assumes knowledge that can never be acquired is not a Science”; also the dynamic concept of competition is fundamental, understood as a process of rivalry among sellers based on the dynamic conception of market processes developed by Jerónimo Castillo de Bobadilla and Luis de Molina in 1589 and 1597, and that has nothing to do with the static model of "perfect competition" of equilibrium theorists; and also the important contributions of the Spanish Scholastics related with capital theory, business cycles, and the effects of fiduciary media generated by banks; so, particular emphasis should be placed on the rediscovery of the principle of time preference by Martín de Azpilcueta, following what Lessines had already stated in 1285; as well as on the fact that bankers commit mortal sin when they operate with fractional reserves, creating bank deposits as a form of virtual money (or chirographis pecuniarium, as Luis de Molina said in latin) that only exists in their accounting books and distorts the structure of relative prices, creating bubbles and deep economic crises that ultimately "bring everything crashing down," as Saravia de la Calle and Tomás de Mercado so vividly explained in the 16th Century; and in short, the Scholastic's idea that it is impossible to organize society through coercive commands due to lack of the information that would be required to give them coordinating content; as well as the discovery that inflation is a hidden and very harmful tax that arises from an act of tyranny, since it is neither known nor accepted by citizens, which would even justify the assassination of the King according to the theory of tyrannicide, a contribution originally made by the Castilian Comuneros eventually defeated by the tyrant King Charles V in 1521, and developed by Father Juan de Mariana almost a century later [in 1610].This entire line of proto-Austrian scholastic thought also spread throughout the Americas, especially in the newly founded universities of San Marcos in Lima and Mexico City in 1551 where brilliant disciples of these Scholastics, who had studied at the University of Salamanca itself, came to occupy prominent academic positions. Thus, for example, we should mention the cases of Bartolomé Frías de Albornoz in Mexico, and above all the great Juan de Matienzo, who became judge and president of the Royal Audiencia of Charcas and Lima from 1560 onwards (Popescu, 1997).Finally, the doctrine of our scholastics did spread even to North America two centuries later through the books of Juan de Mariana, who greatly influenced Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers of the United States.However, the southern part of the continent ultimately proved unable to neutralize the wave of growing statism and centralization that first came with the arrivals of the Habsburgs in Spain, and which was intensified even further after the arrival of the Bourbons with Philip V at the beginning of the eighteenth century (Martínez Marina, 1820). How different and much more prosperous and libertarian might the historical evolution of Spain and Latin America have been, had the statist centralism of the Habsburgs and the Bourbons not prevailed, and had the far more libertarian, local, and decentralized traditional representative institutions of the kingdoms of Castile instead remained predominant—institutions that were dismantled, together with Europe's first libertarian revolution, beginning with the defeat of the Castilian Comuneros at Villalar on April 23, 1521 (Leonard Liggio, 2025).The most important and far-reaching contributions of economic scienceLet us now turn, in greater detail, to the most important contributions of Economics, as developed by the Austrian School.First, human cooperation takes place spontaneously, without the need for anyone to organize it coercively from outside. This is so because human beings are endowed with an entrepreneurial and creative capacity that continually drives them to discover the multiple opportunities for profit that arise in their environment. Each of these opportunities embodies a previous discoordination in human behavior that remains latent until it is discovered and overcome by the corresponding entrepreneurial act. This entrepreneurial act always arises from a creative tension and interpretation of events of the outside world that is essentially subjective and, therefore, cannot be reproduced by any artificial intelligence algorithm; in other words, the same objective events can be interpreted in multiple ways, even contradictory ones, without it being possible to postulate which is correct until the corresponding entrepreneurial process is completed in the form of a subjective profit. In any case, every entrepreneurial act involves, firstly, the creation of information that did not exist before (regarding the profit opportunity that arose from the previous discoordination that had gone unnoticed); secondly, the transmission of that knowledge (directly to the parties involved in the entrepreneurial act and indirectly through a series of institutions and signals such as market prices); and third and finally, the coordination of the previous maladjustments takes place when the parties involved learn motu proprio, that is, voluntarily and for their own benefit, to discipline their behavior according to the needs of others (for example, when they discover that they achieve their ends more effectively by specializing and trading peacefully the mutual results of their efforts). The discovery of the essence of this pure entrepreneurial act, with its elements of creation and transmission of information and the spontaneous coordination of the previous maladjustments continually generated by human coexistence, constitutes the most important contribution that Economic Science has provided to Humanity, and explains why the spontaneous process of voluntary social cooperation that drives the multiplication of human beings and the expansion of civilization does not require any statist system of institutional coercion.Another essential contribution of Economics is the concept of Dynamic Efficiency, understood as the process of unlimited expansion of human creativity and entrepreneurial coordination that arises only within a specific institutional framework of moral and legal norms. This framework is the one grounded on the ethical principle according to which every human being has a natural right to appropriate the results of his entrepreneurial creativity; that is, a property right over what one has created and which did not previously exist, which is the most obvious and important human right. For this reason, (dynamic) Efficiency and Morality and Justice (properly understood) cannot be separated one from the other; or, as we might say, they are two sides of the same coin in the sense that only Justice and Morality induce and generate efficiency; and at the same time, what is dynamically efficient in economic terms cannot be neither unjust nor immoral. All of which, on the other hand, demonstrates the integrated order that exists in the social universe, and highlights the three levels of research (theoretical, ethical, and historical) that complement and reinforce with each other and are essential in our search for truth (Huerta de Soto, 2000).Finally, another key contribution of Economic Science is to have demonstrated the impossibility of socialism, or better, the impossibility of statism, in the sense that it is impossible for the State to achieve and coordinate what it promises for the following four reasons:First, because of the enormous volume of information required for such coordination, which the State cannot acquire because it is dispersed in the minds of the eight billion human beings who participate and interact in the social process every day. Second, given the tacit and inarticulate character of this information (and therefore its inability to be transmitted in an objective manner). Third, because the information that is generated is not "given," nor is it static, but instead changes continuously as a result of human creativity, making it impossible to transmit today information that will only be created tomorrow, and which is precisely the information that the organs of State intervention and the so-called “experts” would need today in order to direct society to achieve their objectives tomorrow. And fourth, and above all, because the coercive nature of State commands blocks the entrepreneurial activity of creating the very information which the State organization itself would need in order to give its commands a coordinating content. In sum, the State is always and everywhere violence and coercion; coercion blocks the entrepreneurial act of creation, discovery, and adjustment of discoordinated human behavior, while at the same time preventing the creation of the information and the emergence of free market prices that make economic calculation and social coordination possible. For this reason, statism is not only unnecessary but is also scientifically impossible.The impact of these essential contributions of Economics on the course of social evolution has so far been very limitedAll of these scientific contributions have so far achieved only a very partial, imperfect, and limited impact on the inertia of a social and political reality that has for centuries been characterized by the coercive power of States and rulers, and by the more or less resigned servitude of the citizens. And despite the very limited nature of this impact to date, which at best has materialized in a series of naïve and "liberal" revolutions aimed, with as much arrogance as lack of success, toward the impossible objective of trying to separate and limit the powers of states and rulers through political constitutions and "liberal democracies" (Rothbard, 2009); Humanity has been propelled as never before in those places and historical moments where it has managed, despite everything, to at least partially free itself from the State and open up some of the new channels of liberty shown by the teachings of Economics. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution, which was but the first chapter of the never-completed "Revolution of Liberty" inspired by Economics. And although what has been achieved in terms of prosperity and standard of living by the now eight billion human beings seems relatively significant—and indeed it is—we cannot even conceive of the standard of living and population size that could be achieved if Humanity were able to take full advantage of and fully implement the teachings of Economic Science.We can be few and poor in a context of servitude and submission to the State, or many and wealthy in a context of liberty (Hayek, 1988, p. 133). The globe is practically empty of human beings (the Earth's current population would fit into an area equivalent to that of the state of Alaska, with a population density equal to that of Brussels). And we cannot even imagine the prosperity that could be achieved in a free market daily driven by eighty billion, or even eight hundred billion, human beings. Economics explains and demonstrates that the increasing prosperity of an ever-growing population of human beings never results from deliberate and coercive State plans, nor from the egalitarian income redistribution, nor from increases in public spending, nor from subsidies, debt, or inflation, but only arises from the free market of the capitalist system. This consists of the process of voluntary exchanges among all human beings who, endowed with an innate entrepreneurial and creative capacity, are able to detect and assess, through the system of free prices, the relative urgency and necessity of each good and service, overcoming the relative scarcity of each and satisfying, every day and in the best humanly possible way, the desires and needs of billions of consumers. Entrepreneurs who succeed in this never-ending process of profit-seeking accumulate significant resources, which, in turn, are saved and invested in capital goods and new technologies that make human beings increasingly productive, boosting their wages and standards of living; a virtuous process of continuously expanding prosperity and population growth that, if not coerced or hindered by the State, has no limits.Therefore, it is crucially important for the future of Humanity that it be able to take full and maximum advantage of the lessons and essential message in pursuit of human liberty that Economics provides. But this will only be possible if we are able to unmask and carefully analyze the powerful forces of the pseudoscientific and counterrevolutionary reaction that has been mobilized to prevent the advance of the theory of liberty derived from Economic Science. Despite their diverse origins, they all converge on the same objective: to attempt to justify and preserve State coercion at all costs under the appearance of scientific legitimacy. They are driven by the "fatal conceit" (Hayek, 1988) of many visionaries, thinkers, and supposed "experts" who believe themselves to be clever enough to correct the spontaneous market order, of course, using the violence and coercive power of the State. Together with a privileged caste of rulers, bureaucrats and acolytes, they continually manipulate a Humanity that is sadly accustomed to serving the State. For all of them, it is vital that statism be maintained and that the message of liberty provided by Economics never prevail.Next, we will list the main reactionary pseudoscientific currents that have infiltrated Economic Science like a lethal virus and constitute, in Hayek's terminology, "the counter-revolution of science" (Hayek, 1955).Pseudoscientific reactionary currents opposed to Economic Science. The role played as “useful innocents” by many libertarian economists of the counterrevolutionary mainstreamFirst, positivism and scientism as pseudoscience. By "scientism" we must understand the improper application of the methods of the natural sciences to the field of Economic Science. Thus, while the natural sciences study their object of research as something external, measurable, and quantifiable, Economics studies the implications of the voluntary actions of human beings. And given the essentially creative nature of human beings, the supposed empirical "evidence" has, at best, only a superficial, partial, and always historically contingent value. In Bastiat's words, of "what is seen" —or rather, what is believed to have been seen— but not "what is not seen" (Bastiat, 1995); and at worst, it always entails the assumption, that human beings are an object of research that can be manipulated as the matter of the external world studied by the natural sciences. This inevitably introduces the idea that to improve the world, the State and its rulers must use their coercive power to manipulate and change the things they believe they see in their historically contingent "empirical photos." But these "empirical photos" cannot capture the underlying dynamic essence of spontaneous social processes, let alone what is already happening spontaneously to solve and coordinate every problem. Therefore, it is not surprising that from the very first steps of Economic Science promoted by the Austrian School, its most violent opponents were the "socialists of the chair" gathered around the German Historical School, reinforced in France by the empiricists of the school of Saint-Simon, the insane Comte, and Durkheim, who sought to create a new and alternative pseudoscience of society. And their unhealthy positivist and ultra-empirical influence has persisted to the present day, first through American Institutionalism and later through the massive compilation of empirical data, for example, in the work of Wesley C. Mitchell or Henry Schultz, the latter, as shown by Professor Salerno, having gone on to exert a decisive influence on his assistant Milton Friedman and, through him, even on the Chicago School itself (Salerno, 2023).Secondly, the pseudoscience of neoclassical economics is characterized by its claim that only its own approach constitutes true “science,” that is, the approach based on the principles of equilibrium, maximization, and constancy. Moreover, in addition to the lack of realism of its assumptions, it adds the reductionism of a mathematical language that has developed in response to the needs and demands of the natural sciences, but which is alien to Economic Science because it does not allow for the subjective concept of time or entrepreneurial creativity. Neoclassical economists develop their pseudoscience based not on real human beings of flesh and blood, but on "ideal types" that are like "robotic penguins" who, even in their most sophisticated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models are limited to moving and reacting to events and State coercion as if they were characters of a sort of economic video game ("videogame economics"). Yet neoclassical pseudoscience, despite its apparent and ever-increasing sophistication, is not capable of accounting for the immense complexity of the real world and rebels against the idea of spontaneous market order in two ways that are equally harmful to human liberty: on the one hand, by promoting the coercive "social engineering" of central banks, States, and governments to use "fine tuning" to force reality toward to the mathematical optimum of their models; and, on the other hand, by labeling as "market failures" everything they believe they observe in reality that does not coincide, in their empirical studies, with their ghostly models of “perfect” equilibrium and adjustment (Milei, 2023); failures that, according to them, refute the "benefits" of the spontaneous order of the market and human liberty, and justify their elimination as soon as possible by a coercive State authority. Note also how neoclassical pseudoscience needs, and feeds upon, the empirical work of the previous pseudoscience, positivism, in order to justify its conclusions against human liberty and in favor of State coercion, so that positivists and neoclassicists join hands and end up reinforcing each other in their reactionary agenda.Third, Keynesianism and macroeconomics as pseudoscience. The very “macro” approach already entails, inevitably, an obvious bias in favor of justifying State intervention, aggression, and coercion against the spontaneous order of the market and human liberty. As F. A. Hayek pointed out in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1974 (Hayek, 1978), macroeconomists ignore everything they cannot measure, specifically truly relevant economic processes and theories. At the same time, they believe that certain aggregate concepts—which lack genuine economic meaning—possess a “real” existence, that permits to collect empirical information or evidence that can be manipulated and statistically treated. Once again, macroeconomic pseudoscience goes hand in hand with positivist pseudoscience, and the two reinforce with each other in their counterrevolutionary reaction. Furthermore, Keynesianism is particularly harmful: not only does it flatly deny the coordinating capacity of creative entrepreneurship and the spontaneous market order, but it also builds as an alternative explanation a whole model—of course—of equilibrium with permanent unemployment, to justify the coercive intervention of the State in the lives of human beings in the form of all kinds of fiscal and monetary manipulations. Moreover, the macroeconomic and Keynesian pseudoscience feeds upon, and is reinforced by, the pseudoscientific approach of the Neoclassical School, to the point that, the so-called "neoclassical Keynesian synthesis" became, throughout the twentieth century, the main reactionary movement inside Economics. Keynesians and macroeconomists thus become the champions of that intoxication with statism, manipulation, and political power which constitutes the framework, orchestrated by governments and central banks, to which we have, regrettably, become accustomed and in which we are forced to live. This context repeatedly destabilizes the spontaneous market order, generates serious financial and economic crises and social conflicts, and continually hampers the prosperity and advance of civilization.We have left the quasi-religious mysticism of Marxist pseudoscience for last, because Marxism was scientifically dead even before it was born: in fact, it emerged with—and was theoretically demolished by—the subjectivist revolution led by the Austrian School of Economics. From the beginning, the Austrian School's development of time preference and capital theory revealed the contradictions and grave scientific errors of Marxism, while at the same time exposing its pronounced character as an intellectual fraud (Böhm-Bawerk, 1949). This intellectual fraud was historically illustrated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and of virtually all other communist countries, after many decades of unspeakable human suffering for a large part of the world's population, all of which was perfectly consistent with the theory on the impossibility of statism developed by the Austrian School beginning with the von Mises of 1920 (Mises, 1936), and which was the final nail that forever sealed the coffin of the corpse of Marxist pseudoscience (Huerta de Soto, 2010).Finally, in this context, we must mention the destructive role played by a number of distinguished economists who, although they defend liberty and the market economy, could be described as a kind of "useful innocents" in Mises' terminology (Mises, 1947). This is so because, even though they officially oppose rampant statism and defend liberty, by accepting—even if only partially—some of the postulates of the reactionary pseudoscientific currents we have described, they ultimately end up, often without intending to and much to their regret, providing additional impetus to the statist reaction within our discipline; for example, when they insist on advising States with proposals aimed at making them more efficient and at helping them do somewhat better things that they should not be doing at all. By way of illustration, we should include in this category of “useful innocents”, for example, thinkers as the Karl Popper of The Open Society and Its Enemies (Popper, 1966, p. 366), who came to admire the “scientific capacity” and even the “humanism” of Karl Marx, and who proposed a statist strategy of “piecemeal social engineering”; or George Stigler, when he claimed that only empirical evidence could determine which economic system, socialism or capitalism, might function (Stigler, 1975, pp. 1-13); and, more generally, the members of the Chicago School, led by Gary Becker and Milton Friedman. Becker when defending that only economics developed within the strict limits of equilibrium, constancy, and maximization, typical of the neoclassical pseudoscience, constitutes true "economic science." And even more serious could be considered the case of Milton Friedman, whose very sincere love of liberty and intense and popular media support for free markets stand in sharp contrast to his pseudoscientific approach based on the aggregate method of economics of Keynesian origin, on positivist empiricism, and on the full acceptance of the unrealism of assumptions. Only in this way it can be explained Friedman's litany of scientific errors which, much to his regret, have invariably ended up reinforcing statist interventionism, to the point that Hayek himself was forced to conclude that after Keynes's The General Theory, the book that has done the greatest harm to Economic Science has been Friedman's Essays in Positive Economics (Hayek, 1994, pp. 145).The failure of democracy and classical liberalism: the triumph of statismAs we see, many classical liberals and advocates of liberal democracy have also acted as "useful innocents." The fatal error of classical liberals lies in the failure to realize that their program is theoretically impossible, because it incorporates within itself the seeds of its own destruction, precisely to the extent that it considers necessary and accepts the existence of a State (even if it is "minimal") understood as the monopolistic agency of institutional coercion. Therefore, the great error of classical liberals is very basic: they believe in a program of political action and economic doctrine that aims to limit the power of the State, while at the same time accepting it and even considering state's existence necessary. However Economic Science has already shown that the State is unnecessary, that statism (even in its minimal form) is theoretically impossible, and that, given human nature, once the State exists, it is impossible to limit its power. On the other hand, liberal democracy is a concept as naïve as it is impossible. Mises already warned us that democracy could only function if all its participants accepted the classical liberal principles, which is impossible because democracy itself encourages and amplifies vote-buying and the partisan use of power. So, the inevitable conclusion is that "liberal democracy" is a contradiction in terms as absurd as speaking (following Anthony de Jasay) of a “square circle,” of “hot snow,” or of a “virgin prostitute” (A. de Jasay, 1990). And even Hayek considered democracy unworkable if it is understood as the exercise of absolute power by majorities (Kratos in classical Greek). It should therefore come as no surprise that democracy once and again tends to be a perverse system based on lying and buying votes with money stolen through taxation.The fact is that the State attracts like a magnet the worst passions and vices of human nature, for instance, when individuals try to obtain rents produced by others using the State's coercive power. Moreover, the combined effect of the privileged groups, the phenomena of governmental myopia and vote-buying, the megalomaniacal character of politicians, and the irresponsibility and blindness of bureaucracies generate a dangerous, unstable and explosive cocktail, continually shaken by social, economic, and political crises which, paradoxically, are always used by the political caste to justify further doses of intervention and statism that, instead of solving problems, further aggravate them. Statism therefore corrupts the entire social body and at the same time blocks the spontaneous and free market solutions of social and economic problems.In fact, the State has become the "idol" that almost everyone turns to and worships. Statolatry is the most serious and dangerous social disease of our time. We are educated to believe that all problems can and must be detected and solved by the State. Our destiny depends on the State, and the politicians who control it are expected to guarantee everything our well-being may require. Human beings remain immature and rebel against their own creative nature, which makes their future always uncertain. They demand a crystal ball that assures them not only knowing what will happen, but also that any problems that arise will be solved for them. This "infantilization" of the masses is encouraged by politicians, as it justifies their own existence and ensures their popularity, position of dominance, and capacity to control. In addition, a whole legion of intellectuals, so-called "experts," and social engineers join in this arrogant intoxication of power. Not even the Church and the most respectable religious denominations have been able to realize that statolatry today constitutes the principal threat to the free, moral, and responsible human being; that the State is a false idol of immense power, worshipped by all, and that does not allow Humanity to be free from its control or have moral or religious loyalties beyond those the state can dominate. Furthermore, it is kept hidden from the public that the state is the true source of social conflicts and evils, and "scapegoats" (such as "capitalism" or private property) are blamed for the problems, and they become the goal of the most serious condemnations, even from moral and religious leaders, almost none of whom have realized the deception or dared to denounce that statolatry is the main threat in the present century to religion, morality, and, therefore, to human civilization.Perhaps the main exception within the Church is included in the brilliant biography of Jesus of Nazareth written by Benedict XVI. That the State and political power constitute the institutional incarnation of the Antichrist should be obvious to anyone with a minimal knowledge of history who reads the former Pope's considerations on the most serious temptation that the Evil One can present to us (and I quote Ratzinger literally): "The tempter is not so crude as to propose to us directly the worship of the devil. He merely proposes that we opt for the rational solution, that we prefer a planned and organized world in which God may have a place as a private spiritual matter, but must not be allowed to interfere in our essential purposes. Soloviev attributes to the Antichrist a book entitled The Open Road to World Peace and Prosperity; it becomes the new Bible, and its core message is the worship of well-being and rational planning," by the state (Ratzinger, 2007). And so, we should not be surprised that, for example, the great author of The Lord of the Rings, J. R. Tolkien, whose Catholic anarchism I fully share, went so far as to say that he would arrest anyone for simply daring to pronounce the word "State." Because the State is, always and everywhere, a reality of violence and systematic coercion against the most intimate essence of the human being, which is his capacity to act freely, creatively, and spontaneously; and so, it is unavoidable to conclude that the State is essentially immoral and that statism constitutes the principal threat to humankind.A theological digression: the dismantling of statism as a logical necessity inseparable from the work of GodAnd almost without realizing it, we can go ahead with a theological digression on how dismantling the State is a logical and moral necessity inseparable from the work of God. I fully understand that referring to God in this conference may come as a shock to many of those present, but I would ask that even those who do not believe in God, at least for dialectical purposes, make an effort of imagination and, for the next few minutes, imagine that God does indeed exist.And what do we mean by God? We must understand God to be a Supreme Being, Creator out of love for all things. And the most important creature that God has created is precisely the human being: in His image and likeness. And if there is a point of connection between God and man, it is precisely in the creative entrepreneurial ability: the capacity to discover, to see, and to create new things, goals and actions. But now I am going to go one step further and attempt to demonstrate that God is not only the Supreme, loving Creator of all things, but that—moreover—God is libertarian.And what does it mean to say that God is libertarian? It means that God, the Lord of all the Universe, has absolute power over it, and yet He chooses not to use force, but always leaves his creatures free. To the point that He gives human beings the freedom to rebel against Him; even though, again and again, God forgives human beings and allows them to rise up and begin anew.God always lets the universe He has created, flow in a spontaneous manner ("laissez faire, laissez passer, le monde va de lui même" could be the motto of our libertarian God). And this despite the fact that human beings tempt God again and again and demand that He manifest His absolute power, that He give us clear and indisputable signs of His existence and supreme power in order for us to believe in Him. But of course, God does not accept our challenge. Why? Because love and liberty are inseparable, and a forced conversion, for example by an evident cataclysm, would be completely contrary to that liberty with which God has created human beings out of love.Moreover, the Kingdom of God is not of this world; Jesus himself says this to a fearful Roman state official, who was also in charge of judging him: "My kingdom is not of this world." Does this mean that there are two types of kingdoms? The kingdoms of this world or States, which would be legitimate at their own level (remember "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's"), and the Kingdom of God, of ("render unto God the things that are God's"). That is the standard interpretation that has prevailed until now, but I think is completely wrong. The Kingdom of God—which is the exact opposite of the kingdoms or States of this world—never makes systematic use of violence and coercion: it is a Kingdom that has already come to us and, moreover, has been given to us freely, in an act of immense mercy and love (Deus caritas est). And just as the hateful institution of slavery came to an end, the Kingdom of God will also dismantle the kingdoms of this world, the states of this world, or as St. Paul said, of every principality, power, and glory (Ephesians 1:21-23), because God is libertarian and man is made in the image and likeness of God.Ludwig von Mises, in his book Interventionism, introduced the term "destructionism" to refer to the economic and social effects of statism. If Evil (represented by statist destructionism in Mises' terminology) were to prevail, the human race and civilization would have disappeared long ago. The fact that, despite everything and the immense power of seduction of statism over humankind, the process of social cooperation continues to unfold and even prosper in certain historical periods and geographical areas, is a clear manifestation that God does not abandon the world nor leave libertarians alone in their struggle against the Evil; and that Good, represented by liberty, the principle of non-aggression, the spontaneous order of the market, entrepreneurial creativity and coordination, and above all, moral principles, always with God's help, prevails and is capable of overcoming Evil, represented by the fatal conceit of the statist ideal and the destruction that it produces.And now I will finish with some thoughts on anarcho-capitalism as the only possible system of social cooperation truly compatible with human natureAnd now I will finish with some thoughts on anarcho-capitalism as the only possible system of social cooperation truly compatible with human nature. The most important intellectual and moral event that is taking place nowadays is the full fusion between Christianity and anarcho-capitalism. Because anarcho-capitalism is the only possible system of social cooperation that is truly compatible with human nature. Anarcho-capitalism is the purest representation of the spontaneous market order in which all services, including law, justice, and public order, are provided through a voluntary process of social cooperation. In this system, no area is closed to the drive of human creativity and entrepreneurial coordination; efficiency and justice in the resolution of problems are simultaneously enhanced, while the conflicts, inefficiencies, and discoordinations generated by the State are eradicated at their root.The progressive abolition of States and their gradual replacement by a dynamic network of private agencies different legal systems, and providing all kinds of prevention and defense services, constitutes the most important social transformation that will take place in the twenty first century. Without forgetting that exactly what prevents us from knowing with precision what the future without the state will look like, the creative nature of entrepreneurship, is what gives us the peace of mind of knowing that any problem will tend to be resolved and overcome, once the entrepreneurial effort and creativity of Humanity are devoted to its solution (Kirzner, 1985).Therefore, the revolution against the “Old Régime” carried out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the old classical liberals, today finds its natural continuation in the anarcho-capitalist revolution of the twenty-first century. The message of anarcho-capitalism is clearly revolutionary. Revolutionary in terms of its goal: the dismantling of the State and its replacement by a competitive market process consisting of a network of private agencies, associations, and organizations. And revolutionary in terms of its means, especially in the scientific, economic-social, and political fields:a) First, Scientific revolution, in the field of Economic Science, which becomes the general theory of spontaneous market order extended to all social areas. And by contrast and opposition, the theory and analysis of the effects of social discoordination generated by statism in any sphere in which it operates, as well as the study of the transition process from the State towards liberty.b) Second, an Economic and social revolution, as we cannot even imagine today the immense human achievements and discoveries that could be made in an entrepreneurial environment totally free from statism. Today, and despite continuous governmental harassment, an unknown civilization is already developing, with a degree of complexity that is beyond the reach and control of the state, and which will achieve unlimited expansion once it manages to completely rid itself of statism. And when human beings become more and more aware of the perverse nature of the State that restricts them, and of the immense possibilities that are frustrated each day when the State blocks the driving force of their entrepreneurial creativity, the social demand to reform and dismantle the State will multiply creating a future that is largely unknown to us but that will elevate human civilization to heights that we cannot even imagine today.c) And finally, a political revolution in which, although day-to-day political struggle is important, it should not be the top priority. It is true that the least interventionist alternatives must always be supported, in clear alliance with the efforts of classical liberals in their long term impossible democratic limitation of the State (including reforms such as those proposed by Hayek in the third volume of Law, Legislation, and Liberty). But the anarcho-capitalist does not stop at this task, for he knows that he can and must do much more. He knows that the ultimate goal is the total dismantling of the State, and this goal leads all his imagination and political action in everyday life. And here we cannot fail to mention the unprecedented impact of our disciple and follower of our Master Program in Austrian Economics in Madrid, the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, who has done more than anyone else before to disseminate the principles of the Austrian School and the anarcho-capitalist ideal. Principles that he never ceases to quote and explain and defend once and again in all his public appearances, from the United Nations to the Davos Forum; and in all his meetings with other Heads of State, universities, and parliaments, to whom he even gives copies of the most important Austrian works by Mises, Hayek and even myself, as he did, for example, with the two popes, Francis and Leo XIV, with the French President Macron, the Italian Prime Minister Meloni, and even with Elon Musk. For us, it is a great honor that Milei has, to a large extent, emerged from the Austrian School of Madrid and that he continually keeps drawing inspiration from us. This is, without a doubt, much more important than incremental political steps in the right direction—which should of course be welcomed—and that should never fall into a political pragmatism that could betray the ultimate goal of achieving the end of the State (Huerta de Soto, 2010).And all this with tireless enthusiasm in the search for scientific and moral truth, an attitude that, inspired by the immortal work of Miguel de Cervantes, we could describe as follows: "It matters not whether they be giants or windmills, when the plume of our helm is stirred by the winds of tenacity and faith." And always creating a future that, although it may seem distant today, may at any moment witness giant steps that will surprise even the most optimistic among us. History has entered into an accelerated process of change which, although it will never stop, will open a whole new chapter when humankind finally succeeds in ridding itself definitively of the State, reducing it to no more than a dark historical relic of tragic memory.Thank you very much.REFERENCESBASTIAT, Frédéric: Selected Essays on Political Economy, Foundation for Economic Education, New York 1995.DE LA BOÉTIE, Étienne: The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, Free Life Editions, Nueva York 1975.BÖHM-BAWERK, Eugen von: Karl Marx and the Close of His System, Augustus M. Kelley, Nueva York 1949."The Exploitation Theory," Capital and Interest, Vol. I: History and Critique of Interest Theories, Libertarian Press, South Holland 1959.HAYEK, Friedrich A. von: The Counter-Revolution of Science, Free Press, New York, 1955.Hayek on Hayek: An Autobiographical Dialogue (eds. Stephen Kresge and Leif Wenar), University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1994.Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. III: The Political Order of a Free People, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1979.The Fatal Conceit: the Errors of Socialism, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1988."The Pretence of Knowledge," in New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1978.HUERTA DE SOTO, Jesús: Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entrepreneurship, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham y Northampton 2010."A Hayekian Strategy to Implement Free Market Reforms," in Theory of Dynamic Efficiency, Routledge, Oxfordshire, 2010.Proyecto Docente, Chapter I: "Ciencia y Economía," Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid 2000.The Austrian School: Market Order and Creative Entrepreneurship, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham y Northampton 2008.DE JASAY, Anthony: Market Socialism: A Scrutiny, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, Occasional Paper no. 84, 1990.KIRZNER, Israel: "The Perils of Regulation: A Market Process Approach" in Discovery and the Capitalist Process, University of Chicago Press, 1985.LIGGIO, Leonard: "The Hispanic tradition of Liberty," published in Procesos de Mercado: Revista Europea de Economía Política, vol. XXII, nº 1, Summer 2025, pp. 403-420.MARTÍNEZ MARINA, Francisco: Teoría de las cortes o grandes juntas nacionales de los reinos de León y Castilla, Collado, 1820.MILEI, Javier: Capitalism, Socialism, and the Neoclassical Trap, in The Emergence of a Tradition: Essays in Honor of Jesús Huerta de Soto, Volume II (editors Howden, D., Bagus, P.), Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2023.MISES, Ludwig von: Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, Jonathan Cape, London 1936.Planned Chaos, Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson 1947.OPPENHEIMER, Franz: The State, Vanguard Press, Nueva York 1926.POPESCU, Oreste: Studies in the History of Latin American Economic Thought, Routledge, London 1997.POPPER, Karl: The Open Society and its Enemies, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1966.RATZINGER, Joseph. Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration. Translated by Adrian J. Walker. Doubleday, New York, 2007.ROTHBARD, Murray N.: "New Light on the Prehistory of the Austrian School," in The Foundations of Modern Austrian Economics (editor Edwin G. Dolan), Sheed and Ward, Kansas City 1976, pp. 52–74.Anatomy of the State, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn 2009.SALERNO, Joseph. "Milton Friedman's Views on Method and Money Reconsidered in Light of the Housing Bubble", in The Emergence of a Tradition: Essays in Honor of Jesús Huerta de Soto, Volume I, (editors Howden, D., Bagus, P.), Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2023.STIGLER, George: The Citizen and the State, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975, pp. 1-13.

SHOW SCHEDULE 3-11-20261906 SF ON FIRE AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE.1. SEG 1: Gordon Chang and Peter Huessy discuss China's petroleum reserves and rising fuel prices. They analyze the potential for nuclear escalation and Iran's efforts to disrupt global trade through the Strait of Hormuz. (1)2. SEG 2: Rebecca Grant and Gordon Chang analyze the US Navy's carrier shortage. The USS Nimitz remains active for Latin American exercises while the USS Gerald R. Ford faces a prolonged 11-month combat deployment. (2)3. SEG 3: Alan Tonelson and Gordon Chang discuss China's failure to stop fentanyl precursor exports. They evaluate tariffs as non-military tools to pressure nations while addressing war-related shortages in fertilizer and electronics components. (3)4. SEG 4: Bill Roggio details the tragic US missile strike on an Iranian girl's school. He argues that while air strikes destroy military assets, air power alone cannot achieve regime change or ensure final victory. (4)5. SEG 5: Jack Burnham analyzes China's "lukewarm" support for Iran and its focus on energy security. Beijing is learning lessons from Western precision strikes while continuing internal repression of ethnic minorities through forced labor. (5)6. SEG 6: Jack Burnham reports on the DOJ dropping charges against Chinese scientists accused of smuggling biological samples. This reversal, involving the Chinese consulate, may be linked to upcoming trade negotiations or prosecutorial challenges. (6)7. SEG 7: Kevin Fraser warns that state legislatures are rushing to regulate AI with potentially unconstitutional laws. He advocates for market-driven transparency and allowing consumers to choose models based on their specific needs and preferences. (7)8. SEG 8: Kevin Fraser explores distinctions between AI models like Grok and Claude. He highlights regulatory "sandboxes" in states like Utah and Montana that foster innovation while monitoring for potential technological harms and ensuring transparency. (8)9. SEG 9: Michael Bernstam explains how the American shale revolution mitigates global energy shocks. He warns central banks against fueling inflation and emphasizes that while global supply chains are vulnerable, US production provides a critical buffer. (9)10. SEG 10: Michael Bernstam discusses how rising oil prices bolster Russia's budget. However, the Russian economy faces contraction and "military Keynesianism," while the United States remains a resilient net energy exporter despite global supply chain disruptions. (10)11. SEG 11: Ivana Stradner examines the Kremlin's information warfare campaign to keep Viktor Orbán in power. Orbán, formerly an anti-Soviet activist, now aligns with Putin to ensure political survival and counter Western democratic decision-making processes. (11)12. SEG 12: Ivana Stradner outlines strategies to counter Russian influence in Hungary, including exposing Orbán's corruption and ties to China. She argues that information is a potent, invisible weapon used to polarize and weaken the West. (12)13. SEG 13: Simon Constable reports on skyrocketing European energy prices due to Middle East conflict. Shortages in sulfur and bromine threaten global semiconductor manufacturing and food security as fertilizer costs nearly double for struggling farmers. (13)14. SEG 14: Simon Constable critiques Prime Minister Keir Starmer's hesitant leadership. He notes the Royal Navy has been "hollowed out" over three decades, leaving Britain with fewer warships than France and a tiny, underfunded standing army. (14)15. SEG 15: Bob Zimmerman discusses the Senate's shift toward private space exploration, potentially ending the SLS program. NASA is increasingly contracting commercial entities for lunar habitats, reusable rockets, and specialized satellite launch capabilities to reduce costs. (15)16. SEG 16: Bob Zimmerman reviews the DART mission's success in altering an asteroid's orbit. He also reports that the European Space Agency lost contact with a solar probe after its batteries drained due to misaligned solar panels. (16)

10. SEG 10: Michael Bernstam discusses how rising oil prices bolster Russia's budget. However, the Russian economy faces contraction and "military Keynesianism," while the United Statesremains a resilient net energy exporter despite global supply chain disruptions. (10)1900 BAKU

Alex Howlett, an independent scholar affiliated with The Greshm Institute, discusses Universal Basic Income (UBI). Beginning with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), an offshoot of post-Keynesianism, he addresses its key principles: notably Keynes' belief that the Great Depression was caused by a deficiency in aggregate demand, leading to sustained involuntary unemployment that the market could not self-correct. Howlett deflates Keynesian theory that assumes that economic policy aims for full employment, asking, “To what extent actually does it make sense for people to be workers?” while explaining that labour is not the most effective or efficient way to get money to people. Howlett sees UBI as solving this problem of distributing money to people while dispensing with the need to ensure that everyone has a job, dispelling the notion that only if every single person is working can an economy run at full capacity. Assessing some of the major criticisms of UBI—from fiscal feasibility, economic incentives, and social justice—he responds to the fears of inflation, worries that borrowing will lead to reckless fiscal policy and a loss of central bank independence, or that UBI would dismantle already established welfare programmes. Responding to counter-arguments to UBI, such as the claim that the economy will not have the labour pool it requires or that people won't be working as much, Howlett turns these arguments on their head demonstrating how the demand for labour is artificially inflated as a way of getting people jobs, noting the historical overstimulation of the financial sector to encourage firms to borrow so they hire workers. Howlett contends that with UBI, the economy does not have to play into the push and pull of labour supply and demand, stating, “You hear this fear that people aren't going to work as much at the same time that you hear this fear that there aren't going to be enough jobs available, right? It's like, well, wait a minute…. Isn't it good if those things kind of go together?” Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In today's episode, we're joined by Professor Ingo Schmidt for a wide-ranging discussion on economic theory and left politics. Dr. Schmidt is a Professor of Labour Studies at Athabasca University in British Columbia, Canada. His PhD research focused on trade unions and Keynesianism, and his work has placed him at the center of critical debates in political economy. Originally from Germany, Schmidt is a blacklisted economist there and has long been active in peace and international solidarity movements. He has authored or edited several books and collections including: Market populism, its right-wing offspring and left alternatives. (Policy Press, 2021) Reading Capital Today: Marx After 150 Years (Pluto, 2017) The Three Worlds of Social Democracy: A Global View (Pluto, 2015) For donations, educational courses and membership inquiries visit: http://www.ClassUnity.org

Kim Stanley Robinson discusses Real Utopian Futures. Find the feed of English episodes only here: https://www.futurehistories-international.com/ You can also import the RSS feed to your favorite app: https://www.futurehistories-international.com/feed.xml   Shownotes The reference page on Kim Stanley Robinson, his works, interviews, talks, etc. (including a discussion forum): https://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/ Robinson, K. S. (2020). The Ministry for the Future. Orbit Books. https://www.orbit-books.co.uk/titles/kim-stanley-robinson/the-ministry-for-the-future/9780356508863/ Robinson, K. S. (2017). New York 2140. Orbit Books. https://www.orbit-books.co.uk/titles/kim-stanley-robinson/new-york-2140/9780356508788/ Robinson, K. S. (1988). The Gold Coast. Macmillan. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312890377/thegoldcoast/ Blumenfeld, J. (2024). Managing Decline. Cured Quail, Vol. 3. https://curedquail.com/Managing-Decline Blumenfeld, J. (2022). Climate Barbarism. Adapting to a wrong World. Constellations, 30, 162–178. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8675.12596 the quoted Kohei Saito video: https://youtube.com/shorts/WnvhD7p651M?si=SdfPftKOCJM6MS9j the lecture in which Kim Stanley Robinson talks about “futurecide” and “preemptive capitulation”: https://youtu.be/HpzXkpx29S4?si=PVlOE53Hj5-BZR5B reporting on and summary of the talk: https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/article/the-war-on-science-is-here-kim-stanley-robinson-says-its-just-the-beginning/ Löwy, M. (2005). What is Ecosocialism? Capitalism Nature Socialism, 16(2), 15–24. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10455750500108237 for an overview of the history and different schools of Ecomarxist/Ecosocialist theory: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/ecology-marxism-andreas-malm/ on Anna Kornbluh: http://www.annakornbluh.com/ on Mass Extinction Events: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-mass-extinction-and-are-we-facing-a-sixth-one.html Dressler, A. (2025). You have 100 ‘Energy Slaves'. The Climate Brink. https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/you-have-100-energy-slaves on the 30 by 30 Biodiversity Goal: https://www.cop28.com/en/thought-leadership/The-30x30-Biodiversity-Goal-at-COP28 the International Maritime Organization: https://www.imo.org/ on the ‘Half-Earth Project': https://eowilsonfoundation.org/what-is-the-half-earth-project/ Wilson, E. O. (2016). Half-Earth. Our Planet's Fight for Life. Norton Books. https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631492525 Pendergrass, D. & Vettese, T. (2022). Half-Earth Socialism. A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics. Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2650-half-earth-socialism one of the many interviews/talks in which Kim Stanley Robinson talks about science fiction as the realism of our times: https://youtu.be/p1wNhc46xjE?si=hOdKuwRQhef-9tLs on the Turing Test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test on Neoliberalism attaching itself to demands of the New Left: Boltanski, L. & Chiapello, E. (2018). The New Spirit of Capitalism. Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/1980-the-new-spirit-of-capitalism on Friedrich Hayek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek Williams, R. (2015). Structures of Feeling. In: D. Sharma & F. Tygstrup (Ed.), Structures of Feeling. Affectivity and the Study of Culture (pp. 20-26). https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110365481.20/html on Keynesianism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics Vogl, J. (2017). The Ascendancy of Finance. Polity Press. https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-ascendancy-of-finance--9781509509294 Graeber, D. (2011). Debt. The First 5,000 Years. Melville House. https://files.libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf on Thomas Piketty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty on Gabriel Zucman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Zucman on the ‘Zucman tax': https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2025/09/23/zucman-tax-what-the-proposed-wealth-tax-would-mean-for-france_6745653_8.html on Carbon Taxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax Sorg, C. (2023). Finance as a Form of Economic Planning. Competition & Change, 29(1), 17-37. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10245294231217578 Sarkar, S. (2024). The Carbon Coin. An Eco-Speculative Approach to Decarbonisation in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future. Green Letters, 28(4), 297–310. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14688417.2025.2483998 A policy proposal on ‘Carbon Reward' from the same researcher whose earlier policy work inspired the ‘Carbon Coin' idea in The Ministry for the Future: https://deltonchen.substack.com/p/new-economic-blueprint-for-resolving see also: https://globalcarbonreward.org/newsletters/carbon-coin/ on Quantitative Easing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing on Carbon Drawdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration on Nicolas Stern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Stern,_Baron_Stern_of_Brentford on the Democratic Socialists of America: https://www.dsausa.org/ the Network for Greening the Financial System: https://www.ngfs.net/en on COP30 in Belém: https://unfccc.int/cop30 Solnit, R. (2022). Orwell's Roses. Penguin. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/607057/orwells-roses-by-rebecca-solnit/ Future Histories Episodes on Related Topics S3E47 | Jason W. Moore on Socialism in the Web of Life https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e47-jason-w-moore-on-socialism-in-the-web-of-life/ S03E44 | Anna Kornbluh on Climate Counteraesthetics https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e44-anna-kornbluh-on-climate-counteraesthetics/ S03E32 | Jacob Blumenfeld on Climate Barbarism and Managing Decline https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e32-jacob-blumenfeld-on-climate-barbarism-and-managing-decline/ S03E30 | Matt Huber & Kohei Saito on Growth, Progress and Left Imaginaries https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e30-matt-huber-kohei-saito-on-growth-progress-and-left-imaginaries/ S03E23 | Andreas Malm on Overshooting into Climate Breakdown https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e23-andreas-malm-on-overshooting-into-climate-breakdown/ S02E18 | Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese on Half Earth Socialism https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e18-drew-pendergrass-and-troy-vettese-on-half-earth-socialism/ --- If you are interested in democratic economic planning, these resources might be of help: Democratic planning – an information website https://www.democratic-planning.com/ Sorg, C. & Groos, J. (eds.)(2025). Rethinking Economic Planning. Competition & Change Special Issue Volume 29 Issue 1. https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ccha/29/1 Groos, J. & Sorg, C. (2025). Creative Construction - Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. [for a review copy, please contact: amber.lanfranchi[at]bristol.ac.uk] https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction International Network for Democratic Economic Planning https://www.indep.network/ Democratic Planning Research Platform: https://www.planningresearch.net/ --- Future Histories Contact & Support If you like Future Histories, please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/FutureHistories Contact: office@futurehistories.today Twitter: https://twitter.com/FutureHpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futurehpodcast/ Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@FutureHistories English webpage: https://futurehistories-international.com   Episode Keywords #KimStanleyRobinson, #JanGroos, #Interview, #FutureHistories, #FutureHistoriesInternational, #futurehistoriesinternational, #Utopia, #RealUtopias, #DemocraticPlanning, #Keynes, #Dystopia, #DemocraticEconomicPlanning, #Capitalism, #EcoSocialism, #Socialism, #GreenCapitalism, #Narratives, #ClimateCounterAesthetics, #Transition, #SocioEcologicalTransition, #SocialDemocracy, #ScienceFiction

This week on Sinica, recorded at Yale University, I speak with Michael Brenes and Van Jackson, coauthors of The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy. Their argument is that framing the U.S.-China relationship as geopolitical rivalry has become more than just a foreign policy orientation — it's a domestic political project that reshapes budgets, norms, and coalitions in ways that actively harm American democracy and the American people. Rivalry narrows political possibility, makes dissent suspect, encourages neo-McCarthyism (the China Initiative, profiling of Chinese Americans), produces anti-AAPI hate, and redirects public investment away from social welfare and into defense spending through what they call "national security Keynesianism."Mike is interim director of the Brady Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale, while Van is a senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington and host of the Un-Diplomatic Podcast. We discuss the genesis of their collaboration during the Biden administration, how they navigate China as a puzzle for the American left, canonical misrememberings of the Cold War that distort current China policy, the security dilemma feedback loop between Washington and Beijing, why defense-heavy stimulus is terrible at job creation, how rivalry politics weakens democracy, recent polling showing a shift toward engagement, and their vision for a "geopolitics of peace" anchored in Sino-U.S. détente 2.0.5:47 – The genesis of the book: recognizing Biden's Cold War liberalism 11:26 – How they approached writing together from different disciplinary homes 13:20 – Navigating China as a puzzle for the American left21:39 – How great power competition hardened from analytical framework into ideology 28:15 – Mike on two canonical misrememberings of the Cold War 33:18 – Van on the security dilemma and the nuclear feedback loop 39:55 – National security Keynesianism: why defense spending is bad at job creation 44:38 – How rivalry politics weakens democracy and securitizes dissent 48:09 – Building durable coalitions for restraint-oriented statecraft 51:27 – Has the post-COVID moral panic actually abated? 53:27 – The master narrative we need: a geopolitics of peace 55:29 – Associative balancing: achieving equilibrium through accommodation, not armsRecommendations:Van: The Long Twentieth Century by Giovanni Arrighi Mike: The World of the Cold War: 1945-1991 by Vladislav Zubok Kaiser: Pluribus (Apple TV series by Vince Gilligan)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The transformation of the Labour Party by 1997 is among the most consequential political developments in modern British history. Futures of Socialism overhauls the story of Labour's modernisation and provides an innovative new history. Diving into the tumultuous world of the British left after 1973, rocked by crushing defeats, bitter schisms, and ideological disorientation, Colm Murphy uncovers competing intellectual agendas for modern socialism. Responding to deindustrialisation, neoliberalism, and constitutional agitation, these visions of 'modernisation' ranged across domestic and European policy and the politics of class, gender, race, and democracy. By reconstructing the sites and networks of political debate, Futures of Socialism: ‘Modernisation', the Labour Party, and the British Left, 1973–1997 (Cambridge UP, 2023) explains their changing influence inside Labour. It also throws new light on New Labour, highlighting its roots in this social-democratic intellectual maelstrom. Futures of Socialism provides an essential analysis of social democracy in an era of market liberalism, and of the ideas behind a historic political reconstruction that remains deeply controversial today. Colm Murphy is a historian of modern British and Irish politics and political economy at Queen Mary University of London. He has published on 1970s-80s social democracy (including its political culture, evolving electoral strategy, and economic policymaking) and on Irish labour relations and nationalism in the 1910s. His more recent work has focused on the politics of economic policy, including Keynesianism, austerity, trade, and currency. Since 2018, Colm has worked for the Mile End Institute and is currently its Deputy Director. Jacob Ward is a historian at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He has written in the history of science and technology, environmental history, business and financial history, and political history. He recently published Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024) and he's currently working on a history of futurology in the United Kingdom and Europe from 1945 to the present day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The transformation of the Labour Party by 1997 is among the most consequential political developments in modern British history. Futures of Socialism overhauls the story of Labour's modernisation and provides an innovative new history. Diving into the tumultuous world of the British left after 1973, rocked by crushing defeats, bitter schisms, and ideological disorientation, Colm Murphy uncovers competing intellectual agendas for modern socialism. Responding to deindustrialisation, neoliberalism, and constitutional agitation, these visions of 'modernisation' ranged across domestic and European policy and the politics of class, gender, race, and democracy. By reconstructing the sites and networks of political debate, Futures of Socialism: ‘Modernisation', the Labour Party, and the British Left, 1973–1997 (Cambridge UP, 2023) explains their changing influence inside Labour. It also throws new light on New Labour, highlighting its roots in this social-democratic intellectual maelstrom. Futures of Socialism provides an essential analysis of social democracy in an era of market liberalism, and of the ideas behind a historic political reconstruction that remains deeply controversial today. Colm Murphy is a historian of modern British and Irish politics and political economy at Queen Mary University of London. He has published on 1970s-80s social democracy (including its political culture, evolving electoral strategy, and economic policymaking) and on Irish labour relations and nationalism in the 1910s. His more recent work has focused on the politics of economic policy, including Keynesianism, austerity, trade, and currency. Since 2018, Colm has worked for the Mile End Institute and is currently its Deputy Director. Jacob Ward is a historian at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He has written in the history of science and technology, environmental history, business and financial history, and political history. He recently published Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024) and he's currently working on a history of futurology in the United Kingdom and Europe from 1945 to the present day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The transformation of the Labour Party by 1997 is among the most consequential political developments in modern British history. Futures of Socialism overhauls the story of Labour's modernisation and provides an innovative new history. Diving into the tumultuous world of the British left after 1973, rocked by crushing defeats, bitter schisms, and ideological disorientation, Colm Murphy uncovers competing intellectual agendas for modern socialism. Responding to deindustrialisation, neoliberalism, and constitutional agitation, these visions of 'modernisation' ranged across domestic and European policy and the politics of class, gender, race, and democracy. By reconstructing the sites and networks of political debate, Futures of Socialism: ‘Modernisation', the Labour Party, and the British Left, 1973–1997 (Cambridge UP, 2023) explains their changing influence inside Labour. It also throws new light on New Labour, highlighting its roots in this social-democratic intellectual maelstrom. Futures of Socialism provides an essential analysis of social democracy in an era of market liberalism, and of the ideas behind a historic political reconstruction that remains deeply controversial today. Colm Murphy is a historian of modern British and Irish politics and political economy at Queen Mary University of London. He has published on 1970s-80s social democracy (including its political culture, evolving electoral strategy, and economic policymaking) and on Irish labour relations and nationalism in the 1910s. His more recent work has focused on the politics of economic policy, including Keynesianism, austerity, trade, and currency. Since 2018, Colm has worked for the Mile End Institute and is currently its Deputy Director. Jacob Ward is a historian at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He has written in the history of science and technology, environmental history, business and financial history, and political history. He recently published Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024) and he's currently working on a history of futurology in the United Kingdom and Europe from 1945 to the present day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

The transformation of the Labour Party by 1997 is among the most consequential political developments in modern British history. Futures of Socialism overhauls the story of Labour's modernisation and provides an innovative new history. Diving into the tumultuous world of the British left after 1973, rocked by crushing defeats, bitter schisms, and ideological disorientation, Colm Murphy uncovers competing intellectual agendas for modern socialism. Responding to deindustrialisation, neoliberalism, and constitutional agitation, these visions of 'modernisation' ranged across domestic and European policy and the politics of class, gender, race, and democracy. By reconstructing the sites and networks of political debate, Futures of Socialism: ‘Modernisation', the Labour Party, and the British Left, 1973–1997 (Cambridge UP, 2023) explains their changing influence inside Labour. It also throws new light on New Labour, highlighting its roots in this social-democratic intellectual maelstrom. Futures of Socialism provides an essential analysis of social democracy in an era of market liberalism, and of the ideas behind a historic political reconstruction that remains deeply controversial today. Colm Murphy is a historian of modern British and Irish politics and political economy at Queen Mary University of London. He has published on 1970s-80s social democracy (including its political culture, evolving electoral strategy, and economic policymaking) and on Irish labour relations and nationalism in the 1910s. His more recent work has focused on the politics of economic policy, including Keynesianism, austerity, trade, and currency. Since 2018, Colm has worked for the Mile End Institute and is currently its Deputy Director. Jacob Ward is a historian at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He has written in the history of science and technology, environmental history, business and financial history, and political history. He recently published Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024) and he's currently working on a history of futurology in the United Kingdom and Europe from 1945 to the present day.

The transformation of the Labour Party by 1997 is among the most consequential political developments in modern British history. Futures of Socialism overhauls the story of Labour's modernisation and provides an innovative new history. Diving into the tumultuous world of the British left after 1973, rocked by crushing defeats, bitter schisms, and ideological disorientation, Colm Murphy uncovers competing intellectual agendas for modern socialism. Responding to deindustrialisation, neoliberalism, and constitutional agitation, these visions of 'modernisation' ranged across domestic and European policy and the politics of class, gender, race, and democracy. By reconstructing the sites and networks of political debate, Futures of Socialism: ‘Modernisation', the Labour Party, and the British Left, 1973–1997 (Cambridge UP, 2023) explains their changing influence inside Labour. It also throws new light on New Labour, highlighting its roots in this social-democratic intellectual maelstrom. Futures of Socialism provides an essential analysis of social democracy in an era of market liberalism, and of the ideas behind a historic political reconstruction that remains deeply controversial today. Colm Murphy is a historian of modern British and Irish politics and political economy at Queen Mary University of London. He has published on 1970s-80s social democracy (including its political culture, evolving electoral strategy, and economic policymaking) and on Irish labour relations and nationalism in the 1910s. His more recent work has focused on the politics of economic policy, including Keynesianism, austerity, trade, and currency. Since 2018, Colm has worked for the Mile End Institute and is currently its Deputy Director. Jacob Ward is a historian at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He has written in the history of science and technology, environmental history, business and financial history, and political history. He recently published Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024) and he's currently working on a history of futurology in the United Kingdom and Europe from 1945 to the present day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Aaron Benanav discusses the second part of his ‘Beyond Capitalism' essay series in the New Left Review. In this part he lays out the institutional design of his proposal of a multi-criterial economy. Shownotes Aaron at Cornell University: https://cals.cornell.edu/people/aaron-benanav Aaron's personal website: https://www.aaronbenanav.com/ Access to Aaron's paywalled publications: https://www.aaronbenanav.com/papers Mailing List to join the Movement for Multi-Dimensional Economics: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeUF7MZ2jQJXY_wHKn5xSIo-_L0tkMO-SG079sa5lGhRJTgqg/viewform Benanav, A. (2025). Beyond Capitalism—1. New Left Review, Issue 153, 65–128. https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii153/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-1 Benanav, A. (2025). Beyond Capitalism—2. New Left Review, Issue 154, 97–143. https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii154/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-2 Benanv, A. (2020). Automation and the Future of Work. Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2682-automation-and-the-future-of-work on economic stagnation, see especially chapter 3, “In the Shadow of Stagnation”. on Marx's concept of the Value-Form: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/appendix.htm Moore, J.W. & Patel, R. (2020). A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/817-a-history-of-the-world-in-seven-cheap-things on the abstract domination of capitalism: Postone, M. (1993). Time, Labor and Social Domination. A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory. Cambridge University Press. https://files.libcom.org/files/Moishe%20Postone%20-%20Time,%20Labor,%20and%20Social%20Domination.pdf Mau, S. (2023). Mute Compulsion. A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital. Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2759-mute-compulsion Leipold, B. (2024). Citizen Marx. Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought. Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691205236/citizen-marx on GDP (Gross Domestic Product): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product on the Five-Year Plans in the Soviet Union: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_the_Soviet_Union Katsenelinboigen, A. (1977). Coloured Markets in the Soviet Union. Soviet Studies. Vol. 29, No.1. 62-85. https://www.jstor.org/stable/150728 Uvalić, M. (2018). The Rise and Fall of Market Socialism in Yugoslavia. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331223694_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Market_Socialism_in_Yugoslavia on Friedrich Hayek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek Hayek, F. A. (1945). The Use of Knowledge in Society. The American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1809376 on the Pareto Optimum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency on Rational Choice Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_model on Behavioral Economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics on Otto Neurath: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Neurath on Neurath's technocratic tendencies: https://jacobin.com/2023/02/technocratic-socialism-otto-neurath-utopianism-capitalism on Joseph Raz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Raz on Utilitarianism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism on the Capability Approach by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach on the Human Development Index (HDI): https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI on the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs): https://sdgs.un.org/goals on Multi-Objective Optimization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-objective_optimization Saros, D. E. (2014). Information Technology and Socialist Construction. The End of Capital and the Transition to Socialism. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Information-Technology-and-Socialist-Construction-The-End-of-Capital-and-the-Transition-to-Socialism/Saros/p/book/9780415742924 on Neoclassical Economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_economics on Citizen Assemblies and Sortition: https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/ on John Stuart Mill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill Mill, J. S. (2011). On Liberty. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/on-liberty/62EC27F1E66E2BCBA29DDCD5294B3DE0 McCabe, H. (2021). John Stuart Mill, Socialist. McGill-Queen's University Press. https://www.mqup.ca/john-stuart-mill--socialist-products-9780228005742.php on Degrowth: https://degrowth.info/ on Nick Land and Right Accelerationism: https://youtu.be/lrOVKHg_PJQ?si=Q4oFbaM1p4fhcWP0 on Left Accelerationism: https://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/ Devine, P. (2002). Participatory Planning through Negotiated Coordination. Science & Society, Vol. 66, No. 1, 72-85. https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/siso.66.1.72.21001?journalCode=siso on Oskar R. Lange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_R._Lange on Lange's neoclassical approach to Socialism: https://jacobin.com/2022/10/oskar-lange-neoclassical-marxism-limits-of-capitalism-economic-theory Kowalik, T. (1990). Lange-Lerner Mechanism. In: Eatwell, J., Milgate, M., Newman, P. (eds). Problems of the Planned Economy. Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-20863-0_21 on Joseph Schumpeters concept of Creative Destruction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction Shaikh, A. (2016). Capitalism. Competition, Conflict, Crises. Oxford Academic. https://academic.oup.com/book/1464 Kornai, J. (1980). “Hard” and “Soft” Budget Constraint. Acta Oeconomica, 25(3/4), 231–245. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40728773 on the Cobb-Douglas Production Function: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobb%E2%80%93Douglas_production_function on Adam Smith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith Lutosch, H. (2025). Embracing the Small Stuff. Caring for Children in a Liberated Society. In: Groos, J., & Sorg, C. (Eds.). (2025). Creative Construction. Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction Hahnel, R. (2021). Democratic Economic Planning. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Democratic-Economic-Planning/Hahnel/p/book/9781032003320 Cockshott, P. & Cottrell, A. (1993). Towards a New Socialism. Spokesman. https://users.wfu.edu/cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf on Universal Basic Services (UBS): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_services https://autonomy.work/ubs-hub/ Fraser, N. & Sorg, C. (2025). Socialism, Planning and the Relativity of Dirt. In: Groos, J., & Sorg, C. (Eds.). (2025). Creative Construction. Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction on Milton Friedman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman on John Maynard Keynes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes Aaron on what to learn from radical Keynesianism for a transitionary Program: Benanav, A. & Henwood, D. (2025). Behind the News. Beyond the Capitalist Economy w/ Aaron Benanav. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2diIiFkkM4x7MoZhi9e0tx on Socializing Finance: McCarthy, M. A. (2025). The Master's Tools. How Finance Wrecked Democracy (And a Radical Plan to Rebuild It). Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/755-the-master-s-tools Future Histories Episodes on Related Topics S3E47 | Jason W. Moore on Socialism in the Web of Life https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e47-jason-w-moore-on-socialism-in-the-web-of-life/ S03E29 | Nancy Fraser on Alternatives to Capitalism https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e29-nancy-fraser-on-alternatives-to-capitalism/ S03E04 | Tim Platenkamp on Republican Socialism, General Planning and Parametric Control https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e04-tim-platenkamp-on-republican-socialism-general-planning-and-parametric-control/ S02E33 | Pat Devine on Negotiated Coordination https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e33-pat-devine-on-negotiated-coordination/ S03E10 | Aaron Benanav on Associational Socialism and Democratic Planning https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e10-aaron-benanav-on-associational-socialism-and-democratic-planning/ S01E32 | Daniel E. Saros on Digital Socialism and the Abolition of Capital (Part 2) https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e32-daniel-e-saros-on-digital-socialism-and-the-abolition-of-capital-part-2/ S02E31 | Daniel E. Saros on Digital Socialism and the Abolition of Capital (Part 1) https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e31-daniel-e-saros-on-digital-socialism-and-the-abolition-of-capital-part-1/ --- If you are interested in democratic economic planning, these resources might be of help: Democratic planning – an information website https://www.democratic-planning.com/ Sorg, C. & Groos, J. (eds.)(2025). Rethinking Economic Planning. Competition & Change Special Issue Volume 29 Issue 1. https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ccha/29/1 Groos, J. & Sorg, C. (2025). Creative Construction - Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. [for a review copy, please contact: amber.lanfranchi[at]bristol.ac.uk] https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction International Network for Democratic Economic Planning https://www.indep.network/ Democratic Planning Research Platform: https://www.planningresearch.net/ --- Future Histories Contact & Support If you like Future Histories, please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/FutureHistories Contact: office@futurehistories.today Twitter: https://twitter.com/FutureHpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futurehpodcast/ Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@FutureHistories English webpage: https://futurehistories-international.com   Episode Keywords #AaronBenanav, #JanGroos, #Interview, #FutureHistories, #FutureHistoriesInternational, #futurehistoriesinternational, #Transition, #DemocraticPlanning, #Keynes, #Efficiency, #Economics, #NeoclassicalEconomics, #NeoclassicalSocialism, #OttoNeurath, #DemocraticEconomicPlanning, #Capitalism, #Economics, #Socialism, #Socialisation, #Investment, #Degrowth, #UniversalBasicServices, #CareWork

There has been a lot of attention on the origins and rise of the ideas underlying neoliberalism. But too often, these idea-centered accounts obscure the real class dynamics that drive political change. On this episode of Confronting Capitalism, Vivek explains how neoliberal ideas overtook post-war Keynesianism and why those ideas took hold — not because of their appeal but because of the balance of class forces. The latest issue of Catalyst is out and you can subscribe for just $20 using the code CONFRONTINGCAPITALISM: https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=CONFRONTINGCAPITALISM Have a question for us? Write to us by email: confronting.capitalism@jacobin.com Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, and published by Jacobin. Music by Zonkey.

Aaron Benanav discusses the first part of his ‘Beyond Capitalism' essay series in the New Left Review. In this part he lays the groundwork for his proposal of a multi-criterial economy. SASE - Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics: https://sase.org/ SASE Network I: Alternatives to Capitalism (including CfP): https://sase.org/networks/i-alternatives-to-capitalism/     Shownotes Aaron at Cornell University: https://cals.cornell.edu/people/aaron-benanav Aaron's personal website: https://www.aaronbenanav.com/ Access to Aaron's paywalled publications: https://www.aaronbenanav.com/papers Mailing List to join the Movement for Multi-Dimensional Economics: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeUF7MZ2jQJXY_wHKn5xSIo-_L0tkMO-SG079sa5lGhRJTgqg/viewform Benanav, A. (2025). Beyond Capitalism—1. New Left Review, Issue 153, 65–128. https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii153/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-1 Benanav, A. (2025). Beyond Capitalism—2. New Left Review, Issue 154, 97–143. https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii154/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-2 Benanv, A. (2020). Automation and the Future of Work. Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2682-automation-and-the-future-of-work on economic stagnation, see especially chapter 3, “In the Shadow of Stagnation”. on Marx's concept of the Value-Form: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/appendix.htm Moore, J.W. & Patel, R. (2020). A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/817-a-history-of-the-world-in-seven-cheap-things on the abstract domination of capitalism: Postone, M. (1993). Time, Labor and Social Domination. A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory. Cambridge University Press. https://files.libcom.org/files/Moishe%20Postone%20-%20Time,%20Labor,%20and%20Social%20Domination.pdf Mau, S. (2023). Mute Compulsion. A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital. Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2759-mute-compulsion Leipold, B. (2024). Citizen Marx. Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought. Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691205236/citizen-marx on GDP (Gross Domestic Product): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product on the Five-Year Plans in the Soviet Union: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_the_Soviet_Union Katsenelinboigen, A. (1977). Coloured Markets in the Soviet Union. Soviet Studies. Vol. 29, No.1. 62-85. https://www.jstor.org/stable/150728 Uvalić, M. (2018). The Rise and Fall of Market Socialism in Yugoslavia. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331223694_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Market_Socialism_in_Yugoslavia on Friedrich Hayek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek Hayek, F. A. (1945). The Use of Knowledge in Society. The American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1809376 on the Pareto Optimum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency on Rational Choice Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_model on Behavioral Economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics on Otto Neurath: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Neurath on Neurath's technocratic tendencies: https://jacobin.com/2023/02/technocratic-socialism-otto-neurath-utopianism-capitalism on Joseph Raz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Raz on Utilitarianism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism on the Capability Approach by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach on the Human Development Index (HDI): https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI on the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs): https://sdgs.un.org/goals on Multi-Objective Optimization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-objective_optimization Saros, D. E. (2014). Information Technology and Socialist Construction. The End of Capital and the Transition to Socialism. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Information-Technology-and-Socialist-Construction-The-End-of-Capital-and-the-Transition-to-Socialism/Saros/p/book/9780415742924 on Neoclassical Economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_economics on Citizen Assemblies and Sortition: https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/ on John Stuart Mill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill Mill, J. S. (2011). On Liberty. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/on-liberty/62EC27F1E66E2BCBA29DDCD5294B3DE0 McCabe, H. (2021). John Stuart Mill, Socialist. McGill-Queen's University Press. https://www.mqup.ca/john-stuart-mill--socialist-products-9780228005742.php on Degrowth: https://degrowth.info/ on Nick Land and Right Accelerationism: https://youtu.be/lrOVKHg_PJQ?si=Q4oFbaM1p4fhcWP0 on Left Accelerationism: https://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/ Devine, P. (2002). Participatory Planning through Negotiated Coordination. Science & Society, Vol. 66, No. 1, 72-85. https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/siso.66.1.72.21001?journalCode=siso on Oskar R. Lange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_R._Lange on Lange's neoclassical approach to Socialism: https://jacobin.com/2022/10/oskar-lange-neoclassical-marxism-limits-of-capitalism-economic-theory Kowalik, T. (1990). Lange-Lerner Mechanism. In: Eatwell, J., Milgate, M., Newman, P. (eds). Problems of the Planned Economy. Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-20863-0_21 on Joseph Schumpeters concept of Creative Destruction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction Shaikh, A. (2016). Capitalism. Competition, Conflict, Crises. Oxford Academic. https://academic.oup.com/book/1464 Kornai, J. (1980). “Hard” and “Soft” Budget Constraint. Acta Oeconomica, 25(3/4), 231–245. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40728773 on the Cobb-Douglas Production Function: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobb%E2%80%93Douglas_production_function on Adam Smith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith Lutosch, H. (2025). Embracing the Small Stuff. Caring for Children in a Liberated Society. In: Groos, J., & Sorg, C. (Eds.). (2025). Creative Construction. Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction Hahnel, R. (2021). Democratic Economic Planning. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Democratic-Economic-Planning/Hahnel/p/book/9781032003320 Cockshott, P. & Cottrell, A. (1993). Towards a New Socialism. Spokesman. https://users.wfu.edu/cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf on Universal Basic Services (UBS): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_services https://autonomy.work/ubs-hub/ Fraser, N. & Sorg, C. (2025). Socialism, Planning and the Relativity of Dirt. In: Groos, J., & Sorg, C. (Eds.). (2025). Creative Construction. Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction on Milton Friedman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman on John Maynard Keynes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes Aaron on what to learn from radical Keynesianism for a transitionary Program: Benanav, A. & Henwood, D. (2025). Behind the News. Beyond the Capitalist Economy w/ Aaron Benanav. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2diIiFkkM4x7MoZhi9e0tx on Socializing Finance: McCarthy, M. A. (2025). The Master's Tools. How Finance Wrecked Democracy (And a Radical Plan to Rebuild It). Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/755-the-master-s-tools Future Histories Episodes on Related Topics S3E47 | Jason W. Moore on Socialism in the Web of Life https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e47-jason-w-moore-on-socialism-in-the-web-of-life/ S03E29 | Nancy Fraser on Alternatives to Capitalism https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e29-nancy-fraser-on-alternatives-to-capitalism/ S03E04 | Tim Platenkamp on Republican Socialism, General Planning and Parametric Control https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e04-tim-platenkamp-on-republican-socialism-general-planning-and-parametric-control/ S02E33 | Pat Devine on Negotiated Coordination https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e33-pat-devine-on-negotiated-coordination/ S03E10 | Aaron Benanav on Associational Socialism and Democratic Planning https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e10-aaron-benanav-on-associational-socialism-and-democratic-planning/ S01E32 | Daniel E. Saros on Digital Socialism and the Abolition of Capital (Part 2) https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e32-daniel-e-saros-on-digital-socialism-and-the-abolition-of-capital-part-2/ S02E31 | Daniel E. Saros on Digital Socialism and the Abolition of Capital (Part 1) https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e31-daniel-e-saros-on-digital-socialism-and-the-abolition-of-capital-part-1/ --- If you are interested in democratic economic planning, these resources might be of help: Democratic planning – an information website https://www.democratic-planning.com/ Sorg, C. & Groos, J. (eds.)(2025). Rethinking Economic Planning. Competition & Change Special Issue Volume 29 Issue 1. https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ccha/29/1 Groos, J. & Sorg, C. (2025). Creative Construction - Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. [for a review copy, please contact: amber.lanfranchi[at]bristol.ac.uk] https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction International Network for Democratic Economic Planning https://www.indep.network/ Democratic Planning Research Platform: https://www.planningresearch.net/ --- Future Histories Contact & Support If you like Future Histories, please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/FutureHistories Contact: office@futurehistories.today Twitter: https://twitter.com/FutureHpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futurehpodcast/ Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@FutureHistories English webpage: https://futurehistories-international.com   Episode Keywords #AaronBenanav, #JanGroos, #Interview, #FutureHistories, #FutureHistoriesInternational, #futurehistoriesinternational, #Transition, #DemocraticPlanning, #Keynes, #Efficiency, #Economics, #NeoclassicalEconomics, #NeoclassicalSocialism, #OttoNeurath, #DemocraticEconomicPlanning, #Capitalism, #Economics, #Socialism, #Socialisation, #Investment, #Degrowth, #UniversalBasicServices, #CareWork

SHOW SCHEDULE 10-15--25 CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR 1964 ATLANTIC CITYCONVENTION HALL THE SHOW BEGINS IN THE DOUBTS ABOUT CONGRESS.... 10-15--25 FIRST HOUR 9-915 HEADLINE: Obamacare Subsidies Trigger Government Shutdown Debate GUEST NAME: Michael Toth SUMMARY: Michael Toth explains that the current government shutdown debate centers on extending two expensive Biden-era Obamacare subsidies. These changes allow individuals earning over 400% of the federal poverty line to receive subsidies and provide 100% coverage for the near-poor. The original Obamacare cross-subsidy structure failed because young, healthy individuals found premiums too high. Toth advocates deregulation, such as allowing insurance companies to charge lower, risk-adjusted rates and enabling single business owners to use Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) for cheaper coverage. 915-930 HEADLINE: Obamacare Subsidies Trigger Government Shutdown Debate GUEST NAME: Michael Toth SUMMARY: Michael Toth explains that the current government shutdown debate centers on extending two expensive Biden-era Obamacare subsidies. These changes allow individuals earning over 400% of the federal poverty line to receive subsidies and provide 100% coverage for the near-poor. The original Obamacare cross-subsidy structure failed because young, healthy individuals found premiums too high. Toth advocates deregulation, such as allowing insurance companies to charge lower, risk-adjusted rates and enabling single business owners to use Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) for cheaper coverage. 930-945 HEADLINE: Hamas, Hostages, and Middle East Turmoil: Challenges to the Trump Ceasefire Plan GUEST NAME:Jonathan Schanzer SUMMARY: Jonathan Schanzer discusses complications in the Trump ceasefire plan, including Hamas delaying the return of deceased hostages to maintain leverage. The released prisoners, including potential Hamas leaders, raise concerns about where the organization's center of gravity will shift if they are deported to places like Turkey or Qatar. Schanzer views Turkey, an autocratic supporter of Hamas, as a problematic guarantor of the ceasefire. Internationally, Iran continues its nuclear program despite snapback sanctions, and al-Sharaa is meeting with Putin regarding Russian assets in Syria. 945-1000 HEADLINE: Hamas, Hostages, and Middle East Turmoil: Challenges to the Trump Ceasefire Plan GUEST NAME:Jonathan Schanzer SUMMARY: Jonathan Schanzer discusses complications in the Trump ceasefire plan, including Hamas delaying the return of deceased hostages to maintain leverage. The released prisoners, including potential Hamas leaders, raise concerns about where the organization's center of gravity will shift if they are deported to places like Turkey or Qatar. Schanzer views Turkey, an autocratic supporter of Hamas, as a problematic guarantor of the ceasefire. Internationally, Iran continues its nuclear program despite snapback sanctions, and al-Sharaa is meeting with Putin regarding Russian assets in Syria. SECOND HOUR 10-1015 HEADLINE: China's Predicament in the Middle East and Domestic Economic Instability GUEST NAME: General Blaine Holt SUMMARY: General Blaine Holt analyzes China's strategic challenges, noting Beijing is concerned about losing access to critical oil and gas resources as US leadership advances the Abraham Accords. China's previous regional deals, like the Saudi-Iran agreement, lacked substance compared to US business commitments. Holt suggests internal pressures might lead Iran toward the Accords. Domestically, China faces accelerating deflation and uncertainty regarding Xi Jinping's leadership due to four competing factions before the fourth plenum. 1015-1030 HEADLINE: South Korea's Descent into Authoritarianism and Persecution of Opposition GUEST NAME: Morse Tan SUMMARY: Morse Tan argues that South Korea is moving toward a "rising communist dictatorship" that oppresses political and religious figures. The indictment of the Unification Church leader and the targeting of the rightful President Yoon exemplify this trend. This persecution serves as an intimidation campaign, demonstrating the regime's disregard for the populace. Tan recommends the US implement active measures, including sanctions relating to a coup d'état and visa sanctions, while also pressing for greater military cooperation. 1030-1045 HEADLINE: Russian War Economy Stalls as Oil Prices Decline and Sanctions Bite GUEST NAME: Michael Bernstam SUMMARY: Michael Bernstam reports that the Russian economy is struggling as global oil prices decline and sanctions increase transportation costs, leading to a $13 to $14 per barrel discount on Russian oil. The "military Keynesianism" economy is exhausted, resulting in staff cuts across industrial sectors. Forecasts indicate contraction in late 2025 and 2026, with the IMF lowering its growth projection for 2025 to 0.6%. Russia is avoiding sanctions by routing payments through neighbors like Kyrgyzstan, who have become major financial hubs. 1045-1100 HEADLINE: Lessons from the Swiss National Bank: Risk-Taking, Exchange Rates, and Fiscal Responsibility GUEST NAME: John Cochrane SUMMARY: Economist John Cochrane analyzes the Swiss National Bank (SNB), noting it differs greatly from the US Federal Reserve by investing heavily in foreign stocks and bonds to manage the Swiss franc's exchange rate. The SNB's massive balance sheet carries risks accepted by Swiss taxpayers and the Cantons. Switzerland, being fiscally responsible (running no budget deficits), finds central banking easier. Cochrane advises that the US Fed should not be buying stocks or venturing into fiscal policy. THIRD HOUR 1100-1115 HEADLINE: China Retaliates Against Dutch Chipmaker Seizure Amid European Fragmentation GUEST NAME:Theresa Fallon SUMMARY: Theresa Fallon discusses China imposing export controls on Nexperia after the Dutch government seized control of the chipmaker, which was owned by China's Wingtech. The Dutch acted due to fears the Chinese owner would strip the technology and equipment, despite Nexperia producing low-quality chips for cars. Fallon notes Europe needs a better chip policy but struggles to speak with one voice, as fragmented policy allows China to drive wedges and weaken the EU. 1115-1130 HEADLINE: China's Economic Slowdown, Deflation, and the Spectre of Japanification GUEST NAME: Andrew Collier SUMMARY: Andrew Collier discusses China's economic woes, characterized by persistent deflation, with the CPI down 0.3% (6 out of 9 months in the red) and the PPI down for 36 straight months. This environment raises concerns about "Japanification"—a multi-decade slowdown after a property crash. Major structural changes to stimulate consumer consumption are unlikely at the upcoming Communist Party plenum, as the system favors state investment. The property market collapse means foreign investment is leaving, and Collier suggests the economy may not bottom until 2027 or 2028. 1130-1145 HEADLINE: SpaceX Starship Success, Private Space Dominance, and Government Inaction GUEST NAME: Bob Zimmerman SUMMARY: Bob Zimmerman describes SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy 11th test flight as "remarkable," highlighting successful booster reuse and controlled re-entry despite missing tiles. He asserts that private enterprise, like SpaceX, runs the "real American space program" aimed at Mars colonization, outpacing government efforts. In contrast, European projects like Callisto, proposed in 2015, demonstrate government "inaction." JPL is also laying off staff following the cancellation of the Mars sample return project, forcing organizations like Lowell Observatory to seek private funding. 1145-1200 HEADLINE: SpaceX Starship Success, Private Space Dominance, and Government Inaction GUEST NAME: Bob Zimmerman SUMMARY: Bob Zimmerman describes SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy 11th test flight as "remarkable," highlighting successful booster reuse and controlled re-entry despite missing tiles. He asserts that private enterprise, like SpaceX, runs the "real American space program" aimed at Mars colonization, outpacing government efforts. In contrast, European projects like Callisto, proposed in 2015, demonstrate government "inaction." JPL is also laying off staff following the cancellation of the Mars sample return project, forcing organizations like Lowell Observatory to seek private funding. FOURTH HOUR 12-1215 HEADLINE: Commodity Market Trends and UK's Lack of Risk Appetite for AI Innovation GUEST NAME: Simon Constable SUMMARY: Simon Constable notes that data center expansion for AI is increasing prices for copper (up 15%) and steel (up 14%). He points out that the UK lags significantly behind the US in building new AI data centers (170 vs. 5,000+) due to a lack of risk appetite, insufficient wealth, and poor marketing of new ideas. Separately, Constable discusses the collapse of a UK China spying trial because the prior government failed to officially classify China as a national security threat during the alleged offenses. 1215-1230 HEADLINE: Commodity Market Trends and UK's Lack of Risk Appetite for AI Innovation GUEST NAME: Simon Constable SUMMARY: Simon Constable notes that data center expansion for AI is increasing prices for copper (up 15%) and steel (up 14%). He points out that the UK lags significantly behind the US in building new AI data centers (170 vs. 5,000+) due to a lack of risk appetite, insufficient wealth, and poor marketing of new ideas. Separately, Constable discusses the collapse of a UK China spying trial because the prior government failed to officially classify China as a national security threat during the alleged offenses. 1230-1245 HEADLINE: AI Regulation Debate: Premature Laws vs. Emerging Norms GUEST NAME: Kevin Frazier SUMMARY: Kevin Frazier critiques the legislative rush to regulate AI, arguing that developing norms might be more effective than premature laws. He notes that bills like California's AB 1047, which demands factual accuracy, fundamentally misunderstand AI's generative nature. Imposing vague standards, as seen in New York's RAISE Act, risks chilling innovation and preventing widespread benefits, like affordable legal or therapy tools. Frazier emphasizes that AI policy should be grounded in empirical data rather than speculative fears. 1245-100 AM HEADLINE: AI Regulation Debate: Premature Laws vs. Emerging Norms GUEST NAME: Kevin Frazier SUMMARY: Kevin Frazier critiques the legislative rush to regulate AI, arguing that developing norms might be more effective than premature laws. He notes that bills like California's AB 1047, which demands factual accuracy, fundamentally misunderstand AI's generative nature. Imposing vague standards, as seen in New York's RAISE Act, risks chilling innovation and preventing widespread benefits, like affordable legal or therapy tools. Frazier emphasizes that AI policy should be grounded in empirical data rather than speculative fears.

HEADLINE: Russian War Economy Stalls as Oil Prices Decline and Sanctions Bite GUEST NAME: Michael Bernstam SUMMARY: Michael Bernstam reports that the Russian economy is struggling as global oil prices decline and sanctions increase transportation costs, leading to a $13 to $14 per barrel discount on Russian oil. The "military Keynesianism" economy is exhausted, resulting in staff cuts across industrial sectors. Forecasts indicate contraction in late 2025 and 2026, with the IMF lowering its growth projection for 2025 to 0.6%. Russia is avoiding sanctions by routing payments through neighbors like Kyrgyzstan, who have become major financial hubs. 1945

******Support the channel******Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenterPayPal: paypal.me/thedissenterPayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuyPayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9lPayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpzPayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9mPayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ******Follow me on******Website: https://www.thedissenter.net/The Dissenter Goodreads list: https://shorturl.at/7BMoBFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/Twitter: https://x.com/TheDissenterYT This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/ Anna Bocca is a YouTuber (@annabocca). She makes videos about the scams of the corporate world, our economy, society, and other topics. In this episode, we talk about neoliberalism. We start by discussing what it is, its origins, and how it got spread through propaganda and interventionism. We talk about Italian fascism and austerity measures, FDR's New Deal, and Keynesianism and the post-war consensus. We discuss the 1970s and the rise of neoliberal capitalism, the influence of Milton Friedman, and whether greed is the primary human motivation. We also talk about Margaret Thatcher and the consequences of neoliberal policy. We discuss whether meritocracy is real. Finally, we talk about self-improvement, the rise of hustle culture and the manosphere, and the marketization of mating and dating.--A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: PER HELGE LARSEN, JERRY MULLER, BERNARDO SEIXAS, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, PHIL KAVANAGH, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, FERGAL CUSSEN, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, ROMAIN ROCH, YANICK PUNTER, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, NELLEKE BAK, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, PAULO TOLENTINO, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, HEDIN BRØNNER, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, URSULA LITZCKE, SCOTT, ZACHARY FISH, TIM DUFFY, SUNNY SMITH, JON WISMAN, WILLIAM BUCKNER, LUKE GLOWACKI, GEORGIOS THEOPHANOUS, CHRIS WILLIAMSON, PETER WOLOSZYN, DAVID WILLIAMS, DIOGO COSTA, ALEX CHAU, CORALIE CHEVALLIER, BANGALORE ATHEISTS, LARRY D. LEE JR., OLD HERRINGBONE, MICHAEL BAILEY, DAN SPERBER, ROBERT GRESSIS, JEFF MCMAHAN, JAKE ZUEHL, MARK CAMPBELL, TOMAS DAUBNER, LUKE NISSEN, KIMBERLY JOHNSON, JESSICA NOWICKI, LINDA BRANDIN, VALENTIN STEINMANN, ALEXANDER HUBBARD, BR, JONAS HERTNER, URSULA GOODENOUGH, DAVID PINSOF, SEAN NELSON, MIKE LAVIGNE, JOS KNECHT, LUCY, MANVIR SINGH, PETRA WEIMANN, CAROLA FEEST, MAURO JÚNIOR, 航 豊川, TONY BARRETT, NIKOLAI VISHNEVSKY, STEVEN GANGESTAD, TED FARRIS, HUGO B., JAMES, JORDAN MANSFIELD, CHARLOTTE ALLEN, PETER STOYKO, DAVID TONNER, LEE BECK, PATRICK DALTON-HOLMES, NICK KRASNEY, RACHEL ZAK, AND DENNIS XAVIER!A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, NICK GOLDEN, CHRISTINE GLASS, IGOR NIKIFOROVSKI, AND PER KRAULIS!AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, AND GREGORY HASTINGS!

HEADLINE: Russian Economic Crisis Driven by Budget Strain and Oil Market Competition GUEST NAME: Michael Bernstam SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Michael Bernstam about Russia's deteriorating economy and budget crisis. After three years of "military Keynesianism" driving manufacturing expansion, the labor force is exhausted and the government faces severe financial constraints. The new budget forecasts declining capital investment for the first time in decades, with military spending dropping 5.8% nominally. Russia increased profit taxes from 20% to 25% and is raising the value-added tax. Oil revenues, providing one-third of budget income, are declining due to global competition. With production costs of $42-44 per barrel plus required $15 discounts, Russia cannot compete effectively. The US shale revolution, producing 14 million barrels daily, drives OPEC's market share fight. OPEC's October 5 meeting will determine November quotas, with increases of at least 137,000 barrels per day expected, accelerating price declines. Taiwan purchases NAFTA, a refined oil product essential for semiconductors, from Russia at $70-80 per barrel, but only due to discounts. Bernstam concludes that capitalism, markets, and technological revolution—not military action—will ultimately challenge Russia, as US technological progress has added 8 million barrels of oil daily since 2004.

Members of Class Unity discuss the return of military Keynesianism, the work of the Polish Marxian economist Michał Kalecki, and the current crisis of international politics with Professor Jan Toporowski. Jan Toporowski is Visiting Professor of Economics in the department of International Development at King's College London. He recently retired from the position of Professor […]

Money, debt, and finance shape the lives of everyone globally, including through the policies and actions of national central banks – yet even those who are well-versed in these subjects often miss the full scope of these intricate relationships. For the average person, headlines about mounting government debt and surging interest rates often feel like a confusing and concerning trend. What can we learn from historical cycles, global energy dynamics, and the differing fiscal strategies of nations about the trajectory of the world economy? In today's episode, Nate is joined once more by Lyn Alden for a deeper exploration of the intricate relationships between fiscal dominance, rising levels of debt, and the role of energy in shaping our current financial realities. Lyn explains how a historical analysis shines light on the gaps in economic theories like Keynesianism and Modern Monetary Theory, and what the implications are for our present situation. Using this perspective, they discuss recent trends in Bitcoin, Stablecoins, and Artificial Intelligence – and what further developments in these areas might mean for average people in developed and developing countries alike.  How can a deeper understanding of these dynamics prepare us for the economic challenges ahead? What lessons can we draw from past instances when public debt reached unsustainable levels? And as governments attempt to navigate familiar problems with new approaches, how might individuals prepare for the acceleration of this unstoppable train as we head into an increasingly uncertain future? (Conversation recorded on May 28th, 2025)   About Lyn Alden: Lyn Alden is an independent analyst and founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy with a background in engineering management. Her work provides institutional-level research in plain English, so that both institutional investors and retail investors can benefit from it. Lyn also serves as an independent director on the board of Swan.com and as a general partner at the venture capital firm Ego Death Capital. She is the author of the 2023 best-selling book Broken Money about the past, present, and future of money through the lens of technology. Lyn has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's degree in engineering management, with a focus on engineering economics, systems engineering, and financial modeling. She worked for over a decade as an electrical engineer at the Federal Aviation Administration's William J. Hughes Technical Center.   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners  

Mrs Thatcher's first term in office was one of the great get out of jail events. She came into office intent on braking with the Keynesianism and social democracy of the postwar consensus. She drew on the ideas of the economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman (both briefly discussed in this episode), with their championing of the free-market and, in Friedman's case, of monetarism. Initially, however, things didn't go well: unemployment soared, the economy shrank and even inflation, the very issue monetarism set out to tackle shot up. She maintained, however, that she had no intention of changing tack, declaring ‘the lady's not for turning'. By 1981, she was sitting on the worst favourability ratings of any Prime Minister since records had been kept.But then the economy started to come back from recession, helped by the fact that oil began to flow from Britain's North Sea fields, inflation fell, and her ‘right-to-buy' scheme allowing tenants of council housing to buy their homes proved popular. Nothing, though, helped her as much as the behaviour of two enemies.Labour kept up its drift leftwards leading to its split, with the Social Democratic Party launched by some senior figures leaving the party, most notably Roy Jenkins. In alliance with the Liberals, they represented a dangerous splitting of the anti-Tory vote.Even more helpful for Thatcher, was the invasion of the Falkland Islands – or Islas Malvinas – launched by the Argentinian junta under General Galtieri. By responding with military force, and winning, she was able to turn herself into a victorious war leader and a hero to many in Britain. Her approval rating surged to 51%.Suddenly, from someone expected to lose the next general election, she'd become a practically unbeatable leader for it.Illustration: British paratroopers entering Port Stanley – Puerto Argentino – in the Falkland Islands – las Islas Malvinas – at the end of the war against Argentina for their possession. Public Domain.Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

In 1976, Jim Callaghan took over from Harold Wilson as leader of the Labour Party and British Prime Minister. He was a competent politician, though not an outstanding one. He did his job well, but he was far from up to taking on an adversary as forceful as the leader of the Conservative Party, Maggie Thatcher.Callaghan's was the last government of the post-war consensus, based on a belief in a generalised social democracy, seeking to provide the social services needed to ensure that everyone could count on a safety net when one was needed, and built on a foundation of Keynesian economics. Thatcher rejected both social democracy and Keynesianism, which she held responsible for the decline of Britain, militarily, economically and even morally. Her objective was to end the postwar consensus and look for a radically new type of politics (and economics).The other huge innovation she oversaw was an entirely new approach to communication in politics. Using a remarkably talented advertising agency, Saatchi and Saatchi, she and the Conservative party ran devastating campaigns against her opponents. The most famous was focused on a poster of a queue of people in front of a banner marked ‘Unemployment Office' and with the legend ‘Labour isn't working'.As well as her powerful and effective campaigning, Labour was brought low by a series of errors made by Callaghan, many of which played into her hands. It was just possible that he might have won an election in 1978, or at least done less badly, but he lacked the foresight to call it (a mistake he later acknowledged). That meant that he went through the season of strikes that came to be known as the ‘Winter of Discontent' and, instead of choosing the timing of the election himself, was forced to call one when Thatcher brought in a no confidence motion in the Commons, carried by just one vote.The subsequent election, on 3 May 1979, saw the Conservatives win a solid majority of 43. Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman Prime Minister. And, as we'll start to see next week, launched herself on a programme of radical change.Illustration: Rubbish piling up in the streets as a result of the municipal workers' strike of the during the 'Winter of Discontent'. Public Domain.Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

In this welcome lecture to the 2025 Rothbard Graduate Seminar, Joseph Salerno dismantles the myth that Murray Rothbard was an outsider to mainstream economics.Drawing on Rothbard's deep academic training and early career, Salerno reveals how Rothbard was a thoroughly trained neoclassical economist before his conversion to Austrian economics. The talk highlights Rothbard's engagement with institutionalism, positivism, and Keynesianism, and how his discovery of Mises and praxeology transformed his outlook, ultimately forging one of the most original and radical economists of the 20th century.Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on Sunday, June 8, 2025.

FULL SHOW: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/macrodose⁠⁠⁠⁠On this week's episode of The Curve, James Meadway and Grace Blakeley discuss Rachel Reeves spending review, expected to mark a miserable return to austerity (1:41).In the full episode, James and Grace discuss Starmer pledging to increase defence spending to put Britain in a state of ‘war-fighting readiness', and the Autonomy Institute's report on how maximum temperatures limits will be required for workplaces.Autonomy Report: https://www.ier.org.uk/news/autonomy-institute-report-finds-2-3rds-of-uk-labour-force-could-be-working-in-extreme-heatwaves-by-end-of-2020s/Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠planetbproductions.co.uk

The political legacy of Elon Musk, the moral costs of Keynesianism, and the absurdity of Harvard and NPR as public goods.Welcome back to the Power & Market Podcast, a weekly news recap from the Mises Institute's editorial team. This week, Ryan McMaken, Tho Bishop, and Connor O'Keeffe discuss the Department of Government Efficiency letdown, dissect the ongoing degeneracy of Keynesian economics, and explore the rising movement to defund elite universities like Harvard. Has the establishment finally overplayed its hand? What's next for higher education? For more information and to subscribe, visit https://Mises.org/P&MPod

Yesterday, the self-styled San Francisco “progressive” Joan Williams was on the show arguing that Democrats need to relearn the language of the American working class. But, as some of you have noted, Williams seems oblivious to the fact that politics is about more than simply aping other people's language. What you say matters, and the language of American working class, like all industrial working classes, is rooted in a critique of capitalism. She should probably read the New Yorker staff writer John Cassidy's excellent new book, Capitalism and its Critics, which traces capitalism's evolution and criticism from the East India Company through modern times. He defines capitalism as production for profit by privately-owned companies in markets, encompassing various forms from Chinese state capitalism to hyper-globalization. The book examines capitalism's most articulate critics including the Luddites, Marx, Engels, Thomas Carlisle, Adam Smith, Rosa Luxemburg, Keynes & Hayek, and contemporary figures like Sylvia Federici and Thomas Piketty. Cassidy explores how major economists were often critics of their era's dominant capitalist model, and untangles capitalism's complicated relationship with colonialism, slavery and AI which he regards as a potentially unprecedented economic disruption. This should be essential listening for all Democrats seeking to reinvent a post Biden-Harris party and message. 5 key takeaways* Capitalism has many forms - From Chinese state capitalism to Keynesian managed capitalism to hyper-globalization, all fitting the basic definition of production for profit by privately-owned companies in markets.* Great economists are typically critics - Smith criticized mercantile capitalism, Keynes critiqued laissez-faire capitalism, and Hayek/Friedman opposed managed capitalism. Each generation's leading economists challenge their era's dominant model.* Modern corporate structure has deep roots - The East India Company was essentially a modern multinational corporation with headquarters, board of directors, stockholders, and even a private army - showing capitalism's organizational continuity across centuries.* Capitalism is intertwined with colonialism and slavery - Industrial capitalism was built on pre-existing colonial and slave systems, particularly through the cotton industry and plantation economies.* AI represents a potentially unprecedented disruption - Unlike previous technological waves, AI may substitute rather than complement human labor on a massive scale, potentially creating political backlash exceeding even the "China shock" that contributed to Trump's rise.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Full TranscriptAndrew Keen: Hello, everybody. A couple of days ago, we did a show with Joan Williams. She has a new book out, "Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back." A book about language, about how to talk to the American working class. She also had a piece in Jacobin Magazine, an anti-capitalist magazine, about how the left needs to speak to what she calls average American values. We talked, of course, about Bernie Sanders and AOC and their language of fighting oligarchy, and the New York Times followed that up with "The Enduring Power of Anti-Capitalism in American Politics."But of course, that brings the question: what exactly is capitalism? I did a little bit of research. We can find definitions of capitalism from AI, from Wikipedia, even from online dictionaries, but I thought we might do a little better than relying on Wikipedia and come to a man who's given capitalism and its critics a great deal of thought. John Cassidy is well known as a staff writer at The New Yorker. He's the author of a wonderful book, the best book, actually, on the dot-com insanity. And his new book, "Capitalism and its Critics," is out this week. John, congratulations on the book.So I've got to be a bit of a schoolmaster with you, John, and get some definitions first. What exactly is capitalism before we get to criticism of it?John Cassidy: Yeah, I mean, it's a very good question, Andrew. Obviously, through the decades, even the centuries, there have been many different definitions of the term capitalism and there are different types of capitalism. To not be sort of too ideological about it, the working definition I use is basically production for profit—that could be production of goods or mostly in the new and, you know, in today's economy, production of services—for profit by companies which are privately owned in markets. That's a very sort of all-encompassing definition.Within that, you can have all sorts of different types of capitalism. You can have Chinese state capitalism, you can have the old mercantilism, which industrial capitalism came after, which Trump seems to be trying to resurrect. You can have Keynesian managed capitalism that we had for 30 or 40 years after the Second World War, which I grew up in in the UK. Or you can have sort of hyper-globalization, hyper-capitalism that we've tried for the last 30 years. There are all those different varieties of capitalism consistent with a basic definition, I think.Andrew Keen: That keeps you busy, John. I know you started this project, which is a big book and it's a wonderful book. I read it. I don't always read all the books I have on the show, but I read from cover to cover full of remarkable stories of the critics of capitalism. You note in the beginning that you began this in 2016 with the beginnings of Trump. What was it about the 2016 election that triggered a book about capitalism and its critics?John Cassidy: Well, I was reporting on it at the time for The New Yorker and it struck me—I covered, I basically covered the economy in various forms for various publications since the late 80s, early 90s. In fact, one of my first big stories was the stock market crash of '87. So yes, I am that old. But it seemed to me in 2016 when you had Bernie Sanders running from the left and Trump running from the right, but both in some way offering very sort of similar critiques of capitalism. People forget that Trump in 2016 actually was running from the left of the Republican Party. He was attacking big business. He was attacking Wall Street. He doesn't do that these days very much, but at the time he was very much posing as the sort of outsider here to protect the interests of the average working man.And it seemed to me that when you had this sort of pincer movement against the then ruling model, this wasn't just a one-off. It seemed to me it was a sort of an emerging crisis of legitimacy for the system. And I thought there could be a good book written about how we got to here. And originally I thought it would be a relatively short book just based on the last sort of 20 or 30 years since the collapse of the Cold War and the sort of triumphalism of the early 90s.But as I got into it more and more, I realized that so many of the issues which had been raised, things like globalization, rising inequality, monopoly power, exploitation, even pollution and climate change, these issues go back to the very start of the capitalist system or the industrial capitalist system back in sort of late 18th century, early 19th century Britain. So I thought, in the end, I thought, you know what, let's just do the whole thing soup to nuts through the eyes of the critics.There have obviously been many, many histories of capitalism written. I thought that an original way to do it, or hopefully original, would be to do a sort of a narrative through the lives and the critiques of the critics of various stages. So that's, I hope, what sets it apart from other books on the subject, and also provides a sort of narrative frame because, you know, I am a New Yorker writer, I realize if you want people to read things, you've got to make it readable. Easiest way to make things readable is to center them around people. People love reading about other people. So that's sort of the narrative frame. I start off with a whistleblower from the East India Company back in the—Andrew Keen: Yeah, I want to come to that. But before, John, my sense is that to simplify what you're saying, this is a labor of love. You're originally from Leeds, the heart of Yorkshire, the center of the very industrial revolution, the first industrial revolution where, in your historical analysis, capitalism was born. Is it a labor of love? What's your family relationship with capitalism? How long was the family in Leeds?John Cassidy: Right, I mean that's a very good question. It is a labor of love in a way, but it's not—our family doesn't go—I'm from an Irish family, family of Irish immigrants who moved to England in the 1940s and 1950s. So my father actually did start working in a big mill, the Kirkstall Forge in Leeds, which is a big steel mill, and he left after seeing one of his co-workers have his arms chopped off in one of the machinery, so he decided it wasn't for him and he spent his life working in the construction industry, which was dominated by immigrants as it is here now.So I don't have a—it's not like I go back to sort of the start of the industrial revolution, but I did grow up in the middle of Leeds, very working class, very industrial neighborhood. And what a sort of irony is, I'll point out, I used to, when I was a kid, I used to play golf on a municipal golf course called Gotts Park in Leeds, which—you know, most golf courses in America are sort of in the affluent suburbs, country clubs. This was right in the middle of Armley in Leeds, which is where the Victorian jail is and a very rough neighborhood. There's a small bit of land which they built a golf course on. It turns out it was named after one of the very first industrialists, Benjamin Gott, who was a wool and textile industrialist, and who played a part in the Luddite movement, which I mention.So it turns out, I was there when I was 11 or 12, just learning how to play golf on this scrappy golf course. And here I am, 50 years later, writing about Benjamin Gott at the start of the Industrial Revolution. So yeah, no, sure. I think it speaks to me in a way that perhaps it wouldn't to somebody else from a different background.Andrew Keen: We did a show with William Dalrymple, actually, a couple of years ago. He's been on actually since, the Anglo or Scottish Indian historian. His book on the East India Company, "The Anarchy," is a classic. You begin in some ways your history of capitalism with the East India Company. What was it about the East India Company, John, that makes it different from other for-profit organizations in economic, Western economic history?John Cassidy: I mean, I read that. It's a great book, by the way. That was actually quoted in my chapter on these. Yeah, I remember. I mean, the reason I focused on it was for two reasons. Number one, I was looking for a start, a narrative start to the book. And it seemed to me, you know, the obvious place to start is with the start of the industrial revolution. If you look at economics history textbooks, that's where they always start with Arkwright and all the inventors, you know, who were the sort of techno-entrepreneurs of their time, the sort of British Silicon Valley, if you could think of it as, in Lancashire and Derbyshire in the late 18th century.So I knew I had to sort of start there in some way, but I thought that's a bit pat. Is there another way into it? And it turns out that in 1772 in England, there was a huge bailout of the East India Company, very much like the sort of 2008, 2009 bailout of Wall Street. The company got into trouble. So I thought, you know, maybe there's something there. And I eventually found this guy, William Bolts, who worked for the East India Company, turned into a whistleblower after he was fired for finagling in India like lots of the people who worked for the company did.So that gave me two things. Number one, it gave me—you know, I'm a writer, so it gave me something to focus on a narrative. His personal history is very interesting. But number two, it gave me a sort of foundation because industrial capitalism didn't come from nowhere. You know, it was built on top of a pre-existing form of capitalism, which we now call mercantile capitalism, which was very protectionist, which speaks to us now. But also it had these big monopolistic multinational companies.The East India Company, in some ways, was a very modern corporation. It had a headquarters in Leadenhall Street in the city of London. It had a board of directors, it had stockholders, the company sent out very detailed instructions to the people in the field in India and Indonesia and Malaysia who were traders who bought things from the locals there, brought them back to England on their company ships. They had a company army even to enforce—to protect their operations there. It was an incredible multinational corporation.So that was also, I think, fascinating because it showed that even in the pre-existing system, you know, big corporations existed, there were monopolies, they had royal monopolies given—first the East India Company got one from Queen Elizabeth. But in some ways, they were very similar to modern monopolistic corporations. And they had some of the problems we've seen with modern monopolistic corporations, the way they acted. And Bolts was the sort of first corporate whistleblower, I thought. Yeah, that was a way of sort of getting into the story, I think. Hopefully, you know, it's just a good read, I think.William Bolts's story because he was—he came from nowhere, he was Dutch, he wasn't even English and he joined the company as a sort of impoverished young man, went to India like a lot of English minor aristocrats did to sort of make your fortune. The way the company worked, you had to sort of work on company time and make as much money as you could for the company, but then in your spare time you're allowed to trade for yourself. So a lot of the—without getting into too much detail, but you know, English aristocracy was based on—you know, the eldest child inherits everything, so if you were the younger brother of the Duke of Norfolk, you actually didn't inherit anything. So all of these minor aristocrats, so major aristocrats, but who weren't first born, joined the East India Company, went out to India and made a fortune, and then came back and built huge houses. Lots of the great manor houses in southern England were built by people from the East India Company and they were known as Nabobs, which is an Indian term. So they were the sort of, you know, billionaires of their time, and it was based on—as I say, it wasn't based on industrial capitalism, it was based on mercantile capitalism.Andrew Keen: Yeah, the beginning of the book, which focuses on Bolts and the East India Company, brings to mind for me two things. Firstly, the intimacy of modern capitalism, modern industrial capitalism with colonialism and of course slavery—lots of books have been written on that. Touch on this and also the relationship between the birth of capitalism and the birth of liberalism or democracy. John Stuart Mill, of course, the father in many ways of Western democracy. His day job, ironically enough, or perhaps not ironically, was at the East India Company. So how do those two things connect, or is it just coincidental?John Cassidy: Well, I don't think it is entirely coincidental, I mean, J.S. Mill—his father, James Mill, was also a well-known philosopher in the sort of, obviously, in the earlier generation, earlier than him. And he actually wrote the official history of the East India Company. And I think they gave his son, the sort of brilliant protégé, J.S. Mill, a job as largely as a sort of sinecure, I think. But he did go in and work there in the offices three or four days a week.But I think it does show how sort of integral—the sort of—as you say, the inheritor and the servant in Britain, particularly, of colonial capitalism was. So the East India Company was, you know, it was in decline by that stage in the middle of the 19th century, but it didn't actually give up its monopoly. It wasn't forced to give up its monopoly on the Indian trade until 1857, after, you know, some notorious massacres and there was a sort of public outcry.So yeah, no, that's—it's very interesting that the British—it's sort of unique to Britain in a way, but it's interesting that industrial capitalism arose alongside this pre-existing capitalist structure and somebody like Mill is a sort of paradoxical figure because actually he was quite critical of aspects of industrial capitalism and supported sort of taxes on the rich, even though he's known as the great, you know, one of the great apostles of the free market and free market liberalism. And his day job, as you say, he was working for the East India Company.Andrew Keen: What about the relationship between the birth of industrial capitalism, colonialism and slavery? Those are big questions and I know you deal with them in some—John Cassidy: I think you can't just write an economic history of capitalism now just starting with the cotton industry and say, you know, it was all about—it was all about just technical progress and gadgets, etc. It was built on a sort of pre-existing system which was colonial and, you know, the slave trade was a central element of that. Now, as you say, there have been lots and lots of books written about it, the whole 1619 project got an incredible amount of attention a few years ago. So I didn't really want to rehash all that, but I did want to acknowledge the sort of role of slavery, especially in the rise of the cotton industry because of course, a lot of the raw cotton was grown in the plantations in the American South.So the way I actually ended up doing that was by writing a chapter about Eric Williams, a Trinidadian writer who ended up as the Prime Minister of Trinidad when it became independent in the 1960s. But when he was younger, he wrote a book which is now regarded as a classic. He went to Oxford to do a PhD, won a scholarship. He was very smart. I won a sort of Oxford scholarship myself but 50 years before that, he came across the Atlantic and did an undergraduate degree in history and then did a PhD there and his PhD thesis was on slavery and capitalism.And at the time, in the 1930s, the link really wasn't acknowledged. You could read any sort of standard economic history written by British historians, and they completely ignored that. He made the argument that, you know, slavery was integral to the rise of capitalism and he basically started an argument which has been raging ever since the 1930s and, you know, if you want to study economic history now you have to sort of—you know, have to have to address that. And the way I thought, even though the—it's called the Williams thesis is very famous. I don't think many people knew much about where it came from. So I thought I'd do a chapter on—Andrew Keen: Yeah, that chapter is excellent. You mentioned earlier the Luddites, you're from Yorkshire where Luddism in some ways was born. One of the early chapters is on the Luddites. We did a show with Brian Merchant, his book, "Blood in the Machine," has done very well, I'm sure you're familiar with it. I always understood the Luddites as being against industrialization, against the machine, as opposed to being against capitalism. But did those two things get muddled together in the history of the Luddites?John Cassidy: I think they did. I mean, you know, Luddites, when we grew up, I mean you're English too, you know to be called a Luddite was a term of abuse, right? You know, you were sort of antediluvian, anti-technology, you're stupid. It was only, I think, with the sort of computer revolution, the tech revolution of the last 30, 40 years and the sort of disruptions it's caused, that people have started to look back at the Luddites and say, perhaps they had a point.For them, they were basically pre-industrial capitalism artisans. They worked for profit-making concerns, small workshops. Some of them worked for themselves, so they were sort of sole proprietor capitalists. Or they worked in small venues, but the rise of industrial capitalism, factory capitalism or whatever, basically took away their livelihoods progressively. So they associated capitalism with new technology. In their minds it was the same. But their argument wasn't really a technological one or even an economic one, it was more a moral one. They basically made the moral argument that capitalists shouldn't have the right to just take away their livelihoods with no sort of recompense for them.At the time they didn't have any parliamentary representation. You know, they weren't revolutionaries. The first thing they did was create petitions to try and get parliament to step in, sort of introduce some regulation here. They got turned down repeatedly by the sort of—even though it was a very aristocratic parliament, places like Manchester and Leeds didn't have any representation at all. So it was only after that that they sort of turned violent and started, you know, smashing machines and machines, I think, were sort of symbols of the system, which they saw as morally unjust.And I think that's sort of what—obviously, there's, you know, a lot of technological disruption now, so we can, especially as it starts to come for the educated cognitive class, we can sort of sympathize with them more. But I think the sort of moral critique that there's this, you know, underneath the sort of great creativity and economic growth that capitalism produces, there is also a lot of destruction and a lot of victims. And I think that message, you know, is becoming a lot more—that's why I think why they've been rediscovered in the last five or ten years and I'm one of the people I guess contributing to that rediscovery.Andrew Keen: There's obviously many critiques of capitalism politically. I want to come to Marx in a second, but your chapter, I thought, on Thomas Carlyle and this nostalgic conservatism was very important and there are other conservatives as well. John, do you think that—and you mentioned Trump earlier, who is essentially a nostalgist for a—I don't know, some sort of bizarre pre-capitalist age in America. Is there something particularly powerful about the anti-capitalism of romantics like Carlyle, 19th century Englishman, there were many others of course.John Cassidy: Well, I think so. I mean, I think what is—conservatism, when we were young anyway, was associated with Thatcherism and Reaganism, which, you know, lionized the free market and free market capitalism and was a reaction against the pre-existing form of capitalism, Keynesian capitalism of the sort of 40s to the 80s. But I think what got lost in that era was the fact that there have always been—you've got Hayek up there, obviously—Andrew Keen: And then Keynes and Hayek, the two—John Cassidy: Right, it goes to the end of that. They had a great debate in the 1930s about these issues. But Hayek really wasn't a conservative person, and neither was Milton Friedman. They were sort of free market revolutionaries, really, that you'd let the market rip and it does good things. And I think that that sort of a view, you know, it just became very powerful. But we sort of lost sight of the fact that there was also a much older tradition of sort of suspicion of radical changes of any type. And that was what conservatism was about to some extent. If you think about Baldwin in Britain, for example.And there was a sort of—during the Industrial Revolution, some of the strongest supporters of factory acts to reduce hours and hourly wages for women and kids were actually conservatives, Tories, as they were called at the time, like Ashley. That tradition, Carlyle was a sort of extreme representative of that. I mean, Carlyle was a sort of proto-fascist, let's not romanticize him, he lionized strongmen, Frederick the Great, and he didn't really believe in democracy. But he also had—he was appalled by the sort of, you know, the—like, what's the phrase I'm looking for? The sort of destructive aspects of industrial capitalism, both on the workers, you know, he said it was a dehumanizing system, sounded like Marx in some ways. That it dehumanized the workers, but also it destroyed the environment.He was an early environmentalist. He venerated the environment, was actually very strongly linked to the transcendentalists in America, people like Thoreau, who went to visit him when he visited Britain and he saw the sort of destructive impact that capitalism was having locally in places like Manchester, which were filthy with filthy rivers, etc. So he just saw the whole system as sort of morally bankrupt and he was a great writer, Carlyle, whatever you think of him. Great user of language, so he has these great ringing phrases like, you know, the cash nexus or calling it the Gospel of Mammonism, the shabbiest gospel ever preached under the sun was industrial capitalism.So, again, you know, that's a sort of paradoxical thing, because I think for so long conservatism was associated with, you know, with support for the free market and still is in most of the Republican Party, but then along comes Trump and sort of conquers the party with a, you know, more skeptical, as you say, romantic, not really based on any reality, but a sort of romantic view that America can stand by itself in the world. I mean, I see Trump actually as a sort of an effort to sort of throw back to mercantile capitalism in a way. You know, which was not just pre-industrial, but was also pre-democracy, run by monarchs, which I'm sure appeals to him, and it was based on, you know, large—there were large tariffs. You couldn't import things in the UK. If you want to import anything to the UK, you have to send it on a British ship because of the navigation laws. It was a very protectionist system and it's actually, you know, as I said, had a lot of parallels with what Trump's trying to do or tries to do until he backs off.Andrew Keen: You cheat a little bit in the book in the sense that you—everyone has their own chapter. We'll talk a little bit about Hayek and Smith and Lenin and Friedman. You do have one chapter on Marx, but you also have a chapter on Engels. So you kind of cheat. You combine the two. Is it possible, though, to do—and you've just written this book, so you know this as well as anyone. How do you write a book about capitalism and its critics and only really give one chapter to Marx, who is so dominant? I mean, you've got lots of Marxists in the book, including Lenin and Luxemburg. How fundamental is Marx to a criticism of capitalism? Is most criticism, especially from the left, from progressives, is it really just all a footnote to Marx?John Cassidy: I wouldn't go that far, but I think obviously on the left he is the central figure. But there's an element of sort of trying to rebuild Engels a bit in this. I mean, I think of Engels and Marx—I mean obviously Marx wrote the great classic "Capital," etc. But in the 1840s, when they both started writing about capitalism, Engels was sort of ahead of Marx in some ways. I mean, the sort of materialist concept, the idea that economics rules everything, Engels actually was the first one to come up with that in an essay in the 1840s which Marx then published in one of his—in the German newspaper he worked for at the time, radical newspaper, and he acknowledged openly that that was really what got him thinking seriously about economics, and even in the late—in 20, 25 years later when he wrote "Capital," all three volumes of it and the Grundrisse, just these enormous outpourings of analysis on capitalism.He acknowledged Engels's role in that and obviously Engels wrote the first draft of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 too, which Marx then topped and tailed and—he was a better writer obviously, Marx, and he gave it the dramatic language that we all know it for. So I think Engels and Marx together obviously are the central sort of figures in the sort of left-wing critique. But they didn't start out like that. I mean, they were very obscure, you've got to remember.You know, they were—when they were writing, Marx was writing "Capital" in London, it never even got published in English for another 20 years. It was just published in German. He was basically an expat. He had been thrown out of Germany, he had been thrown out of France, so England was last resort and the British didn't consider him a threat so they were happy to let him and the rest of the German sort of left in there. I think it became—it became the sort of epochal figure after his death really, I think, when he was picked up by the left-wing parties, which are especially the SPD in Germany, which was the first sort of socialist mass party and was officially Marxist until the First World War and there were great internal debates.And then of course, because Lenin and the Russians came out of that tradition too, Marxism then became the official doctrine of the Soviet Union when they adopted a version of it. And again there were massive internal arguments about what Marx really meant, and in fact, you know, one interpretation of the last 150 years of left-wing sort of intellectual development is as a sort of argument about what did Marx really mean and what are the important bits of it, what are the less essential bits of it. It's a bit like the "what did Keynes really mean" that you get in liberal circles.So yeah, Marx, obviously, this is basically an intellectual history of critiques of capitalism. In that frame, he is absolutely a central figure. Why didn't I give him more space than a chapter and a chapter and a half with Engels? There have been a million books written about Marx. I mean, it's not that—it's not that he's an unknown figure. You know, there's a best-selling book written in Britain about 20 years ago about him and then I was quoting, in my biographical research, I relied on some more recent, more scholarly biographies. So he's an endlessly fascinating figure but I didn't want him to dominate the book so I gave him basically the same space as everybody else.Andrew Keen: You've got, as I said, you've got a chapter on Adam Smith who's often considered the father of economics. You've got a chapter on Keynes. You've got a chapter on Friedman. And you've got a chapter on Hayek, all the great modern economists. Is it possible, John, to be a distinguished economist one way or the other and not be a critic of capitalism?John Cassidy: Well, I don't—I mean, I think history would suggest that the greatest economists have been critics of capitalism in their own time. People would say to me, what the hell have you got Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek in a book about critics of capitalism? They were great exponents, defenders of capitalism. They loved the system. That is perfectly true. But in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, middle of the 20th century, they were actually arch-critics of the ruling form of capitalism at the time, which was what I call managed capitalism. What some people call Keynesianism, what other people call European social democracy, whatever you call it, it was a model of a mixed economy in which the government played a large role both in propping up demand and in providing an extensive social safety net in the UK and providing public healthcare and public education. It was a sort of hybrid model.Most of the economy in terms of the businesses remained in private hands. So most production was capitalistic. It was a capitalist system. They didn't go to the Soviet model of nationalizing everything and Britain did nationalize some businesses, but most places didn't. The US of course didn't but it was a form of managed capitalism. And Hayek and Friedman were both great critics of that and wanted to sort of move back to 19th century laissez-faire model.Keynes was a—was actually a great, I view him anyway, as really a sort of late Victorian liberal and was trying to protect as much of the sort of J.S. Mill view of the world as he could, but he thought capitalism had one fatal flaw: that it tended to fall into recessions and then they can snowball and the whole system can collapse which is what had basically happened in the early 1930s until Keynesian policies were adopted. Keynes sort of differed from a lot of his followers—I have a chapter on Joan Robinson in there, who were pretty left-wing and wanted to sort of use Keynesianism as a way to shift the economy quite far to the left. Keynes didn't really believe in that. He has a famous quote that, you know, once you get to full employment, you can then rely on the free market to sort of take care of things. He was still a liberal at heart.Going back to Adam Smith, why is he in a book on criticism of capitalism? And again, it goes back to what I said at the beginning. He actually wrote "The Wealth of Nations"—he explains in the introduction—as a critique of mercantile capitalism. His argument was that he was a pro-free trader, pro-small business, free enterprise. His argument was if you get the government out of the way, we don't need these government-sponsored monopolies like the East India Company. If you just rely on the market, the sort of market forces and competition will produce a good outcome. So then he was seen as a great—you know, he is then seen as the apostle of free market capitalism. I mean when I started as a young reporter, when I used to report in Washington, all the conservatives used to wear Adam Smith badges. You don't see Donald Trump wearing an Adam Smith badge, but that was the case.He was also—the other aspect of Smith, which I highlight, which is not often remarked on—he's also a critic of big business. He has a famous section where he discusses the sort of tendency of any group of more than three businessmen when they get together to try and raise prices and conspire against consumers. And he was very suspicious of, as I say, large companies, monopolies. I think if Adam Smith existed today, I mean, I think he would be a big supporter of Lina Khan and the sort of antitrust movement, he would say capitalism is great as long as you have competition, but if you don't have competition it becomes, you know, exploitative.Andrew Keen: Yeah, if Smith came back to live today, you have a chapter on Thomas Piketty, maybe he may not be French, but he may be taking that position about how the rich benefit from the structure of investment. Piketty's core—I've never had Piketty on the show, but I've had some of his followers like Emmanuel Saez from Berkeley. Yeah. How powerful is Piketty's critique of capitalism within the context of the classical economic analysis from Hayek and Friedman? Yeah, it's a very good question.John Cassidy: It's a very good question. I mean, he's a very paradoxical figure, Piketty, in that he obviously shot to world fame and stardom with his book on capital in the 21st century, which in some ways he obviously used the capital as a way of linking himself to Marx, even though he said he never read Marx. But he was basically making the same argument that if you leave capitalism unrestrained and don't do anything about monopolies etc. or wealth, you're going to get massive inequality and he—I think his great contribution, Piketty and the school of people, one of them you mentioned, around him was we sort of had a vague idea that inequality was going up and that, you know, wages were stagnating, etc.What he and his colleagues did is they produced these sort of scientific empirical studies showing in very simple to understand terms how the sort of share of income and wealth of the top 10 percent, the top 5 percent, the top 1 percent and the top 0.1 percent basically skyrocketed from the 1970s to about 2010. And it was, you know, he was an MIT PhD. Saez, who you mentioned, is a Berkeley professor. They were schooled in neoclassical economics at Harvard and MIT and places like that. So the right couldn't dismiss them as sort of, you know, lefties or Trots or whatever who're just sort of making this stuff up. They had to acknowledge that this was actually an empirical reality.I think it did change the whole basis of the debate and it was sort of part of this reaction against capitalism in the 2010s. You know it was obviously linked to the sort of Sanders and the Occupy Wall Street movement at the time. It came out of the—you know, the financial crisis as well when Wall Street disgraced itself. I mean, I wrote a previous book on all that, but people have sort of, I think, forgotten the great reaction against that a decade ago, which I think even Trump sort of exploited, as I say, by using anti-banker rhetoric at the time.So, Piketty was a great figure, I think, from, you know, I was thinking, who are the most influential critics of capitalism in the 21st century? And I think you'd have to put him up there on the list. I'm not saying he's the only one or the most eminent one. But I think he is a central figure. Now, of course, you'd think, well, this is a really powerful critic of capitalism, and nobody's going to pick up, and Bernie's going to take off and everything. But here we are a decade later now. It seems to be what the backlash has produced is a swing to the right, not a swing to the left. So that's, again, a sort of paradox.Andrew Keen: One person I didn't expect to come up in the book, John, and I was fascinated with this chapter, is Silvia Federici. I've tried to get her on the show. We've had some books about her writing and her kind of—I don't know, you treat her critique as a feminist one. The role of women. Why did you choose to write a chapter about Federici and that feminist critique of capitalism?John Cassidy: Right, right. Well, I don't think it was just feminist. I'll explain what I think it was. Two reasons. Number one, I wanted to get more women into the book. I mean, it's in some sense, it is a history of economics and economic critiques. And they are overwhelmingly written by men and women were sort of written out of the narrative of capitalism for a very long time. So I tried to include as many sort of women as actual thinkers as I could and I have a couple of early socialist feminist thinkers, Anna Wheeler and Flora Tristan and then I cover some of the—I cover Rosa Luxemburg as the great sort of tribune of the left revolutionary socialist, communist whatever you want to call it. Anti-capitalist I think is probably also important to note about. Yeah, and then I also have Joan Robinson, but I wanted somebody to do something in the modern era, and I thought Federici, in the world of the Wages for Housework movement, is very interesting from two perspectives.Number one, Federici herself is a Marxist, and I think she probably would still consider herself a revolutionary. She's based in New York, as you know now. She lived in New York for 50 years, but she came from—she's originally Italian and came out of the Italian left in the 1960s, which was very radical. Do you know her? Did you talk to her? I didn't talk to her on this. No, she—I basically relied on, there has been a lot of, as you say, there's been a lot of stuff written about her over the years. She's written, you know, she's given various long interviews and she's written a book herself, a version, a history of housework, so I figured it was all there and it was just a matter of pulling it together.But I think the critique, why the critique is interesting, most of the book is a sort of critique of how capitalism works, you know, in the production or you know, in factories or in offices or you know, wherever capitalist operations are working, but her critique is sort of domestic reproduction, as she calls it, the role of unpaid labor in supporting capitalism. I mean it goes back a long way actually. There was this moment, I sort of trace it back to the 1940s and 1950s when there were feminists in America who were demonstrating outside factories and making the point that you know, the factory workers and the operations of the factory, it couldn't—there's one of the famous sort of tire factory in California demonstrations where the women made the argument, look this factory can't continue to operate unless we feed and clothe the workers and provide the next generation of workers. You know, that's domestic reproduction. So their argument was that housework should be paid and Federici took that idea and a couple of her colleagues, she founded the—it's a global movement, but she founded the most famous branch in New York City in the 1970s. In Park Slope near where I live actually.And they were—you call it feminists, they were feminists in a way, but they were rejected by the sort of mainstream feminist movement, the sort of Gloria Steinems of the world, who Federici was very critical of because she said they ignored, they really just wanted to get women ahead in the sort of capitalist economy and they ignored the sort of underlying from her perspective, the underlying sort of illegitimacy and exploitation of that system. So they were never accepted as part of the feminist movement. They're to the left of the Feminist Movement.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Keynes, of course, so central in all this, particularly his analysis of the role of automation in capitalism. We did a show recently with Robert Skidelsky and I'm sure you're familiar—John Cassidy: Yeah, yeah, great, great biography of Keynes.Andrew Keen: Yeah, the great biographer of Keynes, whose latest book is "Mindless: The Human Condition in the Age of AI." You yourself wrote a brilliant book on the last tech mania and dot-com capitalism. I used it in a lot of my writing and books. What's your analysis of AI in this latest mania and the role generally of manias in the history of capitalism and indeed in critiquing capitalism? Is AI just the next chapter of the dot-com boom?John Cassidy: I think it's a very deep question. I think I'd give two answers to it. In one sense it is just the latest mania the way—I mean, the way capitalism works is we have these, I go back to Kondratiev, one of my Russian economists who ended up being killed by Stalin. He was the sort of inventor of the long wave theory of capitalism. We have these short waves where you have sort of booms and busts driven by finance and debt etc. But we also have long waves driven by technology.And obviously, in the last 40, 50 years, the two big ones are the original deployment of the internet and microchip technology in the sort of 80s and 90s culminating in the dot-com boom of the late 90s, which as you say, I wrote about. Thanks very much for your kind comments on the book. If you just sort of compare it from a financial basis I think they are very similar just in terms of the sort of role of hype from Wall Street in hyping up these companies. The sort of FOMO aspect of it among investors that they you know, you can't miss out. So just buy the companies blindly. And the sort of lionization in the press and the media of, you know, of AI as the sort of great wave of the future.So if you take a sort of skeptical market based approach, I would say, yeah, this is just another sort of another mania which will eventually burst and it looked like it had burst for a few weeks when Trump put the tariffs up, now the market seemed to be recovering. But I think there is, there may be something new about it. I am not, I don't pretend to be a technical expert. I try to rely on the evidence of or the testimony of people who know the systems well and also economists who have studied it. It seems to me the closer you get to it the more alarming it is in terms of the potential shock value that there is there.I mean Trump and the sort of reaction to a larger extent can be traced back to the China shock where we had this global shock to American manufacturing and sort of hollowed out a lot of the industrial areas much of it, like industrial Britain was hollowed out in the 80s. If you, you know, even people like Altman and Elon Musk, they seem to think that this is going to be on a much larger scale than that and will basically, you know, get rid of the professions as they exist. Which would be a huge, huge shock. And I think a lot of the economists who studied this, who four or five years ago were relatively optimistic, people like Daron Acemoglu, David Autor—Andrew Keen: Simon Johnson, of course, who just won the Nobel Prize, and he's from England.John Cassidy: Simon, I did an event with Simon earlier this week. You know they've studied this a lot more closely than I have but I do interview them and I think five, six years ago they were sort of optimistic that you know this could just be a new steam engine or could be a microchip which would lead to sort of a lot more growth, rising productivity, rising productivity is usually associated with rising wages so sure there'd be short-term costs but ultimately it would be a good thing. Now, I think if you speak to them, they see since the, you know, obviously, the OpenAI—the original launch and now there's just this huge arms race with no government involvement at all I think they're coming to the conclusion that rather than being developed to sort of complement human labor, all these systems are just being rushed out to substitute for human labor. And it's just going, if current trends persist, it's going to be a China shock on an even bigger scale.You know what is going to, if that, if they're right, that is going to produce some huge political backlash at some point, that's inevitable. So I know—the thing when the dot-com bubble burst, it didn't really have that much long-term impact on the economy. People lost the sort of fake money they thought they'd made. And then the companies, obviously some of the companies like Amazon and you know Google were real genuine profit-making companies and if you bought them early you made a fortune. But AI does seem a sort of bigger, scarier phenomenon to me. I don't know. I mean, you're close to it. What do you think?Andrew Keen: Well, I'm waiting for a book, John, from you. I think you can combine dot-com and capitalism and its critics. We need you probably to cover it—you know more about it than me. Final question, I mean, it's a wonderful book and we haven't even scratched the surface everyone needs to get it. I enjoyed the chapter, for example, on Karl Polanyi and so much more. I mean, it's a big book. But my final question, John, is do you have any regrets about anyone you left out? The one person I would have liked to have been included was Rawls because of his sort of treatment of capitalism and luck as a kind of casino. I'm not sure whether you gave any thought to Rawls, but is there someone in retrospect you should have had a chapter on that you left out?John Cassidy: There are lots of people I left out. I mean, that's the problem. I mean there have been hundreds and hundreds of critics of capitalism. Rawls, of course, incredibly influential and his idea of the sort of, you know, the veil of ignorance that you should judge things not knowing where you are in the income distribution and then—Andrew Keen: And it's luck. I mean the idea of some people get lucky and some people don't.John Cassidy: It is the luck of the draw, obviously, what card you pull. I think that is a very powerful critique, but I just—because I am more of an expert on economics, I tended to leave out philosophers and sociologists. I mean, you know, you could say, where's Max Weber? Where are the anarchists? You know, where's Emma Goldman? Where's John Kenneth Galbraith, the sort of great mid-century critic of American industrial capitalism? There's so many people that you could include. I mean, I could have written 10 volumes. In fact, I refer in the book to, you know, there's always been a problem. G.D.H. Cole, a famous English historian, wrote a history of socialism back in the 1960s and 70s. You know, just getting to 1850 took him six volumes. So, you've got to pick and choose, and I don't claim this is the history of capitalism and its critics. That would be a ridiculous claim to make. I just claim it's a history written by me, and hopefully the people are interested in it, and they're sufficiently diverse that you can address all the big questions.Andrew Keen: Well it's certainly incredibly timely. Capitalism and its critics—more and more of them. Sometimes they don't even describe themselves as critics of capitalism when they're talking about oligarchs or billionaires, they're really criticizing capitalism. A must read from one of America's leading journalists. And would you call yourself a critic of capitalism, John?John Cassidy: Yeah, I guess I am, to some extent, sure. I mean, I'm not a—you know, I'm not on the far left, but I'd say I'm a center-left critic of capitalism. Yes, definitely, that would be fair.Andrew Keen: And does the left need to learn? Does everyone on the left need to read the book and learn the language of anti-capitalism in a more coherent and honest way?John Cassidy: I hope so. I mean, obviously, I'd be talking my own book there, as they say, but I hope that people on the left, but not just people on the left. I really did try to sort of be fair to the sort of right-wing critiques as well. I included the Carlyle chapter particularly, obviously, but in the later chapters, I also sort of refer to this emerging critique on the right, the sort of economic nationalist critique. So hopefully, I think people on the right could read it to understand the critiques from the left, and people on the left could read it to understand some of the critiques on the right as well.Andrew Keen: Well, it's a lovely book. It's enormously erudite and simultaneously readable. Anyone who likes John Cassidy's work from The New Yorker will love it. Congratulations, John, on the new book, and I'd love to get you back on the show as anti-capitalism in America picks up steam and perhaps manifests itself in the 2028 election. Thank you so much.John Cassidy: Thanks very much for inviting me on, it was fun.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Rahim Taghizadegan, the last direct-tradition Austrian School economist, pioneered Bitcoin education at university level. With fifteen books, he founded Scholarium to preserve the school's interdisciplinary approach.› Follow Rahim: https://twitter.com/scholarium_at› Rahim's website: https://scholarium.atPARTNERS

Military Keynesianism wasn't just economic policy, it was socialism in disguise. Joseph Salerno reveals how John F. Kennedy's economists used war spending and deficits to erode liberty under the guise of stability and growth.Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on May 17, 2025.

Economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis discusses the merits and pitfalls of Trump's tariff plan, growing populist movements in Europe, the EU's "dangerous" and misguided push toward military Keynesianism, and Israel's destruction of Gaza. ----------------------------------------------------- Watch full episodes on Rumble, streamed LIVE 7pm ET. Become part of our Locals community Follow System Update:  Twitter Instagram TikTok Facebook LinkedIn  

Get access to The Backroom Exclusive episodes on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/OneDime.⁠In this episode of 1Dime Radio, I am joined by political theorist Benjamin St. Studebaker, a PhD at Cambridge and author of the books “The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy” and “Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies,” on we are witnessing the “end of neoliberalism” (given the ongoing tariff wars and move away from globalization in favor of right wing populsim and protectionism). Whether “Neoliberalism” was really a useful concept in the first place.  We also discuss how liberal thinkers like  Ezra Klein and Francis Fukuyama have been moving away from neoliberal economics and towards a kind of neo-Keynesianism.  In The Backroom, Benjamin and I discuss the idea of building educational “Monestaries” as an alternative to Academia and Benjamin's idea of “vulture socialism.” Become a Patron at Patreon.com/OneDime if you haven't already!Timestamps: 00:00 The Backroom Preview: Vulture Socialism and Monasteries02:55 Welcome to 1Dime Radio03:33 What was “Neoliberalism” actually?35:26 The Pivot from China42:34 Neoliberalism without China or the end of Neoliberalism? 01:06:05 Trump's Strategy with China: A Rational Wager?01:12:54 China's Unique System vs India and Other Developing Nations01:30:22 Degrowth and Third World Realities 01:58:54 Transition to the BackroomFollow Benjamin Studebaker on X: https://x.com/BMStudebakerFollow me on X: https://x.com/1DimeOfficial: Follow me on Instagram: ⁠instagram.com/1dimeman⁠Check out my main channel videos: https://www.youtube.com/@1DimeeOutro Music by Karl CaseyGive 1Dime Radio a 5-star Rating if you enjoy the show!

Paul Samuelson once said ‘I don't care who writes a nation's laws or crafts its advanced treatises if I can write its economics textbooks' and boy did he write the book! Samuelson understood the power of economics and his best selling textbook called (surprisingly) ‘Economics' was read by millions across America and influenced a number of the economists and policy makers that shape economic policy today. This was far from being his only claim to fame though and throughout his lifetime he wrote an extraordinarily large number of influential papers across a range of micro and macroeconomic topics (in cricket terms he was very much and all rounder or for baseball fans a 'two way player'. His neoclassical synthesis that combined Keynesianism with New Classical theory was a particularly influential advance. He is also seen as the man who brought a far greater mathematical rigour to economics, an approach which has very much outlived him.In this fourth episode of Season 8 of their award winning podcast, your friendly neighbourhood economists, Pete and Gav, dive into the world of Paul Krugman's (a fellow Nobel Prize winner) favourite economist. Along the way, you will find out about AMSR, a trivia quiz that features a ‘joke' question that Samuelson got right and so many ideas, you won't know what to do with them all. Technical support as always comes from our good friend Nic.

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Support us on Patreon here to listen to the full thing: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/spassbremse⁠****What does "military Keynesianism" portend for Germany and the world? On this subscriber-only episode, Ted breaks down the recent momentous changes in German attitudes toward debt and defense, with Merz's rewriting of the Schuldenbremse and a massive infrastructure and defense fund on the agenda.Listen to Tooze and Pistor here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whP2OD-VUQc&ab_channel=GlobalThoughtCUSee Ted's TV appearance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikRr82K91Uw&ab_channel=Roundtable*****Follow Spaßbremse on Twitter (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@spassbremse_pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠). Written and produced by Ted Knudsen. Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lee Rosevere⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Art by Franziska Schneider.

Danny and Derek welcome to the program Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, to talk about his new piece “How Biden's Foreign Policy Destroyed His Presidency”. They discuss Biden's origins and FP grounding, his conception of himself as an FP specialist, his fondness for military Keynesianism, how his views changed in the Obama era, the sanctions regime, his policies toward Ukraine and Israel-Palestine, “democracy vs autocracy”, and more.  Subscribe now for the full episode!      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“We need to understand the limits of capitalism. Capitalism has serious limits in the sense that it puts exchange value over use value. And this is by definition irrational according to logic of need, but very rational according to logic of profit... But we also need to understand that we are the ones who have produced the system. That's where the empowering voice comes out, because it says, okay, if we have created it, we can also change it. And guess what? The system is really fragile. That's why we need austerity constantly to protect it.” Economist Clara Mattei talks to Steve about the launch of the Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE) on the eve of its inaugural conference, February 6th through 8th, in Tulsa, OK. In the episode, Clara expresses her frustration with the inadequacies of mainstream economic education that neglects the real-life challenges faced by students and communities and explains that the CHE is being designed to break down traditional academic barriers and elitism. She mentions names of some participants in the upcoming conference, including Jamie Galbraith, Anwar Shaikh, Branko Milanovic, and Robert Brenner. From the Mission page on its website, the CHE is built on the following pillars:  1. Critical Political Economy: Understanding the dynamics of power, class, and social relations that shape economic outcomes.  2. Critical History of Economic Thought and Economic History: Exploring diverse schools of thought and the historical evolution of economic systems to inform our understanding of contemporary challenges.  3. Praxis: Economics, at its core, should be about more than analysis—it should be about action. At CHE, we are dedicated to producing knowledge that not only explains the world but transforms it. For information, go to https://sites.utulsa.edu/chetu/ Clara E. Mattei is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE). She previously taught at the The New School for Social Research Economics Department and has been a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton. Her research contributes to the history of capitalism, exploring the critical relation between economic ideas and technocratic policy making. Her first book, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism (University of Chicago Press 2022) is translated in over 10 languages. Her current book project critically reassesses the Golden Age of Capitalism (1945-1975) and its Keynesianism through the lens of austerity capitalism.

Writer Jamie Merchant joins us for a barn burner on the Christmas eve Adam Tooze substack everyone's talking about. We dig into Tooze's anti-Marxism, his theory of "polycrisis", post-Keynesianism, Bidenomics and more. But first, a riveting thread from Vivek Ramaswamy. The piece in question: https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-341-on-thinking-in-medias?r=lnle&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post&triedRedirect=true Check out Jamie's book: https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/endgame Paid Protest 1/3 in NYC: bit.ly/PAIDPROTESTJAN Subscribe to our bonus feed: Patreon.com/Poddamnamerica

Writer Jamie Merchant joins us for a barn burner on the Christmas eve Adam Tooze substack everyone's talking about. We dig into Tooze's anti-Marxism, his theory of "polycrisis", post-Keynesianism, Bidenomics and more. But first, a riveting thread from Vivek Ramaswamy. The piece in question: https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-341-on-thinking-in-medias?r=lnle&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post&triedRedirect=true Check out Jamie's book: https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/endgame Paid Protest 1/3 in NYC: bit.ly/PAIDPROTESTJAN Subscribe to our bonus feed: Patreon.com/poddamnamerica

This is the second episode in a miniseries on heterodox economists—people who embrace completely different approaches to economics than the standard thinkers. Adam and Cameron describe the life and work of Joan Robinson, who worked with John Maynard Keynes on his hugely influential macroeconomics book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money—but came to regard Keynesianism as a failed revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the Federal Reserve engineers one financial bubble after another, we are reminded that the Austrian Business Cycle Theory explains what is happening and how there is a better way. Original article: Why Austrian Business Cycle Theory Is Better than Keynesianism

Contrary to anti-freedom myths, "greedy" business owners don't decide what prices will be for goods and services. Original article: Why Austrian Business Cycle Theory Is Better than Keynesianism

#RUSSIA: War Keynesianism and the price of oil. Michael Bernstam, Hoover Institution. 1854 Russia

Sponsor special: Up to $2,500 of FREE silver AND a FREE safe on qualifying orders - Call 855-862-3377 or text “AMERICAN” to 6-5-5-3-2“Within the law, rule of law, and in a robust competitive model, you want to maximize freedom ... Economic freedom, in the context of the rule of law, is the best formula for success and prosperity.”Mark Skousen is said to be one of the top 20 most influential living economists in the world. He's written over 25 books on personal finance and investing, including two of America's definitive textbooks on economics.“We have to make the right decisions to encourage, to increase our standard of living. That is the ultimate purpose of economics—to tell us how to do that,” says Mr. Skousen.He's also the producer of the annual libertarian FreedomFest conference. In anticipation of the event next month, we sat down to discuss some of the major myths and misconceptions about our economy today.“Even the stock market, by the way, is at an all-time high. But in real terms, after inflation, it's the same [as] it was in 2021,” says Mr. Skousen.He says that since World War II, America has been in a state of permanent inflation, and that returning to the Adam Smith model of economics is the only way to get back to what he calls “enlightened capitalism.”“I judge every economist on whether they are defending and improving upon the Adam Smith model of economic liberty, or are trying to tear it down and build their own system of socialism, Keynesianism, totalitarianism, and so forth,” says Mr. Skousen.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

THE KEYNESIANISM DEBATE CONTINUES: 3/4: Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market. by Nicholas Wapshott . https://www.amazon.com/Samuelson-Friedman-Battle-Over-Market-ebook/dp/B08589Z7M9/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Nicholas+Wapshott+%2B+samuelson&qid=1627690920&s=digital-text&sr=1-1 From the author of Keynes Hayek, the next great duel in the history of economics. In 1966 two columnists joined Newsweek magazine. Their assignment: debate the world of business and economics. Paul Samuelson was a towering figure in Keynesian economics, which supported the management of the economy along lines prescribed by John Maynard Keynes's General Theory. Milton Friedman, little known at that time outside of conservative academic circles, championed “monetarism” and insisted the Federal Reserve maintain tight control over the amount of money circulating in the economy. In Samuelson Friedman, the author and journalist Nicholas Wapshott brings narrative verve and puckish charm to the story of these two giants of modern economics, their braided lives and colossal intellectual battles. Samuelson, a forbidding technical genius, grew up a child of relative privilege and went on to revolutionize macroeconomics. He wrote the best-selling economics textbook of all time, famously remarking "I don't care who writes a nation's laws—or crafts its advanced treatises—if I can write its economics textbooks." His friend and adversary for decades, Milton Friedman, studied the Great Depression and with Anna Schwartz wrote the seminal books The Great Contraction and A Monetary History of the United States. Like Friedrich Hayek before him, Friedman found fortune writing a treatise, Capitalism and Freedom, that yoked free markets and libertarian politics in a potent argument that remains a lodestar for economic conservatives today. In Wapshott's nimble hands, Samuelson and Friedman's decades-long argument over how—or whether—to manage the economy becomes a window onto one of the longest periods of economic turmoil in the United States. As the soaring economy of the 1950s gave way to decades stalked by declining prosperity and "stagflation," it was a time when the theory and practice of economics became the preoccupation of politicians and the focus of national debate. It is an argument that continues today.  1914

THE KEYNESIANISM DEBATE CONTINUES: 2/4: Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market. by Nicholas Wapshott . https://www.amazon.com/Samuelson-Friedman-Battle-Over-Market-ebook/dp/B08589Z7M9/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Nicholas+Wapshott+%2B+samuelson&qid=1627690920&s=digital-text&sr=1-1 From the author of Keynes Hayek, the next great duel in the history of economics. In 1966 two columnists joined Newsweek magazine. Their assignment: debate the world of business and economics. Paul Samuelson was a towering figure in Keynesian economics, which supported the management of the economy along lines prescribed by John Maynard Keynes's General Theory. Milton Friedman, little known at that time outside of conservative academic circles, championed “monetarism” and insisted the Federal Reserve maintain tight control over the amount of money circulating in the economy. In Samuelson Friedman, the author and journalist Nicholas Wapshott brings narrative verve and puckish charm to the story of these two giants of modern economics, their braided lives and colossal intellectual battles. Samuelson, a forbidding technical genius, grew up a child of relative privilege and went on to revolutionize macroeconomics. He wrote the best-selling economics textbook of all time, famously remarking "I don't care who writes a nation's laws—or crafts its advanced treatises—if I can write its economics textbooks." His friend and adversary for decades, Milton Friedman, studied the Great Depression and with Anna Schwartz wrote the seminal books The Great Contraction and A Monetary History of the United States. Like Friedrich Hayek before him, Friedman found fortune writing a treatise, Capitalism and Freedom, that yoked free markets and libertarian politics in a potent argument that remains a lodestar for economic conservatives today. In Wapshott's nimble hands, Samuelson and Friedman's decades-long argument over how—or whether—to manage the economy becomes a window onto one of the longest periods of economic turmoil in the United States. As the soaring economy of the 1950s gave way to decades stalked by declining prosperity and "stagflation," it was a time when the theory and practice of economics became the preoccupation of politicians and the focus of national debate. It is an argument that continues today.  1902 DUBLIN

THE KEYNESIANISM DEBATE CONTINUES: 4/4: Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market. by Nicholas Wapshott . https://www.amazon.com/Samuelson-Friedman-Battle-Over-Market-ebook/dp/B08589Z7M9/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Nicholas+Wapshott+%2B+samuelson&qid=1627690920&s=digital-text&sr=1-1 From the author of Keynes Hayek, the next great duel in the history of economics. In 1966 two columnists joined Newsweek magazine. Their assignment: debate the world of business and economics. Paul Samuelson was a towering figure in Keynesian economics, which supported the management of the economy along lines prescribed by John Maynard Keynes's General Theory. Milton Friedman, little known at that time outside of conservative academic circles, championed “monetarism” and insisted the Federal Reserve maintain tight control over the amount of money circulating in the economy. In Samuelson Friedman, the author and journalist Nicholas Wapshott brings narrative verve and puckish charm to the story of these two giants of modern economics, their braided lives and colossal intellectual battles. Samuelson, a forbidding technical genius, grew up a child of relative privilege and went on to revolutionize macroeconomics. He wrote the best-selling economics textbook of all time, famously remarking "I don't care who writes a nation's laws—or crafts its advanced treatises—if I can write its economics textbooks." His friend and adversary for decades, Milton Friedman, studied the Great Depression and with Anna Schwartz wrote the seminal books The Great Contraction and A Monetary History of the United States. Like Friedrich Hayek before him, Friedman found fortune writing a treatise, Capitalism and Freedom, that yoked free markets and libertarian politics in a potent argument that remains a lodestar for economic conservatives today. In Wapshott's nimble hands, Samuelson and Friedman's decades-long argument over how—or whether—to manage the economy becomes a window onto one of the longest periods of economic turmoil in the United States. As the soaring economy of the 1950s gave way to decades stalked by declining prosperity and "stagflation," it was a time when the theory and practice of economics became the preoccupation of politicians and the focus of national debate. It is an argument that continues today.  1926 HYDE PARK