Money on the Left

Economist Benjamin Wilson joins Money on the Left to discuss heterodox approaches to place, participation, and the politics of university finance. Associate professor of economics at SUNY Cortland, Wilson received his interdisciplinary Ph. D. from University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), where he took courses with some of the leading lights of heterodox economic theory, including Stephanie Kelt...

In this episode, Maxx and Scott speak with legal scholar Sanjukta Paul about imagining alternative and more just forms of economic association in ways that denaturalize the 20th-century monopolistic firm. The key, Paul argues, is to reveal and contest the public “coordination rights” that legally structure all economic activity.  Sanjukta Paul is Assistant Professor of Law at Wayne State Universit...

Rohan Grey and Nathan Tankus join Money on the Left to discuss the flurry of debate about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) arising out of the Coronavirus crisis. We focus, in particular, on the Modern Money Network’s multi-pronged efforts to illuminate and remedy the resulting economic devastation. At the center of our conversation is Rohan’s contribution to Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s “Automatic BOOST Act.”...

This month’s Money on the Left episode departs from the show’s regular interview format to reflect on the past, present and future of the Money on the Left project as a whole. We focus, in particular, on a recent special scholarly journal issue dedicated to Money on the Left , which was published by Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies and guest-edited by our friend Andrés Bernal . The i...

Reverend Dr. Delman Coates joins Money on the Left to discuss why the politics of public money creation are essential for social and spiritual liberation. Dr. Coates holds a Master’s in Divinity from Harvard and a Ph. D. in New Testament & Early Christianity from Columbia University. He currently serves as Senior Pastor at Mount Ennon Baptist church in Clinton, Maryland, and is founder of OUR...

Alexandra Scaggs joins Money on the Left to discuss her experience covering the ongoing paradigm crisis in mainstream economics, central banking and finance--and why leftists should be paying close attention. Alexandra is presently a senior writer at Barron’s, where she covers markets and fixed income. Giving credit to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) for turning her toward left politics, Alexandra ha...

This December, we bring you a special Christmas episode of our program, featuring the enigmatic operator behind the increasingly popular Twitter account known as “Neoclassical Marxism,” or @NMarxism. @NMarxism is a deeply satirical Twitter project, which deploys Modern Monetary Theory and some very dark humor to critique the neoclassical economics and neoliberal assumptions that unconsciously orga...

In this special live episode of Money on the Left , artist and researcher Vienne Chan joins us to talk art, politics, and money—and how Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) reconfigures the boundaries between all three. Recorded at the Third Annual International Conference on Modern Monetary Theory held at Stony Brook University, our conversation focuses specifically on Vienne’s recent efforts to combine...

In this episode of Money on the Left , we speak with historian Alison Collis Greene about her book No Depression in Heaven with an eye toward contemporary debates around the Green New Deal. Subtitled The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta , Greene's book critiques what she calls the “myth of the redemptive depression” which, particularly in the Ame...

Jakob Feinig, assistant professor of human development at Binghamton University, joins us to discuss the history of political organizing and activism around money in the United States, from the pre-Revolutionary period to the New Deal era. Characterized alternately by periods of widespread “silencing” and mass mobilization, the history of money politics that Feinig documents in his research has mu...

We are joined by Andrés Bernal, policy advisor to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and doctoral student at the New School for Public Engagement, Division of Policy Management and Environment. We speak with Bernal about his history with political organizing and the critical role he has come to play in the modern money movement, including the struggle for a Green New Deal. He also sketches out his dissertat...

In this episode, we talk with Nathan Tankus, Research Director of the Modern Money Network, and Research Fellow at the Clarke Business Law Institute at Cornell Law School. Nathan recently co-authored an opinion piece in the Financial Times with Scott Fullwiler and former MoL guest Rohan Gray about MMT’s position on the causes of inflation Link to the piece: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/01/1...

On this episode, we talk with David Freund, associate professor of history at the University of Maryland. David is the author of Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America , an award-winning book that tracks how the language of racial exclusion was re-coded in terms of markets, property, and citizenship in the post-World War II era. Throughout the conversation, Da...

In this episode, we speak with Robert Hockett, Edward Cornell Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. At Cornell, Hockett teaches and writes about organizational, financial, and monetary law and economics. He’s also worked as a fellow for the Century Foundation and as a consultant to a number of international financial institutions and state legislatures. We talk with Bob about his role in craftin...

Ndongo Samba Sylla is a Senegalese development economist and Research and Programme manager at the West Africa office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Sylla is also the author of many articles and three books, including the recently published L’Arme Invisible de la Francafrique, or “The Invisible Weapon of Franco-African Imperialism .” In that book, Sylla and coauthor Fanny Pigeaud lay out a comp...

On this episode, we talk to Julie Mell, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University and author of the two volume book, The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender . In The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender, Mell marshals previously untapped primary sources to upend the common historical narrative regarding the role of Jewish moneylenders in the development of the mod...

In this episode, we're joined by Steven Attewell, Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the City University of New York’s School of Labor and Urban Studies. His recent book, People Must Live By Work (University of Pennsylvania Press), examines the history of direct job creation programs from the depths of the Great Depression and debates over the Employment Act of 1946 to the War on Poverty a...

In this episode, we’re joined by Jamee Moudud. A professor of economics at Sarah Lawrence College, Jamee draws on the tradition of critical legal studies to extend the constitutional theory of money to new historical and international contexts. He currently serves on the board of the Association for the Promotion of Political Economy and the Law. He is also associate editor for the Review of Keyne...

In this episode, we’re joined by Rohan Grey, President of the Modern Money Network, Director of the National Jobs for All Coalition, Research Fellow at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and JSD student at Cornell Law school. Our conversation is dedicated to Rohan’s current work on the political, economic, and cultural implications of money’s digital future. Rohan's report on di...

In this special episode, we offer a montage of interviews, songs, and speeches recorded during the Poor People’s Campaign’s June 23 rally on the National Mall and march on the US Capitol. To learn more about the 21st Century Poor People’s Campaign, visit www.poorpeoplescampaign.org . Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

We talk with Colleen Hooper, assistant professor of dance at Point Park University. Colleen researches the history of public funding for arts programs in the United States from the New Deal through the post War era. Her 2017 article in the Dance Research Journal , titled “Ballerinas on the Dole: Dance and the Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA), 1974-1982,” is the subject of most of our c...

In this episode, we speak with Emma Caterine, a law graduate and writer with more than a decade of experience working within economic justice, feminist, LGBTQ, and racial justice movements. We talk Democratic Socialists of America, MMT, the advantages of a federal jobs guarantee over a universal basic income, the place for sex work in a jobs guarantee program. Emma's Medium page: https://medi...

We are joined by Christine Desan, Leo Goettlieb professor of law at Harvard Law School to discuss her excellent book, Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism. Desan argues that money is a constitutional project, countering the dubious “commodity” theory common to contemporary economic and legal orthodoxies. Desan develops her constitutional theory of money through rigorous histo...

Scott and Max are joined by Fadhel Kaboub, associate professor of economics at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity: http://www.global-isp.org Fadhel outlines a new critical approach to postcolonial political economy, arguing that re-gaining financial sovereignty is a crucial next step for postcolonial nations hoping to achieve social, economic, and e...

Bad tweets from AP and Howard Schultz inspire discussion of Left Twitter’s engagement with fiscal policy. Maxximilian Seijo (@maxseijo) expands upon the argument made in his video essay, “Inglorious Basterds: Nazi Desire Fully Employed,” which takes a neochartalist lens to Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds (2008). View the video essay here: https://vimeo.com/264766464 Money on the Left Confe...