2352 - "Vulture Capitalism" w/ Grace Blakeley

Happy Monday! Sam speaks with Grace Blakeley, English economics & politics commentator, staff writer at Tribune, to discuss her recent book Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom.

First, Sam runs through updates on the final 14 days before the US presidential election, Israel’s ongoing assault on Palestine and potential pivot to Iran, environmental disaster in Cuba, Elon Musk’s failures and fraud in his work alongside the Trump campaign, National Association of Letter Carriers’ labor news, Tesla’s regulatory problems, and the US economy, before diving a little deeper into the insanity of Elon Musk launching contrasting ad campaigns in Michigan attempting to stoke anti-Semitic and Islamophobic fears in Muslim and Jewish communities. Grace Blakeley then joins, first working to unpack the commonly accepted dichotomy between capitalism and a centrally-planned (socialist) economy, with the dystopia of socialism juxtaposed by liberalism’s vision of free-market democracy, before wading into the problems and inaccuracies of this binary, namely the fact that liberalism’s defining qualities (free-markets and democracy) don’t apply to the existing capitalist societies of today (particularly the largest imperial powers like the US and UK), where wealth and political power are becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer elites, translating into what is essentially centrally-planned oligarchy. Blakeley steps back to walk through the evolution of capitalism to this point, tackling neoliberals’ work to publically redefine a libertarian “free market” as a return to natural systems, while elites privately saw it as an explicit vision to protect corporate power amid rising social movements, establishing clear economic norms against anything that could threaten privatization, the free movement of capital, and low tax rates, while creating international institutions (backed by the West) to dole out punishment for any revolutionary states that sought to challenge them abroad, before touching on the contrasting work of a Keynesian vision – backed by the working class – that pushed the idea of a protective state and well-regulated markets, and exploring the major success this ideology had in bolstering the US labor movement of the mid-20th Century. Next, Grace walks Sam through the eventual success of neoliberal theory with the regimes of Pinochet, Thatcher, and Reagan in the late 1970s and early ’80s, and their overwhelming work to crush and fragment the working class and social power that had bolstered the social and economic progress of the century to that point, setting the stage for the solidification of the oligarchies we see today. After briefly touching on the value of a return to a more Keynesian vision for economies, and the central importance of revitalizing working-class power, Berkeley wraps up the interview by exploring a few other visions for strong, democratic, and worker-led economies.

And in the Fun Half: Sam unpacks Trump’s most recent insult to workers (and whether that will even translate past the absurdity of it), and Elon Musk’s ongoing fraudulent and stochastic canvassing work for the Trump campaign. Obama walks through Trump’s extensive effort to undermine the US’ capacity to respond to pandemics, and Jim Breuer does… something… but it’s definitely racist. The MR Team also talks with John from TBurg about Ohio’s Issue 1, Matt from Tennessee about the moral monstrosity that is Richie Torres, and Noah from Nashville on Harris and the Left, plus, your calls and IMs!

Follow Grace on Twitter here: https://x.com/graceblakeley/

Check out Vulture Capitalism here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Vulture-Capitalism/Grace-Blakeley/9781982180850

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