2021-02-01 :: by Leighton Woodhouse <https://web.archive.org/web/20210422124242/https://n2pe.berkeley.edu/podcast/robert-brenner-and-dylan-riley/>

Hi, welcome to the inaugural episode of Inflection Point, a brand new podcast about a very big question: What comes next?

As the name of the podcast would suggest, our show presupposes that we live in a time of transition. For decades, there was, roughly, a thing you could call a global economic order. During the Cold War, of course, there were, broadly speaking, two orders: the one aligned with Soviet-led communism, and the one aligned with U.S.-led capitalism. Back then, that form of capitalism was roughly comparable to today’s European social democratic capitalism: high taxes, a big welfare state, lots of regulation over corporations. Then, as the Cold War receded, that form of capitalism was dismantled and replaced with a rawer, purer kind — one that eschewed restrictions on corporate behavior and shrank the role of the state. Call it market fundamentalism, or neoliberalism.

Since the 2008 financial meltdown, however, neoliberalism has been in crisis. We’ve seen that in the discrediting of free trade as a bipartisan policy objective, in the rising opposition to Wall Street across the political spectrum, in the distrust of elites, in the ascent of Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the right.

That doesn’t mean neoliberalism is gone for good, or even that it won’t be ascendant again. On the other hand, it might not. It could be replaced by a different economic order, or myriad economic orders, be they socialist upheavals or right wing ethno-nationalist regimes or something else entirely. That’s the question behind this podcast: what comes next?

Our inaugural episode is a discussion with the renowned Marxist historian and historical-sociologist Robert Brenner, at UCLA. UC Berkeley sociologist Dylan Riley had a long, penetrating conversation with Professor Brenner, and we’ve broken it up into three episodes. In this episode, we hear about Professor Brenner’s personal biography and his political education. In the next two episodes, respectively, we’ll hear about capitalism in the postwar period, and the trajectory that capitalism is on today.

Welcome to Inflection Point.

* Tags: capitalism, Dylan Riley, neoliberalism, Robert Brenner

Notable Quotes:

* For decades, there was, roughly, a thing you could call a global economic order… roughly comparable to today's European social democratic capitalism—high taxes, a big welfare state, lots of regulation over corporations. Since the 2008 financial meltdown, however, that neoliberalism has been in crisis. That doesn't mean neoliberalism is gone for good, or even that it won't be ascendant again…. It could be replaced by a different economic order -- or myriad economic orders…

* We've seen [neoliberalism's crisis] in the discrediting of free trade as a bipartisan policy objective. We've seen it in the rising opposition to Wall Street across the political spectrum. We've seen it in the ascent of Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the right…

* I grew up in faraway Queens, a kind of lower middle class, working class suburb…. My mom was an organizer of the library union in New York…. My dad lost his job with the government and was propelled into becoming a TV writer—which was one of the best things that ever happened to him…

* I grew up in a communist family... Both my parents had been party members. The Rosenberg case... their being executed on the front page of the Daily News... that was one of the biggest things in that part of my life…

* I personally left my parents' politics behind in a superficial way... I was no longer wanting to be part of that orthodoxy, which also had a conservative character at that point…

* Reed College was kind of communism, atheism, and free love—rather than sex, drugs, and rock and roll…

* I believed in ideas for ideas' sake, which put me at somewhat of a variance with the generation of the '60s…

* I grew up with a profound, mechanical Marxism—totally mechanical—but I was completely embedded within it… a techno-determinism: that man masters nature bit by bit through the development of ever more powerful means of production…

* To me, what was Marxist politics was communist politics -- the idea of a Trotskyist or anarchist seemed kind of silly…

* The most important theoretical break for me was encountering the International Socialists in England.… They were very working-class oriented, very Marxist, with a kind of libertarian interpretation of Trotskyism…

* The founding of SDS at Princeton was the most important political experience I had.… SDS was my favorite organization in my life…. It was a real movement—a huge mass movement—successful even in places like Oklahoma, Kansas, and Minnesota…. To be involved with that was very liberating. It was a very anti-Orthodox, anti-Stalinist movement…

* In 1970, the student mass movement shut down UCLA... and at the same time, there was a wildcat strike of Teamsters in LA…. We organized really hundreds of students to come down to support that strike, to stand on the lines, and so on…

* Capitalism has failed—failed ever more completely.… The crisis has become deeper... And so then what next?…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit inflectionpointpodcast.substack.com