Nov 8, 2019 • 56M

The end of history? Ordinary folks give Capitalism a hard look

Upgrade to listen

Appears in this episode

Whitney McKnight
For citizens seeking deep mental roots, not lists of shallow instructions.
Episode details
Comments

Vol. 1 issue 39

Greetings,

It’s podcast time again. These take time to produce, and I do them myself, so thanks for your support and patience while I work on getting them together. This one with London-based economist Grace Blakeley, author of, STOLEN: How to Save the World from Financialization, is one of my favorites to date.

In it, Blakeley begins with a reference to the late British cultural theorist Mark Fisher and his notion that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of Capitalism. She then gives a concise history of late 20th Century Capitalism beginning with the aftermath of WWII, all the way to now, touching on how a series of events helped tilt global markets in favor of the super-rich, resulting in the gutting of the middle class and today’s disproportionate distribution of resources world-wide.

It’s a well-written book, one you will zip through with Blakeley as an excellent guide. She is not preachy, but she is passionate about pointing out how Capitalism hasn’t worked for us the way we’ve been told it should.

In our interview, Blakely describes what “financialization” is, and breaks down how when off-shore money invested in various domestic economies, combines with the privatization of government functions, it leads to financiers, not elected officials, having the power to make decisions that impact everyday citizens’ lives.

These wealthy but faceless powerful often are those who never set foot in the US but still have immense impact on how we as communities are able to distribute and utilize our resources.

You might remember what that is like…it was called the Great Recession of 2008.

It is not fear of material poverty that Blakely argues is what fuels the rising tide of populism, but our having been rendered voiceless and powerless by people who have no reason to feel accountable to us.

Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to docu-mental: mapping the american states of mind to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.