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Money on the Left

Money on the Left

217 episodes

1 week ago

Billy Saas and Scott Ferguson are joined by Will Beaman to discuss Money on the Left’s framework for what we call “Democratic Public Finance” (DPF). According to this paradigm, money is public credit, a capacious tool for mobilizing everyone’s capacities to meet our needs and build a desirable future. DPF redefines politics as the process of coordinating our abundant human and material resources within ecological limits, rather than as an austere and exploitative competition for scarce funds....

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Society & Culture

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Billy Saas and Scott Ferguson are joined by Will Beaman to discuss Money on the Left’s framework for what we call “Democratic Public Finance” (DPF). According to this paradigm, money is public credit, a capacious tool for mobilizing everyone’s capacities to meet our needs and build a desirable future. DPF redefines politics as the process of coordinating our abundant human and material resources within ecological limits, rather than as an austere and exploitative competition for scarce funds....

Show more...

Society & Culture

Episodes (20/217)

Money on the Left

Democratic Public Finance

Billy Saas and Scott Ferguson are joined by Will Beaman to discuss Money on the Left’s framework for what we call “Democratic Public Finance” (DPF). According to this paradigm, money is public credit, a capacious tool for mobilizing everyone’s capacities to meet our needs and build a desirable future. DPF redefines politics as the process of coordinating our abundant human and material resources within ecological limits, rather than as an austere and exploitative competition for scarce funds....

1 week ago

1 hour 51 minutes

Money on the Left

One Battle After Another

In this episode of the Superstructure podcast, Scott Ferguson is joined by independent film scholar Jonathan Haynes to discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed new film, One Battle After Another. The conversation centers on the film’s contribution to popular political cinema under the authoritarian violence of the second Trump administration. Scott and Jonathan affirm One Battle’s unapologetically leftist perspective as a breath of fresh air within a current political climate of despair–a fee...

1 month ago

2 hours

Money on the Left

The Activist Humanist with Caroline Levine

We speak with Caroline Levine, Ryan Professor of the Humanities in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell University, about her important book The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis(Princeton University Press, 2023). Building on the theory developed in her award-winning book, Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network, Levine’s The Activist Humanist redirects the critical capacities of formalist literary study to discover and mobilize the democratic potential ...

1 month ago

1 hour 20 minutes

Money on the Left

The New Postcolonial Economics with Fadhel Kaboub (New Art & Transcript!)

Money on the Left is proud to publish a remastered version of our third episode (ever!) with Fadhel Kaboub, now with a new transcript and art. Kaboub is associate professor of economics at Denison and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. In our conversation, Kaboub outlines a new critical approach to postcolonial political economy, arguing that re-gaining fiscal agency is a crucial next step for postcolonial nations hoping to achieve social, economic, and environmenta...

2 months ago

1 hour 13 minutes

Money on the Left

The Radical Potential of Consumer Financial Protection with Vijay Raghavan

We speak with Vijay Raghavan, Professor of Law at the Brooklyn Law School, about his recent article, “The Radical Potential of Consumer Financial Protection,” published in Boston College Law Review in April 2025. Raghavan builds on the work of constitutional money theorists, as well as his legal experience in the public sector. In particular, he argues that consumer financial protection is an essential and potentially radical response to the "finance franchise,” a predominantly anti-democrati...

3 months ago

1 hour 23 minutes

Money on the Left

(Un)conditional Openness: Towards a Neochartalist Theory of Money and Trust

In this special episode, Rob Hawkes joins Scott Ferguson and Will Beaman to discuss his new article “(Un)conditional Openness: Towards a Neochartalist Theory of Money and Trust,” which was recently published in Money on the Left: History, Theory, Practice. The conversation traces the development of Rob’s long-standing interest in theories of trust from his doctoral research in literary studies towards an increasingly fascination with the topic of money which eventually led him to MMT, neochar...

4 months ago

1 hour 44 minutes

Money on the Left

Legal & Political Foundations of Capitalism with Jamee K. Moudud

Heterodox economist Jamee K. Moudud returns to Money on the Left to discuss his new book, Legal and Political Foundations of Capitalism: The End of Laissez-Faire? (Routledge, 2025). The phrase “institutions matter” is a common refrain among economists, including many who have proposed progressive alternatives to free market fundamentalism. For Moudud, however, this proposition doesn't go far enough, leaving a host of problematic assumptions unquestioned. To remedy this, Moudud draws on the Or...

4 months ago

1 hour 34 minutes

Money on the Left

JAWS at 50: Birth of the Neoliberal Blockbuster

In honor of the 50th anniversary of JAWS (1975), we are proud to publish a 2020 lecture about Steven Spielberg's film by Scott Ferguson. Far from a simple celebration, the lecture critically situates JAWS as the first genuine New Hollywood blockbuster and the originator of a distinctly neoliberal aesthetic that would come to dominate Hollywood for the next five decades. Ferguson explores the film's influence on Hollywood, its innovative use of television advertising, and its role in establish...

4 months ago

1 hour 48 minutes

Money on the Left

The Black University and Community Currencies, Pt. 2

In this episode, we share Part 2 of our coverage of The Black University & Community Currencies workshop (Click here for Part 1). Held April 25, 2025 on the campus of Morehouse College, the workshop fostered dialogue between students, faculty, and activists about the radical possibilities of public money for higher education, broadly, and for communities at and around Morehouse, specifically. The occasion for the workshop was the conclusion of a semester in which students enrolled in Prof...

5 months ago

2 hours 5 minutes

Money on the Left

Women in the Federal Arts Project with Lauren Arrington

We speak with Lauren Arrington about her forthcoming book on women artists in the Federal Arts Project. The Great Depression rendered 140,000 women and girls across the United States homeless. In 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt founded the Works Progress Administration (WPA) that employed 8.5 million people over the course of eight years. Soon, the WPA instituted a landmark ruling forbidding sexual discrimination. As a result, between thirty and forty percent of newly hired artists on federal...

5 months ago

58 minutes

Money on the Left

The Black University and Community Currencies, Pt. 1

In this episode, Money on the Left shares audio from "The Black University & Community Currencies,” a public workshop convened by Professor Andrew J. Douglas at Morehouse College on April 25, 2025. This episode presents Part 1 of the workshop. It features an introduction by Professor Douglas and two panels. The first panel is titled “What is Public Money?” (Delman Coates, Scott Ferguson & Benjamin Wilson. The second asks: “What is the Uni Currency Proposal?” (Scott Ferguson & Benj...

6 months ago

1 hour 26 minutes

Money on the Left

Digitizing the Fisc with Rohan Grey

Rohan Grey, Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University, joins Money on the Left to discuss his urgent new paper, "Digitizing the Fisc." During our conversation, we recount the events surrounding Elon Musk & the DOGE boys’ unconstitutional takeover of the Treasury's Bureau of Fiscal Service, while explicating the right-wing theory of the "unitary executive" that underwrites such actions. Next, we analyze the structural deficiencies and choke points in the current Congressional app...

7 months ago

1 hour 42 minutes

Money on the Left

Gaming Money with Raúl Carrillo

Money on the Left speaks with Raúl Carrillo, assistant professor of Law at Boston College, about gaming money. The $250 billion video game industry (the largest entertainment industry in the world) has rapidly developed an unregulated banking system. As online gaming becomes increasingly social and immersive, players build economies within games. Gamers can purchase goods and services within these environments using debit and credit cards. Companies also issue gift cards and co-branded ...

8 months ago

1 hour 24 minutes

Money on the Left

Odious Debt with Edward Jones Corredera

Money on the Left speaks with Edward Jones Corredera, author of Odious Debt: Bankruptcy, International Law, and the Making of Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2024). What are fallen tyrants owed? What makes debt illegitimate? And when is bankruptcy moral? Odious Debt shows how Latin American nations have wrestled with the morality of indebtedness and insolvency since their foundation, and outlines how Latin America’s forgotten history of contestation can shed new light on seeming...

9 months ago

1 hour 10 minutes

Money on the Left

Community Currencies with Jens Martignoni

Money on the Left speaks with Dr. Jens Martignoni, lecturer at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences and chief editor of the International Journal of Community Currency Research (IJCCR). Community or complementary currencies are phenomena of great interest to monetary scholars and activists. We’ve spoken often about them on this show–whether about the Benjamins classroom currency at SUNY Cortland, the DVDs currency at Denison, or our recurring work on the Uni Currency Project. During...

10 months ago

1 hour 28 minutes

Money on the Left

Law & Political Economy with Martha McCluskey

Billy Saas and guest-host Ben Wilson speak with Martha McCluskey about the ins and outs of the Law & Political Economy movement. McCluskey is Professor Emerita at the University at Buffalo School of Law and a progressive institution-builder. She has made foundational contributions to feminist research and activism in and beyond the academy, focusing on interrelations between economic and legal institutions. A long-time organizer of the Class Crits project and president of the Association ...

11 months ago

1 hour 5 minutes

Money on the Left

Money, Modernism & Inflation in The Great Gatsby (Part 2)

Rob and Scott return to their dialog about modernism, inflation, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s celebrated 1925 novel The Great Gatsby (click here for Part 1). During their conversation, our co-hosts forge connections between the novel’s many complications of time and space and the attitudes to money and identity explored in the first part of this mini-series. For instance, they consider The Great Gatsby’s unusual manner of imagining the spatial dis/connectedness of West Egg, the ‘Valley of Ashes’...

12 months ago

1 hour 51 minutes

Money on the Left

Artists in Academia with Tim Ridlen

We speak with Tim Ridlen about his new book, Intelligent Action: A History of Artistic Research, Aesthetic Experience, and Artists in Academia (Rutgers University Press, 2024). Ridlen holds a PhD in Art History from the University of California, San Diego and is currently Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Film, Animation, and New Media at the University of Tampa. In Intelligent Action, Ridlen challenges dominant readings of mid-20th Century art preoccupied with critiques of th...

1 year ago

1 hour 22 minutes

Money on the Left

Direct Job Creation in America with Steven Attewell (New Transcript!)

This month we are re-publishing our conversation with Steven Attewell along with a new written transcript and episode graphic. Attewell is author of the incredible book, People Must Live by Work: Direct Job Creation in America from FDR to Reagan, published in 2018 by University of Pennsylvania Press. The book examines the history of job creation programs in the United States from the Great Depression to the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978. Unfortunately, Attwell passed away last spring. Yet...

1 year ago

1 hour 10 minutes

Money on the Left

Tribal Nations & Eco-Feminist Provisioning with Josefina Li

We speak with Josefina Li, Assistant Director of the International Program Center at Bemidji State University and doctoral candidate at University of Missouri, Kansas City. Josefina’s dissertation research brings feminist and ecological economic traditions into conversation with Modern Monetary Theory. We first encountered Li's work at the inaugural “Money on the Left” conference, which was held at University of South Florida in Spring 2018. At that conference, Li delivered a paper that explo...

1 year ago

1 hour 11 minutes