The Iran war has set off a cascade of crises working their way through the world economy. Oil reserves are at a twenty-year low, inflation is rising, bond yields are spiking, and the IMF is warning of a worldwide slump. But is there a way out on a capitalist basis?

In this week's Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh and Niklas Albin Svensson examine four of the proposed solutions for the crisis: the defence of liberal world order, protectionism and nationalism, Modern Monetary Theory, and a planned economy.

They explain why free trade and protectionism both lead to crises, why MMT cannot resolve a problem rooted in production by tweaking the circulation of money, and why a democratically planned economy is not utopia but the only rational way to organise the world's resources.

New episodes of Against the Stream every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 Recommended reading 📖

The economic consequences of the war in Iran – https://marxist.com/the-economic-consequences-of-the-war-in-iran.htm

Marxism vs Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) – https://marxist.com/marxism-vs-modern-monetary-theory-mmt.htm

Draft of an Article on Friedrich List’s book: Das Nationale System der Politischen Oekonomie – ⁠http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1845/03/list.html

On the Question of Free Trade – https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/free-trade/index.htm

⏱️ Timestamps ⏱️

00:00:00 Intro

00:00:49 The status quo (post-WWII liberal world order)

00:27:05 Protectionism and nationalism

00:47:19 Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

01:08:57 Socialism

🫵 Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm

📚 Marxist literature: https://wellred-books.com/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/

💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/