The Progressive

This week’s free episode is all about William Rees Mogg and James Dale Davidson’s book “the sovereign individual,” which describes a wonderful world in which fifty rich men live in armoured citadels and everyone else scrapes a living off the land. Do not become addicted to water, my friends!

If you want to learn more about Quinn Slobodian's work, check out his site here: https://www.quinnslobodian.com

If you want access to our Patreon bonus episodes, early releases of free episodes, and powerful Discord server, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture

*MILO ALERT* Here are links to see Milo’s upcoming standup shows: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/live-shows

*WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/

Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and Alice (@AliceAvizandum)

In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey considers the hostility and glorification of ignorance—a legacy of McCarthyism—towards the teachings of Marx, especially within academia and the mainstream media. Academia has become a money-making institution and even liberal mainstream media, claiming to be tolerant, espouse repressive tolerance. Harvey draws on his experience writing and teaching about Marxism to reject the need to define the current phase of capital. We are not regressing back towards feudalism and we don’t need to find more adjectives to put in front of capitalism. Rather than trying to fit our current conditions into a preconceived notion, we simply need to consider the qualities of the conditions in order to challenge the power of capitalist institutions and move forward. 

This week: what if we all worked four days a week? We talk with Professor Juliet Schor about her research into the 4-day work week and the trials happening around the world.

Sandra Peter (Sydney Business Insights) and Kai Riemer (Digital Futures Research Group) meet once a week to put their own spin on news that is impacting the future of business in The Future, This Week.

You can find transcripts, links for the curious and more episodes on our website: https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/the-4-day-work-week-with-juliet-schor/

Subscribe to our new podcast, The Unlearn Project.

You can follow us to keep updated with our latest insights on Flipboard, LinkedIn, Twitter and WeChat.

Send us your news ideas to [email protected]. We read your emails.

Music by Cinephonix.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode is the seventh installment of a series in which Shruti speaks with doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars about their research as they enter the job market and the world of academia. In this episode, Shruti talks with Shweta Banerjee about Indian currency before the arrival of the East India Company, how the company changed India's monetary system, demonetization, free banking and more. Banerjee is a Vanier Doctoral Scholar at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation provides a historical view of financial infrastructure in India from 1750 to 1947. She is interested in exploring finance as a site of contestation between early modern and modern states and financiers or bankers. Before entering her Ph.D. program, she spent several years at the World Bank working on financial inclusion, digitization and rural livelihood programs in South Asia.

Recorded September 22nd, 2022

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Check out our new Ideas of India merch here, and use the promo code INDIA for 10% off!

Follow us on Twitter

Follow Shruti on Twitter

Follow Shweta on Twitter

Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

Astra Taylor interviews William Hogeland on his book Founding Finance: How Debt, Speculation, Foreclosures, Protests, and Crackdowns Made Us a Nation. Hogeland recovers a fascinating crop of mostly-forgotten rebels, the movements they led, and their radical demands that put the landlords and lenders of their day on edge. He also recounts the complex and sometimes deadly machinations that went into suppressing them in order to create a nation that was safe for the owning and investing classes.

Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

Last month, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni drew some waves when she (rightfully) criticized French Colonialism in Africa. She drew particular attention to the CFA Franc Zone.

While her critique was rightful, there is much to be said about her motivations.

Today, we are joined by Ndongo Samba Sylla, author of “Africa’s Last Colonial Currency” to talk to us about the brutal history of the CFA Franc and how it purposefully impoverishes Africa.

Show Notes

0:41 - Colony within a nation:

“Neoliberalism is another iteration of colonial logic, at least economically speaking”

5:14 - President Mitterand in 1957, “Without Africa, France would have no history in the 21st century”

6:48 - CFA Frank with two monetary zones

9:11 - Who liberated France?

10:11 - CFA Franc was born out of the devaluation of the French Franc

12:12 - Sham Decolonialisation

13:40 - Guinea

15:45 - Sekou Toure

17:34 - Fundamental Principles of the CFA system

21:06 - The third pillar “Guarantee of convertability”

* Central banks are obliged to deposit with the central bank 50% of their exchange reserves.

30:00 - Military Agreement with Relation to the CFA Frank

32:15 - Thomas Sankara Example

36:28 - French Interventions of Africa

38:53 - What is going on in Mali?

44:51 - Struggle against Monetary Repression

“Instant Misery Fund” = IMF

47:03 - Secrecy behind the CFA institutions

50:20 - France is a “Guaranteer”! What does it mean?

* Africans provided loans to the French Government.

56:03 - Myths surrounding the CFA Franc

What do you think about the CFA Franc Zone?

You can follow Ndongo Samba Sylla on Twitter

University of Bonn and Sciences Po economics professor Moritz Schularick talks to Rob about the soon-to-be-released book, Leveraged, which he edited based on papers from an INET-sponsored conference. The book takes a close look at what we have learned about the costs and causes of financial fragility since 2008.

Whose fault are financial crises, and who is responsible for stopping them, or repairing the damage? Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690-1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) develops a new approach to the history of capitalism and inequality by using the concept of impunity to show how financial crises stopped being crimes and became natural disasters.

Dr. Trevor Jackson examines the legal regulation of capital markets in a period of unprecedented expansion in the complexity of finance ranging from the bankruptcy of Europe's richest man in 1709, to the world's first stock market crash in 1720, to the first Latin American debt crisis in 1825. He shows how, after each crisis, popular anger and improvised policy responses resulted in efforts to create a more just financial capitalism but succeeded only in changing who could act with impunity, and how. Henceforth financial crises came to seem normal and legitimate, caused by impersonal international markets, with the costs borne by domestic populations and nobody in particular at fault.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics