Why the Dollar Gets Stronger as the Bombs Fall | Iran War, Oil Prices, and the New Imperialism

What the American Left Got Wrong | An Indigenous Elder's Diagnosis

Why does the American left keep losing? Roberto Mendoza — 82 years old, six decades of organizing from Alcatraz in 1969 to Standing Rock in 2016 — sits down with economist Clara Mattei to name what he thinks went wrong, and why it keeps going wrong.His answer isn't strategy or messaging. It's values. And Marxism, he argues, still shares too many of them with capitalism.Materialism. Industrialization. Top-down hierarchy. Roberto walks Clara through the three places where the supposed alternative to capitalism ended up reproducing it — why the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of those contradictions, and why China today is better understood as state capitalism than communism.Then he offers the alternative he's spent decades building: a side-by-side reading of indigenous values against capitalist ones — generosity vs. hoarding, reciprocity vs. extraction, commons vs. private property, direct democracy vs. top-down rule — and points to the Zapatistas in Mexico and Rojava in northern Syria as places where those values are being built into actual institutions.A conversation about what the American left got wrong, what indigenous political thought has always known, and what it would take to build something that doesn't collapse back into what it claimed to oppose.In this conversation:- Why patriarchy was the main weakness of the 1960s and 70s left — including inside the Black Panther Party- How materialism became the shared value between Cold War rivals- Why Soviet planning reproduced capitalist hierarchy- China as state capitalism, not communism- The full indigenous-vs-capitalist values framework- The Zapatistas, Rojava, and Murray Bookchin's communalism- Why small, decentralized, and democratically-controlled beats large and efficient- Standing Rock, Wounded Knee, and the changing strategy of indigenous resistance- Why happiness lives in relationships, not material accumulation🔔 Subscribe to FREE (Forum for Real Economic Emancipation) @FreeFreeForum⁩❤️ Watch, learn more, and join the FREE Forum: https://freefreeforum.org🌱 Support FREE & Help Us Grow: https://www.freefreeforum.org/donate▶ Connect with FREELinktree: https://linktr.ee/FreeFreeForumSubstack: https://freefreeforum.substack.com/X: https://x.com/freefreeforumBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/freefreeforum.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/freefreeforum/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@freefreeforumFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreeFreeForum#claramattei #robertomendoza #marxism #indigenouswisdom #politicaleconomy #zapatistas #rojava #freepodcast #leftpolitics

War didn't end in 1945. It was outsourced. | Clara Mattei & Munira Khayyat

Professor Munira Khayyat is speaking from Beirut, where she's currently hosting over 30 displaced families as Israel expands its invasion of South Lebanon. She has studied and lived in war for over two decades. Her book, A Landscape of War, builds a theory of war from the ground — from the farmers, beekeepers, and families who refuse to leave their land.In this conversation with Clara Mattei, she explains why the "peace" that followed World War II was only peace for the powerful — and permanent war for everyone else. From South Lebanon to Gaza, from the Cold War to today, war has never been an aberration. It's a feature of the system.In this episode:• What is happening in Lebanon right now — 1.5 million displaced, bombardment of Beirut, occupation expanding• Why Western theories of war treat it as an exception when it's a permanent condition for most of the world• How capitalism, empire, and settler colonialism converge in the war on Lebanon• The 22-year Israeli occupation and the roots of Lebanese resistance• Life as resistance — how people survive in conditions designed to make survival impossible• The connection between austerity, financial collapse, and war• Why borders drawn by Europeans still define who lives and who dies• What "decolonizing war" means from someone living inside oneSUPPORT DISPLACED FAMILIES IN LEBANON:https://www.gofundme.com/f/mqg2kw-support-displaced-families-in-lebanonABOUT THE GUEST:Munira Khayyat is Clinical Associate Professor of Anthropology at NYU Abu Dhabi. Her book A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon (University of California Press, 2022) won the Edie Turner First Book Prize in Ethnographic Writing.Book: https://www.amazon.com/Landscape-War-Ecologies-Resistance-Survival/dp/0520389999X: https://x.com/mu_kha2🔔 Subscribe to FREE (Forum for Real Economic Emancipation) @FreeFreeForum⁩ Watch AD-FREE: https://patreon.com/freefreeforum ❤️ Learn more, and join the FREE Forum: https://freefreeforum.org 🌱 Support FREE & Help Us Grow: https://www.freefreeforum.org/donate▶ Connect with FREELinktree: https://linktr.ee/FreeFreeForumSubstack: https://freefreeforum.substack.com/X: https://x.com/freefreeforumBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/freefreeforum.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/freefreeforum/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@freefreeforumFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreeFreeForumChapters:00:00:00 - Introduction00:00:44 - What's Happening in Lebanon Right Now00:03:15 - A Month of Bombardment and Displacement00:07:35 - 1.5 Million Displaced: The Humanitarian Crisis00:11:07 - How Do People Live in Unlivable Conditions00:12:47 - What It Means to Decolonize War00:15:22 - The Atomic Bomb and the "Peace" That Followed00:18:33 - War Never Ended — It Was Outsourced00:24:39 - Empire, Capitalism, and Endless War00:28:15 - How Europeans Drew the Border Between Lebanon and Palestine00:37:13 - Lebanon and Palestine: An Entwined Struggle00:44:24 - The Roots of Lebanese Resistance00:51:38 - Life as Resistance: Growing Up in a War Zone00:55:56 - Religion, Identity, and the Nation State01:03:09 - Resistant Ecologies: Farmers, Beekeepers, and the Fight for Land01:14:52 - What Comes Next: War, Austerity, and the Future01:21:35 - Closing#Lebanon #SouthLebanon #War #Occupation #Resistance #PoliticalEconomy #ClaraMattei #Anthropology #FREEPodcast

Why the Dollar Gets Stronger as the Bombs Fall | Iran War, Oil Prices, and the New Imperialism

Oil just crossed $100 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Gas prices are surging. And the dollar? It's getting stronger — not weaker. That's not a paradox. It's by design.In this episode of the FREE Podcast, economist Clara Mattei sits down with Costas Lapavitsas (Professor of Economics, SOAS University of London) to explain what no mainstream outlet will: the Iran war isn't a disruption to the global economic system — it's a product of it. From the dollar's imperial grip to the hollowing out of US industry to the $2 billion a day being spent on bombs instead of schools, this conversation maps the economic machinery driving the current crisis.Costas brings a new theory of imperialism rooted in Marxian political economy — connecting the financialization of the last four decades, the rise of China, the structural decline of the US as a productive power, and the escalation of militarism that follows when a declining hegemon refuses to let go.In this conversation:• Why the dollar strengthens during war — and who pays for it• Oil at $100+: what breaks next in the global economy• The US spends $2 billion a day on this war — enough to fund free college or universal childcare• How US multinationals hollowed out the domestic economy they claim to defend• Trump as symptom, not author — why this crisis predates and outlasts him• Capitalism and militarism: why markets produce war, not peace• The military-industrial complex: corrupt, inefficient, and structurally incapable of rebuilding US productive power• The WWI analogy: why this moment has no natural point of equilibrium• Why Costas sees hope in American workers and youthGUEST:Costas Lapavitsas is Professor of Economics at SOAS, University of London, and a scholar of contemporary capitalism and imperialism. His latest book is The State of Capitalism (2023). Recent articles include "A Topography of the New Dollar Imperialism" (New Left Review) and "Trump's Chaotic Imperialism" (forthcoming, Socialist Register).Watch Ad-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/freefreeforum🔔 Subscribe to FREE (Forum for Real Economic Emancipation) @FreeFreeForum⁩❤️ Watch, learn more, and join the FREE Forum: https://freefreeforum.org🌱 Support FREE & Help Us Grow: https://www.freefreeforum.org/donate🎧 Listen as a PodcastApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/free-with-clara-mattei/id1828302105Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5m5xbrPzTSmdGZFQuZP7ZC▶ Connect with FREELinktree: https://linktr.ee/FreeFreeForumSubstack: https://freefreeforum.substack.com/X: https://x.com/freefreeforumBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/freefreeforum.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/freefreeforum/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@freefreeforumFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreeFreeForum#IranWar #OilPrices #DollarImperialism #Imperialism #StraitOfHormuz #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #ClaraMattei #CostasLapavitsas #PoliticalEconomy #AntiCapitalism #FREEPodcast #EconomicCrisis #USHegemony #GasPrice

Why Economics Can't Explain Poverty — It Was Designed Not To | Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven

Oxfam reports the super rich in the Global North extracted over $30 million per hour from the Global South in 2024. So why does mainstream economics keep telling these countries they just need better institutions?Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven (Senior Lecturer in International Development, King's College London; co-author of Decolonizing Economics) explains how the economics discipline systematically erases colonialism, imperialism, and uneven development from its models — and what that erasure costs the majority of people on the planet.In this episode of the FREE Podcast (Forum for Real Economic Emancipation), Clara Mattei and Ingrid break down:• How Eurocentrism operates as a structural bias inside economic theory• Why Nobel Prize-winning frameworks like Acemoglu and Robinson still blame the Global South for its own poverty• How "institutional reform" functions as a cover for extraction• The case of Ghana's Ashanti Goldfields: 125+ years of colonialism, financialization, dispossession, and forced mergers• How the IMF, World Bank, and structural adjustment deepen underdevelopment• • International financial subordination: why Global South countries pay more to borrow, hold dollars they don't control, and lose domestic firms to multinational competition• Why development economics narrows the lens to individual behavior instead of confronting the global system• The Nobel Prize in Economics as a political instrument• What decolonizing economics actually requires — and why it's a political project, not an academic exerciseGuest links:📚 Decolonizing Economics: An Introduction — https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=decolonizing-economics-an-introduction--9781509545476📄 Cracks in the Gold Standard (new article on mining & development in Ghana) — https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X25000919🌐 Ingrid's website: https://ingridhk.com/📝 Developing Economics blog: https://developingeconomics.org/🤝 Diversifying and Decolonising Economics (D-Econ): https://d-econ.org/Subscribe for future episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@FreeFreeForumLearn more: https://freefreeforum.orgSupport FREE & Help Us Grow: https://www.freefreeforum.org/donate#decolonizingeconomics #globalsouth #capitalism #imperialism #developmenteconomics #Ghana #NobelPrize #IMF #WorldBank #structuraladjustment #freepodcast #ClaraMattei #economics #unevendevelopment🔔 Subscribe to FREE (Forum for Real Economic Emancipation) @FreeFreeForum⁩❤️ Watch, learn more, and join the FREE Forum: https://freefreeforum.org🌱 Support FREE & Help Us Grow: https://www.freefreeforum.org/donate🎧 Listen as a PodcastApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/free-with-clara-mattei/id1828302105Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5m5xbrPzTSmdGZFQuZP7ZC▶ Connect with FREELinktree: https://linktr.ee/FreeFreeForumSubstack: https://freefreeforum.substack.com/X: https://x.com/freefreeforumBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/freefreeforum.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/freefreeforum/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@freefreeforumFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreeFreeForum

Why the Wealth Tax Debate Misses the Real Problem | Bob Lord, Patriotic Millionaires

Economist Clara Mattei and tax attorney Bob Lord expose how the US tax code was engineered to build the billionaire oligarchy — and why wealth taxes alone won't fix it.Bob Lord, senior vice president for tax policy at the Patriotic Millionaires and 35-year tax attorney, joins Clara Mattei to break down the mechanics of wealth inequality hiding inside the US tax code — from capital gains and unrealized income to regressive taxation, Social Security caps, and how billionaires legally avoid taxes for decades.The top 0.00001% of Americans — just 19 people — made nearly $1 trillion per year for the past two years. That's not just asset values rising. It's a tax system designed to let billionaire wealth compound tax-free while workers get taxed every two weeks.In this episode of FREE, Bob Lord explains:• How capital gains and unrealized wealth allow billionaires to avoid income tax indefinitely• Why Jeff Bezos paid ~2.4% effective tax rate while his Amazon stock grew 50%+ per year for 32 years• How regressive taxation — Social Security caps, sales taxes, property taxes, fines — extracts wealth from workers while protecting the top• Why eliminating state income and property taxes is the next phase of the wealth transfer• The difference between a wealth tax and fixing the real structural problem• What local organizing and ballot initiatives have accomplished — and what's possible in Tulsa and beyondBob Lord is senior vice president for tax policy at the Patriotic Millionaires and associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Find out more:  @PatrioticMillionaires  [https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UC0uEHrdcSSo6mloXnPs9ycA] FREE is hosted by Clara Mattei, economist and author of The Capital Order, as seen on Channel 4, Breaking Points, and more.#ClaraMattei #WealthInequality #BillionaireTax #CapitalGains #TaxTheRich #Oligarchy #RegressiveTax #WealthTax #PatrioticMillionaires #BobLord #UnrealizedGains #freepodcast 🔔 Subscribe to FREE (Forum for Real Economic Emancipation) @FreeFreeForum⁩❤️ Watch, learn more, and join the FREE Forum: https://freefreeforum.org🌱 Support FREE & Help Us Grow: https://www.freefreeforum.org/donateOur Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/freefreeforum▶ Connect with FREELinktree: https://linktr.ee/FreeFreeForumSubstack: https://freefreeforum.substack.com/X: https://x.com/freefreeforumBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/freefreeforum.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/freefreeforum/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@freefreeforumFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreeFreeForum 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:01:30 - Guest Introduction and Discussion on Tax System 00:05:40 - The Flaw of the U.S. Tax System 00:06:48 - Disproportionate Taxation and Class Differences 00:10:39 - The Role of Tax System in Wealth Inequality 00:14:24 - Understanding Regressive Taxation 00:16:53 - Impact of Regressive Taxation on Consumption 00:22:02 - State Income Tax and the Impact on Middle Class 00:27:55 - The Case of Jeff Bezos: Understanding Effective Annual Rate of Income Tax 00:31:33 - Rationality of Regressive Taxation and its Impact 00:37:02 - Exploring Corporate Taxes, Inheritance Taxation and Offshoring 00:49:36 - Mobilizing the Population for Progressive Taxation