Show Notes
Alyssa Battistoni joins me to discuss her new book Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature. Capitalist theory generally describes nature as a "free gift." If gifts are already free, why does capitalism have to claim that nature is a "free gift"? And why does capitalism keep declaring that nature is "worth" some billions or trillions of dollars? Alyssa and I discuss the tragic, yet comic, misunderstanding of nature by capitalism, and other ways to think about nature besides the economic.
More from Everyday Anarchism
Tomas Rothaus joins me to discuss his book Argentina, A Tale of Two Utopias: Anarchism, Soccer, Neoliberalism. We talk about the way that true soccer clubs are anarchic: they represent a community coming together and organizing around something. By contrast, billionaire-owned sports franchises are just corporate business. Tomas tells his story of being part of both anarchist and soccer organizing in Argentina, the amazing victories won against neoliberalism 25 years ago, and the rise of the new "anarcho-capitalist" regime in Argentina. Here's a link to the book: https://pmpress.org/product/argentina-a-tale-of-two-utopias-anarchism-soccer-neoliberalism
Nathan Gelgud comes back on the show to discuss No Concessions, the next volume of his cartoon strip about a radical cell of Marxist cinephiles trying to create a revolutionary society by screening films the right way. Nathan and I talk about everything from "selling out" to the meaning of progressive politics to the films of Abbas Kiarostami. You can find Nathan on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/gelgud/ Buy the book here: https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/no-concessions/ And check out Abbas Kiarostami's early films! https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/8309-eclipse-series-47-abbas-kiarostami-early-shorts-and-features
If money is just made up, can't we solve the problem of poverty by just giving people money? This radical idea feels new, but Thomas Paine proposed it as a revolutionary solution during both the US and French revolutions. Alberto Tena-Camporesi joins me to discuss Paine's radical idea, its relationship to current ideas about UBI, and why this idea just keeps coming up in radical (and right-wing) circles. You can find Alberto's work here: https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=FMpnSa8AAAAJ&hl=en Here's a direct link to the article we discussed (might be behind a paywall): https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-10213639 And here's Alberto's book on the topic (in Spanish): https://postmetropolis.com/producto/los-origenes-revolucionarios-de-la-renta-basica/
The audio recording of a talk I gave at Oriel College, Oxford University. Thank you to Nick Gaskill and Oriel for inviting me!
No one seems to really understand what money is and what it does. In this new book, Josh Mason and Arjun Jayadev give the best explanation I've ever seen for what money does, how it works, and the damage it's doing to the world.