Money on the Left

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ndongo Samba Sylla is a Senegalese development economist and Research and Programme manager at the West Africa office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Sylla is also the author of many articles and three books, including the recently published L’Arme Invisible de la Francafrique, or “The Invisible Weapon of Franco-African Imperialism.” In that book, Sylla and coauthor Fanny Pigeaud lay out a comprehensive case against the CFA Franc, a neocolonial currency union that presently constrains the social, political, and economic prospects of each of its member states. In this episode, Scott Ferguson and Maxximilian Seijo talk with Sylla about the history of political economy in pre-and post-colonial Africa; the theoretical bases and political stakes of the anti-CFA Franc movement; and how Modern Monetary Theory ought to inform current and future efforts to restore political and economic sovereignty to West African nations.Sylla's book: https://www.amazon.fr/Larme-invisible-Françafrique-Fanny-PIGEAUD/dp/2348037394Sylla's Twitter: @nssyllaLink to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

On this episode, we talk to Julie Mell, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University and author of the two volume book, The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender.In The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender, Mell marshals previously untapped primary sources to upend the common historical narrative regarding the role of Jewish moneylenders in the development of the modern economy. On Mell’s reading, the prevailing understanding of the medieval Jewish moneylender--common to both antisemitic and philosemetic discourses in the 19th and 20th centuries-- has no more basis in history than does the prevailing myth of barter.  At North Carolina State University, Mell teaches courses in medieval history, Jewish history, and economic thought; she also recently served as a fellow at the Center for the History of Political Economy and as a visiting scholar at the Centre for Hebrew and Judaic Studies at the University of Oxford. In this episode, Scott and Max speak with Mell about these and other connections that may be drawn between her own and neochartalism’s critical projects. Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

In this episode, we're joined by Steven Attewell, Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the City University of New York’s School of Labor and Urban Studies.His recent book, People Must Live By Work (University of Pennsylvania Press), examines the history of direct job creation programs from the depths of the Great Depression and debates over the Employment Act of 1946 to the War on Poverty and the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978.Link to the book: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15862.htmlLink to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

In this episode, we’re joined by Jamee Moudud. A professor of economics at Sarah Lawrence College, Jamee draws on the tradition of critical legal studies to extend the constitutional theory of money to new historical and international contexts.He currently serves on the board of the Association for the Promotion of Political Economy and the Law. He is also associate editor for the Review of Keynesian Economics. You can check out some of his recent work, including a timely essay on tariffs and free trade, on the website for the journal of Law and Political Economy: https://lpeblog.org/2018/03/26/free-trade-for-all-market-romanticism-versus-reality/Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure