All tagged Capitalism

Bananas For Socialism: The Horizons Beyond Food Production Under Capitalism / Arun Gupta

Bananas For Socialism: The Horizons Beyond Food Production Under Capitalism / Arun Gupta

Patrick Farnsworth
Arun Gupta, 352

In this expansive discussion, investigative journalist and food columnist Arun Gupta tackles the extremely online drama between "progrowth" and "degrowth" leftists about one of the cheapest fruits you can find in the supermarket: the banana. Will we have bananas under socialism? 

Capitalism and its global distribution networks do more than just transport criminally cheap goods from the so-called “Banana Republics” of South and Central America to Global North markets, it works to disperse the responsibility for such a ruthless system: no consumer is completely to blame, nor completely blameless, either. Some are more than others, sure—like the corporations and their government partners—but we’re all implicated, just by the mere fact we need to eat. 

We can make better choices when we consume. Instead of plastic, I can use a paper or metal straw to drink an iced coffee. I can go vegan. I can source all my food—meats and produce—from local farms and growers. These choices matter, but frankly, most of the choices most human beings can ethically make are terribly limited under capitalist hegemony. These are lifestyle choices, and are not liberatory in the truest sense.

None of this was inevitable. Other horizons exist. So, when the “banana discourse” erupted on one of the hellsites many of us frequent, the question became: will there be bananas under socialism? And Arun Gupta, who thinks and writes a great deal about food, in more or less words, answers: well, yes, of course we’ll have bananas. But frankly, this not really the right question, or even the right framing. 

Grease Of Empire: Palm Oil & Regimes Of Human Sacrifice / Max Haiven

Grease Of Empire: Palm Oil & Regimes Of Human Sacrifice / Max Haiven

Patrick Farnsworth
Max Haiven, 320

Author, teacher, and editor Max Haiven joins me to discuss his book Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire, published through Pluto Books. As Silvia Federici states, this book "powerfully demonstrates how, by following the history of a key commodity, we can reconstruct the logic of imperial capitalism: its destruction of land and bodies, its drive to constantly reduce the means of our reproduction, its relentless production of oppressive regimes."

In this discussion, Haiven details the contours of such subjects as commodity fetishism and human sacrifice, as well as points to the straight line that shoots through the heinous histories of chattel slavery and Western imperialism to the formation of modern global capitalist order, by focusing on one primary and ubiquitous product we all, throughout the course of lives, have consumed countless times and in countless ways: palm oil.

The Operating System: A Contemporary Anarchist Theory Of The State / Eric Laursen

The Operating System: A Contemporary Anarchist Theory Of The State / Eric Laursen

Patrick Farnsworth
Eric Laursen, 303

Journalist, activist, and author Eric Laursen joins me to discuss his recent book The Operating System: An Anarchist Theory of the Modern State, published through AK Press.

Anarchism presents a unique challenge to State power. Since it emerged as a coherent political and social movement in the 18th and 19th centuries, anarchists of various stripes and creeds have pointed to the illegitimate power the State holds, and the role it has played in the dominance of Capital in forming and shaping the trajectory of human societies up to the present day. What would a contemporary critique and theory of the State look like through an anarchist lens? The State, like so much since the dawn of the 21st century, has had to adapt itself to the crises of the times we live in, from climate disruption, economic expansion and contraction, and the Covid-19 pandemic. We can then ask: has the State been up to the task? Or, instead, has it only further exasperated the conditions we live within? How can anarchism present a necessary counter to the overbearing power of the State in our modern moment? Laursen provides some insights into these pressing questions in this interview.

Red Nostalgia: Post-Soviet Europe & Arguments For Economic Independence / Kristen Ghodsee

Red Nostalgia: Post-Soviet Europe & Arguments For Economic Independence / Kristen Ghodsee

Patrick Farnsworth
Kristen Ghodsee, 291

Prof. Kristen Ghodsee joins me to discuss her work and lived experience researching the collapse of the Soviet Union and state socialism in Eastern Europe, the immediate and long-term impacts this event had on those that previously lived under those regimes, and how the rapid privatization and the imposition of capitalism impacted their lives in the decades thereafter.