Upstream

What Is To Be Done? This is the question so profoundly posed by the Russian Revolutionary and Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, in his landmark text of the same name. Although it was written well over a century ago, this text, the questions it asked, and the paths forward that it provided, are just as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago. And just as urgent. What roles do spontaneity and disciplined organization have in leftist movements? Can we focus simply on economic reform, or do our actions need a larger political framework to structure, guide, and propel them? Why does it feel like even though so many of us are motivated to work towards structural change, that things continue to get worse? Why does it seem like potential revolutionary struggles in the West always seem to stall and fail to move from a singular moment to a protracted movement? These are old and familiar questions — a lot of ink has been spilled and speeches made exploring them — and in this Conversation, we've brought on two guests who've not only thought about these questions in depth, but who have some pretty compelling answers that draw from revolutionary theory and practice in both their personal lives and from the deep well of wisdom bequeathed by theorists Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao. Breht O'Shea is the host of the podcast Revolutionary Left Radio and a co-host of Guerrilla History. He's been on the show multiple times so you may already be familiar with his voice. Alyson Escalate, who has also been on the show, is the co-host, along with Breht, of Red Menace, a podcast that explains and analyzes revolutionary theory and then applies its lessons to our contemporary conditions. Further Resources: Red Menace – What Is To Be Done? - V.I. Lenin Revolutionary Left Radio – Politics in Command: Analyzing the Error of Economism Red Menace – The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon: On Violence and Spontaneity Red Menace – Understanding Settler Colonialism in Israel and the United States Revolutionary Left Radio on Instagram Upstream – Buddhism and Marxism with Breht O'Shea (In Conversation) Upstream – Trans Liberation and Solidarity with Alyson Escalante (In Conversation) Upstream – Revolutionary Leftism with Breht O'Shea (In Conversation) This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

What is the connection between capitalism, colonialism, consumerism, and Christianity? How do these systems and ideologies uphold and support one another? How do we work to dismantle them and cultivate in their place a decolonized culture and politics that supports Indigenous sovereignty, human health and wellbeing, and flourishing ecosystems? These are some of the questions that we'll explore today on this special Indigenous People's Day conversation with Sikowis Nobiss. Sikowis is Plains Cree/Saulteaux of the George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada At 19 she began her life's work of uplifting Indigenous rights and voices when she got her first job at the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council in Fredericton, Canada, during the Burnt Church Rebellion. Between 2010 and 2015, Sikowis attempted to work with various Indigenous folks in Iowa City to build a climate and environment organization but was unsuccessful. However, her goal to found such an organization became a reality in 2016 when she joined the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. This led her to co-found Little Creek Camp in February 2017, which has since transformed into Great Plains Action Society, a fully Indigenous-led organization where Sikowis works at a grassroots level to dismantle corrupt colonial-capitalist systems and rebuild them with a decolonized worldview. Thank you to Soni López-Chávez (of Chichimeca heritage) for this episode's cover art and to Black Belt Eagle Scout for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns. Further Resources: Great Plains Action Society The Righteous Gemstones Upstream Podcast documentary: Our Struggles are Your Struggles: Stories of Indigenous Resistance and Regeneration This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Although the reference to war that you just heard could very much be real, actual military conflict — after all, our guest on today's episode has fought as a freedom fighter in a Kurdish militia in Syria — today's episode isn't about that. It's about a different kind of war: class war. Specifically, class conflict as it manifests in the workplace between employees and employers. You may already know about Anchor Brewery — maybe you love the beer, maybe you've seen the iconic steam beer bottle around, or maybe you don't know anything about it. Whatever your relationship to Anchor Brewery — you're about to hear a story that stretches from early San Francisco union history, to the dawn of the craft beer renaissance, and into the present. A story about class war and worker solidarity in the beer industry. You might also have heard about Anchor Brewery's unionization campaign that took place in 2019 after this locally beloved brewery was bought by a giant beer conglomerate, Sapporo. That unionization campaign was successful, but recently, Sapporo abruptly, and controversially, closed Anchor Brewing down. Now, some of the workers at Anchor who don't want to see this centuries-old institution stripped for parts, want to turn the brewery into a worker-owned cooperative. This is really a sort of David and Goliath story, and to tell it, we've brought on Brace Belden, who was an integral part of the union campaign back in 2019. Brace is the co-host of the podcast TrueAnon and a long-time San Franciscan who has worked, in many capacities, within the labor movement. In this episode he tells us the story of the unionization campaign at Anchor — giving us a sort of 'how to start a union' 101 crash course. We also explore the struggles with Sapporo, the effort to convert Anchor into a worker cooperative, and also, how local Bay Area beer producers and enjoyers are coming together in an act of true solidarity to stand behind the workers that have been the backbone of this historic brewery. Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode's cover art and to Gopal Maurya for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns. Further Resources: Help Workers Save Anchor Brewing (Gofundme) Anchor Union SF's Instagram International Longshore and Warehouse Union FoundSF Fingers TrueAnon The Response: Labor Battles and the Beer Industry with Pedro Mancilla Chapo Trap House — 288 - So You Want To Start A Union feat. Brace Belden (2/10/19) This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

It was once very difficult for people experiencing poverty in the Global South to obtain credit and loans because they were seen as unable to provide adequate collateral. This situation changed with the emergence of microfinance, a model pioneered by Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh which has now been widely disseminated to countries around the world. At the heart of the Grameen system is the organization of borrowers into groups of women (97 percent of the bank's loans are to women) where collateral is each woman's social connections and reputation. This model is touted for contributing to Women's Empowerment and for "rising people out of poverty" and even won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. But does this model actually empower women? Does it address the structural causes of poverty? Or is it just another frontier for capitalism — a new way of profiting off of the most marginalized, exploiting the trust and social cohesion among groups of women, and even triggering what's been described as "India's micro-finance suicide epidemic"? To answer these questions, we've invited on Dr. Sohini Kar, a socio-cultural anthropologist at the London School of Economics who focuses on the economic anthropology of South Asia, particularly in urban India. She is also the author of Financializing Poverty: Labor and Risk in Indian Microfinance. In this conversation, Dr. Kar breaks down what microfinance is and how it's hurting women in India and beyond, she shares stories of the experiences women in India have had with microcredit programs, she connects microlending in India with predatory payday lending in the United States as part of capitalism's financialization of poverty, and finally, she offers truly transformative and empowering financial pathways for both investors and purchasers alike. Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode's cover art and to Gopal Maurya for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns. Further Resources: Dr. Sohini Kar at LSE Dr. Sohini Kar Subprime Empire: On the In-Betweenness of Finance, The University of Chicago Press Journals This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

"It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." Those words have been attributed to both the philosophers Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek decades ago, but they couldn't feel more true today. As we continue to stare down the double barrels of climate change and COVID without any meaningful response from those who rule over us, without organized and collective action that has been able to make a transformative material impact, and for many out there without even really fully absorbing the reality staring us in the face…yeah. , it certainly seems like it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of this horrifying social order. This phenomenon, which was so aptly distilled into a bite-sized quote by Jameson and Žižek, has come to be known as capitalist realism — a concept popularized by the late Mark Fisher in a book of the same name written in 2008. In Capitalist Realism, Fisher, an author and educator, explains in eighty pages, just how deeply capitalism has permeated our worlds, how totalizing its hegemony has become in the 21st century, how broadly it has flattened not just our institutions but our interactions, our experiences, our emotions, our traumas — how the commodification of everything has enveloped us all in this era we know as neoliberal capitalism. To discuss Capitalist Realism, the book and the concept, we've brought on Carlee, co-host of Hit Factory, a podcast about the films and politics of the 1990s. Carlee's immersion in film and media, and her deep understanding of how capitalist realism exists in the realm of culture, gives this conversation a wide-ranging scope spanning from music to film to labor struggles to mental health — and much more. Carlee is also a friend of the show, both Robert and I have been guests on Hit Factory in the past, so we couldn't be more excited to be continuing our collaboration with such a good comrade on such an exciting and rich topic. Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode's cover art and to Chain and The Gang for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns. Further Resources: Hit Factory on Patreon Hit Factory: The Matrix feat. Della Duncan Hit Factory: Slacker feat. Robert Raymond Hit Factory: The Matrix Resurrections feat. Aaron Thorpe What May Have Been, by Aaron Thorpe Revolutionary Left Radio: Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Do you ever feel like time is marching in a particular direction? Towards, say, rising global temperatures, mass extinctions, ever-increasing divisions — and ultimately, towards inevitable collapse? What if this particular perception of time contributes to our feelings of despair and hopelessness about our futures? What if it limits our ability to imagine and fight for a more just, equitable, and regenerative system? In this conversation, we've brought on Bay Area artist and author Jenny Odell to help us unpack and reimagine our experience of time and to foster hope and inspire action for a better future. We focus on insights and stories from Jenny's two books, her 2019 New York Times Bestseller How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy and most recently, Saving Time: Discovering Life Beyond the Clock. In this conversation, we learn about the commodification and colonization of time under capitalism, how it happened, when it happened, and how the fungibility of time contributes to human and planetary suffering. We explore her unique reframe of classes to include those who time, those who are timed, and those who self-time. We also talk about a more ecological and place-based sense of time, a life beyond the clock, unbound from capitalism, that shows that neither our lives nor the life of our planet is a foregone conclusion, that we are not alone in our efforts to dismantle capitalism, and that the more-than-human world is actually an active participant in the endeavor — and here to help. Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode's cover art and to Bowerbirds for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns. Further Resources: Saving Time: Discovering Life Beyond the Clock, by Jenny Odell How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell The Bureau of Suspended Objects Where Almost Everything I Used, Wore, Ate or Bought on Monday, April 1, 2013 (That Had a Label) Was Manufactured, to the Best of My Knowledge This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

When you think about the philosophies and practices of Buddhism and Marxism, you might not immediately think that they have much in common. However, you might be surprised at how much overlap and complementary resonance there actually is between these two rich and beautiful traditions. In this conversation, we've brought on Breht O'Shea, a Buddhist practitioner and Marxist political educator based out of Omaha, Nebraska. Breht is the host of the podcast Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the podcasts Red Menace, Guerrilla History, and, most recently, Shoeless in South Dakota. You might remember Breht from when he was on the show about a year ago to talk about revolutionary leftist theory. In this conversation, we explore how both Buddhism & Marxism offer helpful pathways to liberation and provide a spot-on analysis of the root causes of suffering. We also explore some of the potential tensions between Buddhism and Marxism, as well as what each tradition can learn from the other. And we end with a powerful invitation to embark on the path of the Bodhisattva Revolutionary to both end the internal and structural causes and conditions of suffering and to bring forth the systemic changes necessary for the transition to a socialist and eventually communist economy based on liberation, equity, and justice for all. This interview was inspired by an episode of Revolutionary Left Radio titled Dialectics & Liberation: Insights from Buddhism and Marxism where Breht read a speech he gave at Arizona State University on the topic of dialectical materialism, Buddhism, and Marxism. Definitely check that episode out when you're done listening to this — it's a great complement to this conversation. Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode's cover art and to Mount Eerie for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns. Further Resources: Upstream: Revolutionary Leftism with Breht O'Shea (In Conversation) Dialectics & Liberation: Insights from Buddhism and Marxism, by Breht O'Shea on Revolutionary Left Radio Revolutionary Left Radio Red Menace Guerilla History Shoeless in South Dakota This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

When we think of health under capitalism, it's easy to go straight to the fight for universal healthcare, and understandably — that battle is one of the most contentious and important in the ongoing class war between the mass of people and those who rule us, the capitalist class. But it would be a mistake to think that that's where our battle ends, that there isn't an expanded struggle over the ways that health and sickness are even conceptualized under the capitalist ideological framework which shapes how we value ourselves and how we are either utilized or abandoned by this system. In this episode, we'll take a deep dive into all of the different places where health overlaps with capitalism, with Beatrice Adler-Bolton, co-host of the podcast Death Panel and co-author, along with Artie Vierkant, of Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto. This conversation glides from Marxist economic analysis to healthcare policy to history and to some of the most foundational philosophical underpinnings of the political economy of health. Beatrice directs a striking blow against any perceived possibility of true health ever existing under capitalism, arguing that we must fight for our lives, literally, to bring forth the fall of capitalism and to build a new system that works for everyone — what she calls health communism. Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode's cover art and to Fugazi for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns. Further Resources: Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto, by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant Death Panel Podcast Death Panel Medicare For All Week Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition by Liat Ben-Moshe Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Elements of capitalism have existed throughout history — in institutions like markets, class relations, ownership laws, credit systems, etc. But they were never dominant until they came together, escaping the isolated, laboratory conditions in which they once existed, to coalesce and form a world-dominating capitalist order. How did the bubonic plague, the world-shattering pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia in the 14th century, along with the Little Ice Age that followed it, give rise in the 1600s to the mode of production that has now come to take hold of the entire world? What is capital, and how is it a social relation, as Marx wrote? And what exactly is the relationship between capitalism and the state? Are these two opposed, like many on the reactionary right tend to assume, or are they one and the same thing, there to support and uphold one another? And what about capitalism itself — what different stages or phases of capitalism exist? How did we go from the more classic mercantile capitalist system to industrialization, culminating in monopoly, imperialism, and now what we tend to call neoliberal capitalism? And what's coming next? To help us zoom out and give us a historical and overarching understanding of capitalism as a system and a process, we've brought on investigative journalist and scholar, Christian Parenti. Christian is the author of books such as Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, and, more recently, Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons from a Misunderstood Founder. And just in case you were wondering, yes, Christian is the son of the political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic Michael Parenti, author of classics like Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, as well as Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media. You might have come across Michael Parenti on our Instagram where Robert loves to post so-called Yellow Parenti lectures and memes — check out our Instagram page @upstreampodcast if you want to know more. This conversation is also an excellent complement to our recent documentary, The Myth of Freedom Under Capitalism, which you can learn more about at upstreampodcast.org Further resources: Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons from a Misunderstood Founder The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time By Karl Polanyi Thank you to James Xerxes Fussell for the cover art. Upstream's theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

It's perhaps more important than ever in these especially tumultuous, lonely, and oppressive times that we continue to believe that another world is possible. Simply reimagining the way we raise our children, the homes that we dwell in, the property we horde or share, and the form of the families we choose — can have profound and long-term impacts on the quality of our lives and on the world we're living in more broadly. By challenging these seemingly ordinary structures of everyday life we can spark and re-spark our collective and individual desire to live in a more just and equitable world. This is the premise of new book Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life, written by Kristen Ghodsee. In this conversation, we take a journey around the world and through time, exploring some of the most fascinating, inspiring, and sometimes quirky, experiments in alternative ways of living. From Plato to the Buddha, from the Bible to the Communist Manifesto, from ancient Athens to the Soviet Union, we'll explore what utopian thinking and practice has achieved, not just materially, but also in igniting our capacity for hope, radical imagination, and militant optimism. Kristen Ghodsee is a Professor of Russian and East European Studies and a member of the Graduate Group in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the critically acclaimed author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence and Red Hangover: Legacies of Twentieth-Century Communism. Further resources: Just on the Horizon: Nine Utopian Books to Deprogram Our Brains Thank you to Alice Phoebe Lou for the cover art. Upstream's theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

The music we know today as jazz has deep and contested roots, but likely arose in New Orleans, Louisiana in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The music is based on the musical traditions of Africans, newly freed from slavery, and particularly by the tradition of the blues, an art form known for expressing the suffering and hardship of Jim Crow America. In his book, Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music, author and scholar Dr. Gerald Horne examines the economic, social, and political forces that shaped jazz into what we know today. In this conversation, Dr. Horne guides us through the emergence of jazz as a musical art form, the brutal realities of white supremacy and economic exploitation faced by jazz musicians, and how this music blossomed into a force that has shaped and defined so much of U.S. American culture in so many profound ways. Thank you to Elvis Phillips for the intermission music and Carolyn Raider for the cover art. Upstream's theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

We've been taught to think of staggering economic inequality, the disposability of nonwhite labor populations, hyper-exploitation, and minority rule as bugs within the capitalist system — things to be corrected by capitalist technology and innovation — but in fact, all of these things are anything but bugs — they are features of this system, baked deep into it at its very core. And, in many respects, the birthplace of modern, global capitalism, with its exclusion of racialized others, its rabid anti-labor ideology, its universalized immiseration, and its unrelenting push for hyperproductivity, is a place that might surprise you at first: California. Specifically? Silicon Valley. Even more specifically? Palo Alto. In his book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, author Malcolm Harris traces a very bold line from early Californian history, with its brutal enslavement of Indigenous peoples, its railroad and agricultural barons, the codification of corporations as people, and the founding of Stanford University — the intellectual heart of modern capitalism — all the way to our modern tech-dystopia, marked by permanently unstable and low wage gig jobs, unimaginably harsh housing markets, and one of the deepest divides between the working and owning classes that this country has ever seen. And it all comes back, over and over again, to Palo Alto. Thank you to Dead Kennedys for the intermission music. Upstream's theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Although its intellectual handmaidens love to insist otherwise — capitalism is not a system that truly embodies freedom. We all feel it, of course — that nagging sense that we lack any agency over the choices that shape our lives, the frustration we feel at our bosses, the tension we feel with our landlords, the sense that we're all just stuck in a rat race. We might lack the language to articulate it, or a framework within which to situate it, but we all know, deep down, that this ain't it — that there's something deeply wrong. In this episode, we explore why this is — why, despite what we're constantly being told — that we currently live under the freest system ever — that we're not actually free — and why we're all imprisoned within capitalism. We start with a brief history of how we got here, what different conceptions of freedom have meant historically — and how they can be applied to our current condition — and then we take a deep dive into the mechanisms this system uses to keep us all imprisoned, and, finally, how we can break free. Featured Guests: Matt Christman: Co-host of Chapo Trap House Ayesha Khan: Infectious diseases scientist, germ doctor, grassroots organizer, writer, astrobiologist, and educator Corey Mohler: Creator of Existential Comics Jessica Gordon Nembhard: Professor of Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Department of Africana Studies at John Jay College of the City University of New York and author of Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice David Bollier: Activist, Scholar, and blogger focused on the commons and author of The Commoner's Catalog for Changemaking: Tooks for the Transitions Ahead. Music by Collections of Colonies of Bees, Peder, Mammoth Star, Do Make Say Think, and Chris Zabriskie, Thank you to Bethan Mure for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. You can read the full transcript of this episode here. For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

At the beginning of the 20th century, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that within a century, thanks to the growth of wealth and the advances of technology, that no one would have to work more than 15 hours a week. The challenge, in Keynes's view, would be how to fill all of our newfound leisure time without going crazy.' That obviously never happened — so, what went wrong? Technology has advanced to the point where we could all be working much less, and with all sorts of time-management apps and tips from experts, why does it somehow feel like there's never enough time in the day? In this episode, we've brought on someone who might help us figure that out. Oliver Burkeman is the author of 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals — a book about why life today often feels like a battle against endless to-do lists. In this conversation, we explore with Oliver how time has been instrumentalized under capitalism, why it's important to "waste time" on activities that are not productive and cultivate the feeling of a "joy of missing out" as opposed to FOMO, the "fear of missing out," and how to connect with what is truly most important to us right now and full-heartedly embrace our finite time, our mere 4000 precious weeks, on planet earth. Thank you to The Weakerthans for the intermission music and to Carolyn Raider for the cover art. Upstream's theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Our transgender comrades are under attack — not just by incendiary reactionaries on the right, but also by many of those on the more liberal or even left side of the political spectrum. The attacks come in many forms, from outright violence, to genocidal language, to the often arbitrary and reactionary demarcations around what constitutes "womanhood," to the "just asking questions" industrial complex led by liberal institutions like the New York Times. In this episode, we explore a robust rebuttal to anti-trans and transphobic narratives and actions — from an explicitly Marxist perspective. And we've brought on the perfect guest to lead us in this. Alsyon Escalante is the co-host of Red Menace — a podcast that explains and analyzes revolutionary theory and then applies its lessons to our contemporary conditions. The conversation we're going to have is inspired by a cross-over episode of Red Menace and Revolutionary Left Radio titled, "Our Transgender Comrades: Dialectical Materialism, Marxist Feminism, and Trans Liberation." The first half of our conversation with Alyson focuses on that episode and lays out a theoretical rebuttal of liberal, bourgeois, and radical feminist approaches to feminism and gender. We lay out a principled Marxist, materialist analysis of gender and 'womanhood' and how they differ from post-modern and idealist conceptions. The second half of our conversation brings the discussion back down to eye-level, and explores the current political, social, and economic realities faced by trans people and why it's more important than ever for us to stand in solidarity with our transgender comrades and to fight against the reactionary right and their liberal accomplices. Thank you to Against Me! for the intermission music and to Carolyn Raider for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. Resources: Red Menace and Revolutionary Left Radio Upstream: Revolutionary Leftism with Breht O'Shea (In Conversation) Upstream: Feminism for the 99 Percent Editor's note: A member-organizer with the Freelance Solidarity Project (the digital media division of the National Writers Union) and one of the co-authors of the NYT contributors' letter wrote in with a small correction: "I wanted to flag that the initial labor support for the letter came from Freelance Solidarity Project members—the Writers Guild is great and members signed their own letter in support of trans people as part of a broader solidarity effort. The NYT staff are also represented by The NewsGuild of New York—the letter defending signing as protected activity was by NewsGuild of NY President Susan DeCarava." This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Imagine this week you spent half your time growing, harvesting, preserving, and cooking food for yourself, your family, and perhaps your community — and the other half your time doing something else that you love, something that brings you joy — perhaps writing, podcasting, coaching, caring for others, or anything else. How would you feel? What would change about your relationship to food, to place, to work, and to the seasons? This is the lifestyle model championed by farmer and writer Naoki Shiomi. Since the 1990s, the idea of "Half Farmer, Half X" — combining sustainable farming with an income-generating "X" variable that represents one's calling, has inspired people across Japan and other parts of Asia to abandon corporate-capitalist modes of mass production, mass consumption, overwork, and long commutes — and to instead realign their priorities and make dramatic life changes to empower food sovereignty, community sufficiency, and meaningful livelihoods. In the first half of this conversation, we'll speak with Mika Furugori, a practitioner of Half Farmer Half X who quit her corporate job to move to the Japanese countryside to grow and cook food. And then, in the second half of the show, we'll speak with Naoki Shiomi, the originator of the Half Farmer Half X concept — his words will be translated by Mika. Together we explore why people are turning to this model, how it connects with larger movements for systemic change, and how we can start embracing Half Farmer Half X no matter our living situation. Thank you to Yujiro Kudo for the intermission music and to Carolyn Raider for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode was brought to you by The Decolonizing Economics Summit: The 4th Annual Post-Capitalism Conference from Thursday, April 20th – Saturday, April 22nd. The conference will be virtual, with an in-person Earth Day celebration on April 22nd in McKinleyville, CA. We invite you to join us at this radically new look at how to transform our economy, from a decolonizing and solidarity economy perspective. Also, we're excited to share about a new, free course from our friends at ECONOMICS FOR EMANCIPATION — it's a collaboration over decades between grassroots social justice and union organizers — and heterodox economists out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. E4E is a seven-module introductory course that covers economics, politics, and the history of movements for economic justice in the US. It creates spaces for learning about alternatives to capitalism and applying the lessons to craft organizing strategies and community projects. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

For the past couple of years, the city of Atlanta, Georgia, has been pushing forward a project known as "Cop City" — a tactical training compound featuring a mock city which has been referred to as a kind of 'war base' where police will learn military-style tactics and maneuvers. The $90 million compound would be built on somewhere between over 300 acres of forest in Atlanta — a space known as the Weelaunee Forest, one of the largest urban forests in the country. As a result of this controversial and extremely unpopular development, a grassroots response has taken shape to stop Cop City. In today's episode, we've brought on two individuals who are part of that movement. Keyanna Jones is an interfaith leader and member of the Faith Coalition to Stop Cop City. She's lived in the neighborhood around the Weelaunee Forest for her whole life. Matthew Johnson is a minister at Beloved Comnmune, an activist, and also a member of the Faith Coalition to Stop Cop City. Both Keyanna and Matthew are organizers who have been integral to the movement. Thank you to Fugazi for the intermission music and to Zara Wilkins for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Today on the show — surviving the collapse, permaculture and agroecology, native seed bombing, and much more with Andy C. from Poor Prole's Almanac. This week's Conversation is a rebroadcast of an interview originally produced by The Response — a podcast that explores how communities respond to disaster — from hurricanes to wildfires to reactionary politics and more. The Response, co-produced by our very own Robert Raymond, is another podcast of interviews and documentaries — we definitely recommend checking them out and giving them some love by rating and reviewing them on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. They've done episodes on topics like mobile abortion vans, mutual aid efforts in war-torn Ukraine, and the Stop Cop City movement — and they just did an excellent episode on the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. In this episode, Robert and Andy talk about a wide range of fascinating topics — including agroecology and sound ecological practices regarding the growing of food and the stewardship of land, native seed bombing and other forms of mutual aid and disaster preparation, and why building collective power and resilience is the best way to ensure that we not only survive the slow but inevitable societal collapses that have already begun — but to thrive through them and build a better world out of the ashes of the old. Resources: Poor Prole's Almanac on Instagram and Twitter Thank you to Haley Heynderickx for the intermission music and to Carolyn Raider for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

In order to understand the disconnection, alienation, and immiseration wrought upon us by capitalism, it's imperative to understand this social and economic system's reliance on separation — separation from nature, from each other, from ourselves, and, crucially, from our histories and lineages. White supremacy, for example, is not only an essential component in the creation of a class society within capitalism, but it also serves as a tool to separate us from what our guest in this episode refers to as our more animist, traditional lineages. Eleanor Hancock is the executive director of White Awake, an online platform and nonprofit that combats white supremacy by focusing on educational resources designed to support the engagement of people who've been socially categorized as white in the creation of a more just and sustainable society. In this conversation, we talk about Eleanor the history and function of white supremacy within capitalism, what it means to be truly anti-racist, how to engage in the work of reconciling and healing ancestral lineages, and how we can all contribute to the development of a democratically-managed economy free of white supremacy and instead based on liberation for all. Further Resources: White Awake Birth of a White Nation The Invention of White People and Its Relevance Today by Jacqueline Battalora Socialism Made Easy by James Connolly Upstream Documentary: Worker Cooperatives Pt.1 & 2 Thank you to The Evens for the intermission music and to Carolyn Raider for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Much of what we learn about U.S. history — from middle school to high school to, well, most of adulthood, is a myth. Oftentimes these tales leave out important information, sometimes they draw misleading conclusions, and a lot of the time they're simply just made-up stories without any basis in actual history. This recognition is also true for much of what we're taught about the American Revolution of 1776. The standard tale is that a handful of so-called "founding fathers" discovered a so-called New World and set forth to establish a nation founded on the ideals of liberty and justice for all. But this is a tale that begins to fall apart pretty quickly once you start to examine it from a materialist perspective — one that starts with actual material conditions and contradictions instead of simply focusing on the ideas of certain thinkers that happen to have made their way onto paper. Understanding the true history behind the stories we've been told not only helps to give context to and explain why we are where we are right now, but it also helps us in understanding the roots of our problems, and as we'll see in this Conversation, to understand how deep they run — so that perhaps we can finally cast the false solutionary strategies of incrementalism and mere reform into the dust bin. Dr. Gerald Horne is the author of many books, including most recently The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery, Jim Crow and the Roots of U. S. Fascism, as well as, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America — which we'll be focusing on in this Conversation. We spoke with Dr. Horne about what traditional versions of the American Revolution of 1776 get wrong — particularly when it comes to enslaved populations and their relationship to colonists at the time. We also explore how the unique phenomenon of the United States' racial capitalist system manifested in the 20th century, and developed into the 21st century — tying the fascist movements and white supremacy of today to the founding of this nation 250 years ago. Thank you to Bad Brains for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Although many therapists are beginning to understand the importance of the natural world in healing and overall mental health — for example by recommending "time in nature" to help with depression and other mental health challenges — very few also address the connected issues of economic and racial justice. Things such as a lack of access to nature, the high cost of eco-therapeutic offerings, the lack of diversity and cultural competency among practitioners, and the fact that communities of color are disproportionately impacted by climate catastrophes and are far more likely to live in areas with heavy pollution. What if therapy were to be able to help us heal not just at the individual level, but also at the collective levels and in the realm of the ecological as well as the social? Continuing on from our recent conversation with Daniel José Gaztambide Nuñez and Harriet Fraad, this episode takes a deeper dive into a branch of Liberation Psychology: Liberation Ecotherapy — which weaves together reconnecting to nature with community care and with a commitment to social justice and equity. Phoenix Smith, who coined the term Liberation Ecotherapy, is our guest for this episode. They are an Ecotherapist as well as the Founder of the Alliance for Ecotherapy and Social Justice and EcoSoul Health and Wellness Consulting. In this conversation, Phoenix shares their framework for healing justice, they describe what a liberation ecotherapy session would look and feel like, and they offer invitations for how we might make therapy more accessible and helpful for the healing of all people and the planet. Thank you to The Burning Sun for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

As the capitalist class continues to glom onto a kind of tech-utopianism, many of us are starting to recognize not just the detrimental impacts of certain technologies on our lives, but also the lies that have been sold to us about those technologies. Despite all of the technological advancements, we're more isolated, exploited, and alienated than ever before. And it really does feel like there's a growing, popular backlash against many of the technologies of our modern world as well as a resigned realization of their false promises. So, why is it that technological progress rarely seems to really improve our lives? Why does it feel like every new piece of software or gadget imposed onto us in our homes and workplaces more often than not adds to our stresses and leaves us with more to do? Well, we've brought on a guest today that has a pretty clear answer to these questions. Gavin Mueller's new book, Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job, seamlessly weaves together the philosophies and strategies of Luddism and Marxism, to explain why technology itself is a site of class struggle, and that, to truly understand the role of technology in our lives, we must approach the topic from a Marxist perspective — one that is infused with the critical technological perspective of the Luddites of 19th century. In this conversation, we dispel a number of myths about who the Luddites were, what they believed, and what their goals were. We also explore a somewhat nontraditional perspective on Marxism and industrialization, what the Luddites taught us about how technology functions under capitalism, and how to resist the exploitation and alienation that often accompanies it. Thank you to Gray Matter for the intermission music and to Carolyn Raider for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Happy Winter Solstice! In the 3rd year of this annual tradition, Upstream host and producer Della Duncan joins two friends to reflect on the past year. Manda Scott is a novelist, podcaster, regenerative economist, and host of the Thrutopia Masterclass, which aims to help writers across all forms weave credible narratives that will lead us forward from exactly where we are, to a flourishing future we would be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. Her award-winning novels have been published in over 20 languages and have been best-sellers across the world. Now, she is turning from historical writing to Thrutopian fiction and her new book West of the Sunset, North of Tomorrow is due out in 2023. This fast-paced thriller embraces all of the ideals explored in the Accidental Gods podcast and membership project. She lives in the English Marches on the border with Wales, dreams of Scottish Independence, and shares her life with a wife, assorted four-legged friends and a community of dreamers intent on forging a flourishing future. Nathalie Nahai is an author, keynote speaker, and host of The Hive Podcast, a series that enquires into our relationship with one another, with technology, and with the living world. With a diverse background in human behavior, persuasive tech and the arts, she brings a unique vantage point from which to examine the complex challenges we face today. She is also the author of bestselling books: Webs Of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion and Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and by the Guerrilla Foundation and Resist Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media: Facebook.com/upstreampodcast twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast Instagram.com/upstreampodcast You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Mainstream psychology has been complicit — whether intentionally or not — in the establishment of colonial, white-supremacist, capitalist hierarchies of oppression around the world. Individualizing pain lets the systemic causes for our suffering off the hook and places the responsibility for healing and wellbeing on individual will. In the 1970's in El Salvador, confronted by these dangers of western psychology — during a civil war — psychologist Ignacio Martín-Baró started to develop an alternative, constructing a psychology relevant to oppressed peoples, like many of the people of El Salvador who were undergoing social, political, and war-related trauma. Martin-Baró was ultimately assassinated as a result of his work by a CIA-trained battalion of the Salvadoran army, but fellow therapists and theologians in Latin America carried his work on. His legacy, known as Liberation Psychology, is an attempt to bring the historical, political, and economic causes of our distresses and discontents into the therapy session. The aim is to bring about liberation through an understanding of the systemic causes of oppression, exploitation, and alienation and to offer pathways to more socialist, just, and regenerative models of relating that would bring about both human and planetary well-being. To learn more, we've brought on two guests with both a theoretical and experiential relationship to Liberation Psychology. Daniel José Gaztambide Nuñez, PsyD is a therapist and author of the book A People's History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology. Daniel is the assistant director of clinical training in the Department of Clinical Psychology at the New School for Social Research, and the director of the Frantz Fanon Lab for Intersectional Psychology, Harriet Fraad is a feminist activist, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and host of the Capitalism Hits Home podcast. We begin the show with Daniel José Gaztambide Nuñez, PsyD exploring Freud, Marx, and the origins of Liberation Psychology. In the second half of the show, we speak with Harriet Fraad exploring a Marxist-Feminist approach to Liberation Psychology. Thank you to Noname for the intermission music and to Neil Ballard for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. Related Conversations / Further listening: Stolen Focus with Johann Hari This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Awareness of climate change has never been higher — outright climate denialism seems to be a thing of the past. Business leaders and the corporate media no longer shy away from terms like global warming or climate change like they used to, and policymakers from all sides of the political spectrum are claiming to be climate leaders. So why, then, do things seem to be getting even worse? Why are the actions of those in power so out of line with what scientists and experts at the IPCC are urgently calling for? Why does COP after COP continue to accomplish close to nothing? Why are we still on track for catastrophic levels of warming? Well, there are a lot of explanations for this, but they can all be distilled into one overarching reason: green capitalism. In this episode, we explore how the idea of green capitalism has hijacked any real possibility for climate solutions — and why the logic of mainstream economic reasoning has consigned us to a future where the continued habitability of our planet is up for question. Adrienne Buller is a Senior Research Fellow at Common Wealth and author of The Value of a Whale: On The Illusions of Green Capitalism, published by Manchester University Press. In this Conversation we explore how powerful financial interests shape the contours and curtail the possibilities of our response to climate change, how the flawed logic of dominant economic thinking sets dangerous parameters for policymakers, and why, if we're hoping to survive climate change and ensure a just, livable future for all, we must move beyond capitalism and embrace ecological, social, and economic principles designed to put people and the planet over profit. Thank you to Jenny Hval for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. Related Conversations / Further listening: The Green Transition Part 1 & 2 This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Far from being some kind of transcendent economic phenomenon originating from higher realms of monetary physics that are indecipherable to us mere proletarian mortals, the economy is actually pretty straightforward and easy to understand — it's mostly just politics. And that's still true when it comes to purposefully mystified topics like inflation — particularly to how policymakers respond to inflation — it's all just politics. Decisions made by those in power. But the thing is right now the decisions about how to respond to inflation are being made by a class of people whose job it is, under capitalism, to make sure that the economy works for just one small group of people: capitalists. There is, of course, an alternative — and that alternative is one that would look a lot better for the vast majority of us. In this Conversation we take a deep dive into inflation: what it is, what's driving it, what's wrong with the current response to it, and what a left response to inflation would look like. Hadas Thier is a writer, journalist, and activist based in Brooklyn, New York. We had her on the show earlier this year to talk about her book, A People's Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics, and for this Conversation we'll be talking about her latest article for In These Times, titled "A Left Answer to Inflation." Thank you to The Limeliters for the intermission music and to Bethan Mure for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. Related Conversations / Further listening: Inflation with Richard Wolff and Dean Baker (In Conversation) This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Colonialism and white supremacy have shaped the field of archaeology from its inception — and to this day continue to dominate the cultural and scientific paradigms of this field of study. One of the most significant ways that this has shown up in the discipline is through the hegemony of a single theory — the Clovis First Hypothesis — which claims that the Americas were populated roughly ten to twelve thousand years ago — and not earlier. In her book, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere, Dr. Paulette Steeves meticulously deconstructs and dispels the myth that human beings have only been in the Americas for ten thousand years. She builds on decades of research which has been suppressed and erroneously refuted by those in the field who have never wanted to accept the fact that the Indigenous people of the Americas have been here for much, much longer than was ever admitted by the most influential and powerful archaeologists. Dr. Paulette Steeves is an Indigenous archaeologist, professor at Algoma University, and the Canada Research Chair in Healing and Reconciliation. In this Conversation, we discuss exciting new findings in the fields of archaeology and paleontology and what they tell us about the real history of Indigenous people in the Americas, the ways that white supremacy and racism still permeate the fields of anthropology and archaeology, what a decolonized archaeology could look like, and how to get there. Thank you to Willie Mitchell and the Desert River Band for the intermission music and to Bethan Mure for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

When it comes to climate policy, it probably won't come as a surprise to most that the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is one of the weakest bills that has ever been passed. Not only does the bill actually lock us into more fossil fuel production — it's really just more weak neoliberal policy that will lead to more inequality. The bill is also an incredibly anti-democratic piece of legislation. It provides tax breaks to businesses to incentivize renewable infrastructure — but it says nothing about if, when, where, or how this will happen. How about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal? Although it's been relegated to the purgatorial graveyard of left-leaning policy — its framework is still our best bet out of this mess, right? Well not exactly. We'll explore the benefits of AOC's Green New Deal vision but also explain its limitations and outline exactly where it falls short. So, then, what would truly just climate policy look like? In this episode — the second in our 2-part series on the Green Transition — we're going to take a look at what a just transition could look like. We'll explore policy proposals, international campaigns, people's climate agreements, manifestos, and the dreams, visions, and actions of those who are actually serious about equitably achieving the rapid systemic transformations that the climate emergency requires. Featured Guests: Max Ajl: Associated researcher with the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and the Environment, postdoctoral fellow with the Rural Sociology Group at Wageningen University, author of A People's Green New Deal Sungmanitu Bluebird: Oglala Lakota activist, host of the Bands of Turtle Island podcast, and former member of the Red Nation Sergio Chaparro: Colombian human rights activist and researcher Matt Huber: Professor of geography and the environment at Syracuse University and author of Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet Jeremy Ornstein: Youth climate activist with Sunrise Movement Dušan Pajović – Green New Deal for Europe specialist at Diem25 Thea Riofrancos: Associate professor of political science at Providence College and co-author of A Planet To Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal This is Part 2 of a 2-part series on the Green Transition. You can listen to Part 1 at upstreampodcast.org/greentransitionpt1 Music by Chris Zabriskie, Pele, Peder, Sergey Cheremisinov, and Michael Cera Pallin. Thank you to Bethan Mure for the cover art and to Elizabeth Sarmiento of Smart Yards Coop for reading excerpts from the Cochabamba People's Agreement for us. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and the Guerrilla Foundation and Resist Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support Also, if your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media: Facebook.com/upstreampodcast twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast Instagram.com/upstreampodcast You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Vandana Shiva is an activist and tireless advocate for food sovereignty for farmers', peasants', and women's rights. She's a world-renowned ecofeminist, anti-globalization thinker and scholar, a Right Livelihood Award Laureate; and the author of several books including Reclaiming the Commons, Earth Democracy, Oneness vs. the 1%, Stolen Harvest, and most recently a memoir, Terra Viva: My Life in a Biodiversity of Movements. In this conversation, Vandana Shiva weaves together stories of her life with a critical examination of our current economic system along with inspiring stories of non-violent grassroots actions to protect and preserve the health and well-being of people and the planet. How can we reject the spread of hierarchy and division and begin reclaiming our right to live free, think free, breathe free, and eat free? How can we go upstream to decolonize all the spheres of our lives and focus on strengthening and revitalizing the commons? These are just some of the questions we explore in this Conversation. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

It's clear that we need to decarbonize our economy as quickly as possible in order to avoid the worst of climate change — but carbon isn't the only problem we're facing. As the world moves towards renewables and away from fossil fuels as an energy source, we can't forget that the technology and minerals behind this green transition need to come from somewhere — and that somewhere is primarily countries in the Global South. The supply chains which carry the lithium, copper, cobalt, and other minerals essential for renewable technology from the peripheries to the imperial cores — from places like Chile and Bolivia to places like the United States and Europe — are built upon a foundation of colonialism, imperialism, hyper-exploitation, and ecocide: all essential components of our current economic system — capitalism. In part one of this two-part series on the green transition, we're going to explore what happens when we simply paint capitalism green without addressing its fundamental global operating principles and processes. What is the dark side of the energy transition — particularly for the Global South and Indigenous communities? In part two, we dive deeper into some solutions, but in this episode, we start our journey in the Atacama desert of Chile and end all the way in the Arctic Circle, exploring the global extractive machine and the communities that exist on its frontiers. Featured Guests: Max Ajl: Associated researcher with the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and the Environment, postdoctoral fellow with the Rural Sociology Group at Wageningen University, author of A People's Green New Deal Ana Julia Aneise: Youth climate activist with Youth for Climate Sergio Chaparro: Colombian human rights activist and researcher Jason Hickel: Economic anthropologist and author of Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World Beaska Niillas: Northern Sámi traditional handicrafter, hunter and gatherer, activist, Sámi school kindergarten teacher, politician, and the host of the SuperSápmi Podcast Thea Riofrancos: Associate professor of political science at Providence College and co-author of A Planet To Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal Matthias Schmelzer: Economic historian at the University of Vienna and co-author of The Future is Degrowth: A Guide to a World beyond Capitalism Music by Chris Zabriskie, Pele, Do Make Say Think, and Sofia Jannok Thank you to Bethan Mure for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. Both english and spanish transcriptions are available at: upstreampodcast.org/greentransitionpt1. Thank you to Martina Knittel for the Spanish transcription. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and the Guerrilla Foundation and Resist Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support Also, if your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media: Facebook.com/upstreampodcast twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast Instagram.com/upstreampodcast You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

There are many traditions or tendencies among the left. In fact, sometimes just trying to wrap our heads around all of the rich theoretical frameworks and various anti-capitalist thinkers can be dizzying. But it's also exciting — the richness of leftist history and theory is vital to learn and to build our work from. In this episode we've brought on someone who knows a thing or two about leftist theory — in fact, he's got multiple podcasts that go into depth on historical figures, theory, and philosophy from a post-capitalist perspective. Breht O'Shea is the host of Revolutionary Left Radio, Red Menace, and Guerrilla History. He's also an activist and organizer based out of Omaha, Nebraska. Although his breadth of knowledge spans an incredibly wide range, we brought Breht on today to focus on the Leninist tradition. We'll explore the fundamentals of Marxism–Leninism, as well as the related theoretical framework of Maoism. We talk about the importance of theory in informing our organizing, why it's important to learn about both the good and bad parts of historical figures and revolutionary movements – even when it comes to figures as controversial as Mao or Stalin. We also have a conversation about fascism in the United States, where we can go from here, and why it's important to center love and humanity in all we do. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Is the growing ascendance of digital money simply an organic evolution away from the purported inconveniences of physical cash? Or is this transition actually a nefarious, corporate-engineered, neo-enclosure of money by Big Finance and Big Tech? In his latest book, Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets, author, journalist, and financial hacker Brett Scott lays out an extremely compelling case arguing that corporations are engineering an enclosure of money — transforming it into a completely digital form which they alone will control. In this Conversation, we take a deep dive beneath the surface of the global financial system to explore the technical and political differences between various forms of money, why corporations are attacking physical cash and plotting to completely replace it with digital money, who will really benefit from a cashless society, and why the fight for ownership of our digital footprints is one of the most pressing battles of our time. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Traditionally within Marxist thought, there are two major classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, or workers and capitalists. Within these two classes, however, there are many strata — and in this episode we take a deep dive into one particular stratum. The professional managerial class, or the PMC, is comprised of highly educated, often centrist or liberal leaning individuals who tend to uphold the systems and institutions of capitalist society while at the same time viewing itself as the virtuous vanguard of progress. And although this class falls within the working class, its allegiances and sympathies lie with capitalists. And indeed, in most ways, it does benefit from capitalism. To discuss the professional managerial class and its position within capitalism further, we've brought on someone who's written an entire book about it. Catherine Liu is a professor of Film & Media Studies at UC Irvine and author of Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class. In this conversation we discuss who the PMC is comprised of, how this class emerged, and why it poses a unique threat to socialist and communist aspirations. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

It may not come as a surprise to most of you to hear that capitalism is the root cause of climate change. But if we unpack this a little bit, we see that it's a specific component of capitalism that's mostly responsible: the need for exponential and perpetual expansion. Growth isn't just a byproduct of capitalism, it's an imperative — an imperative to which we are all hostage. That's why, according to our guest in this week's Conversation, unless the climate movement centers degrowth in its strategies and policy proposals, nothing will fundamentally change. Jason Hickel is an economic anthropologist, Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and author most recently of Less is More: How Degrowth will Save the World. We first spoke with Jason five years ago on his book The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions, and then again in 2020 on international capitalism during the pandemic. In this conversation, Jason explains why 'growthism' is so problematic for our health and the health of the planet. He talks us through alternatives to growth, and shares how we could realistically unhook from perpetual expansion and transition to a post-growth, post-capitalist economic system where we are all living healthier, happier lives on a thriving planet. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

The logic of orthodox economic thinking has come to dominate and permeate every aspect of our lives, from the deeply internalized capitalism which shapes our thoughts and hopes and dreams, to policy decisions that shape our lives, constrain our possibilities, and steal public goods out from under our noses. How did we get here? How did economic rigidity gain such supremacy? Are the principles of orthodox economics really value neutral, as its champions claim? And if not, what moral philosophies underpin them? What are their origins? And how have they come to dominate policymaking in the last several decades? In the first half of this Conversation, we've brought on Jonathan Aldred, a Fellow and Director of Studies in Economics at Emmanuel College, Lecturer in the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, and author of the book License to be Bad: How Economics Corrupted Us. Jonathan will walk us through the philosophical foundations of orthodox and neoliberal economics. And then in the second half we've brought on Elizabeth Popp Berman, an economic sociologist, associate professor of organizational studies at the University of Michigan, and author of the book Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy. We'll talk with Elizabeth about the policy implications of dogmatic economic thinking. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

The US Supreme Court has just overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights which had set the precedent for almost 50 years, throwing authority over abortion down to the states to decide. As of now, a dozen or so states have trigger laws which will outlaw abortion fairly rapidly, and many others will likely follow suit in the coming weeks and months. In light of this, we're interrupting our regular 2 week episode release schedule to bring you a special extra episode. There's a lot of media coverage on the Roe decision, of course, but a lot of it is lacking in its analysis, and that's why we've brought on two guests to provide a much needed perspective. Diana Moreno is an immigrant rights activist and Democratic Socialists of America organizer in Queens, and Jenny Brown is an organizer with National Women's Liberation and the author of several books on feminism, reproductive rights, and labor, including Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now and Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight Over Women's Work. Both Diana and Jenny approach their feminism with a socialist analysis that provides a strong materialist grounding, a deep understanding of the dynamics around immigration, and an orientation that challenges traditional liberal and oftentimes white, heteronormative feminism that dominates most mainstream discussions. In this Conversation we explore the history of abortion in the United States, a class analyses on abortion and reproductive justice, the ideologies of liberal versus socialist feminisms, the abject failure of the Democratic Party, possible paths forward, and much more. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

There's a broad conflation within our present day capitalist society between the success of individual members of certain oppressed and marginalized groups and their collective success and liberation. This is particularly true when it comes to Black people and their liberatory struggles. Too often, the successes of individual people — Oprah, or LeBron James, for example — or their rise to certain leadership positions, take Barack Obama — are seen as collective successes, whereas, when it comes to the material conditions of all Black people, these individual successes don't have a significant impact. What are the dangers of this conflation between individual and collective success? Can Black liberation be achieved through individual successes within capitalism — through Black capitalism? And what would it mean to truly build Black wealth in the United States and beyond? In today's Conversation, we've brought on someone to help unpack these questions. Francisco Pérez is the Executive Director of the Center for Popular Economics and author of the recent piece in Nonprofit Quarterly: How Do We Build Black Wealth? Understanding the Limits of Black Capitalism. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

What if what we thought we knew about environmental conservation is wrong and it's not the ethical and regenerative movement we thought it was? Turns out the philosophy and practices of conservation — pioneered by the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir — are intimately intertwined with colonialism, imperialism, and racialized capitalism. And, unfortunately, this isn't just a historical analysis — it's a legacy that has continued well into the movement's modern day configurations. In fact, things may have even gotten worse. This is according to a recent paper in the journal Environment titled "From Racialized Neocolonial Global Conservation to an Inclusive and Regenerative Conservation." In the paper, the authors outline the problems with mainstream conservation methods and policies — policies that impose artificial binaries between Indigenous communities and the lands they have stewarded, perpetuating patterns of extractivism and greenwashing and leading to countless harms inflicted onto these communities all in the name of 'wildlife preservation.' In this Conversation we've brought on the paper's lead author, Prakash Kashwan, an Associate Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Research Program on Economic and Social Rights at the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut. Prakash is the author of the widely reviewed and acclaimed book "Democracy in the Woods" and a Co-Editor of the journal Environmental Politics. He also serves on the editorial advisory boards of Earth Systems Governance, Progress in Development Studies, Sage Open, and Humanities & Social Sciences Communications. How is much of the modern conservation movement still steeped in its racist, colonial, imperial past? And what might an inclusive and regenerative conservation look like? Join us to explore these questions and more. You can request a full-text version of the paper From Racialized Neocolonial Global Conservation to an Inclusive and Regenerative Conservation at Research Gate. You can also write to Prakash to request a pdf copy of the paper at [email protected]. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Fully automated luxury communism. Fully automated luxury gay space communism..? Fully automated, queer, neo-decadent, meta-modern communism? Okay so, what does all of that mean? You've probably heard the phrase fully automated luxury communism before, whether in a podcast like this, or in a meme maybe, but what exactly does it mean? Maybe the phrase conjures up images of a utopian, moneyless society where all of our jobs have been taken by robots and we just frolic and play all day? Perhaps it evokes ideas of a Starship Enterprise tech utopian world marked by adventures and quests. Maybe it's something in between. In this conversation we've brought on two guests to explain what fully automated luxury communism is, what some different iterations of it might look like, why it's an important Northstar for the left to reach for, and how we might get there. Zarinah Agnew is a trained neuroscientist formerly at University College London, and then UCSF, a self-described guerrilla scientist, and part of the Beyond Return organization. And Eric Wycoff Rogers is a scholar, organizer, designer, artist, and currently PhD student in American history at Cambridge and also part of the Beyond Return organization. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

More than just a region, Silicon Valley has also become a concept — and what that concept represents means a lot of different things to different people. Some might think of it as a techno-utopian dreamland where billionaires are made. Others, perhaps a soul-sucking dystopia driven by a never ending rat race — also where billionaires are made. Whatever you may think, one thing that's hard to disagree with is the idea that work dominates Silicon Valley, and while some here are simply working to live, a certain privileged class of society actually lives to work. It's this class of workers that are the main characters in Carolyn Chen's new book: Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley. Carolyn Chen is an Associate Professor of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies and Comparative Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. How has work become the new religion in Silicon Valley? What material and historical conditions led to the spiritualization of work? What strategies do workplaces deploy to ensure workers find meaning and purpose in work — and what other realms of life does this impact? What happens when work takes over the institutions that shape our souls? These are just some of the questions we'll explore in this conversation with Carolyn Chen. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

The latest installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC report, released this month, gives us three years to drastically cut emissions. "It's now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees," the authors of the report warn. But in reality, it's more likely that we'll double that number. If you haven't already seen the headlines, the report indicates that we'd need to cut emissions by almost half by 2030 and be at negative emissions by 2050 — that means we'd need to be taking carbon out of the atmosphere at that point — in order to avert the worst of climate change. But these are just the headlines — the actual report is around 3000 pages long, and is a pretty groundbreaking and radical document, at least when it comes to these kinds of reports by typically conservative scientific bodies. The report includes a great deal of research from social scientists, and for the first time, in a major way, debunks much of the economics behind neoliberal climate solutions, even going so far as to name colonialism as a driver for climate change, and even alludes to capitalism as a major contributing factor. To unpack it all, we've brought on someone who's actually started reading all of the entire 3000 pages of the report. Amy Westervelt is an award-winning climate journalist, founder of the Critical Frequency podcast network, and host of the podcast Drilled. Is the fossil fuel industry, as they would like us to believe, a demand-driven industry? Or has it really become more of a market looking for a product? Are we getting to a place where mainstream narratives no longer simply call for individual actions, but focus much more heavily on collective and systemic solutions to climate change? And are we finally moving away from seeing global warming as a strictly environmental issue, and instead to seeing it as one more rooted class struggles against systems like capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism? These are some of the topics we explore in this conversation with Amy Westervelt. Thanks to Bedouine for the intermission music. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

"The pursuit of private financial gain is what drives inequality and ecological harm." This is the perspective of Jennifer Hinton, a leading proponent of the not-for-profit business, which is differs in fundamental ways from a traditional nonprofit organization and, of course, from for-profit businesses. Not-for-profit businesses models are often invisible in the many movements to reimagine our economic system, but the idea is starting to gain momentum. Jennifer offers a vision of an entirely not-for-profit economy made up exclusively of not-for-profit businesses that de-emphasize profit and growth and instead prioritize businesses as a means for social and environmental benefit. Together we look at examples and operating principles of this model, we explore how it navigates the capitalism/socialism binary, and we ask what conditions would be necessary for this model to truly offer a bridge to a post-growth, post-capitalist world. Dr. Jennifer Hinton is a systems researcher, activist, and ecological economist who is a Senior Fellow at the Schumacher Institute and the author of two books: How on Earth: Flourishing in a Not-for-Profit World by 2050, co-authored with Donnie Maclurcan of the Post-Growth Institute, and Relationship-to-Profit: A Theory of Business, Markets, and Profit for Social Ecological Economics Thanks to Between Friends for the intermission music. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Standing Rock was a pivotal moment in regards to Indigenous resistance — but it was just one in a long line of battles that Indigenous peoples have been fighting against the twin forces of colonialism and capitalism since first contact. In this episode, we're taking a deep dive into Indigenous resistance against colonialism, capitalism, and climate change — from the Amah Mutsun's fight to save their most sacred site in California to the Wet'suwet'en's battle against a gas pipeline on Canada's western coast, and then up into the North American tundra and across into Northern Europe's arctic circle where the Inuit and Sámi peoples are fighting to save the ice that they rely on. What parallels lie between the struggles of the Amah Mutsun Costanoan Ohlone, the Wet'suwet'en First Nation, the Inuit, and the Sámi peoples of northern Europe? How have the forces of capitalism and colonialism led to the destruction of Indigenous lives, land, language and culture? What can tens of thousands of years of a diversity of Indigenous insights, knowledge, and wisdom — along with a more modern amalgamation of Indigenous-Marxism — teach us about it? And what invitations for paths forward can we take to lead us to a future committed to solidarity, healing, and ecological restoration? Join us in exploring these questions with guests: Valentin Lopez: Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of the Costanoan Ohlone Eleanor Castro: Amah Mutsun Costanoan Ohlone Elder Sleydo' (Molly Wickham): Member of the Wet'suwet'en Nation and spokesperson for the Gidimt'en Checkpoint Sungmanitu Bluebird: Oglala Lakota activist, researcher, writer, member of The Red Nation and the host of the Bands of Turtle Island podcast for The Red Media Sheila (Siila) Watt-Cloutier: Canadian Inuit activist, political representative for Inuit, International Chair for Inuit Circumpolar Council, and author of The Right to be Cold Beaska Niillas: Northern Sámi traditional handicrafter, hunter and gatherer, activist, Sámi school kindergarten teacher, politician, and the host of the SuperSápmi Podcast Florian Carl: Indigenous ally and member of the Cloudberry Collective Alberto Saldamando — Indigenous Environmental Network's Counsel on Climate Change and Indigenous and Human Rights Music by: Chris Zabriskie Qilaut (Sylvia Cloutier) A. Paul Ortega and Joanne Shenandoah G. I. Gurdjieff and Thomas De Hartmann as performed by Cecil Lytle Douglas Spotted Eagle Thank you to Cerberus Star for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and the Guerrilla Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support Also, if your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media: Facebook.com/upstreampodcast twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast Instagram.com/upstreampodcast You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcast and Spotify: Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upst…am/id1082594532 Spotify: spoti.fi/2AryXHs

There are many ways women across the world have been disproportionately impacted by COVID. The pandemic has simultaneously increased the demand for unpaid labor from women — including childcare and homeschooling — while decimating industries like retail, leisure, hospitality, education and entertainment which are their main employers. So many of the jobs lost during the pandemic were held by women, that the resulting economic recession has been called a "she­cession" — or even an example of "disaster patriarchy." But our current economic system has always had a history of harming women disproportionately — in fact, in many ways, COVID has simply revealed and exacerbated already existing inequalities. But where there is a crisis, there is also opportunity. And in this space, some are asking what a feminist response to COVID could look like? There are, however, multiple kinds of feminism. In this episode we explore what kind of feminism could not only lead us beyond this present crisis, but also offer us a vision of a more just world where equality and liberation are premises, not aspirations: a feminism for the 99%. Featuring: Khara Jabola-Carolus — Executive Director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women Tiek Johnson — Reproductive Justice Advocate and Doula Sarah Jaffe — Independent journalist and author of Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone Tithi Bhattacharya — Associate Professor of History and the Director of Global Studies at Purdue University and author of Feminism for the 99 Percent: A Manifesto Nicole Aschoff — Editor at large at Jacobin Magazine, senior editor at Verso Books, and author of the book, The New Prophets of Capital Music by: Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Marissa Kay, Chris Zabriskie This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

By traditional metrics, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well right now — better than any other high income countries. But, at the same time, we have the worst COVID health outcomes of any of these countries too. It seems pretty obvious that by reopening the economy and all but abandoning any interventions aside from the vaccine, the Biden administration has pretty much this outcome. But of course, the problem goes much deeper — it's a combination of years of disinvestment and neoliberal policies. In this Conversation we're talking COVID with Beatrice Alder-Bolton, co-host of the Death Panel podcast and co-author of the forthcoming book, "Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto," which will be published by Verso Books this fall. What are the structural causes of our skyrocketing COVID rates? How has COVID laid bare the rotting foundations of not just the U.S. healthcare system — but almost every single institution in this country? How are our political leaders using the pandemic as a launching ground for the rewriting for the social contract in a way that even further minimizes the responsibility of the state to protect people? These are just some of the questions we explore in this Conversation with Beatrice Alder-Bolton. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers lose focus every three minutes. We tend to think of things like this as inevitable and we personalize them, we create little narratives about personal failure or a lack of willpower. But this isn't really the case. The problem is systemic, and in his latest book, Lost Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention – And How to Think Deeply Again, author and journalist Johann Hari explains why everything we think we know about this crisis of attention is wrong — and why we need an attention revolution. Johann Hari is also the author of the books Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, as well as Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Why do so many of us often feel like shit when we leave work? Where does that ambient feeling of alienation come from? That nagging sense that we've somehow been taken advantage of? That subtle anger — or sometimes even outright hatred — many of us feel towards our supervisors, our managers, our bosses? And why — despite devoting the majority of our waking hours to "making a living" — does it still feel like we're always one emergency away from financial ruin? A lot of people these days are starting to seriously question the political-economic system we live under. And if you're someone who listens to this podcast, you're probably already well aware of the faults and, really, the horrors of this system that we're all imprisoned in: capitalism. Although it's relatively easy to critique capitalism through our lived experiences of it, it's not always as easy to frame those critiques and those nagging feelings into economic language or a political framing. Canonical texts like Marx's Capital can be fairly opaque and inaccessible, and oftentimes, even among those who study it, capitalism can be difficult to pin down. What is it, exactly? What is it not? And what precisely is that thing that we often think of as its opposition: socialism? In this Conversation, we've brought on someone who can explain all of that. Hadas Thier is the author of "A People's Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics," published by Haymarket Books. In this Conversation, Hadas Thier will help us break down capitalism into its most fundamental components — and not in an overly technical way, but in a manner that situates it within historical and modern day events and processes — and which hopefully provides you with a pretty comprehensive and compelling explanation as to why we're all feeling so exploited, alienated, and imprisoned in this oppressive and life-denying set of operating principles and beliefs we know as capitalism. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

It's probably safe to say that at this point, most people recognize that it's not a question of whether climate change will have devastating impacts on humans and our environment — but more, just what the political fallout of inevitable climate collapse will look like… In this Conversation, we're exploring just that: the political consequences of climate collapse. We've brought two guests to help explore this, co-authors of the book Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future, published by Verso Books. Geoff Mann is the Director of the Centre for Global Political Economy at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and Joel Wainwright is a human geographer who teaches political economy and social theory at Ohio State University. Thank you to Matt Kish for the cover art. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Happy Solstice 2021! Here is our second annual solstice conversation with fellow podcasters Manda Scott and Nathalie Nahai. In this conversation we ask each other the core questions at the heart of our shows, we reflect on key themes, insights, and inquiries that we have traced through our interviews and documentaries in 2020, and we give gratitude and gifts of inspiring books, practical invitations, and a beautiful closing solstice meditation. Manda Scott is an award-winning novelist, podcaster and smallholder whose life is underpinned by the shamanic dreaming she gave voice to in her Boudica: Dreaming novels. For the past two years, she has been host of the Accidental Gods podcast which originally aimed at fostering conscious evolution and is now leaning more towards finding an inspiring way through to a flourishing future. Nathalie is an international speaker, consultant and author of two books: the recently published Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience, and best-seller, Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion. Her work explores the intersection between persuasive technology, ethics, and the psychology of online behavior. Nathalie also hosts The Hive Podcast, and contributes to national publications, television and radio on the impact of technology in our lives. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

In this episode, we're talking inflation — a somewhat slippery topic that has been dominating headlines recently. It's all caught up in the murky and often misleading narratives floating around on the pandemic economy, things we've discussed recently like the quote labor shortage, supply chains, spending bills in Washington. Anyways, the mainstream narratives get a lot wrong. Especially when they're coming from the more right-wing elements — there's just a lot of bad analysis and straight up mis- and even dis- information out there. So, we're gonna take a shot at trying to actually unpack this idea of inflation: what is it? Why are we seeing inflation taking place? Why is the mainstream coverage of it often flawed? We've brought on two guests to unpack things for us. Dean Baker is an American macro-economist who co-founded the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Richard Wolff is an economist, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School in New York. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.