Ellora Derenoncourt, co-author of this paper, on the racial wealth gap, 1860–2020, and David Roediger, author of The Sinking Middle Class, on the uses of that term in US politics. Image by Claudio Bianchi from Pixabay
Behind the News
12:00 PM (Noon) Pacific Time: Thursdays
Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
Fundraising special: the latest fronts in the right’s war on public education, and the political economy of Ukraine.
Education journalist Jennifer Berkshire on Peter Hegseth, Christopher Rufo, and the right’s latest fronts in their war on public education. And Peter Korotaev looks at the political economy of Ukraine, before, during, and after the war.
Erik Baker, a lecture in history at Harvard and author of this piece, takes another look at a recent BtN obsession: post-leftism. And José Sanchez, author of this critique of Afropessimism, looks at the school of thought and its contradictions. photo: via Pixabay
Jenny Brown of National Women’s Liberation (and author of Without Apology and Birth Strike) on the early struggle for abortion rights that led to Roe and what we can learn from it for today. And journalist David De Jong, author of Nazi Billionaires, on how respectable German businessmen became loyal Nazis. photo: Gayatri Malhotra via Unsplash
Reining in cops and the limits to managing money sensitively
Back after three weeks of pre-emption: George Maher, author of A World Without Police, on the movement to defund and eventually abolish the cops. And Tariq Fancy, author of this series of articles, on the (severe) limits to using finance to fix the climate.
Porn work and the fellowship of neoliberals
Heather Berg, author of Porn Work, on relations of production in sex work • Kevin Young and Leonard Seabrooke, co-authors of this paper, on the contrasting collegial styles of the Chicago and Charles River schools of economics
Colombian election and elite capture of identity politics
Historian Forrest Hylton on the first round of the Colombian presidential election, which turned out to be bad news for the leader, Gustavo Petro. And philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, author of Elite Capture, on how the ruling class has debased identity politics, and how we could reconstitute it.
Marx’s economics—and KPFA economics (fundraising).
Hadas Thier talks about her book, A People’s Guide to Economics: An Introduction to Marxist Economics (from a 2020 interview). Plus fundraising.
Crypto, white power, and fundraising.
Molly White, keeper of the Web3 Is Going Just Great blog, on the pointless and scam-ridden world of cryptocurrencies. And Kathleen Belew, a scholar of white power, on that movement’s obsessions and unusual organization (rebroadcast of an October 2020 interview). Plus, fundraising: please support KPFA!
Matthew Huber, author of Climate Change as Class War, explains why the environmental movement needs to take class and production more seriously. And Adam Kotsko explores why evangelicals are so obsessed with abortion. Plus, fundraising. photo: Pixabay