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Victor Pickard returns to Money on the Left six years after his first appearance on the show to discuss the state of the U.S. media system under Trump 2.0. Pickard is C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and Co-Director at the Media, Inequality & Change Center. Placing current developments in broad historical context, Pickard situates today's media crisis within a century-long struggle to establish and maintain genuine public media against the overpowering dominance and relentless pushback of private corporate media.Drawing on his recent writing and policy interventions, Pickard breaks down three distinct layers of media capture: capitalistic, oligarchic, and authoritarian. Crucially, our conversation stresses how the foundational layer—the capitalistic privatization of news and communication as market commodities rather than vital public goods—directly conditions and enables the other two. As long as media institutions remain captured by capitalist imperatives, treating political information as a vehicle for private control and exploitation, attempts to counter oligarchic consolidation or authoritarian coercion will fail to address the root causes of our institutional breakdown.During our discussion, we explore the history of the struggle to build public media in the United States, from early twentieth-century regulatory choices that privatized the public airwaves to the gradual weakening of public-interest protections and the chronic underfunding of public broadcasting. Against this hyper-commercialized landscape, we insist upon the necessity of fighting for democratic, diverse, and locally sensitive public media infrastructures. Rather than relying on broken advertising models or corporate philanthropy, we explore what it would mean to construct non-capitalist, community-governed media systems designed from the bottom up to serve local publics.Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com
Regular LRB contributor Daniel Trilling has been researching and writing about the far right in Britain and beyond for more than a decade. His latest book If We Tolerate This (Picador), published ahead of the momentous English local, Senedd and Scottish Parliament elections on May 7, is a short and powerful polemic examining how far right ideas have come to dominate the political agenda, and outlining a strategy for how we might combat them. Pankaj Mishra writes ‘Combining forensic enquiry with moral passion, Daniel Trilling has emerged as one of our most intrepid and resourceful reporters.' He was in conversation about his work with William Davies, Professor of Political Economy at Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of This Is Not Normal and Nervous States. You can buy a copy of If We Tolerate This from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
America is on track to become a "net mortality society," where deaths outnumber births. As births plummet to almost 25% below replacement, the United States faces a future with a shrinking population, and the consequences extend far beyond the American family. Nicholas Eberstadt argues that falling birth rates reflect a deeper cultural shift away from marriage, family, and the institutions that have long sustained prosperous societies, raising difficult questions about economic growth, immigration, Social Security, and America's future. He examines the consequences of the men-without-work problem in the wake of the COVID pandemic, the role of AI in shaping immigrants' job opportunities, and how socialism's growing popularity in America affects the labor market. Combined with fertility rates collapsing across the developed world and loneliness reaching unprecedented levels, can America capitalize on our advantages in a way that China can't? Or are we bound to the same fate as other countries like Poland or Japan? Can public policy reverse these trends, or is this ultimately a crisis of meaning and norms rather than economics? Ultimately, what happens when societies stop replacing themselves...Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and is a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research. He has written numerous books and monographs, including His many books and monographs include Men Without Work: Post-Pandemic Edition (2022); Russia's Peacetime Demographic Crisis: Dimensions, Causes, Implications (2010). He has offered invited testimony before Congress on numerous occasions and has served as consultant or adviser for a variety of units in the US government. In 2020, he received the Irving Kristol Award, AEI's highest honor.Read the transcript here.Subscribe to our Substack here.
The Republican Party is often associated with free-market fundamentalism, deregulation, and tax cuts. But a new faction on the right is challenging that consensus. In this episode, Bethany and Luigi sit down with Chris Griswold, the Policy Director at American Compass. Drawing on Catholic social teaching, Griswold argues that we need to stop viewing our economy as a force of nature or an end unto itself, but a tool meant to serve human flourishing and dignity. The conversation explores if the traditional neoliberal regime has failed working-class Americans, and whether policy should step in to channel capital toward productive uses. To fix our current system, Griswold argues we need to go back to a first-principles question: What is capitalism, or any economy for that matter, actually for? Connect with us:
In this episode, cohost Sergio Infante and I talk to AndrésM. Guiot-Isaac about his book in progress, titled Development with Stability. In it, Guiot Isaac takes the lens of the emergence of economic technocracy in Colombia between1948 and 1974 to understand how the production and circulation of economic expertise allowed states in developing countries to buildcapacities to act on the economy. As the title suggests, Andres argues that the infrastructures that allowed economists to occupy decision-making positions in governments over the decades emerged with the aspiration to reconcile economic development with stability. That these things werecompatible was not a given. We trace the tension between the tecnicos and los politicos as the central economic planning inistuttions – such as the National Planning Department – were emerging. That is, between the emerging economic technocratic class – very young, highly educated, covered by the president Lleras' Restepo's patronage – and the political establishment accustomed to influencing economic policy along sectoral and electoral interests. This playsout against the background of the evolution of economic planning, the rise and fall of comprehensive planning – pushed by the structuralist ECLAC, or CEPAL in Spanish – and how it gave way to what Andres calls “bottom-up” or strategic planning.The conversation gets pretty in the weeds – and I LOVED it. Not only because of my family connection to one of the economists involved (one of them is my grandfather) , but because this is also closely linked to my own PhD research about what I callthe techno-politics of economic expertise. I think that this type of granular economic history as pointing to concerns as pervasive as any other facet of urban life, and maybe even more. Studying this development of economic governance reveals its contingent character, and reminds us that it could be different. This episode is a beautiful example of the critical function of this type of history. Andrés M. Guiot-Isaac is visiting professor of Economics at the Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) and will join the Department of Economic History, Institutions and Policy, and World Economy at the Universidad de Barcelona as AssistantProfessor in January 2027. He formerly held a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Economic History at theLondon School of Economics. Before joining the LSE, Andrés completed his PhD in the University of Oxford. His doctoral dissertation, on which Development with Stability is based, was awarded the Joseph Dorfman 2024 Prize for the Best Dissertation in the History of Economics by the History of Economics Society. His research about development economics, developing planning and the role of foreign experts in developing countries has been published in History of Political Economy, Oeconomia and Science in Context. He also translated Hirschman's biography by Jeremy Adelman Worldly Philosopher into Spanish.Sergio Infante is a Ph.D. candidate in Global History at Yale University. His research explores how twentieth-century social scientists and intellectuals understood poverty, employment, and economic development, all with a special focus on Latin America. He is writing a history of the “informal sector” and “informal economy” as concepts. This project reconstructs debates over the business savviness, risk-taking behavior, and vulnerabilities of the global poor. It also contextualizes contemporary anxieties over “precarity” and “gig work.” Sergio's research touches on several themes that concern historians of the recent past, including transnational migration, urbanization, population growth, technocracy, democracy, and the Cold War.
In this episode of Ruled by Reason, AAI Senior Counsel David O. Fisher sits down with economist Ellie Prager to discuss her paper, Collusion Through Common Leadership, co-authored with Alejandro Herrera-Caicedo and Jessica Jeffers and accepted for publication in the Journal of Political Economy. The episode continues a discussion begun in the previous episode of Ruled by Reason about interlocking directorates, or what Professor Prager and her co-authors call "common leadership." Whereas the term "interlocking directorates" traditionally refers to one person sitting on the boards of two companies, common leadership also encompasses arrangements in which an executive of one company simultaneously serves on the board of another. Professor Prager and her co-authors examine whether common leadership is associated with a greater likelihood of collusion. Using evidence from litigation involving no-poach agreements among Silicon Valley companies, they find that the arrival of a common leader increases the probability that two companies will enter into a collusive agreement by 11 percentage points—a ninefold increase over the rate among company pairs without common leaders. Fisher and Prager discuss the distinction between interlocking directorates and common leadership (3:34); the paper's central finding connecting common leadership to collusion (5:03); how evidence from the Silicon Valley no-poach litigation made it possible to study that connection empirically (11:07); why some of the common-leadership arrangements studied were outside the current scope of Section 8 of the Clayton Act (14:22); and how the authors used company-leadership data and econometric methods to distinguish causation from correlation (16:22). They also explore whether product-market overlap, labor-market overlap, or common ownership could explain the results (21:21); the relationship between common leadership and the broader common-ownership literature (26:15); possible efficiencies arising from information sharing and improved corporate governance (31:37); whether common leadership may be part of a preexisting plan to collude (33:42); and the limits of extrapolating from the particular companies and labor markets examined in the study (39:14). Finally, Fisher and Prager consider the implications for antitrust policy and enforcement, including whether the findings support increased enforcement of Section 8, the use of common leadership as an investigative signal of possible collusion, and expanding Section 8 to cover competition in labor and other input markets (41:56).
Kojo Koram joins This Is Hell! to talk about his new book "The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs”, published by Verso Books. (https://www.versobooks.com/products/3173-the-next-fix) Kojo Karma is a Professor in Law and Political Economy at the School of Law at Loughborough University. He is the author of, "Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire”, published by John Murray Press. In addition to his academic writing, he has written for the New Statesman, the Guardian and the New York Times. Follow Kojo on Instagram at @kojokoram and on X @kojokoram. We will have new installments of Rotten History and Hangover Cure. We will also be sharing your answers to this week's Question from Hell! from Patreon. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell
China is producing advanced technologies at lightning speed, from AI to electric vehicles. But can rapid innovation translate into stronger domestic consumer confidence? CNA Senior China Editor and Senior Correspondent Olivia Siong joins Robin Pomeroy, Podcast Editor at Radio Davos, on this special episode in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. Together, they interview Professor Yuen Yuen Ang, Alfred Chandler Chair of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University on how China's transformation could affect businesses, governments and consumers worldwide.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
For part of its history, Nassau was a notorious hotbed of pirate activity. And it was home to a maritime criminal network known as the Flying Gang. Research: "Bahamas, the." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia™, The Columbia UP, 2025. Gale OneFile: High School Edition, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A69385873/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=7f7affa4. Accessed 8 July 2026. Ahrens, Wolfgang P. “Naming the Bahamas Islands: History and Folk Etymology.” Names and Their Environment. Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, Glasgow, 25-29. August 2014. Vol. 1. Keynote Lectures. Toponomastics I. Carole Hough and Daria Izdebska (eds). First published 2016 by University of Glasgow under Creative Commons license. https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_576595_smxx.pdf Butler, Lindley S. “North Carolina 1718: The Year of the Pirates.” The North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (APRIL 2018). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45184933 Cartwright, Mark. "Benjamin Hornigold." World History Encyclopedia, 09 Sep 2021, https://www.worldhistory.org/Benjamin_Hornigold/. Craton, Michael. “A History of the Bahamas.” London. Collins. 1962. Enthoven, Victor. “‘That Abominable Nest of Pirates’: St. Eustatius and the North Americans, 1680—1780. Early American Studies , Spring 2012, Vol. 10, No. 2. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23547669 Fox, E.T. “Jacobitism and the ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy, 1715-1725.” International Journal of Maritime History, XXII, No. 2 (December 2010), 277-303. Hahn, Steven C. “The Atlantic Odyssey of Richard Tookerman.” Early American Studies, Summer 2017, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Summer 2017). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/90011103 Keegan, William F. “The Native Peoples of Turks and Caicos.” Florida Museum. https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/caribarch/education/tc-peoples/ Kinsella, Pat. “The real pirates of the Caribbean: your guide to Nassau's pirate republic.” History Extra. 1/20/2022. https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/nassau-pirate-republic-flying-gang-real-pirates-caribbean/ Lane, Kris. “Pirate Networks in the Caribbean.” From Empires of the Sea: Maritime Power Networks in World History. Brill. 2020. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv2gjx041.18 Leeson, Peter T. “An‐arrgh‐chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization.” Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 115, No. 6 (December 2007). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/526403 Moore, David D. “Captain Edward Thatch: A Brief Analysis of the Primary Source Documents Concerning the Notorious Blackbeard.” The North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (APRIL 2018). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45184934 Queen Anne’s Revenge Project. “Did You Know Blackbeard’s Mentor Was a Pirate Hunter?” 3/8/2018. https://www.qaronline.org/blog/2018-03-08/did-you-know-blackbeards-mentor-was-pirate-hunter Rediker, Marcus. “‘Under the Banner of King Death’: The Social World of Anglo-American Pirates, 1716.” The William and Mary Quarterly , Apr., 1981. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1918775 Saunders, Gail. "Rogers, Woodes (c. 1679–1732), privateer and colonial governor." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. January 03, 2008. Oxford University Press. Date of access 9 Jul. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-24006 Sheposh, Richard. “Republic of Pirates.” EBSCO. 2023. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/republic-pirates Wilson, David. “The 1715 Plate Fleet and the Rise of the Pirates.” History Today. 6/30/2015. https://www.historytoday.com/1715-plate-fleet-and-rise-pirates Woodard, Colin. “The republic of pirates : being the true and surprising story of the Caribbean pirates and the man who brought them down.” New York, NY : Mariner Books. 2007. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Air Date: 7/25/2026 The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on the news from June and July without being overwhelming! Organized around a single idea: the same politics that left America friendless abroad is keeping Americans apart at home. The war with Iran ends and America's word counts for less around the world, so Europe starts building its own software instead of buying ours, NATO war-games its own doubts, and China quietly steadies the world's oil markets, while Taiwan shows that real security comes from connection, not threats. At home, the administration revives the red scare, hands the Justice Department to the president's personal lawyer while judges face death threats, and turns the country's 250th birthday into a fight over who counts as American, and billionaires cash out while everyone argues. And the way back starts small: a psychologist's simple habit for a happier social life, organizers who treat loneliness as a political problem with a political cure, and a Michigan Senate campaign built on talking to people instead of donors. Covering: June–July 2026 Full Show Notes Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to shop Bookshop.org and Libro.fm for a non-evil book and audiobook purchasing experience! Join our Discord community! SECTION 1: A SUPERPOWER WITHOUT FRIENDS (00:01:30) #1805 - Trump Giving Iran $300 Billion to End His Own War 1: The Iran Deal, Boy, I Don't Know - Takes by Jamelle Bouie - Air Date 6-18-26 2: J.D. Vance Iran Deal Fall Guy Part 1 - On the Media - Air Date 6-19-26 3: Trump Weakened U.S. Allies While Strengthening Iran Part 1 - UNFTR - Air Date 6-19-26 (00:26:23) #1810 - Post-American Europe: How to Lose Friends and Influence People to Protect Themselves Against You 4: TODAY: Europe Replaces ENTIRE American Software Stack - Google OUT, Microsoft OUT June 9 - House of El - Air Date 6-4-26 5: Would NATO Hold if Russia Tested Article 5? Lessons From a War Game | Berlin Briefing Podcast Part 1 - DW News - Air Date 7-17-26 6: China Quietly Saved the World Last Month Part 1 - Max Fisher - Air Date 7-17-26 (00:54:17) #1799 - The US and China Are Fighting Over Taiwan, Semiconductors, and Africa's Minerals 7: Can There Ever Really Be "one China?" - Vox - Air Date 5-28-26 8: Trump's FAILED Meeting With China's Xi Jinping Was Humiliating - Pod Save the World - Air Date 5-21-26 9: China Will Never Beat Taiwan, Here's Why - Maxinomics - Air Date 3-37-26 SECTION 2: DIVIDED ON PURPOSE (01:23:27) #1809 - Democrats Seek a Blue Wave, Progressives Push Democratic Socialism, GOP Revive the Red Scare 10: The Red Scare Returns Trump Is Calling Us Communists - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 7-8-26 11: Why Dems Like Him Are Crashing Out Right Now with Jeet Heer Part 1 - The Majority Report - Air Dat 7-3-26 12: Unsticking Congress with Maya Kornberg Part 1 - Future Hindsight - Air Date 5-7-26 (01:45:55) #1802 - Department of Injustice: Revenge Prosecutions, Judges Threatened, and Incompetence All the Way Down 13: Trump Eyes Personal Lawyer to Run DOJ Part 1 - The Beat w Ari Melber - Air Date 6-4-26 14: This Federal Judge Ruled Against Trump. Then the Death Threats Rolled in Part 1 - 60 Minutes - Air Date 3-1-26 15: DOJ in Crisis - Stay Tuned with Preet - Air Date 2-10-26 SECTION 3: STRANGERS IN OUR OWN COUNTRY (02:12:09) #1806 - America at 250: The Declaration, the Constitution, and our Crisis of Democracy 16: America's 250th Birthday Must Reckon with Racism, Historian Says - Here & Now Anytime - Air Date 6-19-26 17: Trump 250 Gala Grows More Humiliating as Fox Grapples with Low Turnout - THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent - Air Date 6-26-26 18: The Constitution (Melissa's Version) - Strict Scrutiny - Air Date 5-11-26 (02:37:01) #1807 - What the World Cup Exposes: Identity, Colonialism, and Racism in 2026 19: Pete Hegseth is Trying to Resegregate the Military - Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie - Air Date 6-20-26 20: US Soccer Star Shows MAGA's Racism With Zero Effort - Rick Strom - Air Date 6-23-26 21: Colonial Wars Played On The Pitch - AJ+ - Air Date 6-21-26 (03:07:56) #1804 - Elon Musk, the First Trillionaire, and the Broken System That Made Him 22: Belfast Riots: Why UK Mobs See Racial Violence as 'national Defence' | Amina Shareef | MEE Opinion - Middle East Eye - Air Date 6-18-26 23: 'Billionaire CRISIS': How the Country's Wealthiest Are 'bankrolling' U.S. Politics - MS NOW - Air Date 5-27-26 24: SpaceX IPO: What They're Not Telling Retail Investors - UNFTR Media - Air Date 6-9-26 (03:34:28) #1808 - Billionaires vs. Democracy: They're Not Coming For Your Job, They're Coming For Your Government (And The Entire Economy) 25: The Richest Country Is Pretty Mid Now Part 1 - Benn Jordan - Air Date 6-28-26 26: The End Of Capitalism Is Here. - Second Thought - Air Date 6-5-26 27: America is Entering a New Socialist Era — and It Might Stick - The Recount - Air Date 6-30-26 SECTION 4: THE WAY BACK TO EACH OTHER (04:03:58) #1800 - How Capitalism Created Loneliness and How To Joyfully Organize Our Way to Community 28: Anthropic Discovers the Axis of Evil, and AIs Loneliness Economy - The AI Fix - Air Date 2-3-26 29: The Political Economy of Love Attention, Affection, & What Capitalism Can't Buy Part 1 - Rev Left Radio - Air Date 1-19-26 30: The Simple Habit for a Happier Social Life Nicholas Epley Part 1 - TEDTalks - Air Date 5-19-26 (04:30:56) #1801 - Counterfeit Populism: Trump, the 2026 Primaries, and the Era That's Ending 31: Why I Left the (White) Left - Signified B Sides - Air Date 6-2-26 32: Hayes: Trump is Chasing Good Press with Bombs - All In with Chris Hayes - Air Date 6-11-26 33: Abdul El-Sayed Thinks the Michigan Senate Race Will Come Down to This One Factor - Slate and Abdul El-Sayed - Air Date 4-30-26 Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com Listen Anywhere! BestOfTheLeft.com/Listen Follow BotL: Bluesky | Mastodon | Threads | X Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com
This week we're releasing an episode from Scotland‘s Political Economy podcast. Host William Thomson invited Steve to join him to compare and reflect on their favorite interviews and the thinkers who most shaped their worldviews – from Clara Mattei and Fadhel Kaboub to Bill Mitchell, Jason Hickel, and Marxist-Leninist thinkers. They explore the limits of MMT without class analysis, the capture of academic and political institutions by oligarchic interests, and the importance of historical materialism, Gramsci, and Lenin in understanding how power truly operates.The episode looks at the evolution of the two independent podcasters, their intellectual awakenings, and their shared conviction that the fight is not for better policy within capitalism, but for a fundamental transformation of the system itself. And for listeners to Macro N Cheese, it provides insight into Steve' seven-year journey, taking the podcast from a strict MMT focus to a broader political economic analysis rooted in class struggle, revolutionary theory, and a critical view of electoral politics.William Thomson is a political economist focused on the political economy of Scotland. His work considers how the economy actually operates, how decisions are made, and how power, institutions, and policy shape outcomes across Scotland.Support his work at patreon.com/Scotlandspoliticaleconomy@Williamgallus on X
In this episode of the Oxford Policy Pod, Belén Tomic sits down with Dr. Belén Villegas Plá and Dr. Rossella Ciccia to talk about care, its many forms, and who bears its weight.Belén Villegas Plá is Lecturer in the Political Economy of Latin America at the Oxford Department of International Development, and Rossella Ciccia is Associate Professor of Social Policy at the Oxford Department of Social Policy and Intervention.Together, they explore how and why care has become such a politically salient issue over the past decade, the role feminist movements have played in putting it on the agenda in Latin America, and why the region has become such an important space for these discussions. The conversation also examines the challenges of turning care demands into lasting policy where social protection is fragmented and state capacity is limited.Drawing on both Latin American and European experiences, Belén and Rossella reflect on what a caring society would look like, what it would take to treat care as a shared social responsibility rather than a private burden carried disproportionately by women, and why redistributing unpaid care work remains one of the defining challenges of contemporary social policy.
Edward Hadas concludes his reflections on the opening section of Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, discussing with Fr Toby the destructive effects of the technocratic paradigm, but ending on a note of hope.Edward Hadas is the author of Counsels of Imperfection: Thinking through Catholic Social Teaching, published by the Catholic University of America Press. He teaches Political Economy at the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University and also teaches philosophy to visiting American undergraduates. He previously worked in finance and financial journalism. He is currently completing a book on narratives of modernity. CREDO is a programme that nourishes listeners in their Catholic faith. It airs live on Radio Maria every weekday at 4pm and is rebroadcast at 4am the following morning, as well as 4.15pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday. Please consider supporting us with a one-off or monthly donation. It is only through the generosity of our listeners that we are able to be a Christian voice by your side. https://radiomaria.uk/donations/
Today Edward and Fr Toby look at the Pope's reflections on what it means to be more fully human.Edward Hadas is the author of Counsels of Imperfection: Thinking through Catholic Social Teaching, published by the Catholic University of America Press. He teaches Political Economy at the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University and also teaches philosophy to visiting American undergraduates. He previously worked in finance and financial journalism. He is currently completing a book on narratives of modernity. CREDO is a programme that nourishes listeners in their Catholic faith. It airs live on Radio Maria every weekday at 4pm and is rebroadcast at 4am the following morning, as well as 4.15pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday. Please consider supporting us with a one-off or monthly donation. It is only through the generosity of our listeners that we are able to be a Christian voice by your side. https://radiomaria.uk/donations/
Magnifica Humanitas is Pope Leo's first encyclical, dedicated to the defence of humanity against some of the evils and temptations of our age. In this series Edward Hadas provides a commentary including background and explanations. Edward Hadas is the author of Counsels of Imperfection: Thinking through Catholic Social Teaching, published by the Catholic University of America Press. He teaches Political Economy at the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University and also teaches philosophy to visiting American undergraduates. He previously worked in finance and financial journalism. He is currently completing a book on narratives of modernity. CREDO is a programme that nourishes listeners in their Catholic faith. It airs live on Radio Maria every weekday at 4pm and is rebroadcast at 4am the following morning, as well as 4.15pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday. Please consider supporting us with a one-off or monthly donation. It is only through the generosity of our listeners that we are able to be a Christian voice by your side. www.radiomaria.uk
Edward Hadas is the author of Counsels of Imperfection: Thinking through Catholic Social Teaching, published by the Catholic University of America Press. He teaches Political Economy at the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University and also teaches philosophy to visiting American undergraduates. He previously worked in finance and financial journalism. He is currently completing a book on narratives of modernity. CREDO is a programme that nourishes listeners in their Catholic faith. It airs live on Radio Maria every weekday at 4pm and is rebroadcast at 4am the following morning, as well as 4.15pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday. Please consider supporting us with a one-off or monthly donation. It is only through the generosity of our listeners that we are able to be a Christian voice by your side. https://radiomaria.uk/donations/
Magnifica Humanitas is Pope Leo's first encyclical, dedicated to the defence of humanity against some of the evils and temptations of our age. In this series Edward Hadas provides a commentary including background and explanations. Edward Hadas is the author of Counsels of Imperfection: Thinking through Catholic Social Teaching, published by the Catholic University of America Press. He teaches Political Economy at the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University and also teaches philosophy to visiting American undergraduates. He previously worked in finance and financial journalism. He is currently completing a book on narratives of modernity. CREDO is a programme that nourishes listeners in their Catholic faith. It airs live on Radio Maria every weekday at 4pm and is rebroadcast at 4am the following morning, as well as 4.15pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday. Please consider supporting us with a one-off or monthly donation. It is only through the generosity of our listeners that we are able to be a Christian voice by your side. https://radiomaria.uk/donations/
Were the foundations of American governance engineered to protect the wealthy? Harvard Law professor Michael Klarman argues that the US Constitution was actually a counter-revolutionary coup to constrain democracy rather than protect it. This episode explores how debt, taxes, and money influenced the drafting of America's founding document. And whether a wealthy elite bypassed democratic institutions to secure their own financial interests and reduce populist power. Connect with us:
Economist Mikayla Novak joins NSP to discuss her books Rainbow Liberty and Liberal Emancipation. We also talk about sociology, radical liberalism, fascist economy, and more. Mikayla Novak is a Senior Fellow in the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She has an economics doctorate awarded by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and a sociology PhD from The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Prior to academia in the U.S., Mikayla worked in the Australian public service as well as in think-tanks. Mikayla Novak is the author of several books, including the upcoming Routledge publication, Rainbow Liberty, and has authored over 30 peer-review journal articles. Her research interests include Austrian and evolutionary economics, institutional economics, public choice, and social philosophy and theory. Link: https://www.mercatus.org/hayekprogram/scholars/mikayla-novak https://www.routledge.com/Rainbow-Liberty-Liberal-Political-Economy-and-Queer-Freedom/Goodman-Lofthouse-Novak/p/book/9781041016441 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-94406-2 Chapters: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:12:17 Self-Governance without the State 00:17:21 Libertarian Thought Traps 00:20:37 Rainbow Liberty Book 00:33:05 Queerness and Markets 00:45:45 Charlotte Twight, Political Transaction Costs, and Technocratic Fascism 00:56:21 Liberal Emancipation Book 01:01:09 Radicalism via Don Lavoie 01:08:49 The Relevance of Sociology 01:11:28 Lightning Round and Outro Thanks for listening! Please like, comment, subscribe, and share! --- If you'd like to see more anarchist and anti-authoritarian interviews, please consider supporting this project financially by becoming a patron at https://www.patreon.com/nonserviammedia Follow Non Serviam Media Collective on: Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/nonserviammedia.bsky.social Mastodon https://kolektiva.social/@nonserviammedia As well as Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Connect with Lucy Steigerwald via: https://bsky.app/profile/lucystag.bsky.social https://mastodon.social/@LucyStag https://lucysteigerwald.substack.com/
Click here to watch the video recording of this interview. In her latest book, Ann Pettifor argues that we are not governed by politicians or diplomats, but “by wealthy and powerful players in markets based in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the City of London.”These players, she says, largely either ignore the threat of climate breakdown, or see it as a struggle for resource control. The “unregulated actions of private actors and institutions in global markets have led to the increasingly rapid breakdown of the world's climate and ecosystem.”In a special episode of The Land and Climate Podcast, recorded live in front of an audience as part of London Climate Action Week, Bertie and Ann discuss the influence financial markets exert over climate policy, and strategies to reassert democratic control.Ann Pettifor is a political economist known for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, successfully campaigning to cancel approximately $100 billion in debt owed by poor countries, and for co-authoring and advocating the Green New Deal. In January 2026, Verso published her latest book, The Global Casino: How Wall Street Gambles with People and the Planet. Buy a copy from Verso's website before 31st July and recieve 30% off with the following discount code: CLIMATEREVIEW30 Further reading: Ann's Substack, System Change.The Case for the Green New Deal, 2019The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of Bankers, 2018Send us Fan MailFind all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org
Economist, university professor, and founding director of the Institute for the Study of Race, Stratification, and Political Economy at The New School, Darrick Hamilton explains why he believes Trump's "booming" economy is pointing toward a Black recession.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tavis-smiley--6286410/support.
Miguel was joined on the Sports As A Weapon podcast by Dr. Gerald Horne and Anthony “Tony” Ballas to discuss the June 14, 2026 UFC “Freedom 250” event that was staged as an imperialist political spectacle by Donald Trump and Dana White. Dr. Horne, Anthony, and Miguel framed the spectacle as US imperial theater echoing “bread and circuses” and even late-stage Roman Empire decline. Additionally, Dr. Horne, Anthony, and Miguel discussed the parallels between Dana White and historic boxing promoters, fighter labor exploitation, and the event being used as a propaganda tool for US patriotism and militarization. Also, Miguel posed the question of alleged match-fixing amid the wider boom in sports gambling, crypto payments, and prediction markets, including the alleged leaked viral Twitter exchange between former UFC fighter and now commentator Daniel Cormier and Eric Trump. In the leaked message, Eric Trump sought insider betting information ahead of the UFC event. The episode conversation also links these dynamics to finance capital, media consolidation, and the crisis of US imperialism. Miguel, Dr. Horne, and Anthony also examined the UFC's new partnership with an AI military startup called Anduril and the normalization of AI within culture and warfare. To conclude the podcast, they discussed Dr. Horne and Anthony's article on Whiteness, Jake Paul, and the crisis of US Imperialism.Gerald Horne is John Jay and Rebecca Moors Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. Dr. Horne is the author of 50 books, including The BitterSweet Science: Racism, Racketeering, and the Political Economy of Boxing. His latest book is The Counter-Revolution Of 1893: The Hawaii Coup and the Roots of U.S. Imperialism in the Asia-Pacific Basin. Anthony Ballas is an organizer with NFEE Local 4935. He is also a PhD student in Literature at Duke University. His work appears in Monthly Review, Protean Magazine, Caribbean Quarterly, 3:AM Magazine, Truthout, Middle West Review, CounterPunch, Scalawag Magazine, Peace, Land and Bread Magazine, and elsewhere. He is also the host of the De Facto Podcast and co-host of Cold War Cinema. Links:* Follow Dr. Gerald Horne on Facebook * Black & Red — 40th Anniversary Edition by Dr. Gerald Horne (Pre-order) * Slave Trade and the Roots of U.S. Imperialism by Dr. Gerald Horne (Pre-order) * De Facto Podcast with Anthony Ballas * The Cold War Cinema Podcast with Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, & Paul T. Klein * TKO and Anduril Announce Partnership Across UFC and Zuffa Boxing/UFC.com * Eric Trump Accused of Seeking UFC Fight Intel, Calls It ‘Completely Fake by Eric Fisher/Front Office Sports * Shadowboxing with Ghosts: Whiteness, Jake Paul, and the Crisis of U.S. Imperialism by Dr. Gerald Horne and Anthony Ballas/The Black Agenda Report * What American Fascism Has Already Looked Like by Dr. Gerald Horne and Anthony Ballas/PLB Magazine * Gerald Horne Around The Horne: America 250 July 4th Anniversary, Birthright Citizenship & Juneteenth/Activist News Network (YouTube)Miguel Garcia and Comrade E produced this episode. The Sports As A Weapon Podcast is part of the @Anticonquista Media Collective. Subscribe to the ANTICONQUISTA Patreon and follow ANTICONQUISTA on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.All the video episodes are on the ANTICONQUISTA YouTube, and listen/subscribe to the Sports As A Weapon Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Deezer, or wherever you get your podcasts.Follow us on:Twitter/X: @sportsasaweaponFacebook: fb.com/sportsasaweaponpodcastInstagram: @sportsasaweaponpodcastUpScrolled: @SportsAsAWeaponYouTube: @SportsAsAWeaponBlueSky: @sportsasaweapon.bsky.socialVisit our website: www.sportsasaweapon.com
The man Congress chose to draft the United States' first constitution refused to vote for independence. John Dickinson wrote a bold plan, one with a strong central government, religious liberty protections that included women, and a question in the margins about whether Congress should abolish slavery. Congress stripped out nearly all of these ideas and provisions. What replaced it sparked a debate over federal vs. state power that has never gone away. This is the third episode in our How Independence Happened series. In Part 1, we explored Richard Henry Lee's Virginia Resolution of June 7, 1776. In Part 2, we examined the Model Treaty and how the new United States made foreign alliances. In this third part, we're joined by historians Jane Calvert and Jonathan Gienapp so we can investigate the Articles of Confederation, the third element of independence. Jane's Website | BookJonathan's Website | BookShow Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/445 EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction00:03:34 The Articles of Confederation00:08:29 Why A Confederation Was Important00:12:49 Why the Second Continental Congress Create A Formal Union00:21:44 Drafting the Articles of Confederation00:22:38 John Dickinson's Role in Drafting the Articles00:45:50 The Founding Generation's Ideas About Government01:05:40 Viewing the Articles of Confederation in Context01:13:07 The Unwritten Constitution of the PeopleRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
The man Congress chose to draft the United States' first constitution refused to vote for independence. John Dickinson wrote a bold plan, one with a strong central government, religious liberty protections that included women, and a question in the margins about whether Congress should abolish slavery. Congress stripped out nearly all of these ideas and provisions. What replaced it sparked a debate over federal vs. state power that has never gone away. This is the third episode in our How Independence Happened series. In Part 1, we explored Richard Henry Lee's Virginia Resolution of June 7, 1776. In Part 2, we examined the Model Treaty and how the new United States made foreign alliances. In this third part, we're joined by historians Jane Calvert and Jonathan Gienapp so we can investigate the Articles of Confederation, the third element of independence. Jane's Website | BookJonathan's Website | BookShow Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/445 EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction00:03:34 The Articles of Confederation00:08:29 Why A Confederation Was Important00:12:49 Why the Second Continental Congress Create A Formal Union00:21:44 Drafting the Articles of Confederation00:22:38 John Dickinson's Role in Drafting the Articles00:45:50 The Founding Generation's Ideas About Government01:05:40 Viewing the Articles of Confederation in Context01:13:07 The Unwritten Constitution of the PeopleRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES
Will Thompson, Founder and Managing Partner of Massif Capital, joins the LPL Market Signals podcast to discuss the evolving dynamics across the broader commodities landscape. He shares his perspective on investing within the real asset universe, emphasizing how rising resource nationalism is reshaping the macro backdrop as governments take a more active role in securing and controlling critical resources. The conversation also explores recent developments in energy markets, including the essential role insurers play in facilitating oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the outlook for global oil supply and demand following the recent U.S.-Iran peace agreement. Tracking: #1130705
Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia's own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private partnerships are shaped by contestation among Chinese and Japanese capital, as well as Indonesian civil society, state actors, and labor. We also link these dynamics to the country's changing industrial policy, from energy infrastructure to Nickel processing to the planned capital of Nusantara, asking how Indonesia uses strategies of polyalignment and foreign finance to pursue its own developmental ambitions. — Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this role, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Japan Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, and taught at the College of Global Liberal Arts. She received her PhD in Politics from Murdoch University, Australia, and remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Research Centre there. She has also worked at the Asian Development Bank and UNDP Indonesia, cultivating an interest in the political economy of development and evidence-informed policymaking. Her research spans green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China. The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025) Indonesia, nickel, and the political economy of polyalignment in the Second Cold War in Third World Quarterly An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus in Environmental Policy 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
Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia's own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private partnerships are shaped by contestation among Chinese and Japanese capital, as well as Indonesian civil society, state actors, and labor. We also link these dynamics to the country's changing industrial policy, from energy infrastructure to Nickel processing to the planned capital of Nusantara, asking how Indonesia uses strategies of polyalignment and foreign finance to pursue its own developmental ambitions. — Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this role, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Japan Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, and taught at the College of Global Liberal Arts. She received her PhD in Politics from Murdoch University, Australia, and remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Research Centre there. She has also worked at the Asian Development Bank and UNDP Indonesia, cultivating an interest in the political economy of development and evidence-informed policymaking. Her research spans green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China. The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025) Indonesia, nickel, and the political economy of polyalignment in the Second Cold War in Third World Quarterly An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus in Environmental Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies
Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia's own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private partnerships are shaped by contestation among Chinese and Japanese capital, as well as Indonesian civil society, state actors, and labor. We also link these dynamics to the country's changing industrial policy, from energy infrastructure to Nickel processing to the planned capital of Nusantara, asking how Indonesia uses strategies of polyalignment and foreign finance to pursue its own developmental ambitions. — Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this role, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Japan Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, and taught at the College of Global Liberal Arts. She received her PhD in Politics from Murdoch University, Australia, and remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Research Centre there. She has also worked at the Asian Development Bank and UNDP Indonesia, cultivating an interest in the political economy of development and evidence-informed policymaking. Her research spans green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China. The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025) Indonesia, nickel, and the political economy of polyalignment in the Second Cold War in Third World Quarterly An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus in Environmental Policy Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies
Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia's own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private partnerships are shaped by contestation among Chinese and Japanese capital, as well as Indonesian civil society, state actors, and labor. We also link these dynamics to the country's changing industrial policy, from energy infrastructure to Nickel processing to the planned capital of Nusantara, asking how Indonesia uses strategies of polyalignment and foreign finance to pursue its own developmental ambitions. — Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this role, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Japan Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, and taught at the College of Global Liberal Arts. She received her PhD in Politics from Murdoch University, Australia, and remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Research Centre there. She has also worked at the Asian Development Bank and UNDP Indonesia, cultivating an interest in the political economy of development and evidence-informed policymaking. Her research spans green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China. The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025) Indonesia, nickel, and the political economy of polyalignment in the Second Cold War in Third World Quarterly An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus in Environmental Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia's own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private partnerships are shaped by contestation among Chinese and Japanese capital, as well as Indonesian civil society, state actors, and labor. We also link these dynamics to the country's changing industrial policy, from energy infrastructure to Nickel processing to the planned capital of Nusantara, asking how Indonesia uses strategies of polyalignment and foreign finance to pursue its own developmental ambitions. — Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this role, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Japan Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, and taught at the College of Global Liberal Arts. She received her PhD in Politics from Murdoch University, Australia, and remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Research Centre there. She has also worked at the Asian Development Bank and UNDP Indonesia, cultivating an interest in the political economy of development and evidence-informed policymaking. Her research spans green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China. The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025) Indonesia, nickel, and the political economy of polyalignment in the Second Cold War in Third World Quarterly An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus in Environmental Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs
Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia's own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private partnerships are shaped by contestation among Chinese and Japanese capital, as well as Indonesian civil society, state actors, and labor. We also link these dynamics to the country's changing industrial policy, from energy infrastructure to Nickel processing to the planned capital of Nusantara, asking how Indonesia uses strategies of polyalignment and foreign finance to pursue its own developmental ambitions. — Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this role, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Japan Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, and taught at the College of Global Liberal Arts. She received her PhD in Politics from Murdoch University, Australia, and remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Research Centre there. She has also worked at the Asian Development Bank and UNDP Indonesia, cultivating an interest in the political economy of development and evidence-informed policymaking. Her research spans green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China. The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025) Indonesia, nickel, and the political economy of polyalignment in the Second Cold War in Third World Quarterly An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus in Environmental Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance
Defence spending is rising whether voters like it or not. The UK has committed to 2.5% of national income and aims for nearer 3.5% over the next decade, £30bn a year for each percentage point. What does the country get back? Can defence spending be pro-growth?In this week's VoxTalk, John Van Reenen (LSE) argues that getting a return on investment based on innovation need not be left to luck. For example nuclear power, GPS and the internet all began as military projects. The spillovers can be planned for; the trick is to make defence spending innovation-rich, and make procurement work better.Traditional top-down procurement mostly produces lock-in: the same firms winning over and over. Van Reenen's study of a project at the US Air Force shows the difference: when it asked firms what they could build, rather than telling them what to make, the competitions brought in startups, generated more original patents, and spilled ideas into the civilian economy. The research behind this episode:Moretti, Enrico, Claudia Steinwender, and John Van Reenen. 2025. "The Intellectual Spoils of War? Defense R&D, Productivity, and International Spillovers." The Review of Economics and Statistics 107 (1). An ungated version is available as NBER Working Paper No. 26483.Howell, Sabrina T., Jason Rathje, John Van Reenen, and Jun Wong. 2025. "Opening Up Military Innovation: Causal Effects of Reforms to US Defense Research." Journal of Political Economy 133 (11). An ungated version is available as NBER Working Paper No. 28700.To cite this episode:Phillips, Tim, and John Van Reenen. 2026. “Making defence spending pay.” VoxTalks Economics (podcast).Assign this as extra listening. The citation above is formatted and ready for a reading list or VLE.About the guestJohn Van Reenen is the Ronald Coase School Professor at the London School of Economics and Director of the Programme on Innovation and Diffusion at the Centre for Economic Performance. He chairs the Council of Economic Advisors to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the NBER. His research spans innovation, productivity, industrial organisation, and the public policies that shape them.Research cited in this episodeCrowding in, not crowding out. Moretti, Steinwender and Van Reenen tracked industries across twenty-three economies over several decades and found that higher defence R&D spending raised private R&D rather than displacing it, with knock-on gains for productivity growth in the following decades.The SBIR Open Topics reform. The US Air Force Small Business Innovation Research programme traditionally ran "conventional" competitions specifying the technology wanted; from 2018 it added "open" competitions inviting firms to propose any idea useful to the Air Force. Howell, Rathje, Van Reenen and Wong compared near-winners with near-losers and found the open awards produced new military technology, more original patents, and civilian spillovers such as venture capital funding; the conventional awards mostly produced lock-in.Spin-offs from military research. Nuclear power, GPS and the internet each began as military projects before becoming civilian technologies; Van Reenen reaches back further to the claw of Archimedes, built to fend off the Roman fleet at Syracuse, as an early example of defence invention finding a wider use.The Draghi report. Van Reenen worked with Mario Draghi on his 2024 report on European competitiveness; he draws on it to argue that fragmented standards and duplicated procurement across Europe waste money, and that common standards and joint procurement would let countries specialise where they hold a comparative advantage.More VoxTalks Economics episodesIn January, Tim spoke to Moritz Schularick of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy about whether Europe can convert its industrial base into credible deterrence. Listen to Can Europe Defend Itself?
Free trade was never actually free? That's the case Katherine Tai, Joe Biden's former U.S. Trade Representative, brings Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales this week. For decades, the economic consensus treated free trade as an engine for cheaper goods and faster growth. But, Tai argues, this system actually relies on ignored externalities, allowing multinational corporations to reap the benefits of zero regulation while workers and the environment absorb the costs. Zingales goes further, arguing the whole system isn't free trade at all, but something he calls “captured trade”. So who exactly is that trade free for and what exactly is it free from? Tai walks through the hidden machinery most people never see, and what she calls a plan for a worker-centered trade policy. Connect with us:
About this episode: The wellness industry covers everything from fitness to biohacking, yoga to peptides, and it's backed by culturally and financially powerful players. In this episode: a new paper in the Milbank Quarterly covers how social media fuels the industry's proliferation, the growing skepticism of traditional medicine that allows it to thrive, and the tension between the concepts of wellness and public health. Guest: Nancy Karreman, PhD, is a researcher of public health interventions at the University of Cambridge. Nason Maani, PhD, MPH, is a senior lecturer in inequalities and global health policy at the University of Edinburgh. Host: Dr. Josh Sharfstein is distinguished professor of the practice in Health Policy and Management, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland's Health Department. He served as the Baltimore City Commissioner of Health from 2005 to 2009. Show links and related content: The Political Economy of Wellness: Commercial Determinants of a Burgeoning Industry—Millbank Quarterly The Outlook on Direct-to-Consumer Health Care—Public Health On Call (February 2026) Dietitian Influencers On Social Media Are Being Paid By the Food Industry to Promote Products and Messages—Public Health On Call (October 2023) Transcript information: Looking for episode transcripts? Open our podcast on the Apple Podcasts app (desktop or mobile) or the Spotify mobile app to access an auto-generated transcript of any episode. Closed captioning is also available for every episode on our YouTube channel. Contact us: Have a question about something you heard? Looking for a transcript? Want to suggest a topic or guest? Contact us via email or visit our website. Follow us: @PublicHealthPod on Bluesky @PublicHealthPod on Instagram @JohnsHopkinsSPH on Facebook @PublicHealthOnCall on YouTube Here's our RSS feed Note: These podcasts are a conversation between the participants, and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University.
From cannabis legalisation in the United States to the rise of psychedelics as wellness and productivity tools, the global politics of drugs is being rapidly transformed. But who really benefits from the legalisation of recreational drugs? In this episode, journalist and author Atossa Araxia Abrahamian speaks with Kojo Koram, Professor of Law and Political Economy at Loughborough University, about his new book The Next Fix. Drawing on reporting from Colombia, Ghana, Scotland and the United States, Koram traces the shifting relationship between criminalisation, capitalism and public health. The conversation examines the roots of drug regulation in empire, the racial inequalities embedded in prohibition, and the growing tension between movements seeking justice and corporations seeking profit from newly legal markets. Koram also explores how substances once associated with criminality are being rebranded for elite consumption - as therapeutic treatments, Silicon Valley productivity aids and investment opportunities. At its centre is a wider question about power and inequality: who benefits when drugs move from the underground economy into the mainstream? Kojo Koram is Professor of Law and Political Economy at Loughborough University. He is the author of The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs. Atossa Araxia Abrahamian is a journalist who writes about the cracks in the nation-state system. She is the author of The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events ... Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Air Date: 6/12/2026 Today we examine how America caused a loneliness epidemic by tearing down the places where people used to find each other, how big tech is offering AI as a lackluster substitute for connection, and how people are building the opposite of loneliness with block parties, labor unions, and community gardens. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to shop Bookshop.org and Libro.fm for a non-evil book and audiobook purchasing experience! Join our Discord community! TOP TAKES KP 1: How Capitalism Causes Loneliness Part 1 - Second Thought - Air Date 6-2-23 KP 2: Anthropic Discovers the Axis of Evil, and AIs Loneliness Economy - The AI Fix - Air Date 2-3-26 KP 3: The Political Economy of Love Attention, Affection, & What Capitalism Can't Buy Part 1 - Rev Left Radio - Air Date 1-19-26 KP 4: What Do We Mean by Humane Tech Part 1 - Your Undivided Attention - Air Date 6-4-26 KP 5: Stone Soup A Recipe for Community Organizing Marina Barnett Part 1 - TEDxWidenerUniversity - Air Date 10-24-22 KP 6: The Simple Habit for a Happier Social Life Nicholas Epley Part 1 - TEDTalks - Air Date 5-19-26 (00:49:32) NOTE FROM THE EDITOR Why the Left Needs to Have More Fun to Build Real Power My commentaries on YouTube - Share them! DEEPER DIVES (00:59:32) SECTION A: THE LONELINESS WE LIVE IN A1: Loneliness - Capitalism's Collateral Damage - Democracy At Work - Air Date 8-29-22 A2: How Capitalism Causes Loneliness Part 2 - Second Thought - Air Date 6-2-23 A3: Loneliness - Capitalism's Collateral Damage Part 2 - Democracy At Work - Air Date 8-29-22 A4: The Political Economy of Love Attention, Affection, & What Capitalism Can't Buy Part 2 - Rev Left Radio - Air Date 1-19-26 (01:29:54) SECTION B: AI COMPANION MACHINE B1: Can AI Companionship Cure Loneliness – or Deepen It Part 1 - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 2-27-26 B2: People Are Lonelier Than Ever. Enter AI. - Your Undivided Attention - Air Date 5-30-25 B3: The Dark Side of AI Companions, and the 1930s LLM - The AI Fix - Air Date 5-5-26 B4: What Do We Mean by Humane Tech Part 2 - Your Undivided Attention - Air Date 6-4-26 B5: Can AI Companionship Cure Loneliness – or Deepen It Part 2 - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 2-27-26 (02:18:26) SECTION C: REFRACTIONS AND REACH-OUTS C1: Gladiators, Real Housewives and the Pull of Reality TV Part 1 - Throughline - Air Date 4-30-26 C2: If Hope Is a Muscle, Then How Do I Build It Part 1 - How to Survive the End of the World - Air Date 4-10-26 C3: Gladiators, Real Housewives and the Pull of Reality TV Part 2 - Throughline - Air Date 4-30-26 C4: If Hope Is a Muscle, Then How Do I Build It Part 2 - How to Survive the End of the World - Air Date 4-10-26 C5: The Simple Habit for a Happier Social Life Nicholas Epley Part 2 - TEDTalks - Air Date 5-19-26 (02:58:25) SECTION D: BUILDING IT BACK D1: Stone Soup A Recipe for Community Organizing Marina Barnett Part 2 - TEDxWidenerUniversity - Air Date 10-24-22 D2: How People Are Combatting Loneliness with Community Connections - The Newsfeed - Air Date 5-22-26 D3: Solo How Do We Make the Left Fun Again - The Bardo Podcast - Air Date 3-10-26 D4: Being Human with Marshall Ganz Part 1 - Practical Wisdom for Leaders - Air Date 5-20-26 D5: Biko Koenig, Worker Centered Allyship & Action in the Contemporary Labor Movement (Oxford UP, 2024) Part 1 - In Conversation An OUP Podcast - Air Date 3-11-26 D6: Being Human with Marshall Ganz Part 2 - Practical Wisdom for Leaders - Air Date 5-20-26 D7: Biko Koenig, Worker Centered Allyship & Action in the Contemporary Labor Movement (Oxford UP, 2024) Part 2 - In Conversation An OUP Podcast - Air Date 3-11-26 Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com Listen Anywhere! BestOfTheLeft.com/Listen Listen Anywhere! Follow BotL: Bluesky | Mastodon | Threads | X Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com
In the late 2000s, two movements emerged in Sao Paulo, each trying to make the city more humane and livable for its residents. On the one hand, green policy elites worked on a downtown revitalization plan that would model a moreintelligently dense, and hence lower-carbon, style of urbanism. On the other, the city's housing movement occupied vacant buildings to pressure state actors to build up affordable housing and democratize urban planning. These groupscould have been allies, but first, they ended up on opposite sides of a battle over the future of the city. What were the conditions for the climate and housing agenda to pull in the same direction?There is a line of argumentation that says: “working class people don't care about the environment or climate change; this is a privilege of the middle class or urban educated elites, that is incapable of accounting for the immediate necessities many families have”. And yet, this itself fails to recognize that many working class struggles already have a green agendaof sorts: they want good housing in central places; they want transit systems that work and access to urban amenities that the wealthy already have. In other words, what the environmentalist movement – and its critics - sometimes miss isthat some of the most important climate actors are not always the people who speak in the language of carbon emissions and bike lanes, but rather fight for the right to the city.Talking through this today is Daniel Aldana Cohen, who is not only Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley, but is also one of my models for public intellectual and leftist policynerds, particularly around working class politics and climate change. In this episode, we talk about Daniel's upcoming book, titled Street Fight: Climate Change and Inequality in the 21st Century City. We look at the case of Nova Luz, a downtown redevelopment project sold as a green and dense revitalization urbanism, but that was actually experienced by housing movements as a kind of displacement from above. But the framing that there is an intrinsic conflict between climate and social justice is a strawman – instead, we need to understand the distinction between luxury and democratic ecologies and who reaps the benefits or pays the costs of these different political projects. There is a critique, but also hope in this! The environmental movement is doomed to alienate working class people if it shifts the costs of changes onto the people already bearing the worst brunt of climate change and inequality.But by integrating working class needs – including appropriate measures – such as protecting housing security to avoid green gentrification, or creating affordable housing in central locations – then the power of both movements can reinforce each other. This isn't necessarily easy, and there are tensions tonavigate – but it's the only long-term strategy that can create a deep leftist project of public affluence and climate justice. Daniel Aldana Cohen is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is Director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2, and serves as a member of the Graduate Group of the Designated Emphasis in Political Economy. He is also Founding Co-Director of the Climate and Community Institute (CCI), a progressive climate and economy think tank. He has been a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar (2021-24), and Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ (2018-19). He is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso 2019).
Courtney Radsch reports on the political and economic impact of synthetic media and the stultifying consequences of our increasingly low-quality, high-fat media diet. Courtney and Kimberly discuss the range of journalistic endeavors; synthetic media's entrée on the scene; disinformation vs. propaganda; competing with AI in the marketplace of ideas; content verification, labeling and trust; how synthetic media depends on and undermines journalism; information as a social, political and economic concern; embedded AI ideologies; equating regulation with censorship; information warfare; cognitive liberty in an age of corporate dominance; infrastructure and intent; the need for bright line protections, pluralism and independent oversight.Dr. Courtney Radsch, PhD is the Director of the Center for Media and Digital Governance (formerly CJL) and a non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. An award-winning journalist, scholar, diplomat, and human rights advocate, Courtney was recently named one of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics.Related Resources:Same Gatekeepers, New Tollbooths: Mapping the AI Content Licensing Market (CMDG Research Report)The Algorithm Loses Its Immunity (Article)The Pentagon Wants Its Panopticon (Article)The Battle for Cognitive Liberty in the Age of Corporate AI (Tech Policy Press)A transcript of this episode is here.
Anne McElvoy and guests discuss the concentration, distribution and morality of wealth now and look back at An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published by the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith in 1776, which gives an early account of what builds nations' wealth and introduced concepts such as free markets, the division of labour, and productivity.Our guests for this episode of BBC Radio 4's Friday night ideas discussion programme are:Vicky Pryce, economist and business consultant and co-author of Mismanaged Decline What Politicians Won't Tell You About the EconomyMaha Rafi Atal, Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Glasgow. The University is holding a series of events to mark the 250th anniversary of the publication of The Wealth of Nations.Dafydd Daniel, Lecturer in Divinity at the University of St AndrewsAllister Heath, business journalistHettie O'Brien, Guardian writer and author of The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against ItselfProducer: Eliane GlaserYou can hear another discussion about searching for economic solutions in the most recent episode of Start the Week, Radio 4's Monday morning discussion programme where Tom Sutcliffe was joined by Mariana Mazzucato, Jeremy Hunt and Patrick Foulis.
In this episode, we're joined by Palestinian scholars Diana Buttu and Adam Hanieh to analyze what this moment reveals about the architecture of the US empire, the regional order being remade in real time, and what it means for the Palestinian liberation struggle at the center of it all.
Welcome to our new series, The Hayekian Triangle. This series will feature a range of conversations between our hosts: Virgil Storr, Chris Coyne, and Peter Boettke. On this episode, the three sit down to mark the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations — and to ask a deceptively simple question: why are we still reading a book written a quarter-millennium ago?From the invisible hand to the division of labor, Smith's ideas have become so embedded in how we think about markets and society that it's easy to forget just how radical they originally were. Virgil, Chris, and Pete dig into what Smith actually said, why the standard takes on laissez-faire and self-interest so often miss the mark, and what a Scottish moral philosopher writing in 1776 still has to teach us about wealth, poverty, and the institutions that make human flourishing possible.Whether you're coming to Smith for the first time or returning to him with fresh eyes, this conversation is a reminder that the greatest works in political economy aren't monuments to be admired from a distance — they remain living inputs into the science of today.**This episode was recorded on April 3, 2026**Show Notes:Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Liberty Fund, 1982)Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Liberty Fund, 1982)Kenneth Boulding, "After Samuelson, Who Needs Adam Smith?" (History of Political Economy, 1971)Kenneth Boulding, "Economics as a Moral Science" (The American Economic Review, 1969)Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (Penguin Press, 2019)Raghuram Rajan, The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind (Penguin Press, 2019)Deirdre McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce; Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World; Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World (University of Chicago Press, 2006, 2010, 2016)Martha Nussbaum, The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2019)Ludwig von Mises, “Why Read Adam Smith Today?” (FEE, 2015)Richard Ebeling, "Celebrating Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations at 250 Years" (Future of Freedom, 2026)If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatusCC Music: Twisterium
Ho-fung Hung on the Political Economy of China. Shownotes Ho-fung Hung Prof. Ho-fung Hung at the Johns Hopkins University: https://soc.jhu.edu/directory/ho-fung-hung/ The Conference ‘China and Us: Perspectives on Peace, Human Rights and Socio-Ecological Transformation': https://www.attac.de/china-konferenz/startseite Ho-fung, H. (2015). The China Boom. Why China Will Not Rule the World. Columbia University Press. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-china-boom/9780231540223/ on Citic Press: https://www.group.citic/en/Diversified_Portfolio/New_Consumption/Citic_Publish/ on the 1989 protests in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre on the fiscal reform in China in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-Sharing_Reform_of_China_in_1994 on Carl Schmitt: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/archiv/537943/ortung-und-ordnung-carl-schmitt-im-nationalsozialismus/ on Benito Mussolini: https://www.dhm.de/lemo/biografie/benito-mussolini https://nationalgeographic.de/geschichte-und-kultur/2023/09/benito-mussolini-aufstieg-und-fall-eines-faschistischen-diktators/ the Constitution of the People's Republic of China: https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/lawsregulations/201911/20/content_WS5ed8856ec6d0b3f0e9499913.html on Foucault's ‘Regime of Truth': Lorenzini, D. (2015). What is a ‘Regime of Truth'?. Le foucaldien 1(1). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317961938_What_is_a_Regime_of_Truth the mentioned article by Ho-fung Hung in the Jacobin: Ho-fung, H. (2023). Mussolini in Beijing. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2023/02/mussolini-in-beijing on China's falling CO2 emissions: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-have-now-been-flat-or-falling-for-21-months/ on renewable energy in China: https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-briefing-5-february-2026-clean-energys-share-of-economy-record-renewables-thawing-relations-with-uk/ Ho-fung, H. (2026). The China Question. Eight Centuries of Fantasy and Fear. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/china-question/C15B207366F98DC034ED279435A8CCCA on the case of Solyndra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra on the economic policy of Mao Zedong and China's relationship to the Soviet Union, Felix Wemheuer's youtube channel ‘Studying Maoist China' is recommended: https://www.youtube.com/@felixwemheuerstudyingmaois1051 on Chile during the Cold War: Lockhart, J. (2016). Reimagining Chile's Cold War Experience: From the Conflict's Origins to Salvador Allende's Inauguration. University of Arizona. https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/620841 on Salvador Allende: www.britannica.com/biography/Salvador-Allende on the Paris Commune: Badiou, A. (2021). The Paris Commune: Marx, Mao, Tomorrow. Monthly Review 73(1). https://monthlyreview.org/articles/the-paris-commune-marx-mao-tomorrow/ Weber, I. M. (2021). How China Escaped Shock Therapy. The Market Reform Debate. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/How-China-Escaped-Shock-Therapy-The-Market-Reform-Debate/Weber/p/book/9781032008493 the mentioned publication on i.a. guerilla policymaking: Heilmann, S. & Perry, E. J. (2011). Mao's Invisible Hand. The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China. Harvard University Press. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674060630 the quote ‘it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism' is commonly attributed to Frederic Jameson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Jameson on Wolfgang Streeck: https://www.mpifg.de/457994/Streeck on the 2026 Hungarian parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Hungarian_parliamentary_election Relevant Episodes of Future Histories S04E02 | Merle Groneweg zu Staatskapitalismus, Ökologie und Klimapolitik in China https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s04/e02-merle-groneweg-zu-staatskapitalismus-oekologie-und-klimapolitik-in-china/ S03E60 | Felix Wemheuer zu unserer Zukunft mit China https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e60-felix-wemheuer-zu-unserer-zukunft-mit-china/ S02E09 | Isabella M. Weber zu Chinas drittem Weg https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e09-isabella-m-weber-zu-chinas-drittem-weg/ 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 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futurehpodcast/ Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@FutureHistories English webpage: https://futurehistories-international.com Episode Keywords #Ho-fungHung, #JanGroos, #Interview, #JohnHopkinsUniversity, #FutureHistories, #China, #PoliticalEconomy, #Capitalism, #MarketSocialism, #Socialism, #Mao, #Governmentality, #Democracy, #Imagination, #Society, #Communism, #ClimateChange
The fiat money system has survived the Great Inflation, the global financial crisis, and a pandemic. But can it survive digital currencies?Bitcoin and the blockchain solved a genuine problem in computer science: how to stop people spending the same money twice. Forty years of successful inflation control means central bank money is stable; that is the stability in stablecoins, attempting to solve the volatility problem. What's next? What if the unit of account itself were indexed to consumer prices? Digitalisation might finally make that approach viable at scale. Price stability, by design.Will we still need cash? Maybe not now, But if you never use it, it may not be there if the blackout comes.The research behind this episode:Stracca, Livio. 2025. Redefining the Monetary Standard in the Digital Age: Digital Innovations and the Future of Monetary Policy. Springer Nature.To cite this episode:Phillips, Tim, and Livio Stracca. 2026. "Redefining the monetary standard." VoxTalks Economics (podcast). Assign this as extra listening. The citation above is formatted and ready for a reading list or VLE.About the guestLivio Stracca is Deputy Director General for International and European Relations at the European Central Bank, where he has worked for more than two decades. His research spans monetary economics, international finance, and the implications of digitalisation for central banking, with extensive work on exchange rates, capital flows, and the architecture of the international monetary system. Research cited in this episodeThe double-spend problem. The fundamental challenge in any decentralised digital payment system: how to prevent a participant from spending the same unit of money twice when there is no trusted central authority to verify transactions. Bitcoin's 2008 white paper offered an innovative solution by making the transaction ledger public, cumulative, and computationally expensive to rewrite. The trade-off is that transparency sacrifices privacy; every transaction is visible to all participants in the network.The blockchain. A distributed ledger in which transactions are grouped into sequential blocks, each cryptographically linked to the one before. Reversing any transaction requires rewriting every subsequent block, which demands enormous computational effort. This design solves the double-spend problem in a decentralised network but makes the system slow and costly to operate at scale.The payment trilemma. A framework discussed in the episode and in Stracca's book: any digital payment system can optimise for at most two of three properties simultaneously (universal access, security against fraudulent transactions, and privacy). Cash is the only instrument that escapes the trilemma; digital systems must accept a trade-off among the three, and the choice is often made implicitly by the designer of the system rather than through democratic deliberation.Hayek, Friedrich A. 1976. Denationalisation of Money. London: Institute of Economic Affairs. The classic argument for currency competition: let currencies compete freely and the one providing the most stable prices will win. Economists, including Milton Friedman, largely rejected the proposal on the grounds that money exhibits strong network externalities; the more people use a currency, the more attractive it becomes to the next user, producing a natural tendency towards monopoly. A formal modern revisitation, finding similar conclusions, is Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús, and Daniel Sanches. 2019. "Can Currency Competition Work?" Journal of Political Economy 127 (3): 1017 to 1058.Irving Fisher's compensated dollar. A proposal published in Fisher, Irving. 1913. "A Compensated Dollar." Quarterly Journal of Economics 27 (2): 213–235 (the same year the Federal Reserve was created). Fisher argued for a dollar whose purchasing power was held constant by adjusting its gold content in line with prices. The mechanical details of his proposal are no longer relevant, but its animating idea (indexing the unit of account to a price level) has gained new plausibility in a digital context.The Unidad de Fomento. Chile's inflation-indexed unit of account, in operation since 1967 and updated daily against the consumer price index. It is used widely in long-term contracts, including mortgages, and functions as a security that can be traded. Stracca cites it as evidence that an indexed monetary standard is operationally feasible, and as a prototype for what a digital equivalent might look like at larger scale.The Great Moderation. The period of low and stable inflation in advanced economies running roughly from the mid-1980s until the inflation episode of 2021 to 2023. Economists attribute it to improved monetary policy frameworks, particularly central bank independence, inflation targeting, and (crucially, in Stracca's account) the introduction of interest on reserves, which gave central banks precise control over the short-term interest rate without draining liquidity. Stracca treats the Great Moderation as the benchmark against which any proposed reform of the monetary standard must be judged.Programmable money. A form of digital money in which payment is conditional on an independently verifiable event, potentially confirmed by a machine rather than a human intermediary. Example: a payment that executes automatically when a delivery is confirmed by a sensor. Decentralised ledgers make such conditional payments technically straightforward; traditional banking systems can approximate them but with far greater friction. Stracca notes significant enthusiasm for programmable money but also real scepticism about whether the benefits outweigh the complexity in practice.More VoxTalks Economics episodesStablecoins and Global Imbalances, Gilles Moëc explains why we can think of stablecoins as a radical macroeconomic experiment that has arrived at exactly the moment the US external position is showing signs of stress.Can blockchain decentralise money, contracts, and finance? Bruno Biais on blockchain's potential, its flaws, and its future.Do stablecoins threaten financial stability? Richard Portes thinks so.
We welcome back Dr. Michael Pakaluk, Professor of Political Economy in the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America, to discuss how social media, AI, and surveillance capitalism are weakening attention spans and threatening the bonds of parish and home. How can practical steps such as delayed smartphone use and stronger family formation help to reclaim the domestic church? Show Notes Catholics and “Surveillance Capitalism” The Best Privacy-Friendly AI Services (Update 2026) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power iCatholic Mobile The Station of the Cross Merchandise - Use Coupon Code 14STATIONS for 10% off | Catholic to the Max Read Fr. McTeigue's Written Works! "Let's Take A Closer Look" with Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J. | Full Series Playlist Listen to Fr. McTeigue's Preaching! | Herald of the Gospel Sermons Podcast on Spotify Visit Fr. McTeigue's Website | Herald of the Gospel Questions? Comments? Feedback? Ask Father!
Educator and author Arjun Jayadev joins This Is Hell! to talk about the new book published by The University Of Chicago Press that he co-wrote with J.W. Mason called “Against Money”, which talks about how money has gotten to dominate the lives of humans world wide as it become the most influential human creation. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo265118979.html Arjun Jayadev is professor of economics and director of the Centre for the Study of the Indian Economy at Azim Premji University in India. He has previously taught at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. He is also a Senior Economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. His research combines quantitative and theoretical analysis of Finance, Development, Political Economy and Intellectual Property. He is also a fellow at the Groundwork Collective. https://groundworkcollaborative.org/ We will have new installments of Rotten History and Hangover Cure. We will also be sharing your answers to this week's Question from Hell! from Patreon. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell
This episode features a conversation with urban geographer, Malini Ranganathan, and historian, Juned Shaikh, on the centrality of caste to urbanization in India. Through a focus on 20th century Bombay (now Mumbai) and 21st century Bangalore (now Bengaluru), we explored the symbiotic relationship between caste and capitalism manifest in the political economy of urbanization from the heyday of industrial capitalism to contemporary neoliberalism. We also delved into the continuities between rural and urban caste relations as seen, for instance, in caste networks that remain key to the movement of capital from rural land to real estate. In addition to the centrality of caste in shaping urbanization, we also considered changes to caste wrought by its role within urban processes. The final part of the episode shifted to a discussion of oppositional mobilization among the urban poor, from the upsurge of literary and political activity among Dalits in Bombay and Bangalore in the 1950s-70s to the ongoing pushback against the threat of dispossession and displacement by real estate and finance capital. Guest bios Malini Ranganathan, Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University Juned Shaikh, Associate Professor of History, University of California, Santa Cruz References Khumbarwada: a historic potters' colony now located within Dharavi, Mumbai (Bombay). OBC: shorthand for Other Backward Classes, a Government of India classification for socially and educationally disadvantaged castes who are beneficiaries of affirmative action. OBCs are distinct from and considered to be relatively more advantaged than the Scheduled Castes, or Dalits, and Scheduled Tribes, or Adivasis, who also benefit from affirmative action. SC/ST: shorthand for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (see above). Malini Ranganathan, David Pike, and Sapna Doshi, Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics of the Late Capitalist City (2024) Malini Ranganathan, “Towards a Political Ecology of Caste and the City” (2022) Malini Ranganathan, “Caste, racialization and the making of environmental unfreedoms in urban India” (2022) Juned Shaikh, Outcaste Bombay: City Making and the Politics of the Poor (2021) Juned Shaikh, “Imaging Caste: Photography, the Housing Question, and the Making of Sociology in Colonial Bombay, 1900-1939 (2014) Frank Conlon, A Caste in a Changing World: The Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmans, 1700-1935 (1977) Nikhil Rao, House, but No Garden: Apartment Living in Bombay's Suburbs, 1898-1964 (2012) C. J. Fuller and Haripriya Narasimhan, Tamil Brahmans: The Making of a Middle-Class Caste (2014) Ajantha Subramanian, The Caste of Merit: Engineering Education in India (2019) K. Balagopal, Probings in the Political Economy of Agrarian Classes and Conflicts (2020) Sushmita Pati, Properties of Rent: Community, Capital, and Politics in Globalizing Delhi, Cambridge University Press (2022). Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900-1940 (1994) Priyanka Srivastava, The Well-Being of the Labor Force in Colonial Bombay: Discourses and Practices (2018) Dana Kornberg, “From Balmikis to Bengalis: The 'Casteification' of Muslims in Delhi's Informal Garbage Economy,” Economic and Political Weekly (2019) Amita Baviskar, Uncivil City: Ecology,. Equity, and the Commons in Delhi (2020) Mukul Sharma, Dalit Ecologies: Caste and Environmental Justice (2024) Liza Weinstein, The Durable Slum: Dharavi and the Right to Stay Put in Globalizing Mumbai (2014) Siddalingaiah, A Word With You, World: The Autobiography of a Poet (2013) Dharavi: a residential area in Mumbai (Bombay) considered one of the world's largest slums. Chico Mendes: a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader, and environmentalist who fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and Indigenous people. 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
For the better part of the 20th century, the American economy relied on the steady social peace of "Fordism"—an era of mass production and consumption that helped reconcile capitalism with democracy. Today, a radical new paradigm threatens to upend that equilibrium: "Muskism". While conventional wisdom suggests that Silicon Valley billionaires are libertarians desperate to escape government oversight, historian Quinn Slobodian argues they actually want to achieve state symbiosis by turning the government into a dependent client. This vassalization of the state means private actors absorb critical public functions without any democratic constraints. Discussing insights from his and co-author Ben Tarnoff's new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Slobodian unpacks how Elon Musk's worldview is reshaping the global political economy. This episode also dives into the parallels between American tech supremacy and the Chinese economic model. Slobodian posits that the real vulnerability in the United States is not the excess of regulation that the Abundance agenda focuses on, but rather a failure to discipline capital. Connect with us:
Wednesday's hopeful news of a possible end to hostilities in Iran and opening of the Strait of Hormuz comes just as the macro impact of events is starting to be felt and seen in economic data. A resolution does not change the realities of high near-term inflation and the varying policy responses to it. Geopolitical disruptions are still going to resonate for some time. This week, we speak to Noel Dixon, Senior Macro Strategist at State Street Markets, on all these topics, and to position in FX markets accordingly.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The US economy looks great on paper: high GDP, low unemployment, and booming markets. So why does it feel like the system is broken for so many people? To unpack the disconnect between macroeconomic data and everyday financial anxiety, we're joined by Chicago Booth professor Steve Kaplan. A staunch defender of the free market, Kaplan argues that despite our collective pessimism, American capitalism is actually delivering unprecedented prosperity. Are we just looking at the data wrong, or is the market failing us? From the staggering costs of the US healthcare system to the lasting scars of the China labor shock, we debate the deepest fractures in our modern economic framework. Recorded alongside the Stigler Center's economic conference "Can Capitalism Be Popular?" the conversation covers how to actually measure an economic system, the U.S. vs. Europe debate, the opioid crisis, health care lock-in, teachers' unions, UBI, and the core tension of the whole show: if capitalism is working, why doesn't it feel that way? Connect with us:
In this sixth episode of Season 5, I interview Mr. Chris Griswold. An alum of Wheaton College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he was formerly a senior advisor to then Senator Marco Rubio, and is currently the Policy Director for American Compass—a leading center-right public policy think-tank. Recently, he contributed to the book, The New Conservatives (2025), an anthology edited […]
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