This article is based on Chapter 1 of Cold War 2.0. The Geopolitical Economics of Finance Capitalism vs. Industrial Capitalism (Dresden, ISLET: in press; Chinese translation 2021). © 2020. All rights reserved. Marx and many of his less radical contemporary reformers saw the historical role of industrial capitalism as being to clear away the legacy of feudalism – the landlords, bankers and monopolists extracting economic rent without producing real value. But that reform movement failed. Today, the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector has regained control of government, creating neo-rentier economies. The aim of this post-industrial finance capitalism is the oppositeof that of industrial capitalism as known to 19th-century economists: It seeks wealth primarily through the extraction of economic rent, not industrial capital formation. Tax favoritism for real estate, ...

Part 2 of the interview with Ellen Brown: It's a War: So says renowned economist Michael Hudson in the concluding part of our recent interview with him. Hudson makes no bones about the deadly serious game being played by the world’s financial powers and their intention to create a new feudal economic order. Hudson sees the privatization of public assets and institutions, like the Fed’s take-over of the Treasury a hundred years ago, as evidence that our struggle for people-focused public policy is being overwhelmed by debt at the hands of capitalism and greed. But people are rising-up as our guest Rickey Gard Diamond, author of “Screwnomics”, says in her recent article in Ms. Magazine “How Public Banks Make Black Lives Matter”. She talks with us about women and ...

Remarks given at the 1st ASECU Teleconference ‘Systematic Crises Triggered the Current Pandemic & Progressive Way-Outs, May 8, 2020. Well, I think you’re quite right in organizing the conference to point out that today’s pandemic crisis hastens and intensifies the internal contradictions that have been building up. Many of these contradictions are going to be blamed simply on the virus. But there is an underlying problem that the virus is exposing and turning into a crisis. That underlying problem is the debts that have been building up for the last few decades. We are in a situation much like a war. There are winners and there are losers in a war. In this case the winner is the aggressor – the financial sector. Its demands for payment have set the ...

Welcome to the Knowledge Problem Podcast, the objective of this podcast is to engage policy professionals over thought provoking and sometimes sensitive topics. We aim to bring these professionals together in a way that does not feed the tribalistic narratives plaguing society today. It is my hope and the hope of all involved in this endeavor that by allowing these ideas to contend and challenge each other, with mutual respect, everyone who listens will learn something not previously considered. The opinions and views of all guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the Knowledge Problem or of anyone involved in this production. Regan: Hello everyone, thank you for tuning into this episode of the Knowledge Problem Podcast. I'm your host Regan Ferrell on today's episode we explore ...

The Radical Imagination: Imagining How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Are Destroying UsImagining How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Are Destroying Us   Jim Vrettos: Welcome once again to the Radical Imagination. I'm your host, Jim Vrettos. I'm a sociologist whose taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Yeshiva University here in New York. Our guest today on the Radical Imagination is Michael Hudson. He was on our March 8th show. We had such an overwhelmingly positive response to that show that we've asked him to return today, and he's been gracious enough to accept. Unlike most economists, he's been a fierce champion and advocate for the economic rights of the poor, workers, disenfranchised and the vulnerable around the world through his scholarship and lifelong activism. His unique economic analysis has explored history's ...

By Michael Hudson, with Dirk Bezemer, Steve Keen and T.Sabri Öncü Michael Hudson is a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is “and forgive them their debts”: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year Dirk Bezemer is a Professor of Economics at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands.. Steve Keen is a Professor and  Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategy, Resilience and Security of University College London (www.isrs.org.uk). He blogs at www.patreon.com/profstevekeen Sabri Öncü (sabri.oncu@gmail.com) is an economist based in İstanbul, Turkey Summary After being attacked by monetarists and others for many decades, MMT and the idea that running government budget deficit is stabilizing instead of destabilizing are suddenly gaining applause ...

Radio interview, NPR, April 2, 2020 What is the next step to prop up the virus-battered United States economy, even as the $2 trillion stimulus package only begins to percolate out? Well, Republicans and Democrats have returned to talking about a massive infrastructure building program that would employ lots of people. That would be a post-COVID-19 intervention. More immediately, some economists want more done to ease the debt owed by individuals, small businesses, cities, towns and states. Michael Hudson, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, is one of those economists. “Right now, America’s economy is strapped,” said Hudson, author of “…and forgive them their debts.” “America could have another economic miracle by writing down the ...