This December, we bring you a special Christmas episode of our program, featuring the enigmatic operator behind the increasingly popular Twitter account known as “Neoclassical Marxism,” or @NMarxism. @NMarxism is a deeply satirical Twitter project, which deploys Modern Monetary Theory and some very dark humor to critique the neoclassical economics and neoliberal assumptions that unconsciously organize a lot of present leftist discourse. Our mystery guest agreed to speak with us out of character, so long as we promised to disguise their voice. The episode is a funny but also quite penetrating conversation between @NMarxism and Money on the Left’s Maxximilian Seijo (@MaxSeijo). Given @NMarxism’s problematic proclivity to reduce socialist politics to crass consumerism, we thought what better way to present our dialog than in the form of a Christmas Special.
Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure
This December, we bring you a special Christmas episode of our program, featuring the enigmatic operator behind the increasingly popular Twitter account known as “Neoclassical Marxism,” or @NMarxism. @NMarxism is a deeply satirical Twitter project, which deploys Modern Monetary Theory and some very dark humor to critique the neoclassical economics and neoliberal assumptions that unconsciously organize a lot of present leftist discourse. Our mystery guest agreed to speak with us out of character, so long as we promised to disguise their voice. The episode is a funny but also quite penetrating conversation between @NMarxism and Money on the Left’s Maxximilian Seijo (@MaxSeijo). Given @NMarxism’s problematic proclivity to reduce socialist politics to crass consumerism, we thought what better way to present our dialog than in the form of a Christmas Special.
Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure
spk_0: 0:09
you were listening to money on the left official podcast of the Modern Money Network Humanity Division or MM N H. D. This December, we bring you a special Christmas episode of our program, featuring the enigmatic operator behind increasingly popular Twitter account known as neo classical Marxism. For those who have not yet had the pleasure one confined neoclassical Marxism by searching the Twitter handle at and Marxism That's capital End and Lower case for the rest, as many of our listeners are no doubt aware. Neoclassical Marxism is a deeply satirical Twitter project, which deploys modern monetary theory in some very dark humor to critique the neoclassical economics and neoliberal assumptions that unconsciously organized a lot of presents. Leftist discourse. Thehe Count first appeared a year ago in December of 2018 as of this recording, and has garnered more than 1400 followers laughing hysterically alongside everyone else. Money on the Left have been especially impressed by how neoclassic Marxism, wide ranging treatment of money relations, expands the scope and relevance of modern monetary well beyond economics. For
spk_1: 1:17
this reason, we took a risk, and gm the mysterious person behind the account, inviting them to come onto the show and reflect on what they're up to. After a while, they agreed to join us and to do so out of character, so long as we promised to disguise their voice for the duration of the discussion. As you'll hear, THIS'LL episode is a funny but also quite penetrating conversation between neoclassical Marxism and money on the left Max say Ho, given the oh classical Marxism proclivity to reduce socialist politics too crass consumerism way thought. What better way to present our dialogue than in the form of a Christmas special? Now, with no further ado money, Anna left proudly presents our Christmas gift to you. Neoclassical Marxism, Christmas
spk_0: 2:01
Special Classical Marxism Welcome to money on the left.
spk_1: 2:11
Thank you so much. Been excited for this.
spk_0: 2:14
So typically, we begin our show by asking our guests to tell us a bit about their professional or political background and how they came to consider the importance of money for leftist politics. However, in this episode, we're speaking with you, the mysterious operator behind the satirical Twitter account known as neoclassical Marxism. Since we've agreed to protect your anonymity will start instead by asking you to introduce to our listeners what neoclassical Marxism is and why this project came out without getting too personal or saying anything too revealing.
spk_1: 2:49
Yeah, so? Well, thanks so much for for having me. I'm just going to kind of lean in tow The pretentious nous of all this and, you know, just just kind of push forward and talk about my method here. So, basically neoclassical Marxism started as inside joke with some friends of mine. It basically waas originally Ah, a throwaway account that I made to do a couple of tweets Satya rising. These voices on the left are really, really interested in basic income and kind of see basic in common the separation of consumption from, you know, social obligations of any kind basically as like the final destination of socialism. You know, this This was something that seemed to embody this thing that I had seen on the left on the Marxist left for a while, which is sort of just kind of whatever the current mainstream economic terms are arguing within that framework in trying tow, spin it in order to come up with some kind of left outcome or something like that. Since economics is all about distribution and exchange. Basically, socialism then becomes reduced to you know how much money everybody has to engage consumption.
spk_0: 4:09
It's sort of funny that you talk about like you be I as the sort of neoclassical Marxist final destination of socialism. I mean, obviously there's that corny movie reference that we can think about, but I I do think there's something really interesting in that sort of metaphor of sort of inevitable death. Inside, this is sort of U B I conception of neoclassical Marxism, and I think maybe we can get further into that project as we move along. But there is something I think quite pessimistic about the leftists who you are sad arising and so But before we get into that sort of as a little teaser as of this recording, the neoclassical Marxism account has just over 1400 Twitter followers and a good number of whom of these Twitter followers are important scholars, journalists, organizes and activists. Now we've heard through in the discourse. Many of these followers described the account as niche, essentially like you said as it started a sort of giant inside joke for a relatively small minority who happened to be in the know. However, the reason we and money and left invited you to speak with us. And the reason why I'm interviewing right now is because we sort of think that this project is actually quite significant for myriad conversations happening on the left. And we'd like you to help us unpack its underlying assumptions and stakes. For this reason, we want this conversation to presume very little and be as inviting as possible for listeners who maybe aren't in the know of this sort of giant inside joke or maybe as its positive, discursive Lee on Twitter. So at risk of sounding a bit pedantic, maybe we can go over some basic terms like, What is neoclassical mean here? What does it have to do with Marxism on the one hand and neo liberalism on the other? How does the spirit of what you're calling neoclassical Marxism frame and limit our political struggles and policy discourse on the left? And above all, why is modern monetary theory important to your project,
spk_1: 6:23
starting with neo classicism or neoclassical economics at its core? By that, I just mean in a really broad sweeping way, kind of the mainstream what you would learn in No, an introductory micro economics course. A macro economics course. The whole kind of theoretical scream work sort of is blowing up this idea of individual barter or the individual exchange into this gravitational distributive system where kind of almost a subconscious level, you have invisible hand. Like basically, you have some goods that you want. This person has good, they want you do some trades that you know, seem rational to both of you at the same time. And then you kind of end up with the better allocation goods. And so, you know, it starts with this idea of people whose preferences are believed to find at the beginning. So everybody, what everybody wants is already assumed. So you don't have toe worry about whether or not economies actually producing the right thing, because by definition it is because everybody just kind of acting in this free space. But then, basically the market itself. It sort of is just this, like static allocation device, and people are still kind of at the center of it in the neoclassical story, even though it's, you know, in this kind of really impoverished way where everybody has like their objective interests. And then the force neoclassicism, I should say, was modeled after physics in the 19th century. So there's a lot of metaphors gravity or energy conservation basically be sort of natural forces that regardless of what you want or think, the forces are gonna be constraining the system or eventually, as you gettinto new liberalism are going to really, you know, just be taking over completely. And so then the shift in your embolism around the mid 20th century, Friedrich Hayek and other people who knows Austrian economists sort of reframe what a market does, where it's no longer a static allocation device. That's just the inconvenience of all these rational agents, you know, having goods that are kind of scattered around, get them into the right place. And then everything is fine, you know, and it more becomes. The market is this form of collective cognition that everybody is. And as you get further in thio, you know into where this all leads your individual preferences and your individual rationality actually don't really mean anything because, you know, you're just constantly in putting things into into this idea of of the market, you know, and then the market. Ben becomes not something that is separate from the state that the state intervenes in, but rather it becomes this sort of like, almost metaphysical principle that you can evaluate, like, literally all phenomena, all social phenomena operate. It's basically by markets transmitting information between people. This becomes a vicious for a lot of kind of recurring jokes and things that that I'm doing with the account.
spk_0: 9:56
Yeah, right. What of my one of my favorites of those is the idea that, like the markets like the betting markets or whatever, they just substitute for polling. So people will just randomly post the betting markets of the presidential campaign as reference of what the status of the Democratic primary is. Yeah, I'm wondering if you could talk about those tweets just for a second as a small digression.
spk_1: 10:23
Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, So I mean, it's it's sort of your high ex challenged socialism what he described a socialism which really was just any kind of conscious landing by a state authority. Or really, this argument extends to anything that's not the market is that by definition the market is the greatest information processor you know, that could ever exist. So any anything that you could do any. Any decision that you could make could be better made by the market and judgment that you could make it better be made by the market. And so it's It's actually just like extreme arrogance that's almost anti Democratic, that anybody would think that they know better than the market. And so you know this. This cooling example been seeing a lot of pundits on Twitter off sharing the betting pools and whether, basically, whether the market is saying that it's a is saying that the polls are you are going to say in the future right on down. And that becomes Ben more. It's a more credible source than the polls themselves, you know, because people you know who are betting they're so close to the market, right, so like they must know. They may know more than any of these kind of people who are just mere consumers of Bernie Sanders people, you know, they're they're much more. They're much closer to the device that validates all. It is true, right, which
spk_0: 11:59
I think it reminds me. I mean, this was before before your Twitter account was up and running. But in the lead up to the 2016 election, I think, um, it was Justin Wolfers, the sort of neo classical economists who just kept insisting that Hillary was gonna win because of the betting markets. And yeah, I just I find that that approach is just so hilariously paradoxical and Auntie anti like scientific, even on the terms of what are supposed to be social sciences. I just said It's hysterical. It's hysterical. Um, I was wondering if you could bring in MMT into this. So what What is empty then have to do with sort of illuminating the paradoxes and the hysterics of the socialist quote unquote mobilization of neoclassical and neo liberal tropes.
spk_1: 12:57
Right? So MMT at a really, really deep level, I think unsettles unsettles all of this because, you know, at the core of all this, whether it's traditional neoclassicism or mu classicism, as it, you know, just kind of unknowingly becomes more near liberal Mork scented behavioral economics on these things, but tryto act like it's some insight that that people are perfectly rational way that you know, the classic neoclassical to find them to be what they do all still have in common is that there's there's these kind of almost gravitational forces that really at at basically, you know, subconscious level or and, you know, at at this kind of emergent level, creating these distributional phenomena. You know, there's there's really no room for agency on DSO. Of course, there's no room for money either. And so then when you try Thio, talk about MNT and the fact that people, er the fact that you know the government spends by issuing a currency, you know, all these people are operating under the assumption, basically, that there's not really any important derecho roll that money has because all the action is really just people bartering in exchanging goods with each other, you know, and money is sort of basically a technology for bartering that people are using. But, you know, at a fundamental level, it's it's fundamentally like a de centered, unconscious gravitational process that everybody is sort of contributing to. What enmity does you know? It says, Basically the government can employ a bunch of labor that's unemployed and in doing so defined what is considered to be a productive activity, and this is extremely kind of it doesn't make sense for a neo classical, you know, because you know, in the neoclassical worlds, you know, if anything, that's that's just completely a distortion, because again, who are these planners to think that they know better than consumers? You know what it is that they want to do. But in I think in uncovering the fact that there is agency in the world and it's not, it's not just the quality of the qualitative we differentiated social output that we have isn't just a reflection of, you know, some previously some a priori, kind of indexed set of all of our consumer desires that already exist, and this is just watching of them. Instead, it actually politicize is what it is that we're making and then, you know, in doing so, it makes this vision of socialism as just giving everybody more money to consume things. It creates a lot of problems for that, and it makes it, you know, it really makes it seem really weak because what it reveals is that really, I mean, if all that you're doing is distributing money, then you're just giving people more or less an inability to buy things that somebody else chose to invest in producing the work that MNT does that I think you know, kind of separates it, You know, at least what 74 grounds, you know, is that the state probably defines whoever issues the monetary instrument has the ability Thio, you know, said at least kind of or so to speak on what is considered to be productive activity in what the economy is going to be producing now and then it shows that in denying that this is the case, you know, we're basically saying that were basically re if I ng tease actual versus term. You know, we're naturalizing the desires of a small group of capitalists because since money has no theoretical role, there's no reason to think that, you know, it should come from anywhere in particular. So then obviously the things that we're producing if you actually look at who can by investment goods and start producing things, you know, it's capitalists, right? Like it's private. It's some particular set of people, you know. And then it begs the question Well, t kind of turn the neo liberal challenge on its head. Who are these planners you know to decide what's what's good for for everybody. And you know, instead kind of politicizes batter or shows that any attempt to de politicize that is gonna fail it. You're still politicizing it. You've just kind of naturalized qualitative social output that we're producing either directly by talking about, you know, public works, which is a big current in some kind of center left green. You deal discourse or you're implicitly if you're implicitly saying that all the qualitatively differentiated social goods that were producing our natural because they're just a reflection of all of our preferences, which, of course, sir, indexed and political. And so it you know what MNT does, I think, Is it it just completely It sort of pierces the bail and gets us to start talking about to start talking about who actually has power in society. And I talk about power and choice and agency. You know, strictly in this sort of flat, everybody can consume you. Everyone wishes for silver and gold. How do you make just so much more when I e on every
spk_0: 19:08
I really actually love that, because what it really four grounds is that so many you know, socialists today who have, as you said, naturalized sort of the agents who of production there, the capitalists and what? How they want to structure output. They call for the seizing of the means of consumption rather than the seizing of the means of production, which, in the spirit of Marxism, one would think would be Yeah, I mean, totally, totally anathema to Ah, really long term leftist project. And yet, as you say, there's so many different ways. And as you show in your tweets, there's many different ways in which these people who you sat arise are doing just that they're adopting. These assumptions are naturalizing these assumptions, and they're mobilizing a political platform that is totally in line with the agents off neoclassicism neoliberalism that have sort of wreaked so much devastation on people throughout the world. And and I I also wanted to highlight I really appreciated your lineage of the Neo Classicism neoliberalism turn, and I wanted to highlight for our listeners. We had an episode with Nathan Tank, a CE on called in Inflation and the Politics of Pricing, which really goes into the nitty gritty of the relationship between neoclassical assumptions of barter and how the way we think about money than totally refracts this whole apparatus off. Ah, sort of ideological world view like that, as you say, sort of eliminates any space for agency in the process of production. And so I sort of wanted to pivot then from that to a bit more sort of method illogically of how you think of satire itself. So in leftists and specifically in leftist politics and discourse, so your account sort of hyperbolically mimic certain dominant personalities. Think of sort of wanting this conversation already as well. A certain publications on the left.
spk_1: 21:24
Yeah, the maps of the world.
spk_0: 21:28
Exactly. Can you describe this sort of various forms that your satire takes and and what you're aiming to accomplish with these forms?
spk_1: 21:38
I did have some people in mind. Uh, you know, I think it's not gonna be like, a big surprise to anybody that, you know, is kind of the main inspiration just cause he he really is just so perfect, you know, like, he really like he has a blogged, and he raises money forward as a think tank. Yeah. I mean, you know, I did have some individuals in mind, but really just because they do, as you say, you know, embody this idea of a think tank in the neoliberal sense. I should actually say also that the shift in new liberalism really changes. What what economists do, you know, kind of professionally. Once you stopped looking at markets as being like two spears, the state and the market, you know, And you're just trying to, like, keep the state from intervening in the market as much as you can, or you're kind of allowing the state, you know, intervene and just kind of doing a bunch of bullshit mathematics about, you know, like what the right amounts of intervention are Whatever what an economist does in the new liberal world, where everything is a market is the economists of somebody who advises on building markets. So the state should be more like a market. You know, everything should be more like a market. Everything should be more like a platform. We should all just be every minute of our lives just, you know, giving off pita and signals. And you know all these things. And so you know the idea then of the professional think tank with a professional planet, these things. Actually, it's not coincidence that they start popping up during the new liberal era because they are, you know, closer to the marketplace of ideas. Been a bunch of stodgy academics who are protected by 10 year. You know, I don't have the market discipline that patriotic gives them. You know it's patriotic, really tests your meddle and make sure that your success is based on merit of some a merit. Basically, be starting everybody else is market signals,
spk_0: 23:51
right? So I mean, you have this tweet, Which e mean you literally say hashtag, not me, my think tank. Think I mean that we were sort of joking about, like the role of think, tanker and interviewee. But there is this way of this, like as you, as you sort of noted with neoclassicism and neoliberalism, the agency of of meaning becomes institutionalized in this way that is specifically a referent into this market making capacity. And yeah, I mean, it's e. I just I wanted to point out for our listeners that, like we're not just there's a reason why we've brought you on. It's because your tweets are reflecting these sort of MME. Or abstract ideas.
spk_1: 24:38
Yeah, Well, thank you
spk_0: 24:40
in that vein, right of this sort of Twitter persona or the specific tweets that refract the sort of as satire, these sort of academic e sounding ideas. I was wondering how your project as a as a medium of satire but also out of thought is engaged with Twitter as a platform or Internet culture. More generally because obviously, platforms and media studies does seriously consider the relationship between social media and Neil liberalism as this process of sort of information generation and big data and all of these sorts of things. So I was wondering if you had thoughts on that.
spk_1: 25:26
Yeah, So Twitter a lot like Petri on and really a lot like old converging on this kind of flat idea of a platform that no one can ever leave that everybody is, you know, kind of constantly signaling, you know, releasing market signals into Basically, Twitter's really kind of perfect for that because, you know, it really is just it's in like an ontological sense. Almost. It's just completely like flat right, Like it's It's just Everybody is like a producer and a consumer kind of all at once. And so it's It's kind of perfect for a project, you know, like this. I mean, this is no joke. Like I I am actually engaged in, you know, the neoliberal building, a platform game or whatever, but it's it's it's kind of an extra funny way for me to sort of live the satire of it all because, you know, I'll talk about, you know, when I first got into the Thinktank game became an account with 100 with 1000 followers you know are like, you know, all of these things that really the only things that could even characterize me as as a brand or, you know, just like my numbers. I think,
spk_0: 26:51
I think, characterize as a phrase, right. I mean, we start thinking about the metaphorical residences of Twitter, right? The idea of you as a character, but you know, the characters that you produce in your branding that you produce. I mean, there's just so many sort of intersecting narratives that are going on in your account. It's fascinating.
spk_1: 27:11
Yeah, well, it helps that math Rennick exists, you know, it helps that that all of the kind of professional e con pundits on Twitter all kind of you know, I have a lot of use. Similar quirks. I
spk_0: 27:27
mean, they take the discourse seriously,
spk_1: 27:30
and they take the discourse really seriously with all the things that they like care about are, like, just consumption goods. Basically, it's like everything is like they might as well, literally just be talking about, like, there you tills that their client. Yeah.
spk_0: 27:49
I mean, what? Well, what our likes, if not an indication of preferences,
spk_1: 27:53
right? Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing is, we're constantly signaling our preferences or are dis preferences right? We're signaling or negative preferences by not interacting with something. I think that the whole idea of the way that a lot of these big social media corporations have developed in this direction of having platforms that sort of are just like every minute of your existence as a person is like on one of these platforms. And it would surely be convenient if they were all, you know, even working solid evidence on one platform, right
spk_0: 28:32
to pick up on that. I mean, there's another tweet that I thought of that sort of thing that gets us to to this point the sort of intense obsession with the discourse that some of these pundits have is. You write on Twitter, you right. As you know, if I'm citing a piece of academic work, um, you write, I like when the public holds shares in private companies and survives off their profits. That's the same thing as Communism to me. And I I mean, you can't Obviously, it's it's satire and it's hilarious. But also, I think there's been the idea of nationalising Facebook, which, obviously at many different levels is a good idea. But But then there's this disjunctive where you get things like the sovereign wealth fund, which I don't necessarily want to go into completely just yet, which sort of holds, you know, that we need these profits. And so there's this this paradox about the profits that we allegedly need and then sort of the making public and nationalizing of these companies. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of these pundits saw the sort of hand in glove relationship between the sort of discursive sort of generation of data and the profits that they generate to fund socialism or communism. Which, of course, if we think about this critically and from the standpoint of agency is completely bonkers. But, you know, this is sort of the sort of the the hallway that these sorts of pundits are walking themselves down.
spk_1: 30:06
Yeah. No, that's That's a really interesting way of putting it. It's interesting, because I can absolutely see uh, you know, everybody just, you know, I mean, going back to your characterizing, you know, what is the mission of the account? You know, Right. Like we're talking about, you know, Marxist. Sort of just adopting whatever the latest thing is in Neil liberalized neoclassical economics, they would completely take for granted that what we're doing on Twitter is in some bizarre, big sense value producing. Yeah, actually, I've even, I think, heard David Harvey, like, actually say that he has a book called David Harvey is for those who I don't know. Unfortunately, he was an old problematic leader favor of mine, but he you know, he's somebody who does really, really close readings of marks in your vault. While I was still kind of feeling my way through mmt, he was at least ah voice saying people should really be, you know, moving past volume one of capital and talking about volumes two and three because there's some really important things happening in finance anyway. So he has this book called called Rebel Cities, where he basically argues that he just sort of throws up his hands and says, Well, clearly there's a ton of value just being generated in cities, right? Just looking at all of the profits. But people are producing through various things, and it's completely an argument that would just uncritically take in the idea that are are actually behavior on social media is like value producing in some way or like is is a former production in the Marxist sense that should be compensated. And so, yeah, I mean, from there, I actually, unfortunately could see a lot of Marxist getting behind the idea of nationalising are, you know, our theater production heard something like that.
spk_0: 32:10
I I do think I I saw, um I saw a tweet a while back from burning during this. Like the war's over the job guarantee about, like, essentially giving people welfare benefits instead of employment. Um, and just giving them a posting requirement. And, you know, I think I kind of want to pivot to that. That sort of mean format that you that you've sort of brought to the fore. Um, there's a few tweets that you do, and there's some funny ones that I want to read, right? So you write school is just passive income with the homework requirement war or like my father, is
spk_1: 32:52
a powerful weapon of my own.
spk_0: 32:53
Yeah, it's fine. You have radio Anonymous Twitter account, so that's that's very on brand. Or you also write like life is just death with a heartbeat requirement. And so I mean, I do think there's there's the coming together of like right? I mean, you know, a job guarantee is just welfare with a posting requirement or whatever. However, you want to frame this, there's this. There is the sort of linking off the sort of twitter posting neo liberal platform data, generations side, and the the policy and political positions of the left that you are critiquing and so to pivot into that Maur. So, um, can we talk more about labor, politics and unemployment and the sort of political and policy debates that your tweets are critiquing one side of that and specifically on the left,
spk_1: 33:49
right? Yeah, so I mean, in some ways that, you know, I think I see the that kind of Breunig line is kind of saying, Well, you know, everybody's engaged in production all the time. You know, as it's sort of a way of saying effectively Earl policy purposes like we're already producing. So like, let's just act like nobody's producing and just, like, give everybody, you know, some some money. But it, uh, it it's sort of, you know, I mean, it gets back to us defining what is problematic about in the classical view, which, you know, kind of indexes says at the beginning in this kind of a prairie way. What the what kinds of things were doing and producing in in defining that it creates a benchmark, which then bye kind of naturalizing it, you know, then becomes invisible. That it was actually kind of arbitrary, made it a benchmark of, you know, what are legitimate productive activities and what our illegitimate, productive activities. And then that lets us then say what economists love to talk about, you know, skilled versus unskilled labor or a mean that I've seen pop up a lot among non not Rennick continents, you know, is this like looking at some ridiculous thing that somebody's doing and saying like, This is evidence of lever slack, right? Like it's like it's kind of funny, but like it also sort of completely, you know, drives home this this point that you know, you you picked a bunch of arbitrary social goals, pretended that they've been picked by nature, and then you use them as a benchmark to say who's skilled, who's unskilled. It becomes the basis for the legal construction. You know, things like disability and you know it. It also ties into their approach to labor. Politics goes from from that perspective than anything, but is not reflective of our consumer preferences. Any production that goes into making those things that make work right is is sort of the hubris of economic cleaners or whatever. And so the only thing that they can imagine, then you know you're taking these people who are obviously not able to produce anything useful. You're just making them, you know, like do a bunch of pointless tasks that nobody is benefiting from. In exchange for a paycheck, you completely erase. You know, any actual benefit that people could get from being given you know, living in a society that, like, makes room for them. Yes, and as somebody who has something to contribute, you know, and sorry,
spk_0: 36:35
I was just going to say I mean that I think that's such a good point. And I wanted to highlight one of your tweets. That makes exactly that. But in the most sort of baroque satirical mode possible, Um, you write like you, right? Just because you can't do useful work doesn't mean you don't deserve a dignified place to kill yourself. Which I mean is really dark, obviously, right. I mean, talk about final destination, right? But I do think you're getting at in that this sense of off the naturalization of what is useful in the naturalization of what is valuable work to do. And so then you write people off with writing a check to them and give them give them a dignified place to sort of it would be alienated and didn't pay in consumption. And so I mean, yeah,
spk_1: 37:33
yeah. I mean, you know, it kind of is like the sort of paradise image you know. Then that comes out of this is you know, you don't have to do really anything for anyone else or engage in any kind of social activities. And it's really just the generosity of the welfare state. That's kind of just letting you leech off of everybody is a consumer. But of course, then, you know, once you've abandoned right space framework, tow anything, then that totally become something. That's if the more scarce people feel, you know. So full resources are, you know, the more willing will be to exclude you. Um, I don't know if you want to talk about Fascist. I know that that's a research interest of yours. Um,
spk_0: 38:20
yeah, yeah. I mean, that's yeah, I mean that that's definitely does reference a sort of the idea of exclusion or, you know, maybe another way of putting this And maybe perhaps this sort of neo liberal version, um, of fascism, you know, in the sense of exclusion. Not necessarily in the historically specific sense of fascism, you know, takes the form a t East on the left, which is again we're dealing with all of these paradoxes of categories, but I don't know, but I do think one of the central insights that you, um you have is that these neo classical neo liberal assumptions do sort of permeate these categories, but it's this sense of you deserve a dignified place to be excluded from society. And, um, that that is just so fascinating to me in the sense of sort of a way of thinking about exclusion, writ large in historically sort of generalized sense rather than in this sort of historically specific sense of fascism as Nazism or an ideology of Mussolini or things like this. But that's sort of in aside. But I do think what your what your project then brings up is these real contradictions that start to emerge about. So we got. We move from this sort of naturalization off production as a response to these sort of already determined preferences on the left as a sort of naturalization of not only production but also relations to consumption and production. But then that gets mobilized against things like the job guarantee or even in some. And maybe we're pivoting a bit. And some, um, should I say, more hen woody in circles to this sort of opposition to public spending writ large that isn't sort of accounted for. A dollar for dollar on the back end. And so I guess if we're gonna talk about money and finance, I was wondering if you could talk about the ways in which you criticized the sort of twisted fiscal and banking approaches that neoclassical Marxist or dare I say, sound finance Socialists have to these questions,
spk_1: 40:52
right? So I mean, whoa, as we kind of implied. They all start with the idea of production itself, of people doing things for other people for some social purpose as like a necessary evil that, like we naturally would want to minimize. And so the all of the kind of public banking schemes or sort of schemes that that are sort of ways to meal liberally describe essentially just fiscal policy right, which is your government's ability. The government's ability, you know, spend money and initiate production. When when you do it on the terms of this, you know, kind of, um, index social surplus kind of thing. Then you know you have to justify every single instance you're doing a productive activity that includes people you know on on on. On the basis of is it filling? Some need that you know that that isn't currently building so I mean, it's sort of this useless until proven useful, you know, kind of way of way of looking at labor and so one, I mean, what flows out of that kind of naturally, Because that is sort of itself modeled after a sort of private barter world with no state. It makes sense than you know, that a left, that sort of being hobbled by that would reach for more things that are more along lines of public banking or public green bonds or green deal. Or, you know, something that things that have a bunch of conditions to It's almost like the aesthetic role that the fact that you have to pay back the loan in the fact that you know the bond comes with terms or whatever is like driving home the fact that this isn't sacrifice, right that like that, you're you know, you've employed a bunch of people, you know, like you better be able to back that up like that. You just gave a bunch of people jobs when they could have been at home consuming. Um and so it kind of makes sense from that from that viewpoint that you know, you would reach for, you know, kind of public fiscal policy, that sort of aesthetically mirrors, you know, essentially just kind of capitalist activity, which is because it is democratically unaccountable house this sort of capricious, you know, Let's prove that it, like, works for me right now, you know, sort of thing, as opposed to just, you know, we should employ. Everybody is good. Waffle has increased. My true love gave to me a full of delicious heart grease at the Waffle House increased Smith's My True Love gave to Me to waffles baking and a bowl of delicious at the Waffle House increase. Miss My True Love gave to me three. Such is Patty's two waffles making and a bowl of delicious hot at the one on Have Some Christmas. My True Love gave Thio three such Patties. Two waffles baking and
spk_0: 44:21
yeah, I mean, that's like it comes down to trade offs, right? I mean, that's the start of economist IQ neoclassical approach that that is being sort of evoked in those lines of nothing is you know, you just no free lunch. I mean it, Really, That's the You know, the first thing you learn when you walk in tow, Microeconomics 101 And so then, I mean, I just want to keep reading your tweets, right? So sort of reference this in multiple ways. So you write calculating the natural rate of austerity, which is this reference to the Nehru or than national the U. N. On accelerating whatever rate of unemployment, um, or you write like and I think we can talk about inflation as well. But you're right, anchoring inflation to a worker being dragged across the bottom of the ocean. There's this sense of you need an anchor for socialism, whether that's unemployment, mass unemployment in China, because we doing a great green new deal. And we need tohave this trade off or whether it's the you know, ah version of austerity or of unemployment or sort of welfare, you know, socially constructed class of those on the dole, or have heard it wants to be structured. There's all these ways in which these trade offs are manifesting in this approach to economics. That these neoclassical marks is take, um and yeah, I mean, I think you probably have a lot to say about that.
spk_1: 45:55
Yes, so I mean, basically, when you you know, index production to this finance thing Somebody sent me actually like a trust he cooked earlier is because this is kind of like us, like, you know, that that basically was You can't cheat the laws of economics. Anything beyond what is materially necessary is, uh, cause inflation or something like that. And it it's There's something in Marxism, but I do wanna touch from briefly because it's it is kind of a trope running joke. And some of the tweets is this idea of bass and superstructure where you basically marks, You know, he said that you know, there's bears, this economic base, which is just kind of materially, um, and frankly and kind of gravitational way almost that that at a material level, there's bear these relations of production and class forces that basically are really like they're your real material reality. And then, on top of that, there's this idea of a superstructure that has long culture and all these things that you use to kind of make sense of your material base. But they're in perfect because human beings kind of paradoxically, you know, like our unfortunately remarks are kind of trapped in this super structural existence where you know, they can't fully perceive everything about their material circumstances. So there, you know, kind of trying to guess out of, you know, that kind of thing. And so you end up with culture and think marks in some of the original quotes also has a lot there. But, you know, unfortunately, doesn't make a lot of sense since, you know, you have private property which is pretty legally constituted. Should probably be in the base if it's also constituting class relations and things like that. But basically, you have this This split, which I think is is not uncommon in Western bought between, you know, this sort of idea of material reality and then, like bullshit culture things on top of it, right? And so this, I think, is this makes a lot of new class obliges really intuitive to a lot of Marxists because the neoclassical sze you know, they talk about kind of natural relations between commodities, and, you know, they talk about the you know, the whole world. Basically, it's if it's harder from people's index preferences that don't really have anything to do with their thinking. They're agency or anything like that. And so they be. It makes a lot of sense. Then you have somebody, like trustee make a lot of trust. It's upside. But that's okay. Okay. Um, yeah, it's intuitive for for Trotsky, you know, kind of talk about, uh, how you can't cheat the laws of economics or you can't. You basically you can't cheat the economic beast, right? Like you can print money or you can, you know, do all kinds of things with state, whatever MNT does. But at the end of the day, you know, you're basically you're bound by the economic base, And if you do anything above that economic base, which is kind of is sort of an apple phenomenon of everybody's immediate preferences and immediate exchanges and immediate behavior that they're conducting without any regard for, you know, wherever aggregate we're creating is is in this aggregate sense, creating some kind of objective base. It makes a lot of sense than for somebody like Doug Henwood, toe call himself a sound finance socialist. Um, yeah, I just kind of tangentially I have seen how social media, you know, like him posting things, you know, that basically are like, there's something basically him, implying that there's something really cynical about thinking that you can kind of bet there's no, you know, material link or like indestructible link between the base and the superstructure that's trying imperfectly to represent the base. Talking about that in the context of printing money. Because if you're printing money from things that aren't actually coming from the base, you know, like that's it's basically just a cheap trick, right? That the real class struggle comes from everything happening at the material base, which which then gets into this kind of almost like Bronston sounding discourse of shared sacrifice. No, these things from the working class just because at the end of the day, like it is on television, scarcity like biz is not a lot of getting around it, and they kind of gal arise it in whatever ways. But they can. But yeah,
spk_0: 51:09
it is so interesting that this sort of discourse around like sound finance, socialism, which I think you've in in the sort of twitter discourse you've sort of really popularized it satirically amongst amongst people. But it's sort of also interesting that it's happening at the same time that the Phillips curve which the the sort of classical imagination of this sort of hydraulic relationship between low rates of unemployment and inflation. You know, the consensus around the Phillips curve is just falling apart front of our eyes. Because, of course it is right. And it's so interesting that the Socialists are sort of doubling down on not being able to afford it, because off inflation and as the Phillips curve itself is revealing what, MM Tears and others on left already knew for a long time that it's based in these flawed assumptions off scarcity. And and, you know, I also wanted to highlight I really think that this inside around the base superstructure and that sort of, you know, we could just keep contracting what the bases until it just becomes Yeah, like the naturalized sort of preferences that are already being produced, which is sort of becoming a theme of this.
spk_1: 52:30
They keep contracting the superstructure so that it says closely 1 to 1 correspondence base.
spk_0: 52:36
Well, right, exactly. So then then you need to start doing that. You need to start having the superstructure perfectly mirror this sort of imagination of a natural base and everything that is not inside of that becomes this sort of hyper sort of ephemera. Lt's you no relation of superstructure that just becomes this signifier and signified this sort of detached referent. And that's what for for I think, a lot of these people, what the inflation fear is is this, you know, sort of detaching from the base. And in many ways there's an empty reading that can think very nuanced and constituent Vly about the relationships between real resources and production and an endogenous money creation. But there's this real reduction that happens among these hen woody and sound violent socialists that sort of disallows any riel, curative or creative leftist project within that structure of needing to pay for every single thing or needing to, I think Bond, right? This sort of anchoring metaphor really works well with this and even bond, um, or toe Thio. Yet to hamper ourselves in the relation in order to avoid this sort of calamity of of the superstructure. Um, and you know, I wanted Thio use that as a sort of way to pivot, to tweet that I think talks a little bit about the business cycle in the sense of naturalizing it. So you write in all caps you matter, you are important. You deserve decent work during good economic times. And so I was wondering if you could if you could, like, elaborate on this this trajectory that were sort of charting and think about the business cycle from this perspective.
spk_1: 54:42
Yeah. So, you know, I mean, when you were raced of the agency that the state has to employ people, you know, just kind of say that it's way when you effectively, you know, just kind of see that agency to people who have accumulated, ah, money over time, you know, just private property relations. Ben, This is basically what all of what a left wing platform sounds like, is it It is constrained by how the business cycle is doing. You know how much profits are you know are being accumulated by private by the billionaire class or hurt by private finance. And yeah, it's it's funny because it totally makes, um, it totally makes the idea of a right space discourse just completely illegible, because the only way they can possibly interpreter rights based discourse if you're constrained by the economic base, you know, is just like as a goal. Like Elizabeth Warren says, that's a framework, you know. Right. Well, as as just something that you know you're striving for rather than something that you can that you can guarantee as a first principle, like
spk_0: 55:57
universal basic housing, right in this sense of, like, a guaranteed housing. Right. And I think I just mixed metaphors with Universal basic. I think it is. What happens when you think about in Marxism for too long, but like a job guarantee or, ah, federal housing guarantee, um, in in different these different ways in the sense of the rights based discourse. But
spk_1: 56:18
yeah, like all these. Yeah, like all these guarantees kind of just become like goals. You know, basically where, you know, like, you know, and then you can have somebody like Matt Bruning come in and kind of safe. Cynically. Basically empty is just not adding anything. We're obviously shooting for universal housing and were obviously shooting for you know, this or that being. But at the end of the day, we understand that we can only do kind of so much on DSO. Yeah, I mean, a lot does depend on whether you're in the right time of the business cycle, you know, Or like another, another kind of joke. That lot is this idea that because of technology for the first time ever were living in a society that can care for everybody. You know that, uh, before we reach this technological cock, which is again, extremely flat ontology of technological innovation, just translating to enough consumption goods toe sustain everybody. Then whether or not we live in a society that can care for everybody is just literally question, you know, what is our output? Like, you know, this number Is that that number? Um, e
spk_0: 57:37
this sort of Hugh's closely to this sort of Aaron Bustani Fully automated luxury communism line. Um, yeah, and I think that it's just Yeah, there. There's that post about you, like a universal infinity pool relation. I don't even remember what it was.
spk_1: 57:54
God. Yeah, well, no, like, just just to go up on that a little bit. It really like that post. I think that what he said basically was like, it was some article you know about, like, home nights and schools are something like that. You know, he liked he shared it and was like, socialism. Everybody will have a pool or something, you know, And it was just very much comes back to this idea of kind of buying the specific preferences of the ruling class. Just saying, you know, under socialism will all be ableto, like, consume qualitatively exactly the same as they consume. Um, which, Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's sort of completely just contracts agency and, well, being around what these what today's rich people want to do and consume on. And, you know, I've been kind of naturalizing it and using it as a sort of this objective benchmark, like in a civilized society. Everybody should have a yacht or something. That's just kind of like ridiculous, you know, like maybe maybe that's not like maybe we would live actually more fulfilling lives than rich people do. Now, if we didn't buy these giant houses with, like, Moz around them and, you know, deal the kind of weird, rich pathologies that people have, but it's sort of Yeah. I mean, it completely abolishes the possibility of anything outside of what's currently happening.
spk_0: 59:21
Yeah. I mean, socialism is really just mining asteroids for value anyway.
spk_1: 59:26
Yeah, right. Yeah, and it's so And that's why such a big deal when we find that there's an asteroid that has a lot of value, you know, for
spk_0: 59:37
the listeners were referring to a post that happened Ah, few weeks ago that there's this, you know, this is I think it was a CNN article that was like on an asteroid with the like, X dollar figure number of gold. Um, and and I don't have the post right in front of me. But essentially, the, uh, the you know, if we have the problem with that is is if we took all that gold and brought it back Thio Earth, we would have a serious inflation problem,
spk_1: 1:0:07
right? What to say? It would cause inflation right, Because, you know, there's there's not enough, you know, human labor, power in the world right now, corresponding toe. All the gold is in that operating just
spk_0: 1:0:19
would have a real pricing crisis, just really right. And so that I kind of want to pivot. Then, too. It's related, but it's sort of the sort of finishing line of the neoclassical Marxist sort of world view Is that all we have to do then is take these naturalized preferences, whether it's for infinity pools or for, you know, 7 11 boxed meals and nationalized them right order, distribute their profits
spk_1: 1:0:54
and completely, which completely ignores the fact that their international input output structures that are producing all of these things. You know all of these kind of reforms that are being suggested. Thio give essentially, just give Americans more money. So, like by things that producers like sweatshop labor, right?
spk_0: 1:1:15
I mean, like, that's one of the basic tenants right of Marxism is you know, the labours happening somewhere, right? I mean, it's a machine IQ. Relations are are still in relation. There's still labor going on, right? And so, of course, you know, it's just so I mean, it's really pernicious. Actually, we can poke fun at it, but I think it's actually quite permit pernicious, too, Um, for in a post card from a post colonial perspective, too, to natural eyes, these these relations of accumulation and, um e mean, let alone the climate implications. And I think there's a tweet that speak to that that speaks to this right, So of of yours, you write nationalizing the East India Trading Company to make colonialism socialist. Um And I think, you know, that sort of just sort of gets at as satire this sort of relation of this sort of dividend.
spk_1: 1:2:12
Yeah. So, like, this is something that, um, is kind of ironic because our modern corporate warm. But, you know, we sort of Rhea fires as natural, actually literally came from colonial charters that essentially would, you know, would let somebody on behalf of the crown, you know, like, do a bunch of horrible things in some of your place in the global south, but then could be distributed as dividends. And before that, I should say, like, even the even the legal form of dividends originally comes from the Christian Crusades. So, like, you know, this entire all of these legal constructions were basically created in order to solve the problem. Distributing from what really, really evil things.
spk_0: 1:3:06
Fine. They're just super structure. It's fine.
spk_1: 1:3:08
Yeah, right. Yeah, it's just super structure. You know, they did their work in the base, and yet right, you know, so give him giving their regions, but yeah. So, like, you know, this, this really is kind of way. The logic leads because, I mean, today you still have really evil shit going on. It's not gonna it distributing the profits from all the things that multi natural multinational corporations are doing more evenly among Americans. Actually, please adjust situation in any meaningful way. But when you naturalized, profit creating is kind of a mission of human activity, you know? Then then sort of do do get to this point where, yeah, I mean, you know, if it was two or 300 years ago, I think Katherine it would be talking about nationalizing the East India trading company or buying it shares and putting in the social wealth bond. And then if some people complained about the kind of evil work that they're doing that he would say, Well, then you should just vote in the next shareholder meeting. You know, that's that's called democracy, right? So, yeah, um, it's you know, I mean, it's the hyperbolic example of the social well, fun, but that really at its core is what this whole idea is right. Is you just you completely re If I capitals production is is right now and just kind of tack on some redistribution of the end and politically, you know, been tie the profits from all that exploitation to the living standard of the working class in the United States. You know which then which then further in trenches, the Amazons were open. All of you know, these other companies that really evil shit.
spk_0: 1:4:59
Yeah. Said, I think we're probably coming closer to, ah, this sort of conclusion of the episode. But there's definitely a few themes that I wanted to hit you before we did. And the first of those is you have a very specific critique of capital flight. And so there's There was one of your more popular tweets, which was a quote tweet of Marshall Auerback, who, in fairness to marshal our back, is one of the you know, better, Um, the better economists out there And
spk_1: 1:5:31
yeah, the National Marxism Institute really likes martial our backs.
spk_0: 1:5:40
So he tweeted right. He tweeted in a quote tweet of another. Um, another tweet. That capital flight is a metaphor informed by a gold standard construct money now basically moves at the press of a computer button which there are no one could have nuance, critiques to even this conception of what capital flight is. What you in a satire mode quoted that and tweeted, This is just wrong. Money is a veil over real resources. The sublime horror of capital flight is factories detaching from the Earth and flying across the ocean, showering millions of the unemployed with their debris. And I think this is obviously quite the evocative image, really taking to the sort of German romantic literary tradition of Karl Marx. That's really generous. I'm slightly poking fun. But, um, this I want you to talk about this image, right? This sort of it is a literary image, though, um, in in some sense of the term and talk about what? What this sort of end Marxist sort of institute tank on capital flight is in. How you're critiquing it?
spk_1: 1:6:59
Yeah, so, I mean, if capital flavors kind of what what comes out of accepting, you know, kind of meal class school idea of the state as this sort of thing. That's external to the quote unquote real economy, where all the value is produced and all the money that imperfectly tracks value is produced where you know, you end up centering on the people who quote unquote naturally have all the money, which is you know, in a just world should be workers, but unjust world accomplice. But the end of the day, basically, whoever, um, has the money has the value from what has been produced it, right. And so, um, the idea then of implementing socialist policies immediately runs up against this idea. You know, like they literally they hold all the cards, right, Like they have all the money. They're the only entity that can initiate investment. The only way that the government condition investment is by taxing them and borrowing from them. But of course, if you tax him to hide, then they're gonna leave the country. And so, yeah, I mean this this idea of capital flight comes out, there's somebody who I will just say flat out is like a new classical Marxist, like even more so than not renege Almost is this guy people Kimber, who is a favorite at jacket been He's kind of old guard at jacker been foundation, which they technically are called that just drive home that kind of neo liberal Elvin of it. But, um d vector for basically the way that he deals with this idea of capital place. He has this kind of structural formula of of capitalist production, where capitalists are where money is. You know, this kind of hydraulic bang that's by night, and it's just being accumulated by tackle ists. And so, of course capitalists of the only ones with any, you know, meaningful agency to initiate investment. And then the kind of solution that comes up with is that you know, socialists need to just, like, socialized the entire economy, like, really quickly, basically, because, you know, we don't really like immediately like capitals will catch on them like capital plate will happen on dhe. I'm not kidding like there really is a video. I think it's called like capitalism in the state or socialism in estate or something where he really does. That does explain it this way. You know, I'm any use all these examples from, you know, Latin America, countries that didn't avoid capital flight correctly, but basically, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's an extremely powerless framing. It abdicates the responsibilities of the state to you deal with the fact that that the state is legally constituting the society that people are being excluded from, um and yeah, it completely just kind of subordinates the state role to this scene, sort of like nature metaphor that that nobody in touch without triggering and flicks and they're anything like that. So yeah, event. And then it really does become. This is kind of conundrum her in neoclassical Marxists, where they have toa kind of act quickly or deal with capital flight. Do I maybe have to impose capital controls or something that will, like, quarantine all of the capital that exists right now? You know, nerd of prevented from, you know, leaving, leaving the country. You know, it's so funny that I hear people like that. One would say that MMT doesn't talk about real production and fetishizing money and all these things. But like this capital flight stories is literally equating or conflating money with real resource is right, like it's this idea that all the money exists somewhere. So all the real resource is belong to those people and those people, and literally like it. If their money weaves, then use values to Mark's sister, you know of their real resource is disappear, too. And so then you know the visualization about it's a bunch of factory is detaching from Europe flying across the ocean.
spk_0: 1:11:25
I love the visual of, like socialists having to wait until Jeff Bezos, like, starts his triathlon before they socialize the means of production. So that doesn't get back and pressed the flyaway factory fly away, you know, goods button And you know, then everything will be lost at that point.
spk_1: 1:11:46
Yeah, it becomes a little bit like it's like a Lord of the Rings story. Almost right. We're like, you know, you have this, like, Fellowship of the capital has to, like, go under under radar, like do the deed to create socialism, you know, without without the actual capitalist class becoming aware forcing in the story, you know that they're literally they're only predict the fellowship's only protection is that Is that so? Ron doesn't know where they are. Yeah, that's Ah, I hope that we leave this in
spk_0: 1:12:23
Marxism. Um Oh, my God, That's Ah, yeah. So you know, it was
spk_1: 1:12:33
a huge Lord of the Rings spin.
spk_0: 1:12:34
I look, you know,
spk_1: 1:12:35
I've been, like, suppressing, revisiting. It has so many problems. I think we just came across one of them. But, um,
spk_0: 1:12:45
Lord of the rings naturalized is capital flight. I'm awaiting that post? Yeah, right now. Um and so, yeah. You know, I kind of wanted to use sort of what we've you know in this conversation, through through your tweets and through, um, through your approach, what we've sort of sort of built it is sort of this scaffolding of, ah, oven argumentation of, ah, sort of brand, if you wantto who's that terrible word to sort of reflect a little bit on on the money on the left project and especially in the sense of, like, what this means for the humanities and so on on my reading of this, and I think that I'm gonna rope in my other co hosts and speak on their behalf here. Um, what this project sort of does is instead of being simply like the, you know, the mm tease drill, which is what? One way I've heard neoclassical Marxism described in this sense of sort of more of, ah, Nietzschean sort of pessimistic approach. What you seem to be doing is through a sort of aesthetics of satire. Um, and it sort of imminent ists, aesthetics. You, You're negatively illuminating. Ah, sort of forward, positive political project through these sort of extreme disavowals off everything that is potentially radical. That's that is available to us that we can mobilize for leftists, Universalist ends. And I think on our reading, this really actually expands the sort of poetic performance and language of what MMT brings to the table in relationship to the humanities project. Which is of course, this That's the podcast that that I co host, right? And so I was wondering if you had any thoughts about that. Um and you know, I do need to flag and bring in, um, the work of my co host, Scott Ferguson and his book Declarations of Dependence, Money, Aesthetics in the Politics of Care. He does work to really sort of resolve this dialectical opposition between aesthetics and money. Historically, whether arising in Kant or mobilized by the Frankfurt school, this sense that art or aesthetics or sensation writ large, is opposed to political economy and is opposed to these forms of off production. And I was wondering if if we can think with all of that in mind, if you had any reflections on that,
spk_1: 1:15:49
Yeah, I mean, I think that the the questions that the kind of modern aesthetic project has asked our expanded a lot if you know, you kind of adopt an MNT framework for, you know, both money in general. But you know more specifically, you know the kind of agency, too. Invest in, you know, the public accountability off what kinds of social goods were actually producing Because because right now, I mean, you know, like if you accept what the recruitment of the world are you saying? Basically, you know, you end up with ecstatic project, which is, you know, there's a lot of beauty in the world, but there's a lot of unnecessary evils, right, that kind of constraint it and everyone has to make a living and you end up with conception of sensory experience that necessarily, you know, in the final analysis anyway, is constrained and constricted arounds. What a bunch of rich people want to see produced what they want to kind of legally sanctioned by hiring. And so you know, instead, I end up with this kind of impoverished, you know, idea of art and culture is something that you know we do on the side or when we're not engaged in production rather than something that can be included in production in a way that is, you know, more meaningful And isn't, you know, sort of systemically abandoning everybody's creative needs and creative impulses, you know? Sort of, you know, arbitrary and capricious way you know, I think that I think that in that way, nobody has done a better job. Been. Scott has in, you know, in in showing what MNT has toe offer to, you know, the kind of modern aesthetic project in terms of the new foundation.
spk_0: 1:17:54
Well, neoclassical Marxism. I just wanted to thank you for coming on money on the left and offering and inputting your ideas into this vast marketplace of discourse in which our consumptive listeners can decide for themselves what they think.
spk_1: 1:18:15
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to what, you know, seeing how people consume this way. Wait. You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr Video, and I won't have it. Is that clear? Do you think you're merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow. Tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples, there are missions that people's. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third world. There is no west. There is only one holistic system of systems one vast and the main interwoven, interacting, Multivariate, multinational Dominion of dollars, petrol dollars, electro dollars, Multi dollars. Right marks raise rubles, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and sub atomic on galactic structure. Off things today on you have meddled with the primal forces of nature on you. Well, tone, am I getting through to you, Mr B? You get up on your little 21 inch screen. And how about America and democracy? There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only I begin an I, T t and A. T and T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exhale. Those are the nations of the world. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx, They get out their linear programming charts statistical decision theories Min and Max solutions and compute the price cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr Beale. The world is a a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime and our Children will live, Mr Beale to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding up for whom all men will work to serve a common profit in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided herbal anxieties, tranq boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr Beale, to preach this event. Why me? Because you're on television, dummy. 60 million people watch you every night of the week. Monday through Friday. I have seen the face of God. You just might be right, Mr Beale.