Category: Political Eh-conomy Radio

I have two Canadian updates this week. The first is from Nora Loreto on what’s happening in Quebec after the fall’s anti-austerity strikes. Nora is a Quebec City-based journalist and labour activist. She gives an account not only of what happened during the strikes in Quebec, but also what to expect in their wake (see the previous podcast, from just before this strike wave, here). Second, Armine Yalnizyan, economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, is back with an analysis of Canada’s economy after the oil price crash.

Tags Canada export industry, CSN, demand-led growth, Front Commun, Maple Spring, oil price, Quebec anti-austerity, Quebec solidaire, Quebec strikes, wage growth

Austerity Climate change Political Eh-conomy Radio Workers

The return of the modernist left

Post author By Michal Rozworski
Post date January 20, 2016
1 Comment on The return of the modernist left

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In the past few years, what has been loosely called the modernist left has seen some revival. Whether coming out of the ultimate failures of the Occupy movement, dissatisfaction with moralistic lifestyle politics or an attempt to analyze the current conundrum of moribound but hegemonic capitalism, some have returned to the idea of the left as a modernizing force—progressive in the most literal sense. Agree with its postulates or not, this broad current on today’s left deserves to be engaged, as it seriously grapples with everything from ecology to technology to economics and the left’s strategic response to our unhappy contemporary situation. This week, I present two interviews with authors of recent books that fit squarely into this current.

First, I speak with Nick Srnicek, who, along with Alex Williams, has written Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work. Next, I speak with Leigh Phillips, author of the more colorfully titled Austerity Ecology and the Collapse-Porn Addicts: A Defense of Growth Progress Industry and Stuff.

Tags Austerity Ecology, degrowth, full unemployment, growth, Inventing the Future, left strategy, Leigh Phillips, modernism, Nick Srnicek

Greece Inequality Political Eh-conomy Radio Quebec

2015: Podcasting year in review

Post author By Michal Rozworski
Post date December 30, 2015
No Comments on 2015: Podcasting year in review

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As 2015 comes to a close, here’s a podcast and a post that’s something in between a best of and a year in review. It’s a look back at some of my interviews from 2015, both in terms of significant subjects and personal favourites.

Tags 2015 highlights, Canadian inequality, Quebec strikes, Syriza, year in review

Climate change Extraction Political Eh-conomy Radio

COP21, climate inaction and corporate power

Post author By Michal Rozworski
Post date December 2, 2015
1 Comment on COP21, climate inaction and corporate power

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This week marks the beginning of the COP21 climate talks in Paris, the latest episode in a UN framework that has been trying, and failing, to reduce global carbon emission for over two decades now. For my first interview, I caught up with Oscar Reyes, Barcelona-based climate policy researcher, to get an overview of what to expect from the talks. Oscar works with the Institute for Policy Studies and has also been affiliated with the Transnational Institute; he has a long history of excellent critical writing and activism on climate issues.

In the second part of the episode, I speak with Shannon Daub, Communications Director for the CCPA British Columbia office. Shannon discusses the CCPA’s important new project that will trace the fossil fuel industry’s networks of money and influence across Canada, particularly the Western provinces. Climate inaction and corporate power: a key duo to examine on the eve of another summit that looks to tinker at the edges of a very dangerous status quo.

Tags Canadian fossil fuel industry, CCPA, China, climate justice, COP21, corporate power, fossil fuel corporations, Paris climate talks

Climate change Europe Migration Political Eh-conomy Radio

Climate and the state – refugees in Europe

Post author By Michal Rozworski
Post date November 17, 2015
1 Comment on Climate and the state – refugees in Europe

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Two interviews this week on two human-made crises: first, my conversation author and academic Christian Parenti on the climate crisis and the role of the state followed by journalist Jesse Rosenfeld with an update on the refugee crisis in Europe.

Christian Parenti is author of numerous books, most recently Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, and he teaches in the Labour Studies program at NYU. He spoke with me about the complex relationship between the state and climate change mitigation under capitalism, also the subject of a recent article of his in Jacobin. Jesse Rosenfeld is a freelance journalist based in Beirut who spent significant time in Europe covering this summer’s wave of migration, producing, among other things, an excellent series of articles for The Nation magazine. An accurate picture of the refugee migration into Europe is all the more important today, when it is certain that refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and other countries will be on the receiving end of a backlash in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.

Tags border militarization, Christian Parenti, climate and capitalism, developmental state, EPA, Fortress Europe, refugees, Refugees Welcome, social movements

Austerity Europe Greece Political Eh-conomy Radio

What’s next for anti-austerity in Portugal and Greece?

Post author By Michal Rozworski
Post date October 28, 2015
1 Comment on What’s next for anti-austerity in Portugal and Greece?

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Two updates from Southern Europe this week: Catarina Principe brings us up-to-date on the situation in Portugal and Andreas Karitzis recounts the search for a new politics in Greece after (and under the rule of) Syriza.

My first guest, Catarina Principe, is an prominent activist in Portugal’s Bloco, or Left Bloc, the country’s new broad left party. She been a member since her teenage years and has sat in the governing structures of the party. She is also a prolific writer. Most recently, she has been editing a collection of essays on the European left, to be published in May 2016. The Left Bloc gained its largest vote share ever in Portugal’s recent elections. The possibility that there might be a social democratic government that it supports has created a political crisis that today remains unresolved.

Andreas Karitzis was, until this summer, a member of Syriza’s central committee and had long been a key figure in the party. He was instrumental in the planning process after 2012 and also previously worked at the Nicos Poulantzas Institute, the research centre affliated with Syriza and named after the influential Greek socialist political theorist. Like many, he is now searching for a new home to continue the fight against austerity.

To recap: Syriza maintained power in Greece after September’s general election. The party and its leader, Alexis Tsipras, also remained committed to implementing the new austerity memorandum “negotiated” with Europe’s bureaucrat and banker overlords. Since the summer, many people, including Andreas, have exited Syriza and the left has once again fractured. Andreas speaks with me about how to do politics in this new conjuncture.

Tags Andreas Karitzis, anti-austerity, Bloco, Catarina Principe, Left Bloc, memorandum, Portugal elections, social movements, Syriza

Canada Climate change Inequality Political Eh-conomy Radio Trade

Cutting through Canada’s election fog: inequality, climate change and free trade

Post author By Michal Rozworski
Post date October 13, 2015
No Comments on Cutting through Canada’s election fog: inequality, climate change and free trade

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This week’s podcast is a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives double-header. The CCPA has been an invaluable resource for alternative economic and political analysis for decades and I always enjoy highlighting their work. First up, I speak with Seth Klein, the director of the Centre’s British Columbia office, on how inequality and climate, two major issues to which Seth and the CCPA devote considersable effort, have fared in Canada’s election debate so far. Seth also talks about how the platforms of the parties stack up against the Leap Manifesto. The second half of the episode contains my conversation with Scott Sinclair, the CCPA’s chief trade researcher. Scott talks about the freshly-concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, and what this enormous trade pact means for us and our democracy.

Tags #elxn42, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Canadian election 2015, climate change, inequality, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership

Migration Political Eh-conomy Radio Quebec

Canada’s immigration failures – Quebec’s hot autumn

Post author By Michal Rozworski
Post date September 14, 2015
2 Comments on Canada’s immigration failures – Quebec’s hot autumn

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My two guests this week are Harsha Walia and Roger Rashi, talking on two different topics, but both of very immediate interest. First, Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism and long-time anti-racist and migrant rights activist, discusses the changes to Canada’s immigration system over the past decade of Conservative rule. Of course, we also touch on Canada’s response to the refugee crisis and the heartening Refugees Welcome protests (in which Harsha had no small role). My second guest, Roger Rashi, speaks to me about the coming wave of protests in Quebec and what is shaping up to be a hot autumn in that province. Roger is a longtime political and social activist from Quebec; he presently works for Alternatives in Montreal.

Tags Canada's immigration policy, Maple Spring, migrant workers, Precarity, Quebec social movements, Quebec strike, refugee crisis, Refugees Welcome

Political Eh-conomy Radio Unions Workers

Jane McAlevey on organizing to win today

Post author By Michal Rozworski
Post date September 3, 2015
7 Comments on Jane McAlevey on organizing to win today

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I’m very happy to have an extended interview with Jane McAlevey this week. Jane is a well-known US labour organizer and author. During the 2000s, she worked for the SEIU, organizing mostly service and care workers. Much of her work was in right-to-work states, places where the labour movement has had limited success in new organizing. Her work led to strong unions that engaged workers, brought hundreds of workers out to regular bargaining sessions among other innovative tactics and helped fight and win political and community campaigns.

Raising Expectations and Raising Hell is Jane’s account of her time as an organizer and a repository of ideas for organizers. She’s is now a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard and is just about done her second book, which goes further into her thinking on organizing today. I caught up with her after she gave a speech at Unifor’s national organizing conference; here’s to hoping Canada’s labour movement can learn some of the lessons her work offers!

Tags Jane McAlevey, mobilizing, organizing, organizing to win, public sector vs private sector, Raising Expectations and Raising Hell, right-to-work, SEIU, US labor movement

Political Eh-conomy Radio UK USA Welfare state

The challenge of Sanders and Corbyn to the extreme centre

Post author By Michal Rozworski
Post date August 19, 2015
No Comments on The challenge of Sanders and Corbyn to the extreme centre

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Over the past year, unlikely challengers have emerged to the dominant politics of the center-left in both the US and the UK. Jeremy Corbyn is looking increasingly poised to win the leadership of the UK Labour Party next month. Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, Bernie Sanders keeps rising in the polls, drawing large crowds and making Hillary Clinton’s coronation as Democratic presidential candidate a bit uncertain. Both Sanders and Corbyn are silver-haired, decades-long parliamentarians identified with a marginalized left and would have been at home in pre-1970s social democracy. After years of rightward drift from both Labour and the Democrats towards the “extreme centre”, social democracy is making one more stand. Both Sanders and Corbyn have set their sights on economic inequality and economic stagnation for the majority as defining issues. Sanders, in particular, has also made talked widely about reclaiming the political system from under the influence of big money.

This week’s guests joined me to talk about what the Sanders and Corbyn campaigns: where they’re coming from, what they mean and what we an expect from them. First, I speak with Bhaskar Sunkara about Bernie Sanders and his qualified support for Bernie’s campaign. Bhaskar is the editor of the excellent Jacobin Magazine from the New York, which has quickly become an important venue on the US left. My second guest is James Meadway, an economist and activist from the UK. James recently signed a letter in support of Corbyn and has been following his campaign closely.

Tags American workers, Bernie 2016, Bernie Sanders, Corbynomics, economic inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, New Labour, People's QE, quantitative easing, social democracy, the billionaire class, US social movements