Praxis - A political economy podcast

We’re back in the studio for our second episode and it’s all about worker power. 

This week, we learn about this exceptional and hopeful moment in the history of union organising in Australia known as the Green Bans, with writer, illustrator and union activist Sam Wallman (https://www.instagram.com/ourmembersbeunlimited/) and lecturer in international political economy from the University of New South Wales, Dr Sophie Cotton 

“What is the good of fighting to improve wages and conditions if we are going to choke to death in polluted and planless cities? We are fighting for a shorter working week. If we get it, we still have to live in these cities

Yes, we want to build. However, we prefer to build urgently required hospitals, schools, other public utilities, high-quality flats, units and houses, provided they are designed with adequate concern for the environment, than to build ugly unimaginative architecturally bankrupt blocks of concrete and glass offices.”

Those are the words of Jack Mundy - secretary of the NSW Builders' Labourers Federation, and one of the leaders of the Green Bans. 

In the Green Bans, ordinary workers and local residents groups joined forces to refuse work on construction projects that threatened the environment, affordable housing, public open spaces and heritage, and were successful in saving vital urban spaces from demolition. We hear what made this moment special, and use it to look at why workers' power is so important not only to workplace and industrial issues, but to enacting transformative change over broader society.

We also discuss what has changed in industrial relations in Australia since the 1970s and 80s, how to deal with being apart of a flawed trade union, what the relationship ought to be  between workers movements and political parties - and Max wonders if Jack Mundy was the true first, unofficial leader of the Australian Greens?

Share your thoughts and comments on this podcast on YouTube or by emailing us at [email protected]

SUPPORT THE GREEN INSTITUTE

This podcast is only possible with the support of the builders of The Green Institute, our regular monthly donors. A regular donation of as little as $10 a month helps power our mission to build a mass movement powerful enough to replace establishment politics in this country, and helps us to be able to run programs like these and spread the in-person Praxis course across the country.

Become a builder of the Green Institute today at greeninstitute.org.au/donate

FOLLOW US

Subscribe for e-news updates: https://www.greeninstitute.org.au/subscribe/ 

Watch this podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GreenInstituteAU 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreenInstitute 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegreeninstitute/ 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreeninstitute

BSky: https://bsky.app/profile/greeninstitute.bsky.social

Check out Sam’s book ‘Our Members Be Unlimited: A Comic About Workers & Their Unions’ at https://www.samwallman.com/store/p/our-members-be-unlimited-book and follow 

Sam and Sophie’s recommendations:

• Film: Rocking the Foundations by Pat Fiske (https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/474/rocking-foundations.html)
• “Green Bans, Red Unions” by Verity Bergman & Meredith Bergman (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1592101.Green_Bans_Red_Union)
• “How Labour Built Neoliberalism” by Elizabeth Humphrys (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40635889-how-labour-built-neoliberalism)

Praxis is hosted by Max Chandler-Mather and Bec Sparks, produced by The Green Institute, James Cummins and Michael Griffin.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s Praxis! A podcast from The Green Institute on understanding the economy, and how it dominates our lives. For this limited series, we’re speaking to leading experts in critical economics from across Australia, tackling the biggest questions and giving you the tools to critique common economic stories and apply an economic lens to politics.

For our first episode, hosts Max Chandler-Mather and Bec Sparks will set up our series and what we hope you’ll get out of listening to it, and our aims of supporting and encouraging a more intellectually curious left politics in Australia, through this podcast and its sister course on political economy in Brisbane.

Then, our first guest is Dr Matt Ryan, a political economist with the University of Technology Sydney, an expert on the past, present, and future of capitalism, and former climate & energy researcher with The Australia Institute. 

We challenge Matt to give us the briefest ever intro to the history of capitalism, from the closures of ‘the commons’ in England forcing peasants off of their land and into industrial centres, through to the violent European colonisation of the global south, the ‘Golden Age’ of capitalism post WW2, stagflation crises of the 1970s, and the emergence of neoliberalism (whew!). Along the way, we get to discuss how a historical view of economics can help to understand the problems we face now, including energy transition and capitalism’s tendency towards crisis, how neoclassical economics gets Matt into trouble with cab drivers, and which Nobel Prize-winning climate economist can get f******.

Share your thoughts and comments on this podcast on YouTube or by emailing us at [email protected]

SUPPORT THE GREEN INSTITUTE

This podcast is only possible with the support of the builders of The Green Institute, our regular monthly donors. A regular donation of as little as $10 a month helps power our mission to build a mass movement powerful enough to replace establishment politics in this country, and helps us to be able to run programs like these and spread the in-person Praxis course across the country.

Become a builder of the Green Institute today at greeninstitute.org.au/donate

FOLLOW US

Subscribe for e-news updates: https://www.greeninstitute.org.au/subscribe/

Watch this podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GreenInstituteAU

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreenInstitute

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegreeninstitute/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreeninstitute

BSky: https://bsky.app/profile/greeninstitute.bsky.social

Follow Dr Matt Ryan on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/mattdjryan.bsky.social 

Matt’s recommended readings and other mentions:

• “Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World” by Mike Davis https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7859.Late_Victorian_Holocausts 
• PODCAST: ‘Downstream’ from Novara Media, episode: “Infinite Growth Will Lead to Collapse” interview with Jason Hickel https://novaramedia.com/2025/08/31/infinite-growth-will-lead-to-collapse/

• “The Anarchy” by William Dalrymple https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Anarchy.html?id=-T2lDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
• “Counterrevolution” by Melinda Cooper https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Counterrevolution/qhDXEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
• “The Price is Wrong” by Brett Christophers https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Price_is_Wrong/ETPBEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
• “Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet - and What We Can Do About It” by Nancy Fraser https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/57256629-cannibal-capitalism

• The Lord of the Rings trilogy: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls072068350/ 

Praxis is hosted by Max Chandler-Mather and Bec Sparks, produced by The Green Institute, James Cummins and Michael Griffin.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you want to change the world, you need to understand it. And to understand it, you need the right tools.

Welcome to Praxis, a podcast on understanding the economy and how it dominates our lives, hosted by Max Chandler-Mather and Bec Sparks from The Green Institute.

Too often the world of economics is dictated entirely by a small elite group of economists, experts and institutions, telling the same old convenient story: that the way things are, are the way they’ve gotta be.

Everything from the wage you’re paid, to the cooking and cleaning you do at home, and the debit card in your pocket, are all defined by the same economic and political forces that drive capitalism. In this limited series, you’ll hear from experts across the country tackling the biggest questions and giving you the tools to critique common economic stories and apply an economic lens to politics.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.