Best of: What Kind of Social Policy Does the European Populist Right Want?
Jun 04, 2026
Show notes
Philip Rathgeb is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Social Policy in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh and an Associated Fellow in the Zukunftskolleg at the University of Konstanz. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. He holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute and held visiting positions at Harvard University, Lund University, and the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). His research and teaching interests fall in the areas of comparative politics and political economy, with a particular focus on welfare states, labor relations, party politics, and social inequality. More generally, his work seeks to understand the relationship between capitalism and democracy over time.
Best of: Casey Michel on Money Laundering in America
Apr 29, 2026
Show notes
Casey Michel, an investigative reporter based in New York City, is the author of American Kleptocracy. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, ThinkProgress, The Atlantic, Politico, and The Washington Post, among others.
Best of: The Border-Industrial Complex
Jan 26, 2026
Show notes
We talk with Todd Miller about the militarization of the border. Todd Miller has researched and written about border issues for more than 15 years, the last eight as an independent journalist and writer. He resides in Tucson, Arizona, but also has spent many years living and working in Oaxaca, Mexico. His work has appeared in the New York Times, TomDispatch, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, and Al Jazeera English, among other places.
Best of: Yana Stainova on Musical Enchantment in Venezuela
Jan 05, 2026
Show notes
Yana Stainova is a sociocultural anthropologist and an Assistant Professor at McMaster University. She is interested in art, urban poverty, social inequality, migration, and the lived experience of violence in Latin America. Her research explores how people summon music practices to pursue visions of social justice in the face of political turmoil and barriers to immigration. Her first book project entitled Sonorous Worlds: Musical Enchantment in Venezuela studies how young people coming of age in the urban barrios of Caracas use music and stories to push back against the forces of everyday violence, social exclusion, and state repression. Her second book project, tentatively titled The Politics of Joy: Collective Art Practices across the US-Mexico Border focuses on Latinx migration and artistic practices in North America.
A correction: El Sistema was founded in 1975. Hugo Chávez won the Venezuelan election held in 1998 but officially assumed power in 1999.
I am a high school teacher of history and economics at a public high school in NYC, and began the podcast to help demystify economics for teachers. The podcast is now within the top 2% of podcasts worldwide in terms of listeners (per Listen Notes) and individual episodes are frequently listed by The Syllabus (the-syllabus.com) as among the 10 best political economy podcasts of a particular week. The podcast is reaching thousands of listeners each month.
The podcast seeks to provide a substantive alternative to mainstream economics media; to communicate information and ideas that contribute to equitable and peaceful solutions to political and economic issues; and to improve the teaching of high school and university political economy.
Best of: Dennis O. Flynn on The World that Silver Created
Dec 02, 2025
Show notes
Dennis O. Flynn is the Alexander R. Heron Professor of Economics at the University of the Pacific. He has published since 1978 dozens of essays on global monetary history, fifteen of which have been reproduced in World Silver and Monetary History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Variorum, 1996). He has co-edited Metals and Monies in an Emerging Global Economy (Variorum 1997), Studies in the Economic History of the Pacific Rim (Routledge, 1998), Pacific Centuries: Pacific and Pacific Rim History Since the 16th Century (Routledge, 1999), European Entry into the Pacific: Spain and the Acapulco-Manila Galleons (Variorum, 2001), Studies in Pacific History: Economics, Politics, and Migration (Ashgate, 2002), and Studies in Global Monetary History, 1470–1800 (Ashgate, 2002). He is co-General Editor of a 19-volume series, The Pacific World: Lands, Peoples, and History of the Pacific, 1500–1900 (Variorum/Ashgate, 2001–2004). His collaborative research with Arturo Giráldez has been featured in the New York Times (2 December 2000) and The Economist (25 August 2001).
I am a high school teacher of history and economics at a public high school in NYC, and began the podcast to help demystify economics for teachers. The podcast is now within the top 2% of podcasts worldwide in terms of listeners (per Listen Notes) and individual episodes are frequently listed by The Syllabus (the-syllabus.com) as among the 10 best political economy podcasts of a particular week. The podcast is reaching thousands of listeners each month.
The podcast seeks to provide a substantive alternative to mainstream economics media; to communicate information and ideas that contribute to equitable and peaceful solutions to political and economic issues; and to improve the teaching of high school and university political economy.
Best,
Lev
Terri Suess on Immigrant Rights Organizing
Sep 08, 2025
Show notes
Terri has made her living as a journalist, researcher/organizer, technical writer, and as an adjunct professor of English. She served on the board of New Jersey Peace Action and is a past President of the Essex County Ethical Culture Society.
Terri Suess
A Correction Team
The podcast seeks to provide a substantive alternative to mainstream economics media; to communicate information and ideas that contribute to equitable and peaceful solutions to political and economic issues; and to improve the teaching of high school and university political economy.
A Correction Podcast is now within the top 2% of podcasts worldwide in terms of listeners (per Listen Notes) and individual episodes are frequently listed by The Syllabus (the-syllabus.com) as among the 10 best political economy podcasts of a particular week. The podcast is reaching thousands of listeners each month.
Best Of: Gediminas Lesutis on The Politics of Precarity in Mozambique
Aug 14, 2025
Show notes
Gediminas Lesutis works at the intersection of global politics, human geography, and critical theory. In 2018, he completed a PhD in Politics at the University of Manchester, UK. This was followed by a 3.5-year research fellowship in Geography at the University of Cambridge and Darwin College, Cambridge, UK. He is currently a Marie Curie Fellow in the Department of Geography, Urban Planning, and International Development Studies, at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
A note from Lev:
I am a high school teacher of history and economics at a public high school in NYC, and began the podcast to help demystify economics for teachers. The podcast is now within the top 2% of podcasts worldwide in terms of listeners (per Listen Notes) and individual episodes are frequently listed by The Syllabus (the-syllabus.com) as among the 10 best political economy podcasts of a particular week. The podcast is reaching thousands of listeners each month.
The podcast seeks to provide a substantive alternative to mainstream economics media; to communicate information and ideas that contribute to equitable and peaceful solutions to political and economic issues; and to improve the teaching of high school and university political economy.
Best,
Lev
Gediminas Lesutis
A Correction Team
Mary Rizzo on Immigration Detention
Jul 09, 2025
Show notes
Dr. Mary Rizzo is Associate Professor and Graduate Director at Rutgers-Newark. She has written on immigration detention in New Jersey and is an immigrant advocate.
Best of: Alberto Toscano on the March on Rome and the Meaning of Fascism Today
May 26, 2025
Show notes
Alberto Toscano is Professor of Critical Theory in the Department of Sociology and Co-Director of the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Term Research Associate Professor at the School of Communications at Simon Fraser University. He is the author of Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea (Verso, 2010; 2017, 2nd ed.), Cartographies of the Absolute (with Jeff Kinkle, Zero Books, 2015), Una visión compleja. Hacía una estética de la economía (Meier Ramirez, 2021), La abstracción real. Filosofia, estética y capital (Palinodia, 2021), and the co-editor of the 3-volume The SAGE Handbook of Marxism (with Sara Farris, Bev Skeggs and Svenja Bromberg, SAGE, 2022), and Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s Abolition Geography: Essays in Liberation (with Brenna Bhandar, Verso, 2022). He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory and is series editor of The Italian List for Seagull Books. He is also the translator of numerous books and essays by Antonio Negri, Alain Badiou, Franco Fortini, Furio Jesi and others.
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