System Change Made Simple

The post-capitalist gift economy is explained and proposed in my book  'System Change for a Liveable Future' (Mayfly 2025). Here I am looking at an appendix in that book. I am considering what the anthropologists have to say about non-market economies in pre-class societies. How did gifts function as a means of exchange in these communities? What lessons can we draw from this history? 

 Unpacking Schmachtenberger again.  Terry Leahy 2025.  This text and podcast provides an alternative world history to that being promoted by podcasters such as Daniel Schmachtenberger. Their theory is heavily based in sociobiology. I will outline a different theory that fits the facts better. So, in the last of five podcasts I will continue with the exposition of my own version of the human condit...

Unpacking Schmachtenberger again.  Terry Leahy 2025.  This text and podcast provides an alternative world history to that being promoted by podcasters such as Daniel Schmachtenberger. Their theory is heavily based in sociobiology. Here, I will not go into every detail of Schmachtenberger’s approach. I will outline a different theory that fits the facts better. In this podcast I want to ‘give the d...

Unpacking Schmachtenberger. This third podcast on the interview with Schmachtenberger looks at two issues. One is Schmachtenberger’s idea that there are a small number of particularly competitive and strategic people who have an inordinate influence on how history works. What he calls the 'hyper agents'. The second is to look at what Schmachtenberger proposes as the way forward. A sensib...

Unpacking Schmachtenberger. This is the second in a set of podcasts on an interview that Nate Hagens (the Great Simplification) did with Daniel Schmachtenberger. In this podcast I talk about the places where Schmachtenberger explains our problems as coming out of the economic structures of our 'superorganism'. I kind of agree with this approach. I like it better than the approach that do...

Nate Hagens interviews Daniel Schmachtenberger. This covers a host of topics. I am dividing my comments into four podcasts. This first one relates to the idea that human evolution primes us to work according to the maximum power principle. We are facing environmental catastrophe basically because of that. This pattern of human action can be traced throughout history and in every kind of society. 

This is the fourth podcast on an interview that Sarah Wilson did with Nate Hagens. The angle that they are taking is that collapse is going to happen pretty soon, like in fifteen years or less. In this podcast I take a look at what they think might be an appropriate response to a situation like this. Alternative ways to react. Like the prepper strategy, living in the country, building a mass movem...

In this podcast I look at the argument that problems of debt are going to crash our financial system. Leading to an economic, political and social crisis. A collapse well before environmental problems lead us to that. I am sceptical. Debt crises must be interpreted as moves in a political game. Their outcome is never determined by accounting! 

Nate and Sarah are popular podcasters in the de-growth space. In a series of four podcasts I am commenting on the issues that come up in an interview Sarah conducted with Nate in 2023. There is a great deal in these perspectives that anyone in de-growth might agree with. As I go along I acknowledge these points of consensus. But there are also issues where I disagree with the views they are explai...

Sarah Wilson and Nate Hagens are both much liked podcasters in the degrowth movement here in OZ and probably also in other countries. There is much they say that anyone in degrowth would agree with.  But there are certain ideas in this interview podcast that I have some qualms about. I am making four podcasts on an interview on Wild with Nate Hagens. This one is on the idea that it is human nature...

While environmental activism is dominated by the middle class, there are large sections of the middle class that are very hostile to the environmentalist movement. These are people in positions most closely allied to the operations of business – professionals in engineering and finance, commercial workers, executives. They regard environmentalists as people who pay no heed to the practicalities of...

This podcast is based primarily on research conducted in the Hunter region of Australia. The working-class see environmentalists as members of a privileged middle class. They produce endless verbal exhortation but have no practical good sense. They pay insufficient attention to people’s material needs. They can ruin the job prospects and leisure options of ordinary people. Their attempts to contro...

This first podcast in series five is about the way social class is constructed in our society today. I look at two major sources. John and Barbara Ehrenreich on the professional managerial class. Pierre Bourdieu on the mapping of social space – on economic and cultural capital. These takes on social class give us the tools we need to see how class location affects people’s views of environmental p...

The feminist psychoanalytic tradition provides an excellent account of  ‘excessive’ aggression in human societies. In patriarchy, there's a particular pattern to how men are brought up as boys. From boys to men. It creates a psychology of competitive striving to beat other men. It works against empathetic relationships with women. It fosters anxiety in men about their claim to be regarded as...

Most conservatives believe the sociological view of aggression is naïve. The theory of evolution shows us that animals only survive that are fit for the struggle. They urge us to admit that humans have a basic desire to harm other people – just as important as other basic drives like hunger. This podcast considers three arguments for this perspective and shows why they are mistaken. 

Conservatives believe that competitive aggression is part of human nature. Given this, they argue, no egalitarian society can be possible. Given how often people behave aggressively, it is hard to believe aggression is totally socially constructed. We can look at it two ways. Aggression is one of the basic human motivations. Or aggression is a tool, a capacity that is put into play to pursue other...

What is human nature? This question breaks down into two parts. One part is what people mean when they talk about human nature. Clearly people have different ideas about what human nature is in fact — or even if there is any such thing. I explain my own view. There are six basic drives. Broadly, hunger; health; sociability; creativity; sexuality; autonomy. Social scientists ignore the topic. Yet a...

 This podcast considers central concepts of the Marxist account of class. Of systems of exploitation. Surplus, work, product, necessary labour, reproduction, use value. Marx and later Marxists give an account of class that relies on ideas about human nature. The theory assumes these ideas which are not always explicit. It is only in this way that we can look at world history and create an overview...

Marx’s theory of class society has had a huge influence on sociology and on my own thinking. This podcast explains the theory in the simplest way possible. What is the basic structure of all class societies in history? The ruling class owns the means of production. They use this leverage to extract a surplus from the work of the subordinate class. This is just as true in capitalist societies - whe...

Weber is famous as one of the founders of sociology. He sees history as broken into two key periods. Ancient societies where different ‘life chances’ were allocated on the basis of status. A social estimation of honour. And modernity where life chances are allocated based on a person’s position in the market – their ownership of monetary property or the value of their labour on the market. There i...

Class is a unique phenomenon in world history. Like we could look at it as almost like a hoodoo that has been cast on humanity because it's been absolutely impossible to get rid of it. What we've seen in world history since the invention of class 10,000 years ago, is that it has become more and more dominant until the present time. So, this podcast asks, how does this happen? And what ma...

Most of what you will hear and read about the birth of civilisation is just propaganda. I am calling these stories 'origin myths'. This podcast explores these origin myths and explains why they are completely bogus. You will never look at a Discovery Channel doco the same way. 

The term ‘civilisation’ is normally used when a society is being praised for glorious technical, social and cultural achievements. I want to turn that assessment on its head. I will use a sociological term for what are typically called ‘civilisations’. Class society. What are the common features of class societies throughout history?  Class is not inevitable and is in fact an invention. Yet, since...

Continues the discussion of the previous podcast. The changes in the global south with capitalist colonial imperialism. Sylvia Federici’s viewpoint. Gender and the market economy in the majority world. Witches, north and south. Conclusions about liberal feminism and the socialist critique. The psychology of patriarchy as foundational for capitalism and for class society in general. How would a gif...

Different strands of feminist thinking. Liberal feminism and the socialist critique. Radical feminism and dual systems theory. Feudal patriarchy and its replacement. A patriarchy adapted to capitalism. How this worked out in the rich countries. Red Riding Hood in fact and fable. The patriarchal economy as a good cop/bad cop routine. The circularity of domestic and public patriarchy.