Money on the Left

@moltopopulare joins co-hosts Natalie Smith, Will Beaman & Maxximilian Seijo to problematize unquestioned leftist critiques of the “Professional Managerial Class,” or “PMC,” past and present. As exemplified by a recent episode of The Dig podcast, leftists frequently invoke the epithet “PMC”--as well as its cousin, “ultra leftist,” or simply “ultra”--in order to shore up class solidarity against capitalist cooptation and ward off allegedly unfeasible political aims. Yet in reality, the Superstructure gang argues, the left PMC trope conceals deeply zero-sum and exclusionary logics that undercut universal emancipation and caretaking. Often stemming from a place of self-loathing or a desire for self-exculpation, such logics not only police leftist discourse according to a univocal workerist ethos, but also violently divide supposedly legitimate from illegitimate horizons of contestation in a manner that reduces universalism to exceptionalism. Tracing the PMC figure’s theoretical and historical roots, the episode culminates with a sustained reading from Karl Marx’s controversial essay, “On the Jewish Question.” Link to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic: “Yum” from “This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me” EP by flirting.http://flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.comTwitter: @actualflirting

¡Llegó el primer episodio de Superstructure en Español!  Andrés Bernal (@andresintheory) y Natalie Smith (@orangeasm)  conversan sobre la relevancia de la Teoría Monetaria Moderna para Latinoamérica con dos expertos económicos de la región, Jesus Resendiz (@Tlacuachito) y Daniel Rojas (@DanielRMed). Analizamos las protestas recientes en Colombia, con sus formaciones reaccionarias y las posibilidades para la izquierda, incluyendo la candidatura de Gustavo Petro, una carta abierta de economistas Colombianos heterodoxos criticando una tendencia común a la izquierda de entender los impuestos como la fuente del gasto público, y una propuesta para una ley de garantía de trabajo. Después, vamos a México para conversar sobre los supuestos ortodoxos de austeridad asumidos sin crítica por el gobierno de la izquierda de AMLO. **It's the first Superstructure episode in Spanish! Andres Bernal and Natalie Smith discuss the relevance of MMT for Latin America with two Latin American economic experts, Jesus Resendiz and Daniel Rojas. We discuss the recent protests in Colombia, reactionary formations there and prospects for the left, including  the candidacy of Gustavo Petro, a recent open letter from Colombian heterodox economists criticizing left tilt towards understanding taxes as funding the government, and a job guarantee proposal. Then we move to Mexico and discuss the orthodox austerity assumptions uncritically taken on by the purportedly left government of AMLO. Look out for the English and Spanish transcripts in the coming weeks!Link to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic: “Yum” from “This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me” EP by flirting.http://flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.comTwitter: @actualflirting

Andrés Bernal joins Scott Ferguson and Maxximilian Seijo to discuss the historical and political implications of the latest Marvel streaming series, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Together, they tease out unstable contradictions between the show’s desires for racial and geopolitical reparation and justice, on one hand, and its punishingly zero-sum Malthusian drama, on the other. The result is a fascinating and, at moments, surprising Marvel offering, which struggles to keep up with the contemporary crises of American imperialism and white patriarchy. Music: “Yum” from “This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me” EP by flirting.http://flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.comTwitter: @actualflirting

This Money on the Left/Superstructure teaser previews our fifth premium release from Scott Ferguson's "Neoliberal Blockbuster" course for Patreon subscribers.For access to the full lecture, subscribe to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure.  If you are interested in premium offerings but presently unable to afford a subscription, please send a direct message to @moneyontheleft or @Superstruc on Twitter & we will happily provide you with membership access.  Course DescriptionThis course examines the neoliberal Blockbuster from the 1970s to the present. It focuses, in particular, on the social significance of the blockbuster's constitutive technologies: both those made visible in narratives and the off-screen tools that drive production and reception. Linking aesthetic shifts in American moving images to broader transformations in political economy, the course traces the historical transformation of screen action from the ethereal “dream factory” of pre-1960s cinema to the impact-driven “thrill ride” of the post-1970s blockbuster. In doing so, we attend to the blockbuster’s technological forms and study how they have variously contributed to social, economic, and political transformations over the past 40 years. We critically engage blockbusters as "reflexive allegories" of their own technosocial processes and pleasures. Above all, we think through the blockbuster's shifting relationship to monetary abstraction and the myriad additional abstractions monetary mediation entails.Blockbusters:2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)The Matrix (Wachowskis, 1999)Avengers: Infinity War (Joe & Anthony Russo, 2018)

Documentary filmmaker Maren Poitras joins the podcast to discuss and share a teaser from Finding the Money, the first feature-length documentary on the past, present, and future of Modern Monetary Theory. The film is currently under consideration for audience and jury awards in the DocLands film festival. Head to the festival website to watch a longer clip and to vote for Finding the Money by May 10th: https://www.doclands.com/docpitch-finding-the-money/. Watch the video version of this episode of Money on the Left on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMdoWvOm2P0More info at: www.findingmoneyfilm.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/findingmoneydoc Facebook. www.facebook.com/findingmoneydocTheme music by Hillbilly Motobike.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureLink to our GoFundMe: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/money-on-the-left-superstructure 

Money on the Left is joined by Emily K. Hobson and Dan Berger, coeditors and curators of the recently published collection Remaking Radicalism: A Grassroots Documentary Reader of the United States, 1973-2001.  https://ugapress.org/book/9780820357256/remaking-radicalism/Hobson is associate professor of history and gender, race, & identity at the university of Nevada, reno, and author of Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left. Berger is associate professor of comparative ethnic studies at the University of Washington, Bothell, and author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era. Together, Hobson and Berger have compiled and thematically arranged a tremendous selection of key documents authored by radical organizers during a period commonly associated with the fall or disappearance of the left. Against this inaccurate and self-defeating lapsarian story, Remaking Radicalism shows the period of 1973 to 2001 to be replete with radical thought, revolutionary action, and what Hobson and Berger call, after Stuart Hall, “usable pasts.” In most cases these pasts are inseparable from our present. In all cases there is much to learn from and build upon. We talk with Hobson and Berger about the history of this project and the ways that it alters common understandings of the political and cultural present. We chat, too, about money and its place in the radical rhetorics recovered in the book.Cover Art: “A Boogie/Un Baile: Benefit for July 4th Coalition” (1976). Original silkscreen by Ronald Weil. Published by Gonna Rise Again Graphics. Courtesy of Lincoln Cushing/Docs Populi.Theme music by Hillbilly Motobike.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureLink to our GoFundMe: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/money-on-the-left-superstructure 

In this episode; Scott Ferguson and Maxximilian Seijo discuss the politics and aesthetics of Marvel’s WandaVision (2021), which was released via the Disney Plus streaming service earlier this year. Picking up questions about blockbuster form and apophatic analysis they’ve pondered in previous episodes, Scott and Maxx affirm the show’s exceptional foray into past sitcom aesthetics and other similarly abstract forms in light of the present neoliberal paradigm crisis. They tease out WandaVision’s critical engagement with the white heteronormative patriarchy that sitcoms have complicatedly mediated. And they critique the program’s ultimate capitulation to conventional blockbuster aesthetics, which substitute a finite and fatalistic physics for what is in truth a capacious and transformable process of monetary mediation.

Maxximilian Seijo (@MaxSeijo) speaks with Natan Last (@natanlast) about his recent essay for the Superstructure vertical, "A Graceful Kind of Non-Absence."Link to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

In this brief recording, Will Beaman announces the launch of our new Superstructure Vertical, highlighting its first two publications: "Money Beyond Sovereignty" by Will Beaman and "A Graceful Kind of Non-Being" by Natan Last. Check out these pieces and pitch us with ideas! 

This Money on the Left/Superstructure teaser previews our fourth premium release from Scott Ferguson's "Neoliberal Blockbuster" course for Patreon subscribers.For access to the full video lecture, subscribe to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure.  If you are interested in premium offerings but presently unable to afford a subscription, please send a direct message to @moneyontheleft or @Superstruc on Twitter & we will happily provide you with membership access.  Course DescriptionThis course examines the neoliberal Blockbuster from the 1970s to the present. It focuses, in particular, on the social significance of the blockbuster's constitutive technologies: both those made visible in narratives and the off-screen tools that drive production and reception. Linking aesthetic shifts in American moving images to broader transformations in political economy, the course traces the historical transformation of screen action from the ethereal “dream factory” of pre-1960s cinema to the impact-driven “thrill ride” of the post-1970s blockbuster. In doing so, we attend to the blockbuster’s technological forms and study how they have variously contributed to social, economic, and political transformations over the past 40 years. We critically engage blockbusters as "reflexive allegories" of their own technosocial processes and pleasures. Above all, we think through the blockbuster's shifting relationship to monetary abstraction and the myriad additional abstractions monetary mediation entails.Blockbusters:2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)The Matrix (Wachowskis, 1999)Avengers: Infinity War (Joe & Anthony Russo, 2018)