With the US invasion of Afghanistan coming to end and Iran joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Middle East, otherwise known as West Asia, is seeing major shifts in geopolitical power dynamics.

Ross Ashcroft is joined by Beirut-based journalist and analyst Sharmine Narwani, and journalist and investigative historian Gareth Porter to discuss the future of West Asia and the end of US hegemony.

The word ‘degrowth’ was suspiciously absent from the COP26 talking shop, but unless you’re actively talking about degrowth, you’re just peddling corporate, political and billionaire propaganda.

Ross Ashcroft is joined by political economist Jason Hickel to discuss why, when it comes to growth, less really is more.

After spending so much of his academic career systematically disproving the many myths peddled by mainstream economists, Professor Steve Keen has written a manifesto.

He joins Ross Ashcroft on Renegade Inc to detail a blueprint that will allow us to reboot our relationship with the economy, each other, and with the plundered planet on which we all entirely depend.

It is incredibly rare that the BBC ever admits that one of their reports on Douma in Syria failed to meet the Corporation's editorial standards for accuracy by reporting false claims… Blink and you’d have missed this admission, but we didn’t, and it adds to a volley of misreporting that has dogged journalism and peace in the Middle East for decades.

Ross Ashcroft is joined by political scientist Dr. Piers Robinson and journalist Vanessa Beeley to discuss the crumbling narrative around the alleged Douma chemical attack.

Understandably, whenever we hear “Get off my land” it’s met with incredulity. But that phrase does depict the mindset of many landowners who go to extraordinary lengths to keep people off what they deem to be theirs… However without proper access to land we have no ability to have an intimate understanding of nature, or ourselves…so is it now time to reclassify trespass as a revolutionary act?

Ross Ashcroft meets Nick Hayes, author of ‘The Book of Trespass’ in Oxfordshire to discuss how land monopoly is at the root of social inequality in the UK.

The explosion of QE, the epic monetisation of debt, the rise of cryptocurrencies, frothy stock markets, and furlough schemes all seem to imply we have an endless supply of money. But it also means that we now see money very differently.

In a world where we know the price of everything but the value of nothing, Ross Ashcroft speaks to economist Dr. Howard Nicholas to help us understand what money really is.

With China’s increasing wealth, Western investors want some of the action… One of those investors is a bullish gentleman called George Soros. However, the Chinese are acutely aware that with Western investment comes inequality – so as Beijing begins to rethink how to do proper economic growth, we ask whether China will learn from Western mistakes.

Ross Ashcroft is joined by economist and author Michael Hudson to discuss the West’s attempts to turn China neoliberal.

Here’s the new British university business model: charge students full price for their course and their campus accommodation, then deliver only around 15% of the course while restricting access to their digs. And now the masterstroke: rebrand all this as “blended online learning” and claim ‘because Covid’ there’s no alternative. It’s a massive money-maker!

Ross Ashcroft is joined by student campaigners Ben Dusserre-Robinson, of cross-university action group Pause or Pay UK, and Annette Tshisekedi, of Queen Mary University of London’s QMUL Rent Strike, to discuss just how egregious the unholy trinity between funding-obsessed chancellors, overpaid administrators, and rent-seeking landlords has really become.

Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires. After a 20-year war that has cost tens of thousands of lives and over $2 trillion, the US is the latest country to retreat from the country after a failed invasion. 

Hubris in The West today means we think we are so advanced that we can escape the collapse of complex societies. Our recent history has cemented an air of invincibility, but if you look closely, all the signs are present that the empire is far more vulnerable than we think. So, is our societal decline preordained, or will we be the first civilization to cheat the inevitable?

Ross Ashcroft is joined by anthropologist and historian Dr. Joseph Tainter to discuss what we can learn from our past about how and why complex societies collapse.