Money on the Left

Matt Seybold joins Rob Hawkes and Scott Ferguson to discuss the political economy of literary criticism from past to present, amateur to professional. Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature at Elmira College and Resident Scholar at the Center for Mark Twain Studies. In addition to writing and teaching in the field of literature & economics, Seybold produces and hosts The American Vandal podcast, an ever-growing collection of conversations and presentations about literature, humor, and history in America that is inspired by Mark Twain's life and legacy. Our conservation focuses, in particular, on The American Vandal’s magisterial eighth series titled, “Criticism LTD.” With 16 episodes totaling 24-hours of listening, “Criticism LTD” marshals a diverse cast of over 50 voices to provide fresh perspectives on the origins & trajectories of literary criticism and the so-called “crisis of humanities.” Episodes take on a wide range of topics, including: the marked contrast between today’s “golden age of criticism” (Ryan Ruby) in amateur and para-academic venues and the “Ponzi Austerity” (Yanis Varoufakis) and “Ed-Tech Griftopia” (Seybold) undermining contemporary academic research and instruction; the mid-20th-century trouncing of the neo-Aristotelian Chicago School Critics by the neoliberal Chicago School Economists; how the ugly politics of race, class, gender, and colonialism have both informed and met resist in practices of close reading; and the importance of the 19th-century feud over literary criticism between Matthew Arnold and Mark Twain for imaginatively contesting imperialism, then and now. “Criticism LTD” has much to offer teachers, researchers, organizers, and creators interested in building a more humane, collaborative, and democratic education system in the shell of the old. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com

We are joined again by Benjamin Wilson to discuss what it is like to teach Economics from a heterodox Modern Monetary Theory perspective in 2023. Wilson is associate professor and recently-minted chair of the department of Economics at SUNY, Cortland. In previous episodes, we have chatted with Wilson about his research, the Uni Currency project, and his innovative work experimenting with classroom currencies. Developing these topics further, our conversation this time explores the potentials and dangers of using neoclassical textbooks in the heterodox classroom; the utility of classroom currencies for Econ classes of all levels; the place of narrative in neoclassical and heterodox theory; and so much more. Our dialog with Wilson is shaped in several respects by our conversation with Larry Johnson in last month’s episode of Money on the Left. If you are passionate about pedagogy, then this episode is for you.Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com

Larry Johnson, associate professor of Social Foundations of Education, explores the constraints of the US public education system due to wrong economic thinking. He discusses the role of federal interest rates, standardized tests, and classist/racist myths in shaping education policy. Johnson advocates for radically rethinking education through the lens of endogenous public money theory. The podcast also covers the historical development of education, misleading political conceptions, the connection between social foundations of education and modern monetary theory, and the role of education in perpetuating social and environmental injustices.

Sandeep Vaheesan (@sandeepvaheesan) joins Scott Ferguson on the Superstructure podcast to discuss the still-undecided political significance of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Their conversation focuses on Vaheesan’s article, “The IRA is Still Being Formed: An Episode in America’s Past Contains Important Lessons for How We Move Forward in Greening the Economy,” published recently in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. While present left debate about the IRA tends to split over whether the legislation ultimately breaks with or confirms the tenets of neoliberal governance, Vaheesan turns our attention to the ongoing contestation over the bill’s implementation across heterogeneous domains. Vaheesan puts the current struggle into perspective by reflecting on the historical fight surrounding the construction and operation of the Boulder (a.k.a. “Hoover”) Dam. In the case of the federal provisioning of the Boulder Dam in the 1920’s, a strong public utility—the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power —was well positioned to control water and power as public goods, despite efforts by the conservative Hoover administration to wholly privatize the process. What is more, the success of this project laid the groundwork for later rural electrification programs under FDR’s New Deal. Today, Vaheesan sees similar potential for public control over the IRA’s implementation because the legislation crucially extends investment and production tax credits, which were formerly available only to for-profit entities, to community-controlled public and cooperative electric utilities. For this reason, the meaning and fate of the IRA remains up-for-grabs. Should community-controlled public and cooperative electric utilities seize hold of the IRA’s democratic potentials, Vaheesan suggests, the process stands to build significant capacities for a more expansive Green New Deal. Ferguson and Vaheesan close their conversation by considering the social construction of and  disputes about public money in both contemporary and historical contexts. Vaheesan is legal director of the Open Markets Institute and author of a forthcoming book titled, Democracy in Power (University of Chicago Press) on the history and future of cooperative and public power in the United States.  Visit our Patreon page here: 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

We’re joined this month by William A.( “Sandy”) Darity to discuss reparations for Black Americans. Sandy Darity is Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. A founding theorist of stratification economics and foremost scholar of the racial wealth gap in the United Stats, Darity is perhaps best known for his committed public advocacy for acknowledging, redressing, and resolving histories of racist violence against enslaved black people and their descendents through a federal program of reparations for black Americans. In April 2020–just weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic and two months before the global uprisings that followed the murder of George Floyd–Darity and co-author Kirsten Mullen published the book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century. We speak with Professor Darity about this book–including its conception, reception, and circulation over the last few years. We also ask Darity about related projects like his proposals for “Baby Bonds” and a Federal Job Guarantee. We conclude, finally, by suggesting that the U.S. Treasury mint a $12 trillion-dollar platinum coin featuring prominent figures from the black freedom struggle for the purpose of financing reparations and educating the public about how money works. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com

In this brief podcast message, Scott Ferguson announces the publication of Maxximilian Seijo's peer-reviewed journal essay, "Money’s Place: Science Fiction, Realism & Modern Monetary Theory in Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future," in Money on the Left: History, Theory, Practice.AbstractKim Stanley Robinson’s speculative near-future novel Ministry for the Future (2020) centers the heterodox political economy of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to forge a new path for ecosocialist politics. This money-positive path diverges radically from critical traditions in political and literary thought that reject money as the ultimate source of environmental exploitation and climate catastrophe. In this essay, I argue that Ministry’s centering of money challenges and displaces the generic conventions of science fiction and realism, each of which has historically related to money in opposing ways. Whereas science fiction prioritizes escape to an enclave “outside” of money’s mediation of social relations, and realism laments the immanent dynamics of money’s mediating force, Ministry estranges both genres from their relationship to money by redefining money as an inextricable expression of social relation and interdependence. As opposed to dominant Marxian modes, Robinson’s redefinition draws attention to money’s radical place within the speculative imagination, disclosing new political economic and ecological capacity to remake global reproduction. 

This month, we discuss democratic possibilities for public finance with Saule Omarova, the Beth and Marc Goldberg Professor of Law at Cornell University and President Biden’s original nominee for Comptroller of the Currency. Omarova’s work on financial regulation and banking law has long informed how we at Money on the Left understand the modern monetary system. Her and Robert Hockett’s “finance franchise” metaphor for modern banking-–according to which the federal government is the franchisor and chartered banks are all franchisees–renders an often-times opaque system intuitive and readily politicizable. Throughout our conversation, we learn from Omarova about how she arrived at this work, what other metaphors she and Hockett considered as alternatives, and exciting democratic possibilities for social policy development, including proposals for a National Investment Authority and a public banking system called “the people’s ledger.” Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com

Scott Ferguson is joined on the Superstructure podcast by Ruth E. Kastner, philosopher of physics and research associate at the University of Maryland. In their conversation, Ferguson and Kastner explore metaphysical resonances between Modern Monetary Theory’s approach to money and Kastner’s “Transactional Interpretation” of quantum physics.Setting the stage for their dialog, Ferguson and Kastner critique orthodox commitments in both economics and physics to a pre-relational individuality: what medieval theologian John Duns Scotus famously called thisness or, “haecceity.” When being is contracted to mere haecceity, they argue, causality is reduced to local and unidirectional events in a manner that overlooks global conditions of possibility. In contrast, Ferguson and Kastner affirm an irreducibly relational ontology for monetary and quantum theory alike. This relational ontology comprises broader patterns of potential, which orthodox methods have rendered imperceptible. It also takes seriously non-local notions of causality, especially that unfamiliar all-at-onceness that Albert Einstein once derided as “spooky action at a distance.” Along the way, Ferguson and Kastner consider a host of interdisciplinary analogies–for example, between monetary receivability in heterodox economics and so-called “absorber waves” in the Interaction Interpretation of quantum mechanics. At the same time, however, they remain careful not to collapse distinctions between political economy and quantum theory. Far from impractical navel gazing, such speculations harbor very real worldly consequences for interdisciplinary theory and practice.   For more information, check out Kastner’s website as well as her recent paper on “Quantum Haecceity” mentioned during the podcast. Visit our Patreon page here: 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

We are excited to rerelease our inaugural episode of Money on the Left alongside a brand new transcript. Conversation originally published on May 27, 2018 Money on the Left is the official podcast of Modern Money Network: Humanities Division (@moneyontheleft).In our inaugural episode, we consider the recent resurgence of full employment politics in the United States from both a political and historical perspective with historian David Stein (@davidpstein). Stein is currently a fellow at UCLA’s Luskin Center for History and Policy and a lecturer in the departments of History and African American Studies. Check out his recent article in Jacobin: David Stein, “Full Employment and Freedom.”Intro music by Hillbilly Motobike.

Mark Paul joins Money on the Left to discuss his new book, The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights (University of Chicago Press, 2023). Paul is assistant professor in the Bloustein school of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. In his book, Paul scours U.S. political and economic history to recover, reclaim, and adapt the rhetoric of economic rights for our current political moment. For too long, Paul demonstrates, progressives and leftists have let conservative and sometimes charismatic economists define the boundaries of our economic thinking. This even as the left has underappreciated its own rich reserves of heterodox political thinking and radical rhetorical action. Hence Paul’s outspoken advocacy–within and beyond the book–for durable and democratic policy interventions like Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee, and a Green New Deal. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com