Episodes
Cambridge University's American History professor Gary Gerstle discusses his most recent book, about how the neoliberal order came about, why it is faltering, and the indeterminacy of what comes next.
Published 06/09/22
Columbia University's renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs talks about the lessons he has learned from consulting with governments around the world, about how global problems, such as the war in Ukraine, will only be solved via efforts to understand the other side, never through force.
Published 06/02/22
Luohan Academy's Director Chen Long discusses the academy's latest report, on the benefits of creating a "digital circular economy," which would go a long way towards reaching net zero carbon emissions and addressing the climate crisis. Report link: https://www.luohanacademy.com/insights/bc89734b94adf00c
Published 05/19/22
MIT economic historian Peter Temin discusses his new INET-CUP book, Never Together: The Economic History of a Segregated America, in which he shows how efforts to bridge the gap between races were always undermined, resulting in constant economic hardship for Black people.
Published 05/05/22
Author and peace activist Norman Solomon talks about the double standards in US foreign policy that have smoothed the path for Russia's inexcusable invasion of Ukraine. The role of the military-industrial-complex in the US is one of the main reasons we lack a single standard for the use of military force and human rights, says Solomon.
Published 04/28/22
The Toronto Star journalist Joanna Chiu discusses her book, China Unbound: A New World Disorder, which argues that we need to go beyond the typical over-simplifications of democratic West versus autocratic China if we hope to engage China in a way that seriously addresses issues such as human rights, climate change, and economic development.
Published 04/21/22
Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Kishore Mahbubani, discusses his latest book, The Asian 21st Century, in which he relates US decline to the rise of plutocracy and Asia's renewed rise - after having fallen behind in the last 200 years - to its growing sense of dynamism, optimism, and diversity. This is the 200th episode of the podcast Economics and Beyond with Rob Johnson.
Published 04/14/22
UNCTAD Director Richard Kozul-Wright and Kevin Gallagher, Global Development Policy professor at Boston University, discuss their book, The Case for a New Bretton Woods. Ever since the post-war economic order was dismantled beginning in the 1980s, a re-design of the global economic order has become increasingly urgent in light of the social and ecological crises that we face.
Published 04/11/22
Peter Barnes, the entrepreneur and author of the recently published book, Ours: The Case for Universal Property, talks about how new conceptions of property - a universal commons - could fundamentally transform capitalism to make it more ecologically and socially sustainable.
Published 04/07/22
Economics Nobel Laureate Michael Spence discusses the profound changes that are rippling through the global economy as we emerge from the COVID recession, where economic growth will have to rely more on productivity gains instead of the incorporation of excess labor capacity and what this would mean for countries around the world. Luohan Academy event referenced in the episode: Opportunities and Challenges for an Aging Society | Frontier Dialogue #9
Published 03/31/22
The tradition of abandoning our elderly populations needs to end. Sarita Mohanty talks with Rob Johnson about her work at the SCAN Foundation, and the critical importance of combating "ageism" to strengthening our society. Learn more: https://www.thescanfoundation.org/
Published 03/24/22
Anand Giridharadas, writer and author of the book, Winners Take All, discusses the multiple crises we are currently facing, how they could provide an impetus for real change, and how US and global elites are failing to live up to the challenge.
Published 03/17/22
Patrick Lawrence, writer and executive editor of The Scrum, analyzes the roots of US foreign policy failures, how these are reflected in the current confrontation with Russia, which can be found the US establishment's weddedness to power and to an unwillingness to see the other's perspective.
Published 03/10/22
Max Lawson, head of Oxfam International's Inequality Policy program, discusses Oxfam's latest inequality report, "Inequality Kills," which highlights the extreme growth in wealth of the billionaire class during the pandemic and how this has had a direct effect on the health and survival of the world's bottom 50%.
Published 03/03/22
Ajay Chhibber, Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute of International Economic Policy, George Washington University, and India's first Director General of Independent Evaluation with the status of Minister of State in 2013-14, discusses his co-authored book, Unshackling India, about what needs to happen for India's economy to take off.
Published 02/24/22
Former health insurance executive turned whistleblower and investigative journalist Wendell Potter discusses the many ways in which the private health insurance system of the US is not serving anyone well except the insurance companies' owners
Published 02/17/22
Rob Johnson interviewed Columbia University historian Adam Tooze in early 2020 about his work on financial history and how it relates to the Green New Deal.
Published 02/10/22
Terrence McNally, the host of the podcast Free Forum: A World that just Might Work, interviews Rob about the current state of the world and what needs to happen for us to get out of the mess in which we find ourselves.
Published 02/03/22
John Fullerton, the Founder of the Capital Institute, discusses the urgent need for a new paradigm in economic thinking, modeled on living systems instead of Newtonian physics, which he calls regenerative economics.
Published 01/27/22
Peter Goodman, New York Times correspondent and author of the just-published book, Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World, talks to Rob about how inequality is not inevitable, but has been engineered through the political process by selling us a false idea of what is possible. 
Published 01/18/22
In a replay of INET Live's webinar, following the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow last December, Richard Kozul-Wright of UNCTAD, Patrick Bond of the University of Johannesburg, and author Maude Barlow discuss the disproportionate impact climate change has on the developing world and the ways to best address it.
Published 01/13/22
Professor Glenn Hubbard, professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School, talks about his just-released book, The Wall and the Bridge: Fear and Opportunity in Disruption’s Wake, and how society and policymakers can help those who are left behind in the wake of today's competitive world.
Published 01/06/22
Prosperity Now CEO Gary Cunningham talks to Rob, in a wide-ranging discussion, about the many ways in which the pandemic has affected racial justice and injustice and how we might overcome the divisions and polarizations that we currently confront.
Published 12/16/21
INET's Research Director Thomas Ferguson talks about the research he and his collaborators Paul Jorgensen and Jie Chen conducted of the 2020 election and some of overlooked factors that were at play in that election.
Published 12/09/21
Yuen Yuen Ang, political science professor at the University of Michigan and author of the book, China's Gilded Age, argues that the US and China have more in common than we usually think and that it makes more sense to see the conflict as a clash of two gilded ages instead of a clash of civilizations.
Published 12/02/21