This week I am delighted to welcome back to the show Michael Roberts, author of the ‘Next Recession’ blog. We talk about the new reports out on the world economy from the IMF and the Bank of International Settlements, and how Ben Bernanke has come out as a closet Marxist after all these years. We also discuss the recent debate between David Harvey on one side, and Michael and Andrew Kliman on the other, about the relevance / reality of the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit, and th...
May 06, 2015•1 hr 2 min
After repeated requests from a number of listeners, this week I am delighted to welcome back to the show Dr Paul Cockshott, a reader in the computer science department of Glasgow University. We talk of the Socialist Calculation debate, the Soviet plans for their own internet, Google vs a planned economy, and the problems with Council Communism. If you'd like to listen to the show on your phone, you can now also listen with TuneIn here: http://tunein.com/radio/From-Alpha-To-Omega-p686756/...
Mar 25, 2015•57 min
This week I am delighted to welcome back to the show Doug Lain, host of what was once called the Diet Soap podcast, but which is now the Zero Squared podcast. We talk about why Doug’s new job as publisher of Zero Books doesn't make him a capitalist, what econophysics has to do with Marx, capitalism as objective reality, base vs superstructure, radical politics and the current balance of forces, how Woody Allen has lost his way, the latest book Doug’s working on, and how cool and communist Star T...
Feb 13, 2015•1 hr 5 min
This week I am delighted to welcome to the show Jose A Tapia Granados, associate Professor in the Department of History and Politics in Drexel University. Originally trained as a medical doctor, Jose now specialises in the links between fluctuations in the economy and health conditions. He also is interested in purely economic issues, and is the co-author of the book ‘La Gran Recesión y el capitalismo del siglo XXI’ or ‘The Great Recession and capitalism of the XXI century’ in english. The inter...
Jan 27, 2015•44 min
This week I am delighted to welcome Sean Michael Wilson to the show. Sean Michael Wilson is Scottish comic book writer, who now lives and works in Japan. In the last couple of years, Sean Michael has released a couple of explicitly political graphic novels: 'Parecomic: The Story of Michael Albert and Participatory Economics' 'Fight the Power! A Visual History of Protests Among the English Speaking Peoples' He has also recently wrote a post for the Forbidden Planet Blog on how an anarchy-based ec...
Jan 02, 2015•58 min
This week I am delighted to welcome Gavin Mendel-Gleason to the show. Gavin works as a Post-Doctoral researcher in the computer science department at Dublin City University. Gavin also writes for the very interesting blog: Spirit of Contradiction, which focuses on various different aspects of leftist or socialist politics and theory. Gavin recently wrote a really interesting article on some empirical and theoretical evidence from the world Econophysics that chimes with Marx’s two-class analysis ...
Dec 12, 2014•57 min
This week I am delighted to welcome Thom Workman to the show, Professor of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick. Thom’s research explores the philosophical and sociological critiques of modernity, especially as these have developed over the post-Enlightenment era. In this episode we discuss the history of the Philosophy of Science, Marx’s understanding of science at the time of writing 'Das Kapital', Postmodernism, and how this notion of science has come under attack over the yea...
Nov 21, 2014•48 min
This week I am delighted to have Rick Rozoff, long-time anti-war activist, NATO expert, and curator of the - Stop Nato: Opposition to Global Militarism blog. In a wide ranging interview, we discuss the current Ukraine Situation, Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Grand Chessboard, the NATO expansion and encirclement of Russia, and the plight of Syria. You can check out his blog here: http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/ The music featured on this show were: 'The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters' by Sun Ra an...
Nov 01, 2014•1 hr 16 min
This week I am glad to welcome C. Derrick Varn back to the show. We discuss the council communism and the Ultra-left, a man who told Stalin where to go and survived, autonomous Marxism and the Occupy Movement, and the failure of revolutions. Enjoy! The music and voice used on this show are: ‘The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters’ by Sun Ra and his Arkestra Paul D'Amato discussing the life and work of Antonio Gramsci ‘The Charleston’ by Django Reinhart 'Working Class Hero' by John Lennon 'Destroy Ev...
Sep 22, 2014•57 min
This week we have part two of our discussion with Professor Peter Hudis, of Oakton Community College, about his book 'Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism'. We talk about the Soviet experiment and the alienation of labour, the role of the state in a post-capitalist society, the Spanish revolution and the anarchist understanding of revolution, and the co-operative model as an alternative. You can get the Professors book here: http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Marxs-Concept-of-the-Altern...
Aug 30, 2014•28 min
This week I am delighted to welcome Professor Peter Hudis, of Oakton Community College, who has recently published his new book: 'Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism'. We discuss what Marx had to say about post-capitalist societies, and the reluctance of those on the left to talk about what it might actually look like. We also talk of the theoretical reasons for the failure of the Soviet and Maoist projects, how abstract labour dominates our lives, and how not even the capitalists ar...
Aug 16, 2014•55 min
This week I am delighted to welcome back to the show, the Jazz Pianist, Marxist auto-didact, YouTube star, and the man behind the Kapitalism 101 blog, Brendan Cooney. I’ve recently just finished reading volume II of Marx’s Das Kapital, and so I’ve invited Brendan on the show to see what he makes of it all. We discuss Marx's concept of science, dialectics, Rosa Luxembourg and empire, the role of gold and silver in Marx's work, and the games people play. You can check out Brendan's Blog here: http...
Jul 27, 2014•1 hr
This week I am delighted to welcome back the economist, economic historian, and extremely prolific author, Professor Michael Perelman of the California State University, Chico. We talk about the latest book he is working on: 'The Matrix: An exploratory political economy of the dangerous, paradoxical interactions between war, the economy, and economic ideology'. We discuss unintended consequences, the difficult of decision-making in complex situations, US Imperialism, Vietnam, Heavyweight Boxing ...
Jun 27, 2014•52 min
This week we have the second part of our interview with Professor Andrew Kliman. We continue our discussion about his latest book - ‘The Failure of Capitalist Production’ - and in particular focus on Andrews critique of the Underconsumptionist Theory of Crisis, which is pretty dominant on the Marxist and non-Marxist left alike. We hear how the empirical evidence sits squarely in the face of this theory, what role financialisation has actually played in the economy, and the similarities between K...
Mar 28, 2014•34 min
This week I am delighted to have Prof. Andrew Kliman back on the show to talk about his latest book - ‘The Failure of Capitalist Production’. The book is a brilliant example of empirical economic research, and shows us how relevant and insightful Marx’s work still is, in helping us understand the workings of our capitalist economy. We discuss the empirical evidence in the US that supports Marx's Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit, the stagnation of capital accumulation, and the role of the IT...
Mar 15, 2014•51 min
This week our guest is Dr. William Paul Cockshott, a reader in the Computer Science Department of Glasgow University. Paul was trained as an economist, then as a computer scientist, and he has made contributions to the fields of image compression, 3D television, and parallel compilers. He is also known for his work in applying econophysics to classical economics, the field of economic computability, and as the co-author of the book 'Towards a new Socialism', advocating for the more efficient and...
Feb 22, 2014•1 hr
This week our guest is Matias Vernengo. Matias is an Associate Professor of Economics, at Bucknell University, and a former Senior Manager of Economic Research at the Central Bank of Argentina. He blogs regularly at his site Naked Keynesianism, as well as for Triple Crisis, and is currently the co-editor of the Review of Keynesian Economics. We discuss a paper he recently co-authored with David Fields on the hegemonic role of the Dollar in the world economy. We talk of the advantages of being th...
Jan 31, 2014•46 min
This week our guest is Conor McCabe. Conor is a Research Fellow in the School of Social Justice in University College Dublin, and has just released the second edition of his book, 'Sins of the Father: Tracing the Decisions That Shaped the Irish Economy'. The book is a brilliant class analysis of the Irish economy since the origins of the state, and seeks to give a deep systemic structural analysis to the causes of the crisis, and to help explain why things panned out the way they did. We discuss...
Jan 15, 2014•49 min
The guest on this years Christmas edition is David Blacker. David is a Professor of Philosophy of Education and Legal Studies at the University of Delaware. His academic background is in the history of philosophy, and his writings pursue insights from that tradition within the context of contemporary education problems. His essays have appeared in the Monthly Review magazine, and he has just released an excellent new book, called, ‘The Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame’, which ...
Dec 17, 2013•3 min
This week our guest is Dan Kervick. By day Dan works in the book publishing industry. By night, Dan is an independent scholar, specialising in the work of the British Philosopher David Hume, and a regular blogger on progressive and egalitarian economics over on: http://neweconomicperspectives.org We discuss the institutional working of the banking system, how reserves really work, bubble blowing and the logic of quantitative easing, military Keynesianism, and the role of capital flows in the mod...
Nov 23, 2013•46 min
This week our guest is Dr Marco Raugei. Marco is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University (UK), and a Senior Researcher with the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change of ESCI - Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona (Spain). His main research interests are in theoretical improvements of existing approaches for environmental sustainability assessment, and the development of strategic energy supply scenarios, wi...
Nov 09, 2013•57 min
This week we are joined by Professor Matheus Grasselli. Matheus is the Deputy Director of the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, and an associate professor at McMaster University, where he is the co-director of PhiMac, the Financial Mathematics Laboratory. He also writes a blog on Quantitative Finance for the Fields Institute, where he discusses his work, and thoughts on economic modelling, complexity theory, and probability. Matheus has been working with Prof. Steve Keen to...
Oct 12, 2013•55 min
This week we have the second part of our interview with C. Derick Varn. We discuss Derick’s new on-line literary journal 'Former People, A Journal of Bangs and Whimpers', the origins of modernism, the influence of Freud, relativity, and quantum mechanics on modernism, modernism's role in politics, and of course, a little Marx. Derick also reads a few excerpts from his writings and poetry. You can check out Derick's stuff here: http://formerpeople.wordpress.com/ http://skepoet.wordpress.com/ Enjo...
Oct 06, 2013•32 min
This week we are joined again by C. Derick Varn. Derick is a poet, teacher, and theorist. He blogs for the (Dis)Loyal Opposition to Modernity, Symptomatic Commentary, and is one of the chief editors of the on-line socialist magazine, the North Star. He also co-hosts the ‘Pop The Left’ podcast with Doug Lain, and has just started a new on-line literary magazine, Former People: A Journal of Bangs and Whimpers, which seeks to look again at modernism and it’s relevance to politics. We discuss the hi...
Sep 23, 2013•57 min
This week we are joined by the renowned Marxist economist Michael Roberts. Michael predicted the whole economic and social crisis we now find ourselves in, years before it occurred. He is a working economist in the city of London, and the author of the book ‘The Great Recession’, which gives his Marxist analysis of the current crisis. You can read his prolific writings over on his excellent blog, ‘The Next Recession’. We discuss the key differences between Keynes and Marx, Keynes' class consciou...
Aug 31, 2013•59 min
This week, Doug Lain, the host of the excellent Dietsoap podcast, has returned to the show to tell us about his novel ‘Billy Moon’, that is due out from his publishers, Tor, on the 27th of August. Using Doug’s novel for the basis of the conversation, we meander through an array of topics including the May 1968 aborted revolution in France, the interaction of ideology, architecture, and space, the rationality of socialism, the Situationists and the Occupy movement, how we need to dream and escape...
Aug 11, 2013•50 min
This week we are joined by Charles Eisenstein. Charles is an author and public speaker, and self-described "degrowth activist". His book ‘Sacred Economics - Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition’, puts forward a radical alternative to our current monetary economy, based on degrowth, realigning money with ecology, changing the nature of work, and the return of the gift. Charles has a regular blog over at the ‘Reality Sandwich’, and occasionally contributes to the Guardian’s ‘Comment I...
Jul 29, 2013•44 min
This week we are joined by Nicole Foss, of the ‘Automatic Earth’ blog. Before being a renowned blogger on energy and finance, Nicole was a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where she specialized in nuclear safety in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, and conducted research into electricity policy at the EU level. Nicole has just finished a long speaking tour of the antipodes, and joins us from Holland to give us the lowdown on the worlds of energy and finance. ...
Jul 12, 2013•50 min
This week we are joined by Prof. Bill Black. Bill is Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is an expert in white collar crime and banking regulation, and developed the concept of ‘control fraud’, in which a business executive uses the business he or she controls as a weapon to commit fraud. He is also the author of the book: ‘The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One’. Today, Bill tells us about a series of articles he has written over the last yea...
Jun 22, 2013•44 min
This weeks guest is Professor Doyne Farmer. Doyne is a physicist, econo-physicist, and founder of the Prediction Company, which brought insights from physics to the world of finance and stock markets. He is a Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, where he co-directs the Oxford Martin Programme on Complexity, and is External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. We ask him about econo-physics, how it ties in with complexity theory, and what this all means for the current economic orthodox...
May 31, 2013•49 min
