Since the global financial crisis that began in 2008, the role of the financial sector in contemporary capitalism has come under increasing scrutiny. In the global North, the expansion of the financial sector over the last 40 years has paralleled a decline in manufacturing employment and an increase in personal indebtedness, giving rise to the perception tha ... Show More
Today
Heather Davis, "Plastic Matter" (Duke UP, 2022)
Plastic is ubiquitous. It is in the Arctic, in the depths of the Mariana Trench, and in the high mountaintops of the Pyrenees. It is in the air we breathe and the water we drink. Nanoplastics penetrate our cell walls. Plastic is not just any material—it is emblematic of life in t ... Show More
1h 1m
Today
Mary Edwards, "Sartre’s Existential Psychoanalysis: Knowing Others" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
Thinking of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, it is hard to think of him without imagining him in very particular contexts. One will likely imagine him in a Parisian cafe working through a pack of cigarettes and coffee, working on his latest play while waiting for his frie ... Show More
1h 47m
Oct 2
Why Capitalism Stopped Working In Japan, with Takeo Hoshi
<p>The Japanese economy was once the envy of the world. By the 1980s, it looked set to surpass the United States in size. Real estate prices were high, the stock market was booming—the entire world was asking if Japan had found a superior model of economic growth and recovery aft ... Show More
47m 55s
Feb 2021
Episode 91, 'How to Save the World from Financialisation' with Grace Blakeley (Part II - A Green Future, Further Analysis and Discussion)
<p class="">'History has ended, and capitalism is the last man standing. The innovations and freedoms enjoyed by the Global North have shown that the free market is the only viable economic system; it is almost impossible to imagine a coherent alternative.'</p> <p class="">This w ... Show More
26m 59s
Jul 2023
Juliet Schor, "After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back" (U California Press, 2021)
When the "sharing economy" launched a decade ago, proponents claimed that it would transform the experience of work--giving earners flexibility, autonomy, and a decent income. It was touted as a cure for social isolation and rampant ecological degradation. But this novel form of ... Show More
54m 49s
Oct 2024
Dariusz Wojcik et al., "Atlas of Finance: Mapping the Global Story of Money" (Yale UP, 2024)
From the emergence of money in the ancient world to today’s interconnected landscape of high-frequency trading and cryptocurrency, the story of finance has always taken place on an international stage. Finance is one of the most globalized and networked of human activities, and o ... Show More
1h 15m
Jul 2025
Revealing the Secret Architects of Capitalism, with Chris Hughes
<p>After the 2008 financial crisis, and especially after the COVID pandemic of 2020, an increasing number of Americans are questioning the wisdom of unregulated markets and envisioning a more active role for the state. Scholars have coined a panoply of neologisms to capture this ... Show More
49m 27s
Jul 2024
Matt Stoller, "Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy" (Simon & Schuster, 2020)
In Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy (Simon & Schuster, 2019), Matt Stoller explains how authoritarianism and populism have returned to American politics for the first time in eighty years, as the outcome of the 2016 election shook our faith in democr ... Show More
53m 3s
Sep 2023
Kevin Funk, "Rooted Globalism: Arab–Latin American Business Elites and the Politics of Global Imaginaries" (Indiana UP, 2022)
Triumphant capitalism has in our time engendered a new global class that lives and works in a borderless world, beyond the reach of national politics or sovereign power. Or has it? In Rooted Globalism: Arab-Latin American Business Elites and the Politics of Global Imaginaries (In ... Show More
55m 41s
Jan 2025
514. How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems | Alex Epstein
Jordan Peterson sits down with philosopher, podcaster, and author Alex Epstein. They discuss the unprecedented need for energy to fuel the AI boom, the potential for abundant energy to outpace the problems it could create, the failure of the net-zero agenda, the necessity of a pr ... Show More
1h 57m
Jan 2024
Matthew O. Jackson, "The Human Network: How Your Social Position Determines Your Power, Beliefs, and Behaviors" (Vintage, 2019)
Social networks existed and shaped our lives long before Silicon Valley startups made them virtual. For over two decades economist Matthew O. Jackson, a professor at Stanford University, has studied how the shape of networks and our positions within them can affect us. In this in ... Show More
1h 6m