Subjects Archives: Economic Theory

In this episode of Money on the Left, we speak with historian Alison Collis Greene about her book No Depression in Heaven with an eye toward contemporary debates around the Green New Deal. Subtitled The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta, Greene’s book critiques what she calls the […]

In 2018, one of the longest dry spells on record left part of the Rhine in Germany at record low levels for months, forcing freighters to reduce their cargo or stop using the river altogether. 

Jakob Feinig, assistant professor of human development at Binghamton University, joins Money on the Left to discuss the history of political organizing and activism around money in the United States, from the pre-Revolutionary period to the New Deal era. Characterized alternately by periods of widespread “silencing” and mass mobilization, the history of money politics that […]

Today, as the global economy flounders from crisis to crisis, Marx’s analysis of capitalism is the essential basis for a correct understanding of what is going on. Moseley’s book reaffirms key elements of this analysis.

Before turning to the subject matter at hand two abiding issues in Marxist thinking need to be addressed. First, when Marx inveighed against Utopian Socialist futuristic model building, he never intended it to become a mantra dissuading socialists from thinking practically about socialist institutional design.

Richard Reeves is right about one thing: time is crucial to capitalism’s legitimacy. The premise and promise of capitalism are that the future will be better than the present. And “if capitalism loses its lease on the future, it is in trouble.”

If we have little interest in the scholasticism and the baroque arcana of contemporary marxist theoretical debates, the wealth of marxist theory can be neither dismissed nor ignored. And debates around marxist inspired feminism are a case in point.

We are joined by Andrés Bernal, policy advisor to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and doctoral student at the New School for Public Engagement, Division of Policy Management and Environment. We speak with Bernal about his history with political organizing and the critical role he has come to play in the Modern Money movement, including the struggle for […]

Unfortunately for humanity, the naturalizing of capitalism by dominant mainstream neoclassical economics establishes a bulwark against the posing of vital economic questions which challenge capitalist rationality.

Why are Democratic candidates going on about student loan debt? Why, the problem is practically solved already!

Worsening economic inequality in recent years is largely the result of policy choices that reflect the political influence and lobbying power of the rich. There is now a self-reinforcing pattern of high profits, low investment, and rising inequality–posing a threat not only to economic growth, but also to democracy.

Keynote Paper delivered at the 14th Forum of the World Association for Political Economy, July 21, 2019. Today’s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its confrontation with countries that […]

Despite its reputation as the wealthiest generation, baby boomers (generally considered to be those born between 1946 and 1964) are facing a retirement nightmare.

In this episode, we talk with Nathan Tankus, Research Director of the Modern Money Network, and Research Fellow at the Clarke Business Law Institute at Cornell Law School. We ask Nathan to expand upon and deepen his engagement with the inflation question in all its historical, political, and rhetorical complexity.

Chapter 25 of Karl Marx’s, Capital, vol. 1 (“The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation”), not only explains the working conditions of the world’s peoples today; it also explains the conditions of our whole existence. Marx’s general law is nothing less than the lever upon which all our lives now pivot.

What is noteworthy is that the deceleration in import volume growth has been particularly marked in the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America, pointing to a loss of momentum in the countries that were expected to be new growth poles in the immediate aftermath of the 2007 crisis.

The Russia-China strategic partnership, consolidated last week in Russia, has thrown U.S. elites into Supreme Paranoia mode, which is holding the whole world hostage.

In this episode, we talk with David Freund, associate professor of history at the University of Maryland. David is the author of Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America, an award-winning book that tracks how the language of racial exclusion was re-coded in terms of markets, property, and citizenship in the post-World War II era.

In this episode, we speak with Robert Hockett, Edward Cornell Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. At Cornell, about his role in crafting the Green New Deal Resolution, his conception of finance as a franchise, and his experience as an advisor to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well to Senators Sanders and Warren.

Seeing the EU as internationalist is a fundamental error rooted in a misdiagnosis of its aims and effects, argues Chris Nineham.