
Money on the Left
Money on the Left is a monthly, interdisciplinary podcast that reclaims money’s public powers for intersectional politics. Staging critical conversations with leading historians, theorists, organizers, and activists, the show draws upon Modern Monetary Theory and constitutional approaches to money to advance new forms of left critique and practice. It is hosted by William Saas and Scott Ferguson and presented in partnership with Monthly Review magazine. Check out our website: https://moneyontheleft.org Follow us on Bluesky @moneyontheleft.bsky.social and on Twitter & Facebook at @moneyontheleft
Latest episodes

Feb 16, 2020 • 60min
From Liberation Theology to Public Money Creation with Delman Coates
Reverend Dr. Delman Coates joins Money on the Left to discuss why the politics of public money creation are essential for social and spiritual liberation. Dr. Coates holds a Master’s in Divinity from Harvard and a Ph.D. in New Testament & Early Christianity from Columbia University. He currently serves as Senior Pastor at Mount Ennon Baptist church in Clinton, Maryland, and is founder of OUR MONEY, an organization fighting to restore democratic control over public money. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Coates about how he teaches Modern Monetary Theory to the over 10,000 members of his congregation; about his call for a new “theology of economics”; and his efforts to unite the traditions of the black church and the Civil Rights movement with the fiscal & policy frameworks of MMT. For more on Dr. Coates’s efforts, check out his essay, “The Unfinished Work of the Civil Rights Movement,” published recently in Sojourners magazine. Also, see ourmoneyus.org to learn about his organization’s work and how to get involved.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Jan 15, 2020 • 1h 16min
Covering the Paradigm Crisis with Alexandra Scaggs
Alexandra Scaggs joins Money on the Left to discuss her experience covering the ongoing paradigm crisis in mainstream economics, central banking and finance--and why leftists should be paying close attention. Alexandra is presently a senior writer at Barron’s, where she covers markets and fixed income. Giving credit to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) for turning her toward left politics, Alexandra has proven an important contributor to the MMT project through her critical financial journalism and online commentary. During our conversation, we discuss Alexandra’s recent reporting on the complex topic of “repo markets.” We also talk about the inordinately powerful role played by so-called “primary dealers” in concealing money’s political constitution and possibilities. Ultimately, we stress the need for leftists to seize the moment in order to reverse the unjust neoclassical and monetarist consensus that has organized neoliberal political economy since the late 1970’s.Find Alexandra’s reportage at Barron’s (https://www.barrons.com/authors/8576) and follow her on Twitter (@alexandrascaggs).Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Dec 15, 2019 • 1h 24min
Neoclassical Marxism (Christmas Special) with @NMarxism
This December, we bring you a special Christmas episode of our program, featuring the enigmatic operator behind the increasingly popular Twitter account known as “Neoclassical Marxism,” or @NMarxism. @NMarxism is a deeply satirical Twitter project, which deploys Modern Monetary Theory and some very dark humor to critique the neoclassical economics and neoliberal assumptions that unconsciously organize a lot of present leftist discourse. Our mystery guest agreed to speak with us out of character, so long as we promised to disguise their voice. The episode is a funny but also quite penetrating conversation between @NMarxism and Money on the Left’s Maxximilian Seijo (@MaxSeijo). Given @NMarxism’s problematic proclivity to reduce socialist politics to crass consumerism, we thought what better way to present our dialog than in the form of a Christmas Special.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Nov 15, 2019 • 55min
MMT & the Art of Social Practice with Vienne Chan (Live)
In this special live episode of Money on the Left, artist and researcher Vienne Chan joins us to talk art, politics, and money—and how Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) reconfigures the boundaries between all three. Recorded at the Third Annual International Conference on Modern Monetary Theory held at Stony Brook University, our conversation focuses specifically on Vienne’s recent efforts to combine MMT principles with diagrammatic visual design to fundamentally reimagine how to build and sustain democratic housing communities. Vienne holds an MFA in Public Art and New Artistic Strategies from Bauhaus Universitat Weimar. Her work has been shown at NGBK in Berlin, Plataforma Revolver in Lisbon, CCA Tel Aviv, Kunsthaus Dresden, and the Armory Center in Los Angeles.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Oct 15, 2019 • 1h 11min
No Depression in Heaven with Alison Collis Greene
In this episode of Money on the Left, we speak with historian Alison Collis Greene about her book No Depression in Heaven with an eye toward contemporary debates around the Green New Deal. Subtitled The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta, Greene's book critiques what she calls the “myth of the redemptive depression” which, particularly in the American south, eroded the legacy of the original New Deal by affirming regressive fantasies of self-help and individualism. Many on the left today see the “New Deal” framing of contemporary social and ecological politics as a concession to liberal nostalgia. However, No Depression in Heaven reminds us that right-wing and religious dismissals of the New Deal played a key part in rolling back government provisioning under neoliberalism. From our perspective, then, the original New Deal remains a crucial rhetorical battleground for the future of American political economy. Greene teaches United States religious history at Emory University, and researches American religions as they relate to politics, wealth and poverty, race and ethnicity, the environment, and the modern rural South. Check out her poetic mediation on scarcity, gender and history, “Pine Knot Woman,” which Greene reads for us at the beginning of the show.* Thanks to the Money on the Left production team: Alex Williams (audio engineering), Richard Farrell (transcription) & Meghan Saas (graphic art).Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Aug 30, 2019 • 1h 13min
Money Politics before the New Deal with Jakob Feinig
Jakob Feinig, assistant professor of human development at Binghamton University, joins us to discuss the history of political organizing and activism around money in the United States, from the pre-Revolutionary period to the New Deal era. Characterized alternately by periods of widespread “silencing” and mass mobilization, the history of money politics that Feinig documents in his research has much to tell us about the present and future of the modern money movement. For more about the history of money politics, see Jakob’s research on money politics in Sociological Theory and The Journal of Historical Sociology.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Aug 15, 2019 • 1h 16min
The Modern Money Movement with Andrés Bernal
We are joined by Andrés Bernal, policy advisor to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and doctoral student at the New School for Public Engagement, Division of Policy Management and Environment. We speak with Bernal about his history with political organizing and the critical role he has come to play in the modern money movement, including the struggle for a Green New Deal. He also sketches out his dissertation project, which focuses on the Green New Deal as a site of collective action, political communication, and policy analysis. Additionally, Bernal is a research fellow with the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and lecturer Urban Studies at CUNY Queens College. For more from Bernal, check out the article “We Can Pay for a Green New Deal,” which he coauthored with Stephanie Kelton and Greg Carlock. [link the article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-green-new-deal-cost_n_5c0042b2e4b027f1097bda5b]Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Jun 19, 2019 • 1h 37min
Inflation & the Politics of Pricing w/ Nathan Tankus
In this episode, we talk with Nathan Tankus, Research Director of the Modern Money Network, and Research Fellow at the Clarke Business Law Institute at Cornell Law School. Nathan recently co-authored an opinion piece in the Financial Times with Scott Fullwiler and former MoL guest Rohan Gray about MMT’s position on the causes of inflationLink to the piece: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/01/1551434402000/An-MMT-response-on-what-causes-inflation/ In the conversation, we ask Nathan to expand upon and deepen his engagement with the inflation question in all its historical, political, and rhetorical complexity. More specifically we discuss the different historical approaches to inflation; how the Post Keynesian MMT perspective diverges from those approaches; the vital contributions of economist Fred Lee to the foundations of Modern Monetary Theory; as well as how we ought to be thinking about issues of inflation and growth as they pertain to the Green New Deal. The conversation is as compelling as it is challenging.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

May 16, 2019 • 1h 3min
Colored Property & State Debt w/ David Freund
On this episode, we talk with David Freund, associate professor of history at the University of Maryland. David is the author of Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America, an award-winning book that tracks how the language of racial exclusion was re-coded in terms of markets, property, and citizenship in the post-World War II era. Throughout the conversation, David speaks to his research on the history of public policy and economic ideology in the United States, and the role that heterodox economic thinking has played in shaping his research agenda. We talk at length about Colored Property, as well as his current book project, State Money, which offers a history of financial policy and free market ideology that unveils the repressed role of the state in the making of modern America.David Freund recently published a chapter in the edited collection Shaped by the State, titled "State Building for a Free Market: The Great Depression and the Rise of Monetary Orthodoxy" More info here: https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo31043679.html?fbclid=IwAR1oUDodC6uWVbLo_f71OUBqmCcuVRZhlaOGZfdzF9npqaj-mRNz7OuxlkkFreund also recently publish a piece on the role of money in historical inquiry for The Metropole: https://themetropole.blog/2019/05/21/money-matters/Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Apr 17, 2019 • 1h 29min
Imagining the Green New Deal w/ AOC advisor Robert Hockett
In this episode, we speak with Robert Hockett, Edward Cornell Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. At Cornell, Hockett teaches and writes about organizational, financial, and monetary law and economics. He’s also worked as a fellow for the Century Foundation and as a consultant to a number of international financial institutions and state legislatures. We talk with Bob about his role in crafting the Green New Deal Resolution, his conception of finance as a franchise, and his experience as an advisor to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well to Senators Sanders and Warren. Professor Hockett’s notable publications include his essays, “The Finance Franchise,” co-authored with Saule T. Omarova (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2820176) and “The Green New Deal: Mobilizing for a Just, Prosperous, and Sustainable Economy,” co-authored with Rhiana Gunn-Wright (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3342494).Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure