After a brief holiday to bask in the cold and brutal wet weather of Ireland and England, the show is back on the road, fueled up, and raring to go. This weeks guest is Professor Alan Freeman, where we talk about the falling rate of profit, crises of capitalism, and our way out of the current economic mire. The interview is loosely based about a paper of his just published in the Journal of Australian Political Economy called: The Profit Rate in the Presence of Financial Markets: A Necessary Corr...
May 18, 2013•52 min
This week we speak to Professor Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics, and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, at the University of Cambridge. Prof. Wadhams is an expert in Arctic sea-ice, and is a review editor for the physical sciences component of the upcoming 2014 IPCC (or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ) Fifth Assessment Report. We discuss the precarious nature of the Arctic Sea-Ice, the end of summer ice alt...
Apr 20, 2013•37 min
Welcome to the 1st anniversary of the 'From Alpha To Omega' podcast. This weeks guest is KMO, host of the C-Realm and Z-Realm podcasts, and the author of ‘Conversations on Collapse’. We talk at length about Zombies, Vampires and the Apocalyptic Collapse meme. We also discuss his experiences living on a former commune in Tennessee, his recent move to the sprawling metropolis that is New York City, and his thoughts on the Occupy movement. A big thank you to everybody who took part in the shows, th...
Apr 06, 2013•53 min
This weeks guest is the C Derick Varn, Poet, Lecturer, and resident of South Korea. Derick writes for ‘The (Dis)Loyal Opposition Blog’, and includes among his interests: alternative visions of the future, the failures of nationalist Marxism, early Leninism, and the relationship between anarchism and Marxism. We discuss the Russian revolution, the Vanguard Party and it's problems, the profound failures of the cultural revolution, and the emergence of decentralised movements like occupy and the 5-...
Mar 23, 2013•46 min
This weeks guest is the Jazz Pianist, Marxist, and YouTube Star Brendan Cooney, who has blazed a trail for himself on YouTube with his totally cool videos explaining Marx’s insights into the functioning of our capitalist economic system. He also is the man behind the Kapitalism101 blog. We discuss the success or failure of the Occupy movement, and critique it’s organisational structure. We also talk of Marx’s Critique of the Gotha program, a 19th century radical proposal of today's German Social...
Mar 09, 2013•47 min
This week we welcome back Prof. Andrew Kliman to the show, where we discuss Marx’s value theory, his book ‘Reclaiming Marx’s Capital’ where he tries to dispel some of the myths surrounding Marx’s theories, and the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit. I've recently just finished his book, and would recommend it to anyone wishing to get a deeper understanding of the issues we discuss in this show. You can find the Professors books here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-Kliman/e/B001JSALNS/ref=ntt_...
Feb 23, 2013•1 hr 18 min
This weeks guest is Ugo Bardi, Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Florence. He specialises in resource depletion, system dynamics modeling, climate science and renewable energy. He is also a member of the scientific committee of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, or ASPO, is the president ASPO Italy, and a contributor to the Oil Drum, the best energy blog on the web. He is the author of several books, including "The Limits to Growth Revisited”, his upcoming book...
Feb 09, 2013•1 min
This week we welcome back Philip Pilkington to the show to talk about his latest writings on the life and times of Friedrich Hayek, the ideologue behind the Neoliberal project. Philip came over to my house this week and we sat about and waxed lyrical on such highfalutin topics as Classical Liberalism, Neoliberalism and Ordoliberalism. We also got around to political propoganda and the Mont Perelin society, the similarities between the far right and Leninism, and how, after Hayek's nefarious infl...
Jan 26, 2013•55 min
Our guest week this week is Prof. Stephanie Kelton, Assistant Professor of Macroeconomics, Finance, and Money and Banking at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. We continue our exploration of Modern Monetary Theory, where we talk about full employment and the job guarantee, the fiscal cliff and the euro crisis, and the role of bond vigilantes and inflation, in times of energy crises. Professor Kelton writes regularly for the 'New Economic Perspectives' blog, where you can find some of the b...
Jan 12, 2013•46 min
On this Christmas episode, our theoretical physicist guest is Geoffrey West, Professor and former President of the Sante Fe Institute. We discuss his recent groundbreaking work in the world of biological and social complexity. In the last few years, the Professor has applied his high-energy atom smashing physics know-how, to the field of biology and came up with some startlingly general results, which give us deep insights into all sorts of things, from the life-expectancy of a mouse and the eff...
Dec 29, 2012•1 hr 2 min
This week we talk with the Jazz pianist, band leader, teacher and composer, Dorian Ford. I met Dorian at a jazz gig a couple of months ago, and since we couldn't stop talking about music that night, I thought why not get him on the show. A welcome departure from all the god-damn politics and economics. Within the walls of our musical meander, we discuss the history of jazz, it’s relation to classical music, and the effects of the ‘academisation’ of the modern american classical music, that we ca...
Dec 15, 2012•54 min
This week we talk with journalist and author Iain Bruce about the history of the Brazilian Workers Party, their experiments with direct democracy. the political philosophy of the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, and the geopolitics of South America. We also discuss the hopes for direct democracy, something I hope to cover further, in future shows. Iain Bruce is a British journalist and filmmaker. He is the author of ‘The Porto Alegre Alternative: Direct Democracy in Action’, and ‘The Real Vene...
Dec 01, 2012•49 min
This week we hold a chat with Professor Mathew Forstater of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. We talk about the role of primitive accumulation in the rise of capitalism, how government taxes were a tool of primitive accumulation in the colonies, and how it continues to work it's magic in today's economic system. Marx's thoughts on fiat currency get a hearing, as does the role of America’s deficit and their government debt. For our US listeners, it explains the stupidity of the current 'Gra...
Nov 21, 2012•50 min
This week we have part two of our talk with Professor Andrew Kliman of Pace University. This week we turn our thoughts to the dynamism of capitalism and the soviet experiment, the short-term asymmetric advantages of capitalism, and the revolutionary strategies of Karl Marx. Those in New York, can go to see the Professor debate about the crisis, with a panel of very eminent Marxists, indeed! All courtesy of the Platypus Affiliated Society.... http://newyork.platypus1917.org/11-14-2012-radical-int...
Nov 10, 2012•32 min
This week we talk to Professor Andrew Kliman, about the current economic crisis, and what Karl Marx would make of it all. Professor Kliman, is a Professor of Economics at Pace University and author of several publications on Marxian economics, including the books Reclaiming Marx’s “Capital”, and ‘The Failure of Capitalist Production: Underlying Causes of the Great Recession’. We talk of Marx's labour theory of value, the falling rate of profit, production for productions sake, and what Marx woul...
Oct 26, 2012•53 min
This week we talk to farmer and permaculturist extraordinaire, Paul Wheaton. Paul has just returned from his ‘Symphonies in Seed and Soil’ speaking tour of America, and currently finds himself trying to buy a new farm up there in Montana. He runs: www.Permies.com, the worlds most popular Permaculture forums and website, and is a prolific podcaster in his own right. We talk of chickens and pigs, American culture and the metric system, moving earth and building ponds, agri-business and industrial ...
Oct 13, 2012•41 min
Today’s guest, Yanis Varoufakis, is a Greek Political Economist and Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Athens, and an expert in game-theory. We discuss the flawed design of the Euro, Francois Mitterand and Jacques Delors, the ECB and the Germans, the rise of a Greek Nazi Party and the spectre of Kosovo and Euro Waste-Lands. Yanis is a leading heterodox economist, the author of ‘The Global Minotaur - America, The True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Econ...
Oct 01, 2012•45 min
This weeks guest is Doug Lain. Doug is a fiction writer, blogger, pop philosopher and political radical. He is also the host of the most excellent ‘Dietsoap’ podcast. We talk of philosophy and Hegel, reality tunnels and ideology, Slavoj Zizek and the surreal, Winnie the Pooh and the Labyrinth. Doug’s novel ‘Billy Moon: 1968’ is due out from Tor Books in 2013. He also has a new monthly podcast coming out in September with Derick C. Varn called ‘Pop The Left’ where they hope to give a critical ana...
Sep 15, 2012•48 min
On this weeks show, we speak to the world reknowned economist Steve Keen, Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Western Sydney. Steve was one of the few economists in the world to predict the current crisis in detail, years before it happened. He did it so well, in fact, that he won the award for being the economist who first and most accurately warned the world of the coming global financial crisis. Steve considers most economists and the standard neoclassical synthesis as del...
Aug 30, 2012•52 min
This week we talk to ‘Heiko Khoo’’. Heiko is a Marxist who has been a speaker at London’s Speakers corner since 1986. He has a specialist interest in the Marxist analysis and critique of China and former soviet type regimes. He frequently contributes to the online journal, karlmarx.net. Heiko recently began a walking tour company www.Marxwalks.com that runs weekly walking tours in London on the life and ideas of Karl Marx. Our conversation will meander across a number of issues, from Speakers Co...
Aug 16, 2012•1 hr 4 min
We are joined by Professor L. Randall Wray this week, an economist and expert in Modern Monetary Theory. Prof. Wray also blogs over at 'New Economic Perspectives', which tries it's best, amongst other things, to dispel the myths surrounding our monetary system. We discuss the origins of money, Chartalism, the German Colonies and Stone money, the nature of government debt, the problems with the euro, commodity price speculation, Bill Clinton's budget surpluses, and regime change in the US. Prof. ...
Aug 05, 2012•59 min
This weeks guest is Philip Pilkington, a prolific economic contributor to the excellent ‘Naked Capitalism’ blog. 'Naked Capitalism' is one of the most visited economics blog on the web, featuring some of the top Political Economy bloggers on the planet. The show is loosely based around a series Philip wrote for the blog on Monetarism - the economic theories of Milton Friedman. We cover such rocky territory as the intellectual battles between the Keynesians and Monetarists, the Austrian School of...
Jul 20, 2012•59 min
This weeks episode features a seminal Noam Chomsky lecture from 1970 entitled ‘Government In The Future’. Noam Chomsky is quite simply the greatest living intellectual, and a wonderful human being. In this lecture, he gives a historical and philosophical look at the four great governmental structures: classic liberalism, libertarian socialism, state capitalism and state socialism. His analysis, in particular of our system - state capitalism - is stark and accurate. He gives a novel and highly fu...
Jul 14, 2012•1 hr 6 min
This week we are joined by the masked crusader, Glaucus, who runs the town and city planning blog 'Planning Down'. Glaucus, city planner by day, and anonymous planning theorist by night, introduces us to the ideas behind his cross-disciplinary approach to planning the towns and cities of the future. We talk of cities as metabolic organisms, the industrial revolution, Jevon's paradox, feedback loops, consumerism, and Obama’s national defense authorisation act and indefinite detention without tria...
Jun 27, 2012•54 min
Colette O'Neill, the creative genius behind the Bealtaine Cottage permaculture small-holding in the west of Ireland and the 'A Life In The Country' blog, is this weeks guest. We chat about her love of permaculture, how she decided to give up her career as a teacher in London and return to Ireland to turn an old bachelors cottage and 3-acres of poor land in the wilds of County Roscommon into an oasis of abundance. We hear of forest gardens, stylish wooden verandas, her pantry, ancient burial site...
Jun 14, 2012•1 hr 3 min
I popped over to the PositiveMoney.org HQ this week, to talk to Ben Dyson about their monetary reform campaign. They are seeking to wrest the power of money creation away from the banks, and put it under democratic control - no more of that debt based money please! We talk about the origins of our current monetary system, the pathetic understanding of money by mainstream economists, and the benefits to the common people of monetary and banking reform. We also discuss the heterodox economics of M...
Jun 02, 2012•58 min
This week, we see a return to the topic of economic, environmental, and political collapse. We are delighted to welcome the Russian-American author, blogger extraordinaire, and all-round expert in collapse that is Dmitry Orlov. Dmitry grew up in Russian, and moved to America with his family in the 1970's. He returned to Russian a number of times during the collapse of the Soviet system and sees striking parallels with the western economic system of today. We talk of his 'Comparative Theory of Su...
May 19, 2012•50 min
This weeks episode sees a much needed change in focus - be gone all that talk of capitalist exploitation and systemic failure! Today we talk with world renowned mathematician, computer scientist, and philosopher Professor Gregory Chaitin about his latest work. Prof. Chaitin has spent the last number of years trying to come up with a mathematical proof of the power of evolution - how evolutionary randomness is practically as good as divine creation! Amazing stuff, indeed. During this work, he cam...
May 10, 2012•51 min
This week we are joined by Professor Michael Perelman of the California State University, Chico. He is an economist and economic historian of the Marxian bent, a prolific author, and the writer of the award-wining blog 'Unsettling Economics'. We start off with a discussion of his upcoming book: 'Sex, Lies, & Economics', which tells the story of the zany, dishonest, violent, and hugely prolific lives of the early great economists. We also talk about Cromwell, the Scottish Highland clearances,...
Apr 26, 2012•51 min
This weeks guest is David Korowicz, physicist and human systems ecologist. He is the author of Tipping Point: Near-Term Systemic Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production, and a contributor to the excellent 'Fleeing Vesuvius' - available in all good bookshops and Amazon! In this episode he gives us the low-down on the likelihood of a systemic economic collapse, and what to expect in the coming years. When he is not helping out with Feasta, the Foundation for Economic Stability, and Comhar,...
Apr 17, 2012•56 min
