In this episode, Natalie Smith & Maxximilian Seijo host Daniel Bessner (@dbessner) to debate the pertinence of contemporary leftist efforts to analogize Trumpian neoliberalism to 1930s fascism. The conversation also takes up matters of left strategy & media, including the role of theoretical provocation and the politics of online culture.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.flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.com/Twitter: @actualflirting

This Money on the Left/Superstructure teaser previews our first 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)1 Like

Superstructure cohosts Will Beaman and Natalie Smith are joined by Scott Ferguson and Andrés Bernal to reflect on a recent "close encounter" with the Dirtbag Left. They diagnose the perverse comfort that the Dirtbag Left takes in contracting political economy around fixed points of "leverage" over political elites. Touching on the Jimmy Dore controversy and a recent Chapo episode on Avatar, the team compares the austere physics metaphors that structure the Left's hopelessness to neoliberal action cinema's preoccupation with what Ferguson has called its "Hyper-Newtonian aesthetics."Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure/postsMusic: “Yum” from “This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me” EP by flirting. flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.com/Twitter: @actualflirting

Kicking off a Money on the Left / Superstructure Patreon fund drive, Scott Ferguson joins Maxximilian Seijo on the Superstructure podcast to discuss MMT, eco-fascism and Avengers: Infinity War. This premium Superstructure episode offers listeners a sneak peek at Ferguson’s Hollywood Blockbuster course, which will be rolled out for subscribers in the coming months.While we appreciate support for our premium content on Patreon from those who can afford it, this is not a hard paywall! If you are unable to pay, reach out to the Money on the Left/Superstructure team for free access to our premium content.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure/postsMusic: “Yum” from “This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me” EP by flirting.flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.com/Twitter: @actualflirting

In this episode, Maxximilian Seijo (@maxseijo), Will Beaman (@agoingaccount) & Natalie Smith (@orangeasm) are joined by Matt Christman (@cushbomb) from Chapo Trap House to discuss their critique of his zero-sum methodology.Music: “Yum” from “This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me” EP by flirting.flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.com/Twitter: @actualflirtingLink to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Frank Pasquale joins Money on the Left to discuss the legal and monetary politics that will determine the future of automation. Professor of Law at the Brooklyn Law School, Pasquale is author of The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money  and Information (2015) as well as recently published New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI (2020), both with Harvard University Press. He is a leading thinker in the law of A.I., algorithms, and machine learning and, as he makes clear in his recent book, a committed advocate for a public-money driven just transition from the current paradigm of “equality before the algorithm” to a brighter future replete with ethical, complimentary robotics. Our conversation with Pasquale covers these and a number of other surprising components of his project, including his critique of post-structuralist, post-humanist, and accelerationist discourses. There is something for everyone in this conversation--whether you’re interested in the future of robotics, the present of machine learning, the history of money, or the promise of critical theory in our post-COVID world. Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Hosts Will Beaman & Maxximilian Seijo critique the Enlightenment myth that treats private property as the basis of political economy and they reflect, in particular, on the limits of a contemporary left media ecosystem that unquestioningly relies upon this spurious foundation for analysis & praxis. Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Cohosts Will Beaman, Natalie Smith, and Maxximilian Seijo are joined by historian Dan Berger to reflect on the political economy of abolitionism and its critical importance for the Left.Dan Berger (Twitter: @dnbrgr) is an Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington at Bothell.Music: “Yum” from “This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me” EP by flirting.flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.com/Twitter: @actualflirtingLink to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Victor Pickard joins Money on the Left to discuss the public bases and potentials of money and media in The United States. Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Pickard is a prolific researcher and author of over one hundred articles and six books on the history of media institutions, media activism, and the avowedly political and public foundations of journalism and media policy. Our conversation with Pickard is far ranging. We survey his early work on the postwar settlement for American media, when the fundaments of the current media landscape such as its tendency toward private and consolidated ownership were first put in place. We explore the critical role and shortcomings of political liberalism in shaping that midcentury settlement and all that’s come after. And we identify means for creating resilient and diverse public media infrastructures that are better equipped to help leftists resolve the most pressing political, economic, and ecological crises of our moment. Along the way, we also uncover complementary impulses between Pickard’s vision for the future of public media and the Modern Money Movement’s project to democratize public money. Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Cohosts Will Beaman, Natalie Smith, and Maxximilian Seijo reflect on the importance of Modern Monetary Theory for the Left.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure