It's often said that the economic system is rigged. The truth, however, is that the system is working exactly as it was designed to. Those in power, whether they hold public office or whether they sit in the boardroom of a multi-billion dollar international corporation, have taken great lengths to set up a system of rules that benefit them and maintain the status quo. Helena Norberg-Hodge, a pioneer of the New Economics movement, has spent many years studying the driving forces behind why our economies are failing us, and what we can do about it. Helena’s perspectives are informed by a systems thinking and colored by the many years she spent in Ladakh, part of the larger region of Kashmir, where she watched global capital completely transform entire communities. Helena Norberg Hodge is the Founder and Director of Local Futures, producer and co-director of the documentary films The Economics of Happiness and Ancient Futures: Lessons from Ladakh and Right Livelihood Award Laureate. We spoke with her in her home in Devon in the U.K.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

The dark shadow of Silicon Valley is growing longer everyday, covering more and more of the globe and spreading not just technology, but a particular value set as well. By this time many know about the hyper-exploitative business models of companies like Uber or TaskRabbit. Or about how AirBnB has heavily reduced housing stocks in cities worldwide. But in his new book, Keith A. Spencer goes further than just picking on a few high profile companies. He lays out an argument for why Silicon Valley, at its core, is a highly exploitative and problematic industry. With a look at the tech world from the vantage point of the marginalized and oppressed—those who have not benefited from the incredible wealth bubbling up in the valley—”A People’s History of Silicon Valley: how the tech industry exploits workers, erodes privacy, and undermines democracy,” presents a damning thesis for why this new world of addictive gadgets and union-busting is increasingly undemocratic and dangerous. A People’s History of Silicon Valley is published by Eyewear Publishing.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Explore the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Spain and its success in combating inequality. Learn about the challenges faced by cooperatives in the face of globalization and capitalist pressures. Discover the need for cooperatives to be part of broader political movements to challenge capitalism. Hear about Cooperation Jackson's vision of empowering the Black working class and transforming the political economy of Jackson, Mississippi.

Explore the rise of worker cooperatives and their power to bring democracy into the workplace and economy. Hear about the creation of a community hub in San Francisco that focuses on racial and economic justice. Compare the cooperative environment in the Basque Country to that of the United States. Learn about the challenges and growth of worker cooperatives, the importance of constructing an alternative narrative, and the need to shift away from a race to the bottom mindset.

For the last 150,000 or so years of human evolution, not a whole lot changed. That is, until about 10,000 years ago, when in the blink of an eye we began organizing societies in very, very different ways. We went from small bands of hunter-gatherers to massive state societies; from having a relatively low ecological impact to devastating the natural environments we existed in; from relatively horizontal organization to extreme hierarchy and finely articulated division of labor. These now all-too-familiar traits have culminated in our modern capitalist era, where individual humans have become alienated cogs in a vast industrial machine that seems hell-bent on destroying everything in its path.  How did we get here? What happened 10,000 years ago to put us on this path of expansion and ecological devastation? This is the question guiding the research of Lisi Krall — an economics professor at Cortland University whose research blurs the lines between anthropology, economics, and evolutionary biology. She believes that the advent of agriculture was a turning point in human evolution, and that we can learn a lot about our modern societies by looking at ant and termite colonies. Upstream spoke with Krall about her eclectic research that has brought together an odd mix of disciplines and a lot of uncanny comparisons. We also explored the ramifications of her findings, which pose much deeper, philosophical inquiries into the existential, environmental, and economic challenges that human societies are facing in our modern era. Intermission Music: "Human" by Mount Eerie  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

In this conversation we spoke with author Alex S. Vitale about his new book, “The End of Policing,” which was published by Verso Books on October 10th, 2017. Alex Vitale’s work is based on a deep examination and structural critique of the fundamental nature of policing. Vitale stresses that it’s not enough to enact superficial reforms to a system of policing which was, at its core, designed to maintain systems of oppression and inequality. Vitale argues that instead of our current approach of inhumane and ineffective punitive force, we should be going upstream to focus on the root causes of problems, focusing our attention on addressing inequality and providing community and social programs for those in need. In the first half of our Conversation, Vitale walks us through the dark origins of policing, beginning with the eras of colonialism, slavery, the early industrial capitalism. How did early policing grow directly out of the militias and military units that were used to exterminate and expropriate colonized peoples and lands? What role did the police play in maintaining the oppression of African-Americans during slavery and also during the post-slavery era in the south, where vagrancy laws and convict leasing systems proved to be just as bad, if not worse, than slavery itself? And how did vagrancy and vice laws, again enforced by the police, help to culturally shape an emerging working class during the rise of industrial capitalism, forcing a the new system of wage-labor onto a population that fiercely resisted it? The second half of our Conversation brings us into our modern neoliberal era, where policing has really exploded into one of its most brutal and all-encompassing forms yet. Here we explore how the rise of neoliberalism has led to all sorts of societal and community crises which have led to a startling increase in the scope, funding, and militarization of police forces that are now being used to enforce failed drug-war policies, crush social movements, criminalize poor and African-American communities, and maintain the systems of inequality required by austerity-driven neoliberal capitalism. Upstream co-producer Robert Raymond interviewed Alex Vitale at his home in Brooklyn, New York. For more on Alex Vitale’s work: http://www.alex-vitale.info/ https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

It has been said that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. That might have been true a decade ago, but today, the end of capitalism is becoming more and more plausible — at times it feels inevitable. In fact, at least half of Americans think that capitalism is a fundamentally unfair system, and over a third have a positive view of socialism. These numbers are rather strange for a society where just uttering the word “socialist” in public a generation ago could cost you your job or get you onto some government list. And when you look at younger generations, it gets even more interesting. A Harvard University survey showed that the majority of millennials do not support capitalism. And in the United Kingdom, similar surveys have found that people are more likely to have an unfavorable view of capitalism than of socialism. More and more people are falling out of love with capitalism. And is it really all that surprising? Capitalism has failed to achieve most of its promises and many are now beginning to dream about what a different, better world might look like. Well, in this second episode of our 2-part series on Universal Basic Income (UBI), we’ll explore what role UBI might have in transitioning to that different world. There is an exciting and lively debate taking place among the left right now exploring whether Universal Basic Income would do more to dismantle capitalism or, rather, to prop it up and help to keep it going. For this episode, we’ve assembled another all-star cast of economists, journalists, and authors, and asked them to share their perspectives and to envision what the long-term societal effects of giving everyone a Universal Basic Income might look like. Would a progressive UBI act as simply another form of welfare, temporarily propping up a fundamentally flawed system, and just serving as another concession to eventually be eroded and gutted by the capitalist class? Or could it be more than that — could it actually fundamentally challenge the current capitalist system and help to dismantle it? We explore these questions — and many more — in this final episode of our 2-part exploration of Universal Basic Income. Featuring: Erik Olin Wright - Marxist scholar and sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison Kathi Weeks - Marxist-feminist scholar, associate professor of Women’s Studies at Duke University and author of ‘The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries’ Matt Bruenig - Writer, researcher, and founder of the People's Policy Project Richard Wolff - Marxist economist, economics professor Emeritus University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Founder of Democracy at Work, and host of the weekly radio show Economic Update Doug Henwood - Journalist, economic analyst, and writer whose work has been featured in Harper’s, Jacobin Magazine, and The Nation Martin Kirk - Co-founder and Director of Strategy at The Rules Rutger Bregman - Journalist and author of ‘Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders and a 15-hour Workweek’ Manda Scott - Novelist, columnist, and broadcaster Juliana Bidadanure - Assistant professor in political philosophy at Stanford University Sofa Gradin - Political Organizer and Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London Music: American Football, J. T. Harechmak, Pele Many thanks to Benjamin Henderson for the cover art.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

What if you were paid just for being alive? Just imagine, you are given a check every month for the rest of your life, enough to cover all of your basic needs. You wouldn’t be driving around in a Ferrari or eating avocado toast every day, but you’d be receiving enough to live relatively comfortably. And there’s absolutely nothing you would have to do in order to receive it. How would that change your life? What would you do differently? Close your eyes and just try to picture that for a second. Okay, if you’re reading this sentence, that means you’ve stopped dreaming and have come back to reality. We have no idea how long you were gone, but don’t worry if it was for a little longer than you had expected. It happens. We understand. There’s a lot to think about there. What a crazy question anyways, right? Getting free money? For the rest of your life? Just for being alive? Crazy. Or is it? The idea that we’ve been describing has actually been under discussion for centuries, and it has even been experimented with all over the world. In fact, there are actually several versions of it happening right now, at this very moment. Maybe you’ve already heard about it? Chances are you have. Lately it seems as if everybody is talking about it, whether they like the idea or not. It’s called Universal Basic Income, and it’s the topic of our latest documentary (which is actually a 2-part series, since there’s just so much to cover when it comes to this radical and controversial concept). We spoke with philosophers, economists, journalists, and even random folks on the street, to explore the many questions that come up when you begin thinking seriously about universal basic income. What effect would it have on poverty? What happens when income is separated from work? Would society implode into a dysfunctional dystopia because everybody would just sit on the couch all day and watch Netflix? Or, alternatively, would it be the best thing ever, effectively freeing people from the fear that comes with financial insecurity and enabling them to pursue their most daring dreams and to make their biggest contributions to society? Join us as we explore these questions and begin to untangle this radical concept. We’ve put together an all-star team of scholars and experts on the cutting-edge of this exciting debate. Whether you’re already an expert or haven’t even heard of the idea, you’re not going to want to miss this one. Featuring: Juliana Bidadanure - Assistant Professor in Political Philosophy at Stanford University Doug Henwood - Journalist, economic analyst, and writer whose work has been featured in Harper’s, Jacobin Magazine, The Nation, and more Rutger Bregman - Journalist and author of ‘Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders and a 15-hour Workweek’ Kathi Weeks - Marxist feminist scholar, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at Duke University and author of ‘The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries’ Eric Richardson - A recipient of basic income Evelyn Forget - Economist and professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba and Academic Director of the Manitoba Research Data Centre Music: Face of Man (https://faceofman.bandcamp.com/) Bedrockk (https://bedrockk.bandcamp.com/) Godspeed You! Black Emperor (www.brainwashed.com/godspeed/) Harps (www.soundcloud.com/harps-i) Many thanks to Benjamin Henderson for the cover art.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

In this Conversation we spoke with Jason Hickel, an anthropologist formerly at the London School of Economics and now at Goldsmiths University of London. Originally from Swaziland, Jason's research has focused on a critique of development and globalization. He has also written on the topics of inequality, climate change, basic income, and soil regeneration. Jason argues that we cannot begin to seriously tackle the climate crisis until we take a hard look at the growth-dependent economic system that drives fossil fuel production and consumption. He believes that simply regulating fossil fuels is not enough, and that in order to truly address climate change we'll need to move away from our current capitalist economic model, a model which can only function properly when it is growing exponentially. We also spoke with Jason about his fascination at capitalism's extraordinary ability to co-opt and commodify its own critique. How does Tom's Shoes allow you to purchase your redemption from being a consumer? How are hipster bars and clubs in cities like London and New York appropriating the aesthetic of working class neighborhoods while remaining closed off to these very communities? How does this dynamic play out in the environmental movement? Jason provides a number of interesting examples that demonstrate why this process is incredibly harmful to building a true resistance to capitalism. Our conversation took many turns, exploring what 21st century socialism might look like, the myths of international development, and more. Jason is a natural systems-thinker, and his upstream perspective is an incredibly important one.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Once an important life-force of early civilization and an ancient crafter of community, beer was, like many things under our current economic system, disfigured and twisted by the forces of the market and the drive for profit. In this episode, we take a close look at this story, starting in ancient Mesopotamia and tracing the history of beer up through the giant consolidations of the 20th century to the birth of the craft beer revolution in the 1970s and 80s. Brew expert and award-winning author Randy Mosher guides us through this history, telling great stories and exploring ancient beer mythology along the way. But the story doesn't end there -- the beer revolution is really just beginning. Craft beer has begun to bring back many of the most important values and characteristics of beer that were lost for so long, going far beyond just taste. How is the new economy embodied in a pint of beer? This is an important theme that Rob Hopkins, the co-founder of the Transition Town movement and founder of New Lion Brewery, explores throughout the episode. How is craft beer beginning to stitch back together the economies of towns and cities that have been torn apart by globalization and an obsession with growth? How can beer demonstrate the concept of the circular economy? These are important questions explored in depth through Rob’s expertise. There are many other incredible stories of brewers and breweries that are radically changing the landscape of the beer industry. Throughout the episode you’ll meet a wide variety of folks, from a brewery in London that makes beer out of surplus bread, to the first cooperatively owned brewery in California. After listening to this episode, you may never look at a bottle of beer in the same way. Disclaimer: listening to this episode may cause you to crave a dark, chocolatey stout. Or a piney, hoppy IPA. Or a nutty brown ale. Or a fruity saison. Or a tangy farmhouse ale. Or...well you get the point: you may want to listen to this episode over a pint. Featuring ​Rob Hopkins - Founder of New Lion Brewery, Co-Initator of the Transition Town Movement Randy Mosher - Author of Tasting Beer: An Insider's Guide to the World's Greatest Drink Bart Watson - Chief Economist, Brewers Association Tom Stainer - Head of Communications, CAMRA Julie Prebble - Business Development Manager, Toast Ale Vanesa de Blas - Brewer, Temple Brew House Andrew Gilhespy - Grower at The Almond Thief Emy Mendoza - Umunhum Brewing Music by: ​Maude Gun Lanterns  Antwon Pele ​ Many thanks to Bethan Mure for the background/cover art.  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.