Charles Derber, author of "Dying for Capitalism", talks with Steve about the intersectionality between capitalism, environmental destruction, and militarism. He argues that the capitalist system, particularly in its neoliberal form, is inherently connected to the threats of environmental catastrophe and war. He emphasizes the historical context of these connections, tracing the shift from water-powered capitalism to coal and then oil as a means to maintain control and avoid public opposition. He highlights the role of the military in perpetuating climate change and the destructive consequences of war on the environment.

Charles addresses the skepticism and cynicism often associated with the idea of changing capitalism but he believes change is possible through diverse strategies and alliances. He draws lessons from historical movements, such as the abolitionist movement, the Bolshevik revolution, and the reinvigorated labor movement. He touches on social media, which can be used to control and manipulate, but can also be a powerful tool for organizing and mobilizing activism.

Charles Derber is Professor of Sociology at Boston College and has written 26 books - on politics, democracy, fascism, corporations, capitalism, climate change, war, the culture wars, culture and conversation, and social change. His most recent books include Dying for Capitalism, Welcome to the Revolution, Moving Beyond Fear, Sociopathic Society: A People's Sociology of the United States; Capitalism: Should You Buy It?

David Fields talks to Steve about “Economists for Palestine,” the statement released by the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE). They emphasize economists’ responsibility to take a stand against the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinians. They look at the connection between Zionism and the global capitalist system, debunking misinformation while highlighting the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

We at Macro N Cheese urge our listeners to circulate the statement. https://urpe.org/2023/11/08/economists-for-palestine/

David Fields is a political economist from Utah; his work centers on the intricacies concerning the interactions of foreign exchange & capital flows with economic growth, fiscal & monetary policy, and distribution, whereby critical attention is paid to the notion of endogenous money. He also delves into the political economy of regional development to study patterns with respect to the nature of housing, social stratification, and community planning.

@ProfDavidFields on Twitter

This week’s episode is the second half of Steve’s interview with Hamza Hamouchene about his book, Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region.

Steve and Hamza agree on the importance of reckoning with the realities of the current capitalist imperialist system, which has proven to be a failure in addressing the most crucial needs of people and planet. Hamza argues that alternative visions for a better world already exist – he himself is an eco-socialist – but the challenge lies in implementing them and building the necessary alliances and coalitions of working people, both at the national and global levels.

The conversation also delves into the specificities of the Arab region, which has elements of authoritarian and military dictatorships due to its subordinate insertion into the global capitalist economy and its role as a key nodal point in global fossil fuel regimes. Hamza highlights the need for a just energy transition that takes into account the control and ownership of fossil fuel resources and the potential for green renewable energies.

Hamza calls for diversifying tactics and strategies, organizing and building power to challenge imperialism and the decarbonization by dispossession.

Dr. Hamza Hamouchene is a London-based Algerian researcher-activist, commentator, and a founding member of Algeria Solidarity Campaign (ASC), Environmental Justice North Africa (EJNA) and the North African Food Sovereignty Network (Siyada). He is currently the Arab region Programme Coordinator at the Transnational Institute (TNI). His work is focused on issues of extractivism, resources, land and food sovereignty as well as climate, environmental, and energy justice in the Arab region.

@BenToumert on Twitter

When we talk about the climate crisis, common wisdom says we’re all in it together. That implies that everyone is responsible, and everyone needs to do something about it. Our guest, Dr. Hamza Hamouchene, attacks this notion unequivocally: “The historical responsibility, of course, in the climate crisis lies within the industrialized capitalist West.” Most of the impacts are felt by communities in the global South, in countries that have been impoverished since colonial times. As developing nations they are additionally burdened by international financial institutions when, in fact, they are owed climate reparations.

Hamza is co-editor of Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region. He talks with Steve about the urgent need for climate justice and decolonization, while suggesting what a just transition would entail.

They emphasize the critical need for support of the Palestinians, whose cause must be included in discussions of colonialism, climate justice, global trade, and energy systems.

Part Two of this interview will be released next week.

Dr. Hamza Hamouchene is a London-based Algerian researcher-activist, commentator and a founding member of Algeria Solidarity Campaign (ASC), Environmental Justice North Africa (EJNA) and the North African Food Sovereignty Network (Siyada). He is currently the Arab region Programme Coordinator at the Transnational Institute (TNI). His work is focused on issues of extractivism, resources, land and food sovereignty as well as climate, environmental, and energy justice in the Arab region.

@BenToumert on Twitter

This week’s episode is another webinar from our RP Live series: Inside a Failed State, with Michael Hudson.

Michael prefers a Q&A format. Attendee questions revolved around US political economy, domestic and global. He discusses topics such as healthcare, de-dollarization, and the impact of economic policies on the working class. He emphasizes the need for a change in economic philosophy and highlights the government's ability to create money for social programs.

A common Hudson theme is the difference between the production and consumption economy, or what he calls the real economy, and the financial sector of assets and liabilities, of loans and debts, which is superimposed on the real economy.

A Michael Hudson episode always sparks lively, sometimes contentious, comments. His insights on finance, politics, and class power dynamics give fans and detractors alike something to chew on.

Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Support him at patreon.com/michaelhudson

Find his work at michael-hudson.com

As a society we are conditioned to believe we can f*ck with nature, with the living world, but the economy is immutable. We dare not try to change it. As MMTers we say: hahahahaha... *sob*

These two assumptions explain why we’re hurtling towards ecological catastrophe and why austerity has become a way of life.

Steve’s guests this week are Colleen Schneider and Christopher Olk. They are co-authors, with Jason Hickel, of the paper, How to Pay for Saving the World: Modern Monetary Theory for a Degrowth Transition.

Any listeners who have paid attention to Real Progressives’ journey over the past couple of years will be excited to add Colleen and Christopher’s insights to their intellectual arsenal. They are those rare scholars who manage to be both realistic and optimistic. (They are not suggesting that the right slate of politicians will tweak capitalism to make it heal the the planet and the population.)

They discuss how both MMT and the degrowth movement challenge the myth of scarcity. They look at the disparities between the Global North and South. They emphasize the interconnectedness of ecological and social issues, and the need to address both the predation on the Global South and the climate crisis.

They talk about non-reformist reform and the ways in which addressing national economic policies can be played out at the local level to radicalize people. By understanding the power dynamics within the financial system, MMT can empower and mobilize, allowing us to attack multiple problems as if they were one. Which they kind of are.

*****

Colleen Schneider is a PhD student and research assistant in the Institute for Ecological Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and is a lecturer at Torrens University. She has a BA in Physics from UC Berkeley and MSc in Socio-Ecological Economics and Policy from WU.  Her research focuses on the political economy of monetary and fiscal policy in a social-ecological transformation. Her recent work brings an MMT-informed lens to degrowth scholarship. She teaches courses in social ecological economics, and the intersection of money, society, and environment, and has also worked and published in the field of environmental justice.

@ColleenFights on Twitter

Christopher Olk is a PhD candidate in political economy at Free University Berlin. His current research focuses on the links between international monetary power, offshore finance, and fossil fuels. Christopher is also active in the climate justice movement.

@christopher_olk on Twitter

Carlos García Hernández is the author of Fiat Socialism: Achieving the Goals of Socialism through Modern Monetary Theory. He lays out the five goals of fiat socialism:

• Full employment
• Full and prudent use of material resources
• The guarantee of the five essentials to every citizen: food, housing, clothing, health services, and education
• Social security at all major exposed points in the social structure (eg, old age, sickness, accident, temporary unemployment, and childbearing)
• Labor standards, to be assured by labor unions

Carlos maintains that any society achieving these five goals at the same time and permanently should be called socialist, no matter the size of the private sector.

Steve and Carlos discuss the philosophical foundations of both fiat socialism and Marxism. They also look at the role of the IMF and the possibilities for monetary sovereignty in developing nations.

Carlos García Hernández is the founder and director of Lola Books, a publishing house that has introduced MMT to Spanish and German readers. He is the author of Fiat Socialism: Achieving the Goals of Socialism through Modern Monetary Theory.

@Carlos_G_H_ on Twitter Or X

This week’s episode welcomes back Fadhel Kaboub, a valued friend of this podcast. He and Steve discuss the concept of just transition and the problems with carbon markets as a solution to climate change. They stress the injustice of historic polluters buying carbon credits to continue polluting while displacing vulnerable communities in developing countries. It is yet another capitalist solution. The current global financial architecture, established during colonial times, is neither designed to address the climate crisis nor to promote sustainable prosperity.

They emphasize the need for systemic change and a new vision for Africa and the global South that prioritizes food sovereignty, energy sovereignty, and industrial policy. They talk about the power dynamics between labor and capital, the role of governments in perpetuating inequality, and the importance of mobilizing and organizing for change.

They highlight the narrow constructs that society is allowed to consider, which prevent true transformation and progress. They emphasize the importance of recognizing our interconnectedness and the need for what Fadhel calls “a movement of movements.”

Fadhel Kaboub is an Associate Professor of economics at Denison University, the president of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. Check out his recent work at https://justtransitionafrica.org/

@FadhelKaboub on Twitter

A head of state whose economic policies promote austerity and fiscal responsibility is:

1. Conservative
2. Progressive
3. N/A (not applicable)

Daniel Conceição is with us for his third visit to Macro N Cheese. He and Steve discuss the failures of both right and left governments. Some broad strokes of Brazil’s historical patterns are not so different from those in the US. The last left(ish) president, Dilma Rousseff, abandoned her Leninist roots and hopped aboard the privatization train. It wasn’t enough to protect her from impeachment, however.

It’s easy to see parallels between Bolsonaro and Trump as well as the lesser evilism we’re facing in both our countries today. Despite President Lula's progressive rhetoric, his economic policies prioritize deficit reduction. His administration is committed to delivering fiscal results to financial markets over public investment in education, healthcare, and other social services.

Daniel touches on the “dollarizing” of Argentina's economy and explains that it can only exacerbate instability and conditions of scarcity.

Daniel and Steve talk about the insights gained from Modern Monetary Theory and agree that building power beyond elections requires a paradigm shift in our thinking.

Daniel Negreiros Conceição did his undergraduate studies in Economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and his postgraduate studies at UMKC (under Professors Wray, Kelton, et al). He is a professor of macroeconomics and public finance at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He helped create the Institute for Functional Finance and Development (iffdbrasil.org), where he currently serves as president, and he helps run the Brazilian Modern Money Network (https://mmtbrasil.com/) aimed at producing more easily accessible material for teaching MMT to the wider public.

@stopthelunacy on Twitter

In this webinar from our popular RP Live series, Ndongo Samba Sylla tells us of the challenges facing Africa through the story of Thomas Sankara and breaks down what Sankara meant when he told the people to "live as African.” Ndongo suggests that the way forward combines the insights provided by MMT with Sankara’s plans for African liberation and development. He calls it MMT-ing Sankara or Sankara-ing MMT. Since some see MMT as apolitical, Ndongo is making a crucial point. He also goes into detail as to why cancelling international debt, though necessary, is not enough.

After his presentation, Ndongo takes questions from attendees on the role of BRICS and potential benefits for Africa in a multi-polar world. He touches on the CFA franc and explains why economic exploitation is the most vicious form of imperialism.

Ndongo Samba Sylla is a Senegalese development economist. He has previously worked as a technical advisor at the Presidency of the Republic of Senegal and was Programme Manager at the West Africa office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. He has recently been appointed the Africa Director for Research and Policy at IDEAs (International Development Economics Associates)

He is the co-author of Africa’s Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story and author of The Fair Trade Scandal. Both books can be ordered through the RP Bookshop on our website: realprogressives.org

@nssylla on Twitter