In this episode, we’ll be talking about history, temporality, and what the movie Groundhog Day can teach us about escaping capitalism. Our guest is Onur Acaroğlu, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Northampton in the UK, and author of the recent book chapter “The Challenge of Postcapitalism: Non-Capitalist Temporalities and Social Patholo…

In this episode, we'll look at the possible strategic development of the degrowth movement, nowtopias and the concept of the pluriverse. Our guests are Matthias Schmelzer, Nina Treu and Tonny Nowshin. They are the authors of a chapter examining what degrowth can learn from other progressive movements for a new book entitled, "Degrowth and strategy:…

In this episode, our guest is Robin Hahnel, who, in partnership, with Michael Albert developed a model called the “participatory economy”. His latest book, "Democratic Economic Planning", was published in 2021, and forms the basis for our conversation. Among the subjects we discuss are democratic economic planning, generational justice and building…

In this episode, we’ll be talking about buen vivir, or the idea of living well, as well as rethinking development, and indigenous cultural traditions that can lead us to new ways of moving beyond capitalism. Our guest is Kepa Artaraz, a former lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Brighton in the UK. We'll discuss universal basic income an…

In this episode, we talk about subjects including meaningless jobs, precarity, the anxiety that results from self-branding, and how to overcome futility. Our guest is Neil Vallelly, a political and social theorist, and author of the recently-published book, Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness.…

In this episode, we’ll be talking about universal basic income, wellbeing, and monetism. Our guest is Marco Dondi, author of the recently-published book Outgrowing Capitalism: Rethinking Money to Reshape Society and Pursue Purpose. Marco also has more than ten years of experience as a strategy consultant working across disciplines including economi…

In this episode, we discuss human needs, universal basic services, essential labour and social citizenship. Our guest is Ian Gough, a visiting professor at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion and an associate at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. both at the London School of Economics. Ian is also an …

In this episode, we’ll be talking about how archaeology shapes our view of the past, present and future, and how the discipline can be an invaluable resource for challenging established narratives around capitalism. Our guests are Catherine Frieman, an associate professor in European archaeology at the Australian National University, and James Flex…

In this episode, we’ll be talking about how universal basic services can help move us towards establishing a more equitable, efficient and sustainable society. Our guest is Anna Coote, an analyst, writer and social policy advocate, and principal fellow at the New Economics Foundation in the UK. We’ll discuss everything from the welfare state and fo…

In this episode, we’ll be talking about how capitalism shapes our conception of disability, its impact on our mental health, and how we can rethink the welfare state. My guest is David Matthews, a lecturer in sociology and social policy at Coleg Llandrillo, Wales, and the leader of its degree program in health and social care. We’ll discuss how cap…

In this episode, we’ll discuss why porn work should be regarded as similar to any other form of labour, how it gives us examples of pushing back against capitalist working conditions, and the ways it can inspire us to think about a better future. Our guest is Heather Berg, assistant professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Washington Un…

In this episode, our guest is Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, a researcher based at Lund University in Sweden. We’ll discuss how corporations are responsible for acts of violence against the environment, their employees and societies as a whole – and how degrowth economics can inspire new ways of living and organizing.…

In this episode, our guest is Cory Doctorow, a science fiction writer, journalist and technology activist. We discuss how to counter giant tech monopolies, move beyond the profit motive, and the concept of library socialism. We’ll also discover that Cory is probably not the best candidate to be an influencer for a discount home-improvement brand.…

In this episode, we’ll be talking about how co-operative businesses that are owned by their employees could transform working life as we know it. We’ll be focusing on the state of West Virginia, which is most famous for its connection to coal mining, but is also one of the most economically challenged regions in the United States. Our guest is Todd…

In this episode, we’ll be talking about the role of fiction and imagination in helping us move beyond capitalism, and how they can assist us in tackling the significant economic and ecological crises we now face. Our guest is Nick Lawrence, an associate professor at the University of Warwick in the UK. We’ll discuss everything from postcapitalist n…

In this episode, we talk about the blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and how these and other technologies could help us move beyond capitalist ideas of value. Our guest is Hannes Gerhardt, associate professor of human geography at the University of West Georgia, who discusses everything from the role of money to the prospect of companies introducing th…

In this episode, we discuss how Christianity might contribute to moving us beyond capitalism and towards a system that is more moral, more equal, and that helps protect the planet. My guest is Dennis Hiebert , a professor of sociology at Providence, a Christian university located near Winnipeg, Canada. We discuss everything from the prosperity gosp…

The discussion in this episode focuses on how we can imagine different types of economy that prioritize things that are more important than growth, such as caring for each other, building stronger communities, and new ways of making decisions together. Our guest is John Clarke, an Emeritus Professor as the Open University in the UK. We talk about e…

In this episode, we’ll be discussing degrowth economics, an approach that challenges us to live in much more collaborative and meaningful ways. In doing so, we can take care of our needs, take care of each other, and take care of the planet. Our guest is Anitra Nelson, an activist and scholar affiliated with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Instit…

In this episode, we’ll be discussing imagined economies, and how picturing a different future - such as by reading science fiction books or watching a few episodes of Star Trek - can open up new possibilities for living. My guest today is Jens Schröter, who is the chair for media studies at the University of Bonn in Germany. We'll be talking about …

In this episode, we’ll be discussing how the economy is not just numbers and people buying and selling things, but a story we tell ourselves. And by changing this story, we can change our lives, and begin to tackle problems like climate change, inequality, and social isolation. Our guest is Melissa Kennedy, who teaches at the University of Vienna a…

This election has been about everything but the economy, stupid (according to John Harwood of The New York Times). Americans are split right down the middle—48 to 48—on which candidate will handle money matters better; instead the wedge issues are tolerance, territory, immigration, constitutional rights, political (and factual) correctness. Why is …

This year’s American electoral shakeup sends us looking for deeper economic tremors. Unemployment is down to 4.9%, even as discouraged workers are reentering the market and the average hourly wage rose 7 cents. “More good news,” says The Atlantic. But retail spending and consumer confidence remain low — as if the recovery were less solid than it ap…

To close out our series on work, produced in partnership with The Nation, we’re looking ahead to the big proposals and spiritual realignments that might spell a major change for working and middle-class people who feel as though the recession never ended. Look no further than this chart, produced by one of our big thinkers this week, the Bulgarian-…

We continue a three-part series — produced in partnership with The Nation — on work in America. This is Part Two: what we do all day, and how we feel about it. Last week we spoke about the surprising history of the bloody, decades-long fight for a two-day weekend, an eight-hour workday, for pensions, worker safety, and a minimum wage. But we also h…

When it comes to the politics of work in America, the times, they are a-changing. Scott Walker overtook Wisconsin, the one-time capital of organized labor, with a divide-and-conquer strategy — now he’s chasing votes on an anti-union platform. Bernie Sanders, once the lonely leftist in the Senate, has won over working people with straightforward tal…

On Sunday, 62% of Greek votes, encouraged by their radical-left prime minister, Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party, registered a desperation “no” vote to a swap of further fiscal tightening at home for debt relief from its European creditors. The night of the vote ended in celebrations in Athens’ central Syntagma Square. But just before showtime o…

It’s graduation time in Boston, and the Class of 2015 is asking “Now what?” If our young ones need help choosing, the market is back and ready to nudge them toward a gilded path. A new survey of Harvard seniors says that, after a dip in money jobs, fully a third of them will go to work in consulting or finance this year. This week, we dared to ente…

Michael Lewis is the great tale-spinner in the Second Gilded Age in America. He’s part muckraker, but part Mark Twain, too, for finding classic characters as good as the King and the Duke in Huckleberry Finn on Wall Street today: the good, the bad, the geeky, the banks and traders making billions mostly in the dark. Like a great novelist, Lewis wri…

Michael Lewis has become the great teller of modern morality tales around money: from the story of how high finance bubbled up, then popped, in Ireland and Iceland to the story of how a handful of eccentric thinkers saw a mortgage crisis brewing before it took down the world economy in 2007 and 2008. In his latest book, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Re…

We’re continuing our “money machine” series on the cost of carbon capitalism. Gas gets cheaper, the weather gets warmer, and for our guests the environmental activists Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben, the choice is clear: change our ways, or reap the whirlwind. In her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Climate, Klein is counting…

For the Delta to become the chief grower of the industrial world’s most important commodity – a kind of Saudi Arabia of the early 19th century – its land had to be taken from its original inhabitants; and labor, capital, knowledge, and state power had to be mobilized… Wealth, as viewed from the front porches of the lavish and elegantly furnished ma…

We’re continuing our series on capitalism by going back to its unspeakable origins. A new wave of historians say that the “peculiar institution” of slavery explains more about the present than we’d care to admit: not just how the West got wealthy, but the way that global capitalism evolved in the first place. At the beginning of his biography of Jo…

The Dow is down 4 percent since the start of the month — the Nasdaq’s down 9% — and the financial wizards at the Times’s Upshot blog have concluded that slow growth may be the new normal. Investors everywhere are betting that financial regulators and policymakers have fired their last bullet — and have nothing left to do. Casey Stengel raised the q…

Jeremy Grantham is a Boston financier who has found himself in the thick of the fight over climate change for more than twenty years. He’s the founder and chief strategist of Grantham Mayo van Otterloo, or GMO, which manages $112 billion in assets. When we spoke to him in his Rowes Wharf office, overlooking Boston Harbor, Grantham calls himself a “…

Adam Tooze’s new history of World War One, The Deluge, makes a crackling, cautionary tale of the zig-zag course of the young economic giant in America, drawn toward the center of a new global order between 1914 and 1918. In 1916, two years into the war, Americans reelected the president who’d kept us out of the battle. But by the summer of 1917, th…