400. Well, Somebody Has to Do Something! (ft. Malcolm Harris)
Apr 1, 2025
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Malcolm Harris, author of *What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis*, shares his insights on navigating today's crises. He discusses three frameworks: marketcraft, public power, and communism to confront pressing challenges. Harris critiques the current liberal approaches, emphasizing technology's complex role in capitalism and ecological concerns. He argues for a transformative shift towards sustainability and community engagement, challenging the outdated notions of abundance while advocating for proactive collective action.
Malcolm Harris critiques liberal market strategies in his book, advocating for a deeper understanding of systemic challenges through marketcraft.
The discussion emphasizes the crucial role of public power in actively addressing climate change by prioritizing citizens' needs over profit motives.
Communism is framed as a necessary alternative to capitalism, advocating for equitable resource management and prioritization of human and ecological health.
Deep dives
The Dialectical Approach to Technology
The podcast emphasizes the necessity of adopting a dialectical approach when analyzing technology and society. The speaker critiques current discussions surrounding technology for lacking materialist analysis and insufficiently addressing dialectics. This approach aims to correct misconceptions by demonstrating the complex interplay between society and technology. The speaker asserts that understanding dialectics can lead to actionable insights that recognize and address underlying societal structures.
Market Craft and Liberal Thought
The conversation highlights the relevance of Malcolm Harris's book, 'What's Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis', particularly its critique of liberal thought framed through market craft. The podcast positions Harris's ideas against Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's work on abundance, arguing that Harris offers a deeper exploration of liberal market strategies and their potentialities. The discussion illuminates the shortcomings of mere policy suggestions in the face of systemic challenges, as Harris pushes for an understanding of market dynamics that is both critical and constructive. This examination reveals that while market craft holds merit, it must also confront the limitations imposed by existing power structures.
The Role of Public Power
Public power is discussed as a more proactive approach to addressing climate change than market craft, emphasizing the state's role in direct intervention and ownership. The conversation highlights the potential benefits of a robust public sector that prioritizes the needs of its citizens and the environment over profit. By operationalizing public power, the state can actively build infrastructure and allocate resources in a way that reflects societal needs rather than capital's demand. This strategy suggests that a collective effort can shift the paradigm from profit-driven motives to equitable resource distribution and sustainability.
Debates on Military Engagement and Technological Growth
The podcast addresses the ongoing discourse around military spending and its entwinement with technological advancement, underscoring the contradiction within the liberal approach to defense technology. It discusses how current strategies from elite thinkers reflect a broader reluctance to confront the realities of militarization while advocating for societal progress. There's a recognition that state strategies and public sentiment must align to challenge existing power dynamics effectively. This exploration reveals the risks of uncritically accepting military-focused innovation as a solution to societal problems.
Communism as a Response to Crisis
Communism is framed as a necessary response to the escalating crises of capitalism, providing a radical alternative focused on collective well-being and equitable resource management. The discussion highlights the need for a transformation of the societal metabolism, shifting away from valuating life through capitalistic measures to meeting everyone's needs. The speaker contends that with the rising trajectory of disaster and chaos, there is an urgent requirement for systems that prioritize human and ecological health over profit. This dialogue presents communism not just as an ideological stance but as a practical necessity in navigating the increasingly dire circumstances.
Navigating Uncertainty and Future Possibilities
The podcast concludes with a reflection on the necessity of finding pathways through crisis while fostering meaningful conversations around these complex ideas. It emphasizes that the engagement with different strategies—market craft, public power, and communism—can coexist, and their thoughtful integration is essential for effective change. The speaker asserts that understanding these paths can illuminate potential solutions to the looming planetary crises, as collective action becomes paramount. This discussion suggests that, through thoughtful dialogue and collaboration, a way forward can be forged amid uncertainty.
We have a big chat with Malcolm Harris about his new book — What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis — which takes seriously the fact that “the whole total world is in crisis” and then seriously advances three different ways to understand, confront, and overcome these disastrous conditions. We walk through the pathways that Malcolm stakes out — marketcraft, public power, and communism — and use the bland discourse around Abundance as a foil for the far more incisive analysis he lays out in What’s Left.
••• What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis | Malcolm Harris https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/malcolm-harris/whats-left/9780316577434/
••• Malcolm’s book tour https://linktr.ee/WhatsLeftTour
••• Malcolm’s review of Abundance https://thebaffler.com/latest/whats-the-matter-with-abundance-harris
Standing Plugs:
••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite
••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble
••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)
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