Brendan and Andrew discuss Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1946-47 article, “The Nature of the Russian Economy,” and why the issues remain relevant to the fight for socialism today. Questions addressed in the discussion include: How can a society with a planned economy, and without private ownership of means of production, be capitalist? In what sense was the Russian economy “planned”? Did Russia really escape the capitalistic imperative to invest in and privilege the growth of high-profit industries? Was there a class division between the “classless intelligentsia” and the working class? Why was the Stalinist wage norm––“payment according to labor”––a capitalistic norm? Current-events segment: Rolling Stone’s bombshell revelation that several Trumpite congresspeople helped plan the Capitol Insurrection.

Radio Free Humanity: The Marxist-Humanist Podcast

RFH Ep. 54-The Nature Of Russian Economy

Brendan interviews Andrew about his recent article,“Henryk Grossmann’s Breakdown Model: On the Real Cause of the Fictitious Breakdown Tendency.” Andrew argues that Grossmann’s model and associated theory continue to be influential among fatalists. The co-hosts discuss the political dangers of a fatalist outlook. Much of the interview focuses on flaws in the breakdown model that Andrew says are fatal and irreparable. First, the real cause of breakdown––in the model––is that supply of physical output falls short of productive demand in physical terms, which is the opposite of what occurs in actual economic downturns. Second, the model’s assumption that circulating constant capital permanently grows faster than new value contradicts Marx’s value theory. When we jettison the assumption and employ Marx’s theory, the breakdown tendency vanishes. Current-events segment: “Zuck you!” Brendan and Andrew discuss Frances Haugen’s bombshell incrimination of Facebook.

RFH Episode 53: Henryk Grossmann’s Breakdown Model

Brendan and Andrew interview two young Mexican economists, Alan Deytha and Sebastián Hernández, about their discovery and promotion of the temporal single-system interpretation of Marx’s value theory (TSSI), and about their own research. Although (or because?) the TSSI eliminates the appearance of internal inconsistency in Marx’s original theory, it was not easy to discover this interpretation, as Alan and Sebastián recount. The existence of Marxian economics went unmentioned during their “neoliberal” university training, and leftist academics in Latin America are also hostile to the TSSI and routinely engage in censorship of it. Alan, Sebastián, and the co-hosts discuss the motives behind this censorship, as well as Sebastián’s efforts to break the blockade by translating numerous TSSI works into Spanish and publishing them, online and in forthcoming books. The interviewees also discuss their own research on topics such as profit maximization, work intensity, and the relation between inputs to production and output. In the current-events segment, the co-hosts discuss Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s bombshell revelations about how General Milley and Mike Pence responded to Trump’s drive to retain power after losing the 2020 election.

Episode 52: The TSSI in Latin America

The co-hosts discuss Andrew’s paper, Marx’s Reproduction Schemes as an Unbalanced-Growth Model, which challenges decades of commentary on the schemes of reproduction in volume 2 of Marx’s Capital. According to the conventional wisdom, the schemes are equilibrium models, in which production of means of production and production of consumption goods grow at the same rate––either because that was Marx’s own view of capitalist accumulation or because he wanted to highlight the obstacles to balanced growth. Andrew and Brendan discuss the fact that the overriding purpose of the schemes was to refute Adam Smith’s trickle-down argument that all capital investment ultimately serves to increase employment and pay. Andrew notes the lack of evidence that Marx intended to model balanced growth, and he argues that the schemes actually depict unbalanced growth––a transition from a no-growth economy to a growing economy, which comes about by production of means of production growing faster than consumer production. He and Brendan discuss the fact that this is how capitalist development has indeed taken place, in country after country, and the fact that the modern balanced-growth view of the schemes contradicts the view of earlier commentators such as Lenin. The current-events segment focuses on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The government’s willingness to let the Afghan people, especially women, be oppressed by the Taliban shows that its aim was never humanitarian intervention. Reference is made to a recent article by Anne Applebaum, which includes a tweet from Yanis Varoufakis.

RFH. Episode 51: Marx’s Reproduction Schemes: Unbalanced Growth & Critique of Trickle-Down Economics

Episode 50: Marxism vs. Resurgent Tankieism (interview with László Molnárfi, in Ireland) by MHI

Episode 50: Marxism vs. Resurgent Tankieism (interview with László Molnárfi, in Ireland)

Brendan and Andrew interview Avishai Green, author of Speaking Bullshit to Power: Populism and the Rhetoric of Bullshit and doctoral student in political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Employing the concept of bullshit (speech that lacks concern with truth) that Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit made famous, and referring frequently to statements by Donald Trump and his underlings, Green argues that populism and bullshit are connected in fundamental ways. He elaborates on the connections between populism and bullshit discussed in his paper––populists’ anti-intellectual focus on “sincerity” at the expense of accuracy, their emphasis on symbolic communication, and so on. He and the co-hosts also discuss whether populists’ bullshit is an assertion of power and whether Green’s analysis applies to left populism.

Episode 49: Populist Rhetoric as Bullshit (interview with Avishai Green)

The co-hosts welcome Keith Kahn-Harris, author of Denial: The Unspeakable Truth. They discuss what the various kinds of denialism have in common, strategies to fight denialism, and confronting the “post-denialist” environment into which Kahn-Harris thinks we’re moving. Much of the discussion focuses on his claims that denialism is a bad-faith strategy that people resort to when their true desires have become unspeakable, and that conflicts between denialists and their opponents are not just about the facts, but ultimately about morality. Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI. Click here for a list of episodes and to leave comments: www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/mhi-radi…humanity RSS feed: feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundclo…158/sounds.rss Also, check out MHI's publication, "With Sober Senses": www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/our-publication

Episode 48: Keith Kahn-Harris on Denialism––and Post-Denialism

The co-hosts welcome back Ravi Bali to discuss his recently-published essay, “On Conducting Arguments in an Honest, Revolutionary Manner.” Ravi explains why he thinks truth-seeking should be an important goal for revolutionaries, and why revolutionaries should debate differences among us, instead of assuming that it’s sufficient to agree about “the fundamentals.” He and the co-hosts also discuss procedures that allow for proper debate; examples of bad, and better, argumentative practices; and much more. Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI. Click here for a list of episodes and to leave comments: www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/mhi-radi…humanity RSS feed: feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundclo…158/sounds.rss Also, check out MHI's publication, "With Sober Senses": www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/our-publication

Episode 47: Ravi Bali on Conducting Arguments in an Honest, Revolutionary Manner

The co-hosts welcome back popular leftist podcast host Ben Burgis. Andrew continues to “give him an argument” about his endorsement of G. A. Cohen’s “plain argument” about capitalist exploitation. Ben responds. They also evaluate Marx’s theory of exploitation in its original form. A key point of contention is whether Andrew is merely objecting to Cohen’s premise that workers are the only people who create the product (as Ben insists), or whether Andrew accepts the premise (as he insists) but denies that Cohen’s premises lead to the conclusion that workers are exploited. Plus current-events segment on “the Left” serving the right: The co-hosts discuss Nathan J. Robinson’s Current Affairs article on Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. Why are they serving the right? And for how long have they been doing so? ****** Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”: https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

Episode 46: Argumentation and Exploitation—Interview with Ben Burgis (Part 2)

Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI. We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website. Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”: https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/ Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news,

Episode 45: Argumentation and Exploitation - Interview with Ben Burgis (Part 1)

The co-hosts take a new look at V. I. Lenin’s 1917 work, The State and Revolution. They discuss the significance of its return to Marx and Engels’ view that the state machine needs to be broken (“smashed”)––it isn’t a neutral mechanism that can simply be taken over––and how this differed from orthodox post-Marx Marxism. They also discuss the work’s relevance to today’s struggle for Black lives and why Lenin developed his argument through careful interpretation of what Marx and Engels wrote. In the latter part of the segment, they turn to the economic dimension of The State and Revolution. Was Lenin’s understanding of what he called the “transition” from capitalism to communism a return to Marx’s view? Was Lenin right that “accounting and control” is the main thing needed in the first phase of communism? How does that claim relate to his conception (rooted in Second-International Marxism) of how modern economies function? An essay by Andrew, “Why No Call to ‘Smash Capitalist Production’ in Lenin’s The State and Revolution?,” is referred to during the segment. The episode’s current-events segment focuses on the landslide victory of Larry Krasner, a tough-on-cops district attorney, in Philadelphia’s Democratic Party primary. How and why did he overcome the Fraternal Order of Police’s rabid opposition? Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI. We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website. Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”: https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

Episode 44: “The State and Revolution” Reconsidered

Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI. Click here for a list of episodes and to leave comments: https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/mhi-radio-free-humanity RSS feed: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:207586158/sounds.rss Also, check out MHI's publication, "With Sober Senses": https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/our-publication

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Radio Free Humanity: The Marxist-Humanist Podcast

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