Welcome to episode 93 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with Esha Krishnaswamy as a guest on her own show, Late Night with Lenin. Esha has me cold read two pieces written by Lenin more than 100 years ago, and describes why they remain important and relevant.

(Here's a link to part two.)

Esha is the host of the podcast Historic-ly, which is realistic history, similar to how MMT is realistic economics. You can follow Historic-ly on Twitter at @historic_ly and historicly.substack.com. I’ve hosted eight episodes for her podcast, links to which you can find in the show notes.

The Lenin readings don’t start until part two. In part one, we discuss the basics of MMT and how it illuminates the centuries long battle between rich and poor. MMT reveals that when the rich say, "depriving the poor is unfortunate but necessary", what they really mean is "of course we can provide for the poor – we just don’t want to." Importantly, MMT makes this clear to average people, not unlike Martin Luther and his papers nailed to the church door during the reformation. In the same fashion (although with printed paper instead of on social media), Lenin illuminated the same things to average Russian citizens, ultimately leading to a rare successful popular uprising.

I admittedly struggle through the readings, with its unusual names and concepts, and early twentieth century Russian history. Even so, it results in very interesting conversation throughout, all anchored by Modern Money Theory.

Finally, as a brief aside, both of our incredible theme music was created by Wreck Tech. You can find Wreck Tech on SoundCloud and Spotify.

And now, onto my conversation with Esha Krishnaswamy. Enjoy.

Resources

• My 2020 interview with Esha on Historic-ly, Anatomy of a Revolution: Parts one and two
• Episode 71 of Activist #MMT with graduate student Jane Ball: Government-designed racist zoning to prevent popular uprising, which is part two of a two part episode. This episode was re-published by Historic-ly.