What is capitalism?It's not efficient markets, factories, and free labor.It's the financialization of empire and slavery, using greed, shame, indignation, and debt.

Kim Stanley Robinson returns to discuss his novel Green Earth, a technothriller about a near future world in which scientists work to solve the global climate crisis. Stan and I discuss how the book went from a trilogy to a single volume, its similarity to The Ministry for the Future, and its place in the genre of naturalism. Plus Emerson and Thoreau!And yes, I get the title of The Ministry for the Future wrong every time I say it in this episode. Oops.

Mark Bittman, a renowned food writer and journalist, shares his vision for nonprofit restaurants with Community Kitchen, emphasizing community roots. He passionately discusses the health concerns surrounding seed oils and critiques political narratives in food politics. Bittman highlights urgent crises in the food system, advocating for grassroots activism and fair access to nutritious food. He reflects on historical injustices in food production, urging reforms to address the legacies of exploitation and strive for systemic change.

Shawn Vulliez from SRSLY Wrong joins me to discuss the new collection of David Graeber essays, The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World. Shawn and I talk about the tyranny of economics and how Graeber gave us permission to reveal that the emperor of economics has no clothes.Warning: Contains discussion of the recent election. Stay away if you just can't handle it anymore. I understand.

A spectre is haunting the Everyday Anarchism series on the English revolution: the spectre of Christopher Hill's 1972 book The World Turned Upside Down. It turns out most of the ideas I've shared in this series came from Hill's book!Ann Hughes joins me to discuss the book, and we talk through the following questions:Did Hill invent the idea of the English revolution?How did the radicalism of the 1960s affect Hill's approach?Was Winstanley an anarchist?Was the English Revolution the beginning of modernity?Thanks so much to Ann and all the other guests in this year-long series, now (probably) concluded!

Eleanor Janega, the very first guest on the Graeber's Debt series, comes back on the show to discuss what the middle ages were, how they were a global phenomenon, and why they weren't as bad as you've heard

I'm joined by Karl Gerth, professor of modern Chinese history at the University of California, San Diego, to discuss the Chinese Communist Revolution and how Maoism attempted to avoid the mistakes of the USSR and yet largely repeated them.

In Graeber's middle ages, empires fell apart while temples and monasteries kept everything together with metaphysical debt. Oh, and Europe isn't very important.Eleanor Janega returns later this month to discuss the chapter in the next Debt discussion!

Following on my discussion with John Weisweiler, more detail on Graeber's account of the Axial Age

In this episode in my series on Graeber's Debt, I'm joined by John Weisweiler to discuss Chapter 9, "The Axial Age." John and I discuss Graeber's insights into the relationship between money, debt, and community, and the way that Graeber often got the ideas right even before the archaelogical record had gotten there.