Current Affairs10 Jun 2024

How Everyone Misunderstands Capitalism (w/ Grace Blakeley)

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs !

Grace Blakeley is one of the left's leading economic thinkers. In her new book, Vulture Capitalism, Blakeley explains how capitalism really works and gives a crucial primer on the modern economy. She joins today to explain why conceiving of "free markets" and "government planning" as opposites is highly misleading, because our neoliberal "market-based" economy involves many deep ties between the state and corporations. Instead of thinking of "capitalism" and "socialism" as a spectrum that runs from markets to government, Blakeley says we should focus our analysis on who owns and controls production, and who gets the benefits.

"The choice isn’t “free markets” or “planning.” Planning and markets exist alongside each other in capitalist societies—indeed, in any society. The choice is whether the planning that inevitably does take place in any complex social system is democratic or oligarchic. Do we allow a few institutions to make decisions that affect everyone else, considering only their own interests, or do we move toward a system in which everyone has the power to shape the conditions of their existence? We must stop talking about “free-market capitalism” and instead accept that capitalism is a hybrid system based on a fusion between markets and planning. Rather than seeing the world in which we live as emerging from mystical market forces beyond our control, we must realize that the world in which we live results from the conscious choices of those operating within it. When we are able to view the world in these terms, the space for conscious, democratic design of our world expands." — Grace Blakeley

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(600)

Neoliberal Economics Has Always Been Bogus

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Eric Beinhocker is a professor at the University of Oxford and executive director of the Institute...

16 Jul 44min

How an AIPAC Smear Campaign Works

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership The Israel lobby’s attempt to destroy Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign is a disturbing example of how mone...

14 Jul 17min

Kshama Sawant Is Taking On a Pro-War Democrat

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Kshama Sawant is a socialist organizer, former Seattle City Council member, and candidate for Cong...

9 Jul 32min

Trump Might Really Invade Cuba

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership There’s barely any pretense that Trump cares about Cuban democracy. This is about privatizing Cuba...

6 Jul 13min

Of Course The Founding Fathers Would Have Hated Trump

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership They rejected kings and were sincerely concerned about the possibility of a dictatorship. But we ne...

3 Jul 15min

Charles Booker Has a Plan to Win Kentucky

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Charles Booker is a former Kentucky state representative and the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate...

2 Jul 41min

The Internet Is Being Erased

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Mark Graham is the director of the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, and Chris Freeland is t...

30 Jun 49min

A Trillion Dollars Isn’t Worth It If You Have to Be Elon Musk

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Elon Musk is a miserable deadbeat whom no amount of money can make loved, cool, or happy. 🌹 Full a...

27 Jun 45min