From Alpha To Omega

This week I am delighted to welcome Tony Norfield to the show to talk about his excellent new book: 'The City: London and the Global Power of Finance'. We discuss the role of Britain in the current geopolitical scene, and how and why finance plays such an important role in the UK economy. We also talk about why neoliberalism is such an overused and misused term, the recent Brexit fiasco, and the rise of China with it's new Silk Road.

You can find Tony's book here:
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2103-the-city

You can also find Tony's excellent blog here:
http://economicsofimperialism.blogspot.co.uk/

On music on this episode was:
‘The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters’ by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
‘Song no.1.’ by Sun Ra and his Arkestra

Enjoy!

This week we have part two of our discussion with Charles Farrell, where we delve into the murky world of high stakes sports-betting, his appearance in the new documentary film ‘Dirty Games’, and his life-changing meeting with a two headed calf.

You can find out more about the film Dirty Games here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5068818/

And you can find out more about the book ‘The Bittersweet Science’ here:

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo22758559.html

The music on this episode was:
'The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters' by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
'A Couple of Show-Offs' by Charles Farrell

This week we have a change of tack, a complete break from the Donald and that jazz. We delve into the shady of world of Professional Boxing, with the former Boxing Manager, Gambler, Gangster, Jazz Pianist, Writer, and Fight-Fixer, Charles Farrell. Boxing is a sport that has always fascinated me. It’s much more than a mere sport - it’s a metaphor for life itself, full of light and shadow, failure and redemption. Charles has led a life of a pulp-fiction novel character, from living on the streets of Boston from the age of 12, and playing piano in the hotels and brothels of Boston, to managing former heavyweight champion of the world, Leon Spinks. Charles is also starring in a new documentary, Ditry Games, about the corruption and fixing in the world of sport, and is appearing in the new book ‘The Bittersweet Science’, a collection of essays from some of the greatest writers on boxing, which is due out early next year from the University of Chicago Press.

You can find out more about the film Dirty Games here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5068818/

And you can find out more about the book ‘The Bittersweet Science’ here:
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo22758559.html

The music on this episode was:
'The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters' by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
'I Love This Place' by Charles Farrell

In a first for the podcast, we do a live hangout with Doug Lain and C. Derick Varn to talk about todays Donald Trump election victory. We discuss race, gender, geo-politics, the falling rate of profit, economic stimulus, and manage to disagree and agree on absolutely everything. Enjoy!

After an unplanned hiatus, I am delighted to welcome back Michael Roberts to the show. Michael has a new book just out, called ‘The Long Depression: How it happened, why it happened, and what happens next’. We discuss the main thesis of the book - the idea of a long depression, the problems with Keynesian accounting identities, the hopes for a capitalist revival, and chances of a breakdown.

You can find Michael’s blog here:
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/

You can buy his book here:
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/693-the-long-depression

The music on this episode was:
'The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters' by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
'No Woman' by Whitney

Enjoy!

This week I am delighted to welcome back Ugo Bardi to the show. Ugo is Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Florence, and the man behind the Cassandras Legacy blog, where he writes about resource depletion, climate change, and renewable energy amongst other things. We discuss the recent drop in global C02 emissions and what it means for our global economic system, the hopes for a soft landing post peak-oil and coal, solar panels as our great saviour, and his thoughts on the likelihood of global demographic decline.

You can find Ugo’s blog here:
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.co.uk/

The music on this episode was:
'The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters' by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
'Luce Cannon ' by White Isles

This week, I am delighted to welcome Alexander Douglas, a lecturer in philosophy at St. Andrews University, to the show, to talk about his recent book: The Philosophy Of Debt. It was great to talk to Alex about the nature of debt and money, and how all of this stuff is explicitly linked to the power relations and class structure of our society. We also got to talk about how this MMT stuff can be viewed or fits in from a Marxist point of view, a synthesis of which I think could be extremely fruitful.

You can find Alex’s blog here:
https://originofspecious.wordpress.com/about/

You can find Alex’s book here:
https://www.routledge.com/The-Philosophy-of-Debt/Douglas/p/book/9781138929746

The music on this episode was:
'The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters' by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
'People Move Along' by Pipe-eye

Here are the instructions on how to leave a review on iTunes:

1. If you don’t already have iTunes installed on your computer, first you need to install it.
2. If you don’t already have an apple_id, please carefully follow the instructions here where you can create an account without having to give them your bank details (i know… swine!) http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht2534
3. Got to the iTunes website for the show: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/f...
4. Click on the ‘View in iTunes’ button
5. Click on the ‘Ratings and Reviews’ tab
6. Click on the ‘Write a Review’ button.
7. If you have not already logged into iTunes with your apple_id, you will now be asked to.
8. Write the review, and click on the submit button.
9. If you are having any trouble with all of this, drop me an email to: alpha2omegapodcast (at) gmail (dot) com

In this episode, we have part 2 of the Derick Varn interview, where we discuss the history and theories of Cultural Marxism in great detail. This bumper episode, also veers off into a long discussion on Black Lives Matter, how we need more than just culture wars - how’s about some class wars! Class wars where we call the shots, for a change. Speaking of all this, we start the conversation with myself and Derick talking about Accelerationism and previous guest Nick Srnicek’s new book - ‘Reinventing The Future’. This is a long one people, as it was a pretty unstructured conversation, and I was suffering from a flu at the time of recording. My powers of conversation dipped in the middle, so I let Derick do his thing, but I rally back with some counter-punches of my own, in the later rounds.

You can find Derick’s blog here:
https://symptomaticcommentary.wordpress.com/

You can find Derick’s and Amogh’s Podcast here: http://sympthomaticredness.libsyn.com/

The music on this episode was:
'The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters' by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
'Holy Moly' by Matthew E. White

This week I am delighted to welcome back Derick Varn to the show. After listening to the previous show about Cultural Marxism with Doug Lain, Derick sent me an email saying he’d like to come on the show and give his two cents. What followed was a wide ranging discussion on ideology, value theory, and the historical emergence of capitalism. We also discussed the possibility of a revolutionary movement based on a system without abstract value, Marx’s critique of the Gotha Program, and Star Trek as a Marxist Tract. And top of all that, the possible productivity of a communist state, game theory and alternative histories, and the Spanish revolution.

You can find Derick’s blog here:
https://symptomaticcommentary.wordpress.com/

You can find Derick’s and Amogh’s Podcast here: http://sympthomaticredness.libsyn.com/

The music on this episode was:
'The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters' by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
'If Not For Money' - The Wytches

This week I am delighted to welcome Doug Lain back to show, for a discussion about cultural marxism, an argument about worker controlled workplaces, and some thoughts on what we can learn from the Inca’s.

Doug is the host of the Zero Squared podcast, previously the Diet Soap Podcast, and is the publisher of Zero Books. He is also a sci-fi author, and has been nominated this year for the Phillip K. Dick Award for his latest novel, After the Saucers Landed.

You can buy his book here:
http://skyhorsepublishing.com/titles/641-9781597808231-after-the-saucers-landed

You can find out everything Doug related here:
http://douglaslain.com/

And all about Zero Books here:

http://www.zero-books.net/

The music on this episode was:
'All You Need Is Hate', by The Delgados
'Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get' by The Dramatics
'All About Us' by Teen

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