For this episode we talk to Herman Mark Schwartz on a wide range of issues - from biopolitics, industrial policy, and the New Cold War political economy to why "financialization" is a limited analytical frame for recent history. Mark argues that conflict between firms over profits is just as important - if not moreso - than conflict between capital and labor over the consumption share. The shift from midcentury "Fordism" to today's three-tiered economic structure happened as the result of a...

Jamie Martin joins us to discuss his new book *The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance.* After the first World War, the tools  that European empires had used to govern their colonies' economies were applied to Europe itself. To stabilize that respatialization politically, the victorious powers had to invent new institutions - what Martin calls "legitimation machines" - to justify treating European countries like colonies. The new institutions were...

Eric Monnet joins us to discuss his book *Controlling Credit: Central Banking and the Planned Economy in Postwar France, 1948-1973.* Prior to the neoliberalizations of the late 20th century, most central banks in Europe worked very differently than they do today. Interest rates played less of a role than credit controls in a more concentrated, segmented, and statist banking system. Representatives from all across the economy  - farmers, workers, industrialists - sat on important decision...

For this episode, we talk with Nina Eichacker, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Rhode Island. We discuss her wide ranging work on green industrial policy, the politics of Eurozone monetary policy, and two pre-pandemic books about American socialism. *** LINKS *** Read more of Nina Eichacker's work on her web page: https://ninaephd.org/ Follow her on twitter: @nina_econ "The Case for More Solyndras"...

For this episode, Christy Thornton joins us to talk about her book *Revolution in Development.* It tells the story of the revolutionary Mexican state's exclusion from the international financial system in the early 20th century, its new conception of credit and push for multilateral development lending in the interwar period, and its ultimately tragic defense of the Bretton Wood institutions in the postwar period. Along the way she asks us to think about hegemony in the world-system, agency...

For this episode, we talk with Skanda Amarnath, executive director of Employ America. We discuss some of the myths about inflation in the 1970s, the forgotten inflation of early 1950s, how monetary policy really works, and Paul Volcker's stolen valor. Follow Skanda on twitter @IrvingSwisher and Employ America @employamerica Read more about Skanda and EA's work here: https://www.employamerica.org/ For more on what we talk about in the show specifically,...

Eric Helleiner joins us to discuss his fascinating new global history of neo-mercantilist ideas. In addition to the well-known "Listian Intellectual World" there is a whole universe of thinkers who were not derivative of List but did dream of industrialization by way of a protectionist and interventionist state. American Henry Carey, for example, was distinct on a number of dimensions - and more influential around the world. But there were also traditions endogenous to East Asia, which...

For this episode, we spoke with Charles Postel about his recent book *Equality: An American Dilemma, 1866-1896.* After the Civil War, many social movements in favor of "equality" flourished in the U.S. -- champions of racial, sexual, regional, and economic equality pressed their case like never before. Organizations like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Knights of Labor mobilized women and workers on a massive scale, while the Grange - a project initiated by federal bureaucrats...

Amy Offner joins us to discuss the contradictions of New Deal liberalism, Colombian developmental statism, and the transnational flow of ideas. There are more continuities between the midcentury moment and today than many realize, suggesting that perhaps the worst aspects of today's neoliberalism are in fact more enduring features of capitalism. *** LINKS *** Professor Offner's faculty page: https://live-sas-www-history.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu/people/faculty/amy-c-offner Amy C. Offner -...

What's the responsible thing to do if inflation starts to rise? This week we talk with Andrew Elrod, who recently completed a dissertation on the history of wage and price controls in America between 1940 and 1980 at UC Santa Barbara. It turns out that mainstream American history offers a number of options for dealing with accelerating prices; monetary policy doesn't have to be the only game in town. "When my new theory has been duly assimilated and mixed with the politics and feelings and...

This week we spoke with John Shovlin about his new book on capitalist international relations between France and Britain during the "second Hundred Years War." Its well-known that uneven commercial development provoked conflict in early modern Europe, as great powers that lagged behind fought violently to catch up. What's less well-known is that, as Shovlin shows, the same mercantilist rivalries could also provoke the opposite responses: free trade and peace projects. We ask him about the...

This week we've brought you a double feature! First we talk to Luke Petach about his article on "Spatial Keynesianism." Macroeconomic policy was, at its inception, methodologically nationalist, and Keynesian policies fostered income convergence all across the US as poor regions caught up to wealthier ones. We talk about how that worked and why it ended. Then we bring on his co-author and former adviser, Daniele Tavani to talk about the post-Keynesian tradition, its differences with the...

This week we spoke with Zach Carter about his award-winning book *The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes.*  Its our most comprehensive episode yet on the Keynesian Revolution, then and now. We ask Zach about the role of Enlightenment liberalism, art, love, journalism and war in the life and times of JMK, and the narrowing of Keynesianism's horizons in the later half of the twentieth century. *** LINKS *** Follow Zach on twitter @zachdcarter Find more on...

This week we talked to David Stein about his dissertation, "Fearing Inflation, Inflating Fears" and the centrality of full employment to the black freedom struggle. From the 1930s through the 1970s, the fight for a job went hand in hand with the fight for freedom and equality. The proposal for a Job Guarantee, it turns out, has multiple origins - one was in the fight against Jim Crow monetary policy. Cold War complications  ultimately undid the movement for a time, but its coming back...

For this episode, we stood back to take stock of some Robert's own research on inequality in its all its complexity. Its a multi-dimensional issue, with generational, spatial, racial, national, and macroeconomic processes all intersecting to generate the world we see today. Check out more of his stuff here: http://robertmanduca.com/publications/ And follow him on twitter: https://twitter.com/robertmanduca

Nick Foster is a graduate student in history at the University of Chicago, writing a dissertation on the Reagan Revolution and the cultural history of finance capitalism. We discuss why Reagan embraced the biggest farm bill in US history, and speculate...

This week we talked to Jon Levy, Professor of US History at the University of Chicago, about his forthcoming book *Ages of American Capitalism.* We asked him what "capitalism" even is, what makes one age different from another, and what Keynes can tell...

Today's guest is Lizabeth Cohen, the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in the History Department at Harvard University. We discuss her classic work A Consumers Republic: The Politics of Consumption in Postwar America, which argues that...

Today's guest is Ariel Ron, the Glenn M. Linden Assistant Professor of the U.S. Civil War Era History at Southern Methodist University. We discuss his new book Grassroots Leviathan, which argues that agrarian reform movement can give us a new...

Today's guest is Kaleb Nygaard, host of the Bankster podcast - the best show out there for learning about central bank history - as well as a researcher at the Yale Program on Financial Stability's New Bagehot Project. We talk to him about the new...

Today's guest is Matt Klein, senior writer and economics commentator at Barron's. We discuss his new book with Michael Pettis, which argues that global imbalances are the result of rising inequality around the world. It's underconsumption theory at its...

Today’s guest is Monica Prasad, professor of sociology at Northwestern University, where she studies economic, political, and comparative historical sociology. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including The Politics of Free Markets, The...

In this episode, we introduce ourselves as well as the concept of "Growth Keynesianism." We want to show that managing demand by attacking inequality is a robust American tradition, even if the most recent generations have forgotten this. We think it is...

John Nichols is the national affairs correspondent for The Nation. He is the author of The Genius of Impeachment and co-author of The Death and Life of American Journalism. Today he is here to discuss his most recent book, The Fight for the Soul of the...