Economics & Beyond with Rob Johnson

Sarah Chayes: How Corrupt Elites Extract Wealth From Ordinary Americans

National security expert Sarah Chayes discusses her new book, On Corruption in America: and What Is at Stake. Chayes explores how corruption in U.S. state and society furthers and deepens inequality.

Abigail Disney: We Need to Tell a Better Story of What America Could Be

Abigail Disney, filmmaker, founder of Peace, So Loud, and podcast host of All Ears, discusses how changes among the country's elite, towards the "Greed is Good" ethic and a blind faith in markets have made inequality more extreme than ever and why we need a new discourse, even among progressives, that recognizes and respects the contributions of society's poorest.

Joel Bakan: How "Good" Corporations Mislead Us

Filmmaker and law professor Joel Bakan talks about his book and film, The New Corporation, where he dissects how corporations have tricked the public into believing that corporations can regulate themselves better than government can.

David Sirota: Progressives Failed to Channel the Anger; Trump Did

Jacobin Magazine Editor-at-Large David Sirota discusses how Trump is a concentrated expression of the Republican Party. If Democrats hope to beat Republicans, they cannot afford to believe that a vote for them is a vote to return to the pre-Trump era.

 

Links to Sirota's blog:

1. https://www.dailyposter.com/p/we-cant-follow-obama-back-to-brunch
2. https://www.dailyposter.com/p/americas-panic-attack-could-soon

Young Scholars Initiative: What Are the Most Important Economic Questions?

INET's Young Scholar's Initiative (YSI) is holding its third plenary conference this November, this time all online. However, unlike most online conferences, the 2020 YSI Plenary is a true workshop for young scholars to get to know each other and to identify the most important economic questions for the near future. Rob Johnson discusses the project with YSI's coordinators Jay Pocklington, Heske van Doornen, and Thomas Vass.

Pavlina Tcherneva: The Many Benefits of a Jobs Guarantee

Pavlina Tcherneva, Associate Professor of Economics at Bard College, discusses her new book, The Case for a Jobs Guarantee, outlining why society would benefit tremendously from such a program.

Eugene McCarraher: The Religion of Capitalism

Eugene McCarraher, Associate Professor of Humanities at Villanova University and author of the book, The Enchantment of Mammon, talks about his book and how society has not really become more secular because it shifted its focus from the worship of God to the worship of markets.

Martin Wolf: On Rebuilding Trust in Uncertain Times, Pt 2

Financial Times economics commentator Martin Wolf continues the conversation about how societal fragmentation benefits the well-off and that only greater equality can reestablish trust between social groups and the state

Martin Wolf: On Rebuilding Trust in Uncertain Times, Pt 1

Financial Times economics commentator Martin Wolf discusses how the loss of faith and trust in government and in experts leads many to believe in anything, resulting in disunity and polarization

Paul Street: The Trump Presidency Was Decades in the Making

Historian Paul Street talks about how the roots of the Trump presidency lie in the continuous rightward drift in US politics since the 1970's, to which the Democrats contributed as much as the Republicans