From Alpha To Omega

This week we talk with journalist and author Iain Bruce about the history of the Brazilian Workers Party, their experiments with direct democracy. the political philosophy of the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, and the geopolitics of South America. We also discuss the hopes for direct democracy, something I hope to cover further, in future shows.Iain Bruce is a British journalist and filmmaker. He is the author of ‘The Porto Alegre Alternative: Direct Democracy in Action’, and ‘The Real Venezuela: Making Socialism in the 21st Century’, and has made documentaries for Channel 4 and the BBC. In the past he has worked as the BBC correspondent in Caracas, Venezuela, as an adviser to Telesur, the Latin American news channel based in Venezuela, and currently finds himself in Qatar plying his trade with Al Jazeera. You can find him blogging over at: www.venezuelanalysis.com. And you can buy his books here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Real-Venezuela-Socialism-Century/dp/0745327362/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1354139276&sr=8-2http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Porto-Alegre-Alternative-International/dp/0745320961/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1354139276&sr=8-10Enjoy!

This week we hold a chat with Professor Mathew Forstater of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. We talk about the role of primitive accumulation in the rise of capitalism, how government taxes were a tool of primitive accumulation in the colonies, and how it continues to work it's magic in today's economic system. Marx's thoughts on fiat currency get a hearing, as does the role of America’s deficit and their government debt. For our US listeners, it explains the stupidity of the current 'Grand Bargain' Obama has under negotiation, the ideology of it all, and the likely outcomes. Enjoy!

This week we have part two of our talk with Professor Andrew Kliman of Pace University. This week we turn our thoughts to the dynamism of capitalism and the soviet experiment, the short-term asymmetric advantages of capitalism, and the revolutionary strategies of Karl Marx.Those in New York, can go to see the Professor debate about the crisis, with a panel of very eminent Marxists, indeed! All courtesy of the Platypus Affiliated Society....http://newyork.platypus1917.org/11-14-2012-radical-interpretations-of-the-present-crisis/You can check out Professor Klimans books here: http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Kliman/e/B001JSALNS/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1352227366&sr=8-1And his blog is here:http://akliman.squarespace.com/Enjoy....

This week we talk to Professor Andrew Kliman, about the current economic crisis, and what Karl Marx would make of it all. Professor Kliman, is a Professor of Economics at Pace University and author of several publications on Marxian economics, including the books Reclaiming Marx’s “Capital”, and ‘The Failure of Capitalist Production: Underlying Causes of the Great Recession’. We talk of Marx's labour theory of value, the falling rate of profit, production for productions sake, and what Marx would think about the insights of the post-keynesian, Hyman Minsky.The Professor is a leading proponent of the Temporal Single System Interpretation of Marx's labor theory, which defends Marx’s cconomic theories against various claims of its inconsistency from other economists. I’m currently reading Das Kapital myself, so it’s a real treat to hear what one of the worlds foremost Marxists has to say about the current economic situation.You can buy his books here:http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Kliman/e/B001JSALNS/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1351094041&sr=8-1You can check out his blog here:http://akliman.squarespace.com/Enjoy!

This week we talk to farmer and permaculturist extraordinaire, Paul Wheaton. Paul has just returned from his ‘Symphonies in Seed and Soil’ speaking tour of America, and currently finds himself trying to buy a new farm up there in Montana. He runs: www.Permies.com, the worlds most popular Permaculture forums and website, and is a prolific podcaster in his own right.We talk of chickens and pigs, American culture and the metric system, moving earth and building ponds, agri-business and industrial farming. Unfortunately skype ate some of the interview, so I wasn't able to include the question where he told me exactly how tall he his. All I can say for certain, is that he is order of magnitudes taller than my spindly frame.Here is his podcast: http://www.richsoil.com/permaculture/Here is his brilliant and very popular youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/paulwheaton12Enjoy!

Today’s guest, Yanis Varoufakis, is a Greek Political Economist and Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Athens, and an expert in game-theory. We discuss the flawed design of the Euro, Francois Mitterand and Jacques Delors, the ECB and the Germans, the rise of a Greek Nazi Party and the spectre of Kosovo and Euro Waste-Lands.Yanis is a leading heterodox economist, the author of ‘The Global Minotaur - America, The True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy’, and prolifically pens his thoughts on his blog:http://YanisVaroufakis.eu. You can check out his bibliography here:http://www.amazon.com/Yanis-Varoufakis/e/B000APKJ4M/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1349010527&sr=8-1Enjoy!

This weeks guest is Doug Lain. Doug is a fiction writer, blogger, pop philosopher and political radical. He is also the host of the most excellent ‘Dietsoap’ podcast. We talk of philosophy and Hegel, reality tunnels and ideology, Slavoj Zizek and the surreal, Winnie the Pooh and the Labyrinth. Doug’s novel ‘Billy Moon: 1968’ is due out from Tor Books in 2013. He also has a new monthly podcast coming out in September with Derick C. Varn called ‘Pop The Left’ where they hope to give a critical analysis of the left, from a leftists perspective. If you know what's good for you, you should check out the Dietsoap podcast and Doug's writing on his interweb site: www.douglaslain.comYou can also find his books for purchase here:http://www.amazon.com/Douglas-Lain/e/B004Z9W0QO/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1347673703&sr=8-1Enjoy!

On this weeks show, we speak to the world reknowned economist Steve Keen, Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Western Sydney. Steve was one of the few economists in the world to predict the current crisis in detail, years before it happened. He did it so well, in fact, that he won the award for being the economist who first and most accurately warned the world of the coming global financial crisis. Steve considers most economists and the standard neoclassical synthesis as deluded, and wrote the brilliant ‘Debunking Economics’, where he lays it all out in gorey detail. We speak of debt jubilees and speculation, Minsky & Mark, Chaos Theory and Anarchy, Peak Oil and the likely coming collapse of human population.You can check out his brilliant blog here: http://debtdeflation.com/blogsSteve has also just launched a subscription based service where you can get first dibs at his latest research and you can join in on subscriber-only discussions on the web: http://debunkingeconomics.com/Here is where you can purchase a copy of 'Debunking Economics': http://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Economics-Revised-Expanded-Dethroned/dp/1848139926/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346433606&sr=8-1&keywords=debunking+economicsEnjoy!

This week we talk to ‘Heiko Khoo’’. Heiko is a Marxist who has been a speaker at London’s Speakers corner since 1986. He has a specialist interest in the Marxist analysis and critique of China and former soviet type regimes. He frequently contributes to the online journal, karlmarx.net. Heiko recently began a walking tour company www.Marxwalks.com that runs weekly walking tours in London on the life and ideas of Karl Marx. Our conversation will meander across a number of issues, from Speakers Corner, to political activism in East Berlin, from Trotsky to Old Labour, and from the Occupy Movement to the extent of state capitalism and state communism in China. It's refreshing to hear from a real life revolutionary! Enjoy!

We are joined by Professor L. Randall Wray this week, an economist and expert in Modern Monetary Theory. Prof. Wray also blogs over at 'New Economic Perspectives', which tries it's best, amongst other things, to dispel the myths surrounding our monetary system. We discuss the origins of money, Chartalism, the German Colonies and Stone money, the nature of government debt, the problems with the euro, commodity price speculation, Bill Clinton's budget surpluses, and regime change in the US.Prof. Wray has a new book coming out next month. You can find it on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Money-Theory-Macroeconomics-Sovereign/dp/0230368891/ref=la_B001HP7OPG_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344180162&sr=1-1You can check out his postings on the most excellent blog:http://neweconomicperspectives.org/Over and Ooot!

This weeks guest is Philip Pilkington, a prolific economic contributor to the excellent ‘Naked Capitalism’ blog. 'Naked Capitalism' is one of the most visited economics blog on the web, featuring some of the top Political Economy bloggers on the planet. The show is loosely based around a series Philip wrote for the blog on Monetarism - the economic theories of Milton Friedman. We cover such rocky territory as the intellectual battles between the Keynesians and Monetarists, the Austrian School of Economics and Political Propaganda, Maggie Thatcher and class war, Union Busting and Military Coups, Finance vs Industry, and the return of the Gold Standard.That's all folks!?!#@**&^!!You can find Philips writing here and here:http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/https://fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com/

This weeks episode features a seminal Noam Chomsky lecture from 1970 entitled ‘Government In The Future’. Noam Chomsky is quite simply the greatest living intellectual, and a wonderful human being. In this lecture, he gives a historical and philosophical look at the four great governmental structures: classic liberalism, libertarian socialism, state capitalism and state socialism. His analysis, in particular of our system - state capitalism - is stark and accurate. He gives a novel and highly functional description of the role of the cold war, and discusses the nature of power and democratic governance. This weeks show is hopefully one of the first in a line of overtly political showsEnjoy!

This week we are joined by the masked crusader, Glaucus, who runs the town and city planning blog 'Planning Down'. Glaucus, city planner by day, and anonymous planning theorist by night, introduces us to the ideas behind his cross-disciplinary approach to planning the towns and cities of the future. We talk of cities as metabolic organisms, the industrial revolution, Jevon's paradox, feedback loops, consumerism, and Obama’s national defense authorisation act and indefinite detention without trial.You can check out Glacus's highly engaging blog here: https://planningdown.wordpress.com/If you are interested in reading more about any of the topics in today's show, you can check out the blog's bibliography here:https://planningdown.wordpress.com/influencesfurther-reading/I love it when a plan comes together....

Colette O'Neill, the creative genius behind the Bealtaine Cottage permaculture small-holding in the west of Ireland and the 'A Life In The Country' blog, is this weeks guest. We chat about her love of permaculture, how she decided to give up her career as a teacher in London and return to Ireland to turn an old bachelors cottage and 3-acres of poor land in the wilds of County Roscommon into an oasis of abundance. We hear of forest gardens, stylish wooden verandas, her pantry, ancient burial sites, fairy rings, living outside the monetary system, the cuckoo, and space travel.You can check out her blog here:http://permaculturecottage.wordpress.com/If her blog makes you jealous, then her youtube channel might tip you over the edge:http://www.youtube.com/user/BealtaineCottage/videosGo raibh míle maith agat....

I popped over to the PositiveMoney.org HQ this week, to talk to Ben Dyson about their monetary reform campaign. They are seeking to wrest the power of money creation away from the banks, and put it under democratic control - no more of that debt based money please! We talk about the origins of our current monetary system, the pathetic understanding of money by mainstream economists, and the benefits to the common people of monetary and banking reform. We also discuss the heterodox economics of Modern Monetary Theory(MMT), and I rant a little on this topic at the end of the show.You can check out more about positive money here: http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/And you can buy their book explaining how the monetary system in the UK works here:http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/where-does-money-come-from-book/Ben also features in the new feature length documentary about the issue called '97% Owned'(well worth watching):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcGh1Dex4YoI have also managed to get the show loaded to the iTunes store, so people can download it from there. Here is link:http://snipurl.com/fromalpha2omegaFor those of you interested in finding out more about Modern Monetary Theory(MMT), you should check out this blog, where you can find articles by leading experts in the field like Randy Wray, and Warren Mosler:http://neweconomicperspectives.org/Laters...

This week, we see a return to the topic of economic, environmental, and political collapse. We are delighted to welcome the Russian-American author, blogger extraordinaire, and all-round expert in collapse that is Dmitry Orlov. Dmitry grew up in Russian, and moved to America with his family in the 1970's. He returned to Russian a number of times during the collapse of the Soviet system and sees striking parallels with the western economic system of today. We talk of his 'Comparative Theory of Superpower Collapse', his model of the five stages of collapse, Noam Chomsky's Propaganda model, and his latest opus 'Absolutely Positive', an e-book of 30 of his most popular essays.You should check out his brilliant blog at:www.cluborlov.comHis latest ebook 'Absolutely Positive' can be found here:http://www.amazon.com/Absolutely-Positive-ebook/dp/B008047OTS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337383267&sr=8-1His earlier book, 'Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects' is a must read, for anybody interested in these topics:http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Collapse-Experience-American-Prospects/dp/0865716854/ref=la_B001JSB23G_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337383390&sr=1-1Enjoy!

This weeks episode sees a much needed change in focus - be gone all that talk of capitalist exploitation and systemic failure! Today we talk with world renowned mathematician, computer scientist, and philosopher Professor Gregory Chaitin about his latest work. Prof. Chaitin has spent the last number of years trying to come up with a mathematical proof of the power of evolution - how evolutionary randomness is practically as good as divine creation! Amazing stuff, indeed. During this work, he came to the realisation that the standard theory of evolutionary genetics is probably completely wrong, and discusses the latest revolutionary thoughts in the field of biology. We also discuss Gödel's seminal 'incompleteness' theorem, it's far reaching implications for philosophy, spirituality, and epistemology. Von Neumann's Theory of Cellular Automata and Turing's work on the computer also get a mention, and we finish with Professor Chaitin's hope for a mathematical theory of consciousness. Quite a heady mix. Please don't be scared off by the talk of theorems - you will likely miss an interview with one of the true intellectual giants of our time.You can buy Professor Chaitins new work here:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Proving-Darwin-Biology-Mathematical-ebook/dp/B006E512HUAnd here is the full back catalogue of the Professors writings: (much recommended)http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Gregory%20J.%20Chaitin&search-alias=books-ukEnjoy!

This week we are joined by Professor Michael Perelman of the California State University, Chico. He is an economist and economic historian of the Marxian bent, a prolific author, and the writer of the award-wining blog 'Unsettling Economics'. We start off with a discussion of his upcoming book: 'Sex, Lies, & Economics', which tells the story of the zany, dishonest, violent, and hugely prolific lives of the early great economists. We also talk about Cromwell, the Scottish Highland clearances, duelling with butchers axes in darkened basements, the potato, Gulliver's Travels, the East-Asian tiger economies, the end of Empire, and how to use cucumbers as an energy source. Make sure to check out the Professor's blog at:http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/And while your at it, why not buy one of his books as well:http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Perelman/e/B001ITVL14/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1335443472&sr=8-1The show also features the music of 'w@rd', a listener and anti-authoritarian, folk-punk, protest musician. You can find more of his music here: http://www.reverbnation.com/wardncOver and Out.

This weeks guest is David Korowicz, physicist and human systems ecologist. He is the author of Tipping Point: Near-Term Systemic Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production, and a contributor to the excellent 'Fleeing Vesuvius' - available in all good bookshops and Amazon! In this episode he gives us the low-down on the likelihood of a systemic economic collapse, and what to expect in the coming years. When he is not helping out with Feasta, the Foundation for Economic Stability, and Comhar, Ireland's Sustainable Development Council, David is writing a new piece of research entitled 'Trade Off', about the effects of a seizure in the global finance markets on trade. David really has a birds eye view of the totality of our economic and environmental systems, and the outlook ain't pretty! So kick back and enjoy....http://www.amazon.com/Fleeing-Vesuvius-Overcoming-Economic-Environmental/dp/0865716994/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334771476&sr=1-1http://www.feasta.org/http://www.comharsdc.ie/

In this, the first episode of From Alpha To Omega, I interview Dr. Charles A.S. Hall co-author of the new book 'Energy & The Wealth Of Nations - Understanding the Biophysical Economy'. We talk about the origins of wealth, empire, the intellectual horror-scape that is neo-classical economics, peak-oil, and the limits to growth. I also give a brief outline on the philosophy of the podcast, with a nod to the wise sage that is Noam Chomsky.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A_S_Hallhttp://www.amazon.com/Energy-Wealth-Nations-Understanding-Biophysical/dp/1441993975/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334771619&sr=8-1