3596 - Raining Death on Iranians to Free Them; Escape from Capitalism w/ Clara Mattei

Summary

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The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3596 – “Raining Death on Iranians to Free Them; Escape from Capitalism” with Clara Mattei

Date: March 9, 2026
Host: Sam Seder
Guest: Clara Mattei (Professor of Economics, University of Tulsa; author of Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention)

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Episode Overview

This episode grapples with the ongoing US-Israeli strikes on Iran, their catastrophic humanitarian consequences, and the political fallout reverberating throughout the region and the US. In the second half, Sam Seder interviews economist Clara Mattei, who critiques the “logic” of capitalism and austerity, proposes radical alternatives, and expands on her new book, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention.

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Key News & Analysis on the Iran War

(00:08–23:39)

Summary

• Latest US-Israeli strikes on Tehran have killed nearly 2,000 Iranians, including at least 100 children in an elementary school, and triggered an environmental disaster with "oil literally raining down on Iranians."
• Oil prices surge above $100/barrel; world food supply threatened.
• Iran retaliates by destroying US radar in the region.
• US government faces TSA/DHS shortages and internal intelligence warnings about rising domestic terror threats linked to the Iran war.
• Sam and co-hosts dissect how official narratives are shifting blame, speculate on Trump’s intentions, and discuss ongoing “Mission Accomplished” posturing in Washington.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Visual Horror of the Attacks

  “It looks like the apocalypse for the podcast audience. Plumes of black smoke and flames into the night sky.”
  — (B, 08:33)

  “...The oil congeals in the sky and drops down and on the ground there is like a thick, black film on things.”
  — Sam Seder, (A, 08:48)

• CNN Eyewitness Report from Tehran

  “The rain water is actually black, also saturated, it appears, with oil. That’s what’s coming down this morning... after those strikes took place. Absolutely insanity.”
  — CNN excerpt, related by the hosts (A, 09:06)

• Health Crisis

  “This is a massive chemical attack on one of the biggest cities in the world by our terrorist government and the Israelis.”
  — B, 11:14

• Interpretation & US Motivations

  “Somehow American and U.S. forces... feel like the best way to encourage people to rise up against their government that they don’t like is to make their lives horrible.”
  — Sam Seder, (A, 07:30)

• Satire of Official Narratives

  “It turns out that freedom, when it rains down upon you is full of acid and petroleum.”
  — Sam Seder, (A, 12:39)

• On War Aims and “Mission Accomplished”

  “Can someone dust off the Mission Accomplished banner from the Pentagon warehouses and just show it to Trump and say, this is this. This means it’s over.”
  — B, 17:12

  “He may just declare victory and leave.”
  — Sam Seder, (A, 15:44)

• On Escalation and Prospects for Peace

  “There is a rather small window for Trump to basically say let’s get out, we won, we’re done bombing them because we were so successful... He’s on the record as saying that he would consider ending the campaign in consultation with Netanyahu, but probably more me than Netanyahu—which, of course, means probably more Netanyahu.”
  — Sam Seder, (A, 20:01)

Important Timestamps

• 00:08–06:20 | Overview of the strike, death count, and oil market shocks
• 06:20–13:14 | Analysis of official blame-shifting, media, and war’s logic
• 13:14–23:39 | Long-term economic, ecological, and geopolitical fallout, Trump administration responses

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Interview: Clara Mattei – “Escape from Capitalism”

(32:04–80:06)

Introduction to Mattei’s Work

• Mattei introduces the Free Forum for Real Economic Emancipation in Tulsa: an assembly-based, democratic project to cultivate alternatives to capitalism (32:04).
• Personal background: dedication to her anti-fascist, communist great-aunt and Italy’s labor history (34:33).

Capitalism's DNA: Growth, Austerity, and No Alternatives (TINA)

Key Points & Insights

• Austerity as Foundational

  “Austerity is in the DNA of capitalism. If you want to have capitalism, you got to have austerity. It’s not an option to have happy workers if you want to have happy investors.”
  — Clara Mattei, 34:33

• Growth is an Abstraction

  “Growth is really, you know, just an increase in value and wealth that hides though what really is at stake here. Because growth is based on literally unpaid labor of the majority.”
  — Clara Mattei, 40:05

• Exploitation and Productivity

  “Productivity increases is a way to increase this surplus without necessarily having to compress wages. But it’s still based on... extracting our, our capacity, our brains from ourselves.”
  — Clara Mattei, 41:27

• Capitalist State's Role

  “The state we’re talking about here is a capitalist state. And the capitalist state is meant to maintain the pillars of capitalism... wage labor and private command over investment intact.”
  — Clara Mattei, 45:19

• Alternatives to Growth & Exploitation

  “We need to... organize production for use rather than for exchange. And this means for use, value for the materiality around us. So we don’t need to be always mediating everything we have through the profit motive.”
  — Clara Mattei, 46:08

Rethinking Growth, Need, and “Austerity Trinity”

• The word “growth” is a mental construction used to “tame our imagination.”
• GDP per capita doesn’t reveal exploitation or distribution; it’s an abstraction that masks reality (52:48).
• Austerity Trinity: fiscal (budget cuts), industrial (labor deregulation/wage repression), monetary (rate hikes/unemployment).

How Austerity and Fed Policy Serves Capital

• The Fed’s real mandate is to discipline labor and protect profit rates, not reduce inflation (58:05–66:39).

• Raising interest rates increases unemployment, which reduces labor bargaining power and sustains high profit rates.

  “What inflate, taming inflation through interest rate hikes actually does, is increase the rate of exploitation.”
  — Clara Mattei, 58:48

• Corporate profits have hit historic highs, and official logic naturalizes passing higher labor costs to consumers while protecting profits.

• Radical alternatives: democratic assemblies, participatory budgeting, and organizing production directly for need—not profit (44:20, 72:25, 75:49).

Addressing the “Incentive Problem”

• Mattei debunks the idea that innovation requires capitalist profit motives:

  “People feel humanized participating in an effort that has nothing to do with self-interest and maximizing one’s utility. Economists have convinced us that the only way in which we can operate is if we maximize our utility... Us people do want to participate in economies of care, of solidarity, of horizontality.”
  — Clara Mattei, 69:19

Political Engagement & Systemic Corruption

• Real change requires both grassroots organizing and parallel political engagement:

  “The only way we will actually have elected officials respond to people’s needs is if these people... take action every day... to make their voices heard through democratic institutions.”
  — Clara Mattei, 77:01

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Notable Quotes (With Timestamps)

• “It turns out that freedom, when it rains down upon you is full of acid and petroleum.”
  — Sam Seder, 12:39

• “Austerity is in the DNA of capitalism. If you want to have capitalism, you got to have austerity.”
  — Clara Mattei, 34:33

• “The state... is a capitalist state. And the capitalist state is meant to maintain the pillars of capitalism, wage labor and private command over investment intact.” — Clara Mattei, 45:19

• “Growth is an abstraction... a category that has been used to tame our imagination.”
  — Clara Mattei, 50:29

• “What inflating... through interest rate hikes actually does, is increase the rate of exploitation.”
  — Clara Mattei, 58:48

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Episode Structure & Key Timestamps

• 00:08–23:39 | Hard news and analysis on Iran, oil, and US domestic impacts
• 32:04–80:06 | In-depth interview with Clara Mattei
  • 32:04–44:20 | Austerity, family history, and capitalist myths
  • 44:20–56:49 | Growth, alternatives, and the logic of profit
  • 56:49–66:39 | Austerity as discipline, unemployment, monetary tools
  • 66:39–77:01 | Incentives, alternatives, and political engagement
  • 77:01–80:06 | Systemic corruption and synergy of organizing & electoral politics

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Tone & Style

The conversation is fiercely critical, analytical, yet also humorous and accessible in the Majority Report’s signature irreverent, left-leaning style. Mattei’s academic insights are paired with Sam’s grounded skepticism and practical questioning, yielding a conversation both deeply structural and concrete.

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Final Thoughts

Sam and Clara converge on the thesis that the apocalyptic violence unfolding abroad and austerity at home are not aberrations but revelations of capitalism’s deep logic. They urge listeners to reimagine economic relations, narrative concepts (like “growth”), and political action—locally and systemically—while maintaining recognizable Majority Report wit and urgency.

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For further resources:

• Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention by Clara Mattei
• The Free Forum: freeforum.org
• Majority.fm for archives and more information

Transcript

[A]

It is Monday, March 9, 2026. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Professor Claire Maathai, professor of economics at University of Tulsa, host of the free podcast and author of Escape from Capitalism, an intervention. Also on the program Today, at least seven U.S. servicemen. Nearly 2,000 dead Iranians as the strike on the elementary school killing at least 100 children and about 175 in total. Confirmed as a U.S. tomahawk missile. Oil now above $100 a barrel. Khomeini's son now chosen as the new Iranian supreme Leader. Strikes on Iran through the weekend have oil literally raining down on Iranians. US And Israel's war now threatening the world food supply and Iran is taking out US Radar systems throughout the region. Meanwhile, in this country, TSA shortages are as the DHS shutdown continues and the White House is blocking intelligence reports warning of rising US Terror threat linked to the Iran war. Meanwhile, Trump's DOJ short circuits years of prep on an antitrust trial versus Live Nation, one of the most odious and disliked entities in our culture today. And give them a fine that is equal to three days of their operating profits. Excuse me, 10 days of their operating.

[B]

Oh, that's much better.

[A]

Yeah. Nine to 10 days. Appeals court blocks Trump's revocation of temporary protected status for 350,000 Haitians. So that's good news. And a judge rules that Carrie Lake, remember her?

[B]

And all of her soft lighting.

[A]

All of her soft lighting. Her oversight of the Voice of America turns out illegal.

[B]

She loves doing that, the illegal stuff.

[A]

And lastly, the real reason. Oh, I should read this from the, the Post so I get this. Correct.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I borrowed the New York Post headline for the day. The real reason why Kristi Noem's cuckold husband stayed married to her through Corey Lewandowski's humiliation.

[B]

Cuckold in the legal sense.

[A]

All that and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. It is, as Emma Vigeland says, Funday Monday. Yes, Funday Monday. That's what she always says.

[B]

Always.

[A]

Always wakes up in the morning a little more fun. Today, announces to her husband, fun day.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

You know, goes into hot yoga. Fun Day Monday it is.

[B]

I did do hot yoga this morning. See, this is what I'm saying. I'm trying to figure out if I need to do it in the afternoon to cleanse the news out of my brain. Or if I should do it in the morning so I'm in a better mood at the office. I think you guys might prefer the

[A]

first one, but you definitely have a different, like, vibe energy.

[B]

Right, right, right.

[A]

It's crazy.

[C]

Yeah, it's amazing.

[A]

That sort of manic. It sort of is.

[C]

Wait, what do.

[B]

Am I really that horrible when I don't do yoga?

[A]

I mean, in some ways, it's a little bit better. Sam doesn't like joy or anything around him. It makes him very uncomfortable. Honestly, you look like you just won the lottery when you come in. You work today. You said, how was your weekend? I said, great. You go, okay, a little sus. You hate joy. It's like, let's everybody dial it down. It's the beginning of the week.

[B]

Well, okay. The good news is that we have a lot of bad news that's going to make. I mean, I'll be. I'll be over this Joy thing in just a few minutes.

[A]

Well, that's the thing. I think you're too open to all the news in that way, and then you absorb it all. Exactly. I started a certain level where it's like, I'm already a saturation. Oh, God. So it.

[B]

Can't you disassociate it? That's healthier.

[A]

No, it's not disassociation. It's like. Think of it as, like, you empty. Like, I come in, I'm at a full glass already. Whatever's poured in just goes over the sides. That's all. It's not disassociated. It's just, I'm saturated. Sounds.

[B]

All of this sounds healthier than what I'm doing going to yoga in the morning.

[A]

Yeah. It seems crazy clear. It's healthy to think of yourself like a full receptacle of liquid.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yep. That's. That's what my. I'm like a carton of milk. That's what my parents told me. It's a small child. You are like a full glass of water, Sam. All right, let's get into this. Now for the horridness over the weekend. I think this was Saturday night. Unclear if it was Israeli bombs or US Bombs. I mean, the Israeli bombs are US Bombs. It's unclear as to which was the apparatus in which this was fired. Largely irrelevant. Israel and the US have done this war in concert at various times.

[B]

It is notable that the Americans are blaming the Israelis through Axios and Barack ravid. What is old is new again. Welcome back, Joe Biden. There's all the leaks about how the Israelis made us do this. These horrible things seem to go to Axios's Barack Ravid.

[A]

Although we know that Donald Trump claims that Israel, Israel. He probably made Israel do it. Although he's also saying that, and we'll get to this in a moment, that the decision to end the war will probably be, you know, both his and Netanyahu's, maybe a little bit more his, you know, classic Trump. Nevertheless, they are bombing Tehran. And as many people have said already, that to the extent that there are Iranians who are desperate to get rid of their regime, and I don't think it's a slam dunk in any shape or measure to say that it's half or more than half or, you know, but there's certainly a significant portion of Iranians who want to be free from the theocracy. Most of them would be living in major cities like Tehran as is. You know, that is a dynamic that exists everywhere in the world. Urban centers tend to want to seek more liberalism in terms of their regime. And regardless of that fact, Somehow American and U.S. forces, I guess, feel like the best way to encourage people to rise up against their government that they don't like is to make their lives horrible. And here is images from a US Israeli attack on

[B]

oil deposits.

[A]

Oil deposits in around Tehran.

[B]

It looks like the apocalypse for the podcast audience. Plumes of black smoke and flames into the night sky.

[A]

The lung damage for millions of people.

[B]

And that's the short term damage.

[A]

There are still images I've seen where literally like the oil congeals in the sky and drops down and on the ground there is like a thick, like black film on things. Here is a CNN report from Tehran,

[B]

by the way, important that Western press is able to be on the ground. Just a lesson to the Washington Post that destroyed its entire foreign reporting bureau. Like, this is why we need this kind of journalism. It's also why Israel's not letting the Western press into Gaza.

[A]

Yeah. Or frankly, my understanding is they are also censoring their images of Tel Aviv being hit.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So CNN is allowed to broadcast in Tehran and show ostensibly where fires are burning, where, you know, providing, I guess, theoretically information to the Israelis, Americans as to, like, where their bombs landed. You cannot do the same. You're not allowed. There's not that level of freedom of press in Israel. But here's a CNN report from Iran. This is what Tehran is waking up to this morning. The sky above the city is covered in very thick black clouds. You can see that everywhere. That's the west of the city. Over there. And this is the north of the city. Normally if you look to that direction, you could actually see the Alborz Mountains. But now all of that is also covered in clouds. That comes after major airstrikes in the south and the west of the city happened last night, where oil installations were hit. Oil storage facilities, apparently also a refinery might have been hit as well. And now you can see this morning that the sky is still very dark. We saw thick black plumes of smoke in the sky. Yesterday there were massive fires in the south of the city. But I want to show you something else because it's also raining. But you can see that the rain, the rain water is actually black, also saturated, it appears, with oil. And then if we look over there, you can see that the water that's running down here also is black. So that's what's coming down this morning. This sort of oil filled rain that we have right now on the Iranian capital after those strikes took place, absolutely insanity.

[B]

In the short term, it means, you know, skin irritation, some chemical burns, potentially it's going to affect your lungs. Obviously anybody that has respiratory issues, it's going to be a major problem. But there have, in looking at, you know, in Kuwait, the attacks on those oil fields, they're, you can make assessments about long term risks and long term health risks. And this is going to increase the risk of cancer due to how carcinogenic it is, respiratory disease, long term effects. For the 10 million people that live in Tehran, it's going to be in the soil, it's going to be in the waterways. This is a massive chemical attack on one of the biggest cities in the world by our terrorist government and the Israelis. And we're openly saying that this is the objective. Like it's not about getting the Iranian people to rise up. Clearly it's like a Christian nationalist in Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump and people that want to sow chaos and see the Iranian people suffer and dismantle their state, create a failed state. I mean, I don't even think that they're objective. Trump may have been sold that regime change is possible, but I think that the Israelis are just as happy if the state falls apart.

[A]

I think that they would love the idea of some type of like balkanization there as the Iranian people have freedom rain down upon them. And it turns out that freedom, when it rains down upon you is full of acid and petroleum. And so that's where we're at now. Oil is over $100 a barrel for the first time, I think since like 2020, like 2022.

[B]

When, when that, like as soon as, I think Russia invaded Ukraine, which caused

[A]

that crisis, and that one was, I think, more like in some ways more speculative. Like, I mean, obviously this is speculative as well, but the 20% of Asia's oil comes from that region. I don't think that we get nearly as much of that oil at all. But this is to the huge benefit of Russia, of course. But also this is going to have huge implications in terms of our economy down the road. It could even get, you know, and this is sort of where we're at right now. Short of ending this war in the next couple of days, it's going to get dramatically worse. We also, and we mentioned this last week, key element of the world's fertilizer is produced in that region as well. It's a petroleum byproduct and nitrogen. And you could make it other places. It just so happens that it's mostly made there. So we're going to see food prices spike. The only saving potential, saving grace, and we shall see, is that Donald Trump is an idiot. And it's quite possible that he was just convinced to do this by a bunch of Zionists and neocons and without any pushback in the White House. Because that's the way it works when you have only unqualified people around who are thankful to be there and don't want to engage in anything. You know, Pete Hegseth is just going to whatever you say, Mr. President. And even the domestic people are going to be like, whatever you say, Mr. President. That's just their job. He may end up getting calls from some of his business friends, who knows who they are, saying, hey, wait, dude, this is really screwing everything up for everybody, including those in the Gulf states. And he may haven't been told that this was just going to be easy peasy like Venezuela realized, like, this is not going to be easy peasy like Venezuela. He may just declare victory and leave. And the prospect of that, I think we said this on Friday and then later that day the prospect of that went up. Here is now let's go to Carolyn Levitt. Levitt, because she would not say this if there wasn't talk already in the White House. Like, maybe we just want to wrap this up.

[C]

What does the president mean when he

[B]

calls for unconditional surrender?

[C]

Is he saying that the regime has

[A]

to fully relinquish control?

[B]

What the president means is that when he, as commander in chief of the US Armed forces, determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America. And the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender. Whether they say it themselves or not. Frankly, they don't have a lot of people to say that for them because

[C]

the United States and the state of

[B]

Israel have completely wiped out more than

[C]

50 leaders of the former terrorist regime,

[B]

including the support supreme leader himself.

[A]

Okay, so Trump condition. The good news is Trump has the ability, according to Trump, the. The ability to issue a unilateral, unconditional surrender from, From Iran, which, honestly, like, for those of us who don't want this to happen and want this to end as soon as possible, that is a good thing.

[B]

Can someone dust off the Mission Accomplished banner from the Pentagon warehouses and just show it to Trump and say, this is this. This. This means it's over.

[A]

Oh, we accomplished it. Okay, good. It's over.

[B]

And here, Operation Apac Fury. I mean, Epic Fury. I stole that from a Kyle Kalinsky beam. But still, we should call it that. Operation Apac Fury going forward.

[A]

When did Trump issue this? Do we know?

[B]

Issue this. Truth Social.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, so Trump, I think on Saturday issued this Truth Social. We'll get confirmation on when. Iran, which is being beat to hell, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle east neighbors. Now, at one point there was, I don't. I can't remember which Iranian official was apologized to some of the neighboring countries saying that we are only going to hit locations that support the United States. So in other words, we're just going to hit radar installations, which apparently they have, and we're going to hit any civilian targets in the Gulf States that weren't associated with the US Israel attacks. Now, the US has called in various countries for servicemen to leave bases and stay at civilian hotels, which of course, is using human shields. But so it's quite possible some hotels may be hit. But Trump says Iran, which is being beat to hell, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle east neighbors and promised it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because of the relentless US And Israeli attacks. They're looking to take over and rule the Middle East. It is the first time that Iran has ever lost in thousands of years to surrounding Middle Eastern countries. They have said, thank you, President Trump. I have said, you're welcome. That's no longer the, quote, bully of the Middle east, end quote. They are instead, quote, the loser of the Middle east, end quote, and will be for many decades until they surrender or more likely, completely collapse. Today, Iran will be hit very Hard under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death because of Iran's bad behavior are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Well, like a girl, like little children

[B]

and the millions and millions of people who will now face health implications from this chemical attack.

[A]

Well, told you. I mean we told functions as a

[B]

chemical attack, let alone by the way, what they're doing in Lebanon where they're, you know, it seems like they're resuming the use of white phosphorus. The Israelis.

[A]

Yes. And, and so the potential out for this. And it seems to me that we are probably, there's a rather small window for Trump to basically say let's get out, we won, we're done bombing them because we were so successful. We can't get any more successful. There would be too much success and ends this which would obviously be a good thing. He's on the record as saying that he would consider ending the campaign in consultation with Netanyahu, but probably more me than Netanyahu, which you know, of course means probably more Netanyahu.

[B]

Right. Like you get the note, like Netanyahu gives you the figurative Nobel Peace Prize. You're the guy in charge.

[A]

Yeah. So, but this is important because if it, if we go further than this, it seems to me there must be a time over the next week or two as things escalate, that there is no sort of turning back, that Iran at one point will have an incentive to make this as painful as possible for everyone in the region because they don't want this to happen again. Now, the day that we end the attack, you know, Iran is going to start to actually for the first time, I would imagine actively pursue the building of a nuclear weapon.

[B]

The son of the, of Khomeini, who is said to be more of a hardliner on that issue. And I just, it would be, yeah,

[A]

it would be complete malpractice not to by a government at this point to not build a nuclear weapon as a deterrent for this happening again. And the only other deterrence they can possibly have is to say at one point when it becomes too expensive for whatever the cost becomes too large for Donald Trump to continue to do it so that, you know, as if like you know, a tiger swatting at a bees nest, those hornets will bite and bite and bite and bite. Make sure that doesn't happen again.

[B]

I just want to make one more point about this truth social reading between the lines here because you see how he tries to rope in The Middle Eastern. Can you just put it up briefly for a second? You see how he keeps repeatedly bringing up the fact that they're going to take over and rule the Middle East. By the way, this is what the Israelis say they want to do with the Greater Israel theory, a bipartisan desire to take over the Middle East. So look at that projection there. And I was reading something over the weekend, I really forget who it's from, so apologies for not citing it, but that there is this emphasis by Israel and the United States to try to rope in the Middle Eastern countries into at least their propaganda effort to say that they're a united front against Iran here. Because I think that there's a lot of anxiety and squeamishness, rightly so, about this relationship with the United States. We know that the Saudis and the Iranians, a few years ago, there was talks that were brokered by the Chinese. They're warming up their relationship to China. This is Trump trying to brute force bring in the rest of the Gulf states into their kind of axis of violence, at least rhetorically. And I don't think it's going to actually have the desired impact, because I think that they're just going to think, like, maybe we should be diversifying our relationships outside of the US and the West.

[A]

All right, in a moment, we're going to be talking to Claire Matthi, professor of economics at University of Tulsa, host of the free podcast and author of Escape from Capitalism and Intervention. First, a couple of words from our sponsors. One of them is, oh, and everybody in the office today was saying, feels like spring. And it does. And now is the time. Ladies and gentlemen, do not waste any time to get your stuff to plant. If you plant outside, now is the time. Did you know Fast Growing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers? I did because I was one of those 2 million customers way before they decided to sponsor this program. They got all the plants for your yard or your home, indoor plants as well, but including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, houseplants, all grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy. It's like your local nursery, but anywhere. 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And so the alpha kid, I'm like, okay, where did this come from? I have no idea. And. But I got this filet mignon with the, like, truffle butter.

[B]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

And carrots. And then there was like a fajita with shrimp. And so it was like a surf and turf, like, filet mignon.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

For me, I'm more of like a chicken guy with some, you know, garlic mashed potatoes. But delicious meals. Really delicious. And he almost eats all the vegetables. Like, he'll eat the carrots, squash, not so excited about. But he'll like string beans or broccoli, and that's great. Factor has 100 rotating meals, including ready to eat salads to keep things fresh and delicious. They also have a muscle pro collection to support strength and recovery. I bet you I could sell him on that. Factor meals are also always fresh, they are never frozen, and they're ready in about two minutes. So you don't need to stress about taking time out of your schedule to meal prep. That is a huge factor for me. Oh. Oh, what I did there. Head to factor meals.com majority 50 off. That's majority 50 off. No spaces. Use the code majority 50 off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easier with factor. We'll put a link in the podcast in the YouTube description. All right, quick break. When we get back, Claire Matai. We are back. Sam Cedar. Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. It is a pleasure to welcome back to the program. Clara Matthai, professor of Economics at the University of Tulsa, host of the free podcast and also the founder of the Free forum. It's a freeforum.org author of Escape from Capitalism and Intervention. Claire, what is the Forum for Real Economic Emancipation at Tulsa, Oklahoma?

[C]

It's our attempt to change this economic system that oppresses all of us and that feeds off of militarism, genocide. While Americans don't have enough food on their table in Oklahoma, one out of four children is hungry. And we know that money is abundant but is really skewed at the top. And in Tulsa we're trying to do something to gain agency and realize that our social relations are made of us as people and thus we have the possibility to change them. So we are engaging in an assembly based organization. We come together, we make decisions collectively, we show that collectivities can decide in a democratic way and we organize public education with the purpose of cultivating alternatives to capitalism.

[A]

And that's the idea behind Escape from Capitalism. An intervention I have here. And it is, it is an intervention. And let's, you know, go through this. This has been a theme obviously in your work. And I did not, I don't know if I knew after your last visit about your family history in Italy of a family full of communists who were targeted essentially by Italian fascists. And you mentioned that, I think in the beginning of the book. But let's go into the, the, let's just go back to that time for a moment following World War I, League of Nations. You highlight, I think in the preface of the book, the. There was already sort of like the beginnings of the creation of this, sort of, this common, I guess common sense or you know, wisdom of like there are some hard truth that we're going to have to subject people to. Just talk about that a little bit because that is the really in many respects the genesis, if not the sort of the, the, the institutionalization, I think of like sort of classical economics and the ideas and myths that we have today.

[C]

Yes, well, so my great aunt, who the book is dedicated to, actually left the Communist Party in Italy once the Communist Party decided to side fundamen with the austerity policies that are so characteristic of today's economics and has really created a really broad consensus for the idea that we can only live as human beings if we live hard, save hard, work hard. And in fact, what I try to show in this book is that austerity is in the DNA of capitalism. If you want to have capitalism, you got to have austerity. It's not an option to have happy workers if you want to have happy investors. And this is really kind of the kernel of this work is to show that when Mussolini under Fascist Italy experimented with a very efficient dosage of austerity, meaning cuts in social expenditures, something that Americans are very used to, private large scale privatizations, repression of wages and workers rights, he was really following the script that the liberals wanted in order to regain profitability and the possibility of investing in Italy. So this is the whole point is to show how the logic of need and the logic of profit are really in contrast with one another and that we have the possibility to rethink how we want to run our economy. And there's nothing more urgent than this historical moment. We know that as we speak, our tax money, the indebtedness of this country, is going to bomb innocent children all over the Middle East. We have half a million people displaced in Lebanon already, not to mention constant deaths in Gaza and in Palestine, in Iran, all over. This is profitable for many, many shareholders as working class people in the US as well suffer by of course, skyrocketing now, bills for the electricity, for gas, for oil, everything. So this is the contradiction is we need to understand that this historical moment is not exceptional, is just revealing what has always been a deep kernel of our economic system. [e-mail] we really try to show how this needs to change. Absolutely. If we want to have a future as humans.

[B]

Well, the fact that this is not exceptional also. You can look at the period even of the New Deal and the kind of efforts to save capitalism by expanding some social services here in the US as the exceptional time period in history. Because when you look at capitalism more broadly, historically, most of the time it's been out of sync with the needs of the people, even in the imperial core, let alone when we're looking at how it's been on 100% failure rate for those in the global South.

[C]

Absolutely. And actually the topic of my recent research in my next book is actually looking at the golden age of capitalism, the supposed moment in which inequality was diminishing. And thanks to this economic growth, you could have the, you know, you could have everything. You could have capitalism and social welfare. This is largely a myth and as you say, not only because it was based on the super exploitation of the global south, but also because it was based on a lot of marginalization. And the economist knew, you know, marginalization of the working classes and the minorities in the US and the economists knew that you know, there's a hard truth. If you want to tame inflation, unemployment levels can't go to low. And this is what we're seeing today, right? The fact that now unemployment is back to 4.4%. That's like a whole percentage point increase from 2023. This is kind of what the economy needs to avoid working people to get unduly empowered. And if you give people social resources, you risk cutting what is at the core of how our economic system maintains itself, which is economic dependence and market, sorry, market dependence, economic coercion. The fact is that if we don't have money in our pockets, we can't survive. And this is why we're all ready to go work for a crappy job at whatever conditions, because we don't have any alternative. And this though, is a historical condition that can change. And when some social resources come in, people deny and want to get out of it. And this is very dangerous for the system. This is why high unemployment rates are actually very good for the capitalist economy. And this is a reality a lot of political economists.

[A]

I want to get to unemployment and that dynamic in a bit, but before we get there, I want to just sort of lay some, just sort of like a broader stuff down. So the idea of. One of the things that came out of that era and that broadly that the whole book is geared towards doing is fighting this idea of Tina, that there is no alternative system. And so let's, let's go back to the. The idea of the concept of growth, which is sort of like fundamental in the justification for the system we have. Your first chapter deconstructs that concept. What is it that. What is. When we talk about growth, what are we actually saying?

[C]

Thanks. Yes, the Escape from Capitalism. My book is really trying to deconstruct a lot of those categories that even supposed lefty people or left. The economists use right. And one typically is growth. Because the idea is that, you know, growth is the panacea. It will solve all our problems. What do people mean by. Growth is really, you know, just an increase in value and wealth that hides though what really is at stake here. Because growth is based on literally unpaid labor of the majority. And this is what economists fail to see because it's very dangerous to actually problematize exploitation as the governing social relation of our capitalist economy. And when I talk about exploitation, of course, not me, just the traditional political economy that the book Escape from Capitalism refers to. We're not talking just about like badly paid jobs. We're talking about the structural loss of agency that any worker, including a very well paid software engineer working in New York for Google has to undertake. Right. Because you know when Google is siding with the genocidal military and giving a lot of high tech support for terrible violence, we know that the Google worker, even a very well paid worker, has very little choice. Either you accept or you fire yourself or you get fired. This is the whole point is the fact that we have accepted a subordination in the production process by which our society delegates to very, very few people and always fewer. Right. And the asset managers that rule the world are very, are three basically decisions on what we need and why. And the why is of course the engine of profit, which again, it's nothing to say. No, it's not that the CEOs are bad or there's like evil individuals who are excessively greedy. That's kind of a line that you hear a lot. Oh, it's just greed. No, that's not the point. The point is that structurally growth depends on profit expectations of private investors which require to be satisfied high rates of exploitation, meaning that there needs to be more value that we produce from what we get in our paycheck. And this is the whole point of also productivity increases. When people speak about productivity increase. Productivity increase is a way to increase this surplus without necessarily have to having to compress wages. But it's still based on the idea that it's extracting our, our capacity, our brains from ourselves. Right. And we need to, we need to say no, we cannot. This system is completely unsustainable. The earth is on fire. And this is not a contingency. It's because of the type of growth that governs our economic system.

[A]

So what is the alternate version a of like what is the alternate to growth and what is an alternate system of. I mean the idea, it's not that productivity in and of itself is problematic. It is that as it's defined now, it is a, an increase that is really driven so that a, you can, you know, there's like, there's two different models on how you make money that are more or less the same. One is like we're going to increase productivity and as, as each worker produces more, we as the capitalist class will take more of that. Maybe we'll give a little bit of a share to the worker to keep them happy, maybe, but we're going to take an increasing share of that productivity. The other is sort of like private equity where they just come in and go okay, okay, we're done with growth. We're going to Maintain growth. But the way that we're going to now extract that, that delta is to cut workers. And it's, it's the same thing. It's just moving, you know, we're not going to grow, we don't need to grow. We can just grow the share of which we take from the existing productivity. So what's the alternate to both those? Like we, we obviously need some productive capacity, but it's geared towards what.

[C]

So this is the whole point, right? It's that it's really about the focus. If we are all, if our whole society is organized to basically. Satisfy a very abstract concept, which is this abstract value that really dominates our lives. And it does this by increasing the rate of exploitation. Again, I want to emphasize you can actually measure the rate of exploitation by looking at the portion of GDP that goes to profits with respect to the portion of GDP that goes to wages. And what you see is that this rate of exploitation grows historically and we are at the peak now.

[A]

So the peak of corporations have made the corporate profits right now are at the, I think one of the all time highest shares. And that means that like they're just taking more of what workers are producing than they have historically.

[C]

Exactly. And then one more point I want to make of what you said that is important is that, you know, a lot of the left is like, oh yeah, it's because of financialization. It's neoliberalism that brings about financialization. This is a scapegoat. The point is that financialization is not in opposition to the supposed real economy. Right. It's part of how the real economy operates. And this has been true from the very beginning. From the very beginning, time I study during the first World War, as Rosa Luxembourg, for example, saw very clearly. So this is the whole point is that financialization is only like accelerating the inequality, the extraction, but it's not a qualitatively different phenomenon. And this is also why, you know, there's no distinction between the market and the state. And this for me is very important. Again, another category that a lot of lefties like to say, oh, it's because of the markets. If only there were more state. The state we're talking about here is a capitalist state. And the capitalist state is meant to maintain the pillars of capitalism, wage labor and private command over investment intact. And this is why what the capitalist state does is more austerity. And austerity is state intervention. But intervention that brings resources shifts those resources from the many to the few. And this makes a lot of sense for the system, but doesn't make sense for us. So you're asking what are the alternatives? Well, this is the thing that I really feel strongly about and the reason why I am contributing to a real life assembly and a real life organization through the freefreeforum.org is that it's not something that you can have in a template. This is the very technocratic outlook that I really want to deny, and it's the perfect one for academics, and it's very much in line with capitalism is to say it's all about, you know, giving some recipe that others should implement. I think right now we're seeing that what we need to do is put ourselves first and showing that we can collectively organize production for use rather than for exchange. And this means for use, value for the materiality around us. So we don't need to be always mediating everything we have through the profit motive. And this is really crucial. And it's about like protecting the commons. And the commons can be protected in a very highly sophisticated technological way. But the point is that technology can't be the byproduct of real competition in a capitalist economy because that technology is going to kill us, as it's clear, not only from the technology that we're addicted to, but by the one that is killing all these children in the, in the Middle East, Sudan and elsewhere. So this is the point is that we want technology, but technology needs to come out of different social relations of production which we put ourselves as collective at the center. This is not easy, but you know, it has been done. I want to say that industrial capitalism has been around only for 0.1% of the time Homo sapiens has been on this planet. This means that we are able, capable as humans to rethink these social relations of production in a way that they are emancipatory rather than the repressive. It's just about political will and organization. And this will not happen if we lead it to the elected official in office or to the few that supposedly are benefiting because there's no incentive there. It needs to happen from holding accountable from below. And this is what we're trying to do in Tulsa with also a participatory budgeting project and the local institutions. The local is global, so we need to start locally and connect networks to say we have alternatives, we just need to like act on them.

[A]

Okay. And in terms of the growth, the way that we think of growth, that would be replaced with an idea that is you could. We wouldn't really necessarily need to call it growth, we would call it something to the effect of like just meeting our needs essentially. Right. Like even the concept of measuring growth itself is, locks us into a framework that we measure simply because when we talk about growth, what we're really talking about is the ability for more extraction to happen or exploitation, as you call it, of the worker. So the idea is we don't even need the word growth. What we need to do is just conceive of what do we need having our needs met. And more often than not, because of population needs may get bigger, but there are also times where needs may contract in certain areas. We don't need to have growth in oil refining because we had growth in solar power, for instance, or our population is aging in a certain way that what, we don't need growth in this industry, we need growth in that industry. So we don't really talk about growth as a measure of the economy. We talk about it. How is it satisfying the needs of the population at any given time?

[C]

Absolutely. Growth is interestingly a real. It's an abstraction. It's a complete abstraction. It's measuring the value, this monetary value. Who cares about monetary value? What we care is about satisfying our needs and living in dignity as human beings. But this is not the priority of this society right now, you see, and what is very interesting is that the word growth was not at all around until really the. The 50s. And you see it actually really the early 60s. And you see the way economists and Keynes and economists, by the way, the supposed lefty economists really tried to like use it as a measure to try to really compete with the Soviet Union and say capitalism is better. So this is the whole point is actually to say it's a construction, a mental construction, a category that has been used to tame our imagination. And we now, given the climate catastrophe, have no militarism everywhere, have no alternative but to really get out of these mental traps. And this is what the book escape from.

[A]

But even if even, I mean to be clear, even if we weren't facing a climate catastrophe, the idea of growth is not a helpful metric in which to measure whether people are having their needs met. Growth, we could, we could attain growth by, by hire by developing an army of thieves who go around and steal stuff from people. And it would create growth. Growth because all these. Someone stole my TV, I got to go buy a new TV. Sales go up, production to TVs go up. And then all of a sudden we don't. We have growth. I just want to lay that out as a discrete sort of like concept that people should understand. The game is over once you actually engage in the idea that growth, which is not to say that we don't need needs, we, our needs don't. But to measure it as a function of growth is a misdirection in many respects. And then, so then talk about why austerity exists. Because if you, once you're locked into the concept of okay, we have to grow, austerity comes in and make sure who gets the bigger slice of the pie of that growth.

[C]

Absolutely. So one real quick thing I want to mention to you is that actually, you know, G growth is measured per capita. And what's really fascinating is that like economists love to like show like a really like nice line in which, you know, we didn't have any and now we have such huge growth. So clearly this means more humane human progress. And what's fascinating is that GDP per capita doesn't even tell you how this value is distributed at all. So it's only like dividing very abstractly the amount with the total amount of population, pretending that like we all have the same. It's the opposite. This, we have have 12 people making more than 4 billion people right now. We have 19 people who have accumulated almost $2 trillion in the past two years. Well, we have 2 billion people plus food insecure. These are the numbers. And this is something that the measure of growth will never show because it's never meant to show you even the distribution, not to mention of course, the exploitation that is grounding it. So to your question about austerity, what does austerity do? It protects not only this understanding that there's no alternatives, but also our subordination to market dependence so that in fact the relation of exploitation is maintained alive. And this is why I want to also always say that there's nothing spontaneous of this hierarchical world we live in. It has to be constantly be protected by state intervention, by governance, by central banks, by IMF and other international institutions that constantly do what? Cut social expenditures, privatize, increase interest rates, deregulate labor, do all these policies, and of course tax the the people and not capital. All of these policies, this package of the austerity trinity that I discuss in the book are again very much functional to this economic system. So a lot of lefty economists like to tell us, o know, it's just bad choice. You could do without austerity if only we had the right enlightened people in government. I want to tell you the opposite story. I want to tell you, listen, in order to not have austerity. We got to change the rules of the game, because austerity is foundational to maintaining us trapped. Because if the majority had options, they would opt for these options. It was enough to see what happened under the COVID pandemic. People quit their jobs once they got a meager paycheck in their inboxes. This is enough to show you that no one wants anymore to work for someone else in terrible conditions, have no say over what they do for the majority of their day. Not see their children work for genocide. That's over. And the only way you keep it going is through hard dosages of austerity. And that's not by chance that Donald Trump, with his big, beautiful bill, has escalated austerity like no tomorrow, right? He's cutting 500 billion to Medicaid in the next 10 years, 200 billion to food stamps, while he's going to bring the military expenditures really, really high. So what I also want to say is that austerity has nothing to do with spending less and taxing more. This is an empty definition that we need to overcome to understand what austerity actually is. Austerity is the government selecting where it spends. It spends against people in favor of those private businesses they incentivize, invest and, and protect. And of course, the military, industrial complex surveillance. Those are perfect because they don't empower people, but they boost economic growth. And at the same time, it's about, you know, taxing people rather than capital. And it's about this, this game of, you know, how people suffer to benefit fewer and fewer people. This is what austerity is about. And we gotta understand how it works to be able to say, okay, that's enough. We don't need this in our lives. We want our children to see a better future.

[A]

So austerity is the part of the machine that provides a certain amount of discipline, essentially, and the flow of the money, that must always exist in some form or another. It may be constant, it may be increased at certain times, it may be decreased for political reasons at certain times, but it always exists. It is literally part of the machine. And not something that's introduced into the system, but something that exists there. And at times, just to keep the proper balance is there. And that leads us into unemployment and inflation, which is also another mechanism. Austerity is more of a fiscal mechanism built into the machine to. Provide some amount of discipline on the vast majority of us. But then there's a monetary means in which to provide that discipline. And that's where inflation and unemployment come in.

[C]

Yes. So I would tell you that austerity is a trinity. So there's the fiscal side. There's also the, again, the direct attack on labor through what I call industrial austerity. So again, labor deregulation and wage repression. And then there's the monetary side. And what's really interesting here is to note that, you know, we always hear experts say, of course we need to tackle inflation, of course we have to increase interest rates because we will all benefit if inflation is low. Now, this whole discussion is missing the point because not only increasing interest rate might not even help tame inflation, especially if inflation is due to the exorbitant profit margins that we're seeing. But what inflate, taming inflation through interest rate hikes actually does, is increase the rate of exploitation. And why is this? Is because increasing interest rates create higher unemployment, which is exactly what the US is seeing right now. We had something like 90,000, over 90,000 job lost last month in February. This is not happening out of a natural disaster. This is politically constructed through harsh austerity measures that the Fed with Trump are bringing about. So this whole point about saying, you know, the, the supposed conflict between the Fed and the current administration is a superficial level because we know that they are operating for the bottom line, which is the capital order. And again, when I say the capital order, and it's the title of my previous book, is to stress that there's nothing spontaneous, it's political order that requires this. And one point is that instead of talking about how, you know, the real trade off is between problems, profits and unemployment. The fact that if unemployment is low, this will bite into profits because people will be able to get higher wages and better working conditions because of their higher bargaining power. What they tell us, it's not about profits or an unemployment, it's about inflation, unemployment. Because supposedly they, they want to make it sound like it's actually they're trying to solve our problems. The reality is that they're not. And inflation is not going down, but yet, yes, profits are going up because that's what increasing interest rates actually does in the long run.

[A]

Okay, I just want to make this, lay out a couple of things. Like, the Fed articulates their mandate as controlling two things. One is inflation and the other is unemployment. And they see these things in opposition to each other. And they're constantly, at least, the story goes, they're constantly trying to balance this seesaw law. There's a direct, at least they claim, or at least it's set up to Imply there's a direct inverse proportion between inflation and employment. And they're trying to sort of like get it to balance. Now for the, for the vast majority of my lifetime, which is a significant period of time, we were told that there was like, you're, you cannot get unemployment below, I think it was 6 or 7%. It's not possible without there being raging inflation. And then all of a sudden it's like, whoops, we got it down to like 3%. Well, I guess so much. I mean, this was like, this was like religious gospel.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so, okay, so with that said, you're saying that the inflation, they say it's about inflation, but it's really about profit margin. How is it that raising interest rates increases profit? I mean, we can see it, we now have the highest corporate profit rate we've had, but nobody has drawn the line to the, to the higher interest rates and that profit. And what is, how does it, what's the mechanism in which that works?

[C]

So this is important because again, the political economy tradition I draw on, on in the book Escape from Capitalism, and this is kind of the base of the tradition I kind of stand for, is trying to go below, beyond, deeper than the surface level. Because at the surface level you can say no, increasing interest rates is going to hurt business because it's going to increase

[A]

they're borrowing costs and they're not able to invest and blah, blah, blah.

[C]

Absolutely, it's going to increase the cost of borrowing. Now the point is that that's true in the immediate moment, but what's most important is what economists never talk about are labor relations that are kind of always taken for granted. Because if you talk about them, then that will piss off people. And what you find out is that for business to do well, it also needs to employ people and make sure that they'll accept their exploitation. And this is what at the end of the day is most interesting, is that you know immediately, of course, creditors game. You know that if you have, you know, you have, you're a creditor, you're making a lot of money when interest rates go up. But in the long run, what's happening is that all profit margins are increasing because you're able to keep the working class in check. And in check means you're keeping labor costs low. And plus you're avoiding strikes or any forms of alternative from emerging. So this is really important because that

[A]

is because as you raise interest rates, what, what does it do to labor?

[C]

The economy slows down, right? Exactly. Because borrowing costs more the economy slows down. And this in fact creates less job opportunities and also layoffs. And this is in fact, you know, we were at 3.4 in, in 2023 in terms of unemployment rates, which is around almost 6 million people, by the way, unemployed. And these are the official statistics. The official statistics don't count those who stop searching for a job, the people that are disenfranchised in our economic system, which are much more people working in

[A]

a job they may not like, etc. Etc.

[C]

So colleagues tell me that actually you would have to multiply by two, at least the official statistics to actually get the real number of people who are unemployed in our country. But even so, those almost 6 million people were too little for to maintain that monetary stability that is required for a capitalist economy to function, because that monetary stability requires higher exploitation rates. Why? Because what happens is that businesses dump the cost of higher production because of higher wages on the consumer. So it's true. It's not so this is the whole point of this business. I'm not trying to say mainstream economists lie. What I'm trying to say is that mainstream economists actually reveal how classist and oppressive and ultimately irrational for the logic of need and very rational, of course, for the logic of profit, which is what counts, but very irrational for the logic of us as humans. This system is. Because what we see here is that in fact, when workers do increase their bargaining power, and this is what happened in the 60s, like in 65, in 1965, in the high day of Keynesianism in the United States, is that when unemployment was in fact pushed down. And this supposedly was what the Fed also had to do, right? Keep like push down unemployment, because historically had been super high in the United States, when unemployment is pushed down, this triggers potential inflationary spirals, because if workers demand more and achieve more, corporations will just dump that extra cost on the consumer. But rather than problematized, why is it that corporations can dump the extra extra cost on the consumers? Economic models of my mainstream colleagues only speak about the wage push. The fact that the workers are the culprits because they're the one who are triggering the inflationary spiral. Not even talking about what happens at the level of the firm, because it's considered deterministic. It's like, oh, no, firms actually don't. There's this whole abstraction about price takers, firms that don't actually make any decisions. You know, it's just the competitive market that works. So this is complete abstraction. All to say, that's always the worker's Fault. So it makes sense to raise interest rates, increase the rate of unemployment so that we go all back to normal in a situation which workers are screwed and very few benefit. And this is the norm in our society. So we shouldn't fool ourselves. Donald Trump is just. The escalation of this is nothing different.

[A]

So if I understand the, the way that it's sort of like naturalized. If workers get, get more money then firms will pass this on to consumers rather than contract their profit margin. The profit margin, the amount that they, the, the delta between what workers produce and what they, what the gross revenues are. That's what the capitalists take home. And that can never be contracted. It can only be expanded essentially. And so rather than saying okay, right now we're getting five cents on the dollar for every ten cents that our workers create, but now they're asking for five and a half cents, we're going to have to get that half a cent from the public when they buy our goods. But actually since we have the excuse of the five and a half cents we might as well say a full cent and we're actually going to gain another half a half a cent on our. How much of that productivity we are capturing essentially and in the, the alternate is that you don't have that delta, that we have a system where we don't. We are not obligated to provide for the capital, a profit margin or really any profit. Unless you know, to the extent that, you know, maybe we need it as a society to put somewhere else into society. We don't need that. Now what do you say to people who say well without that, without that exploitation we wouldn't, I mean obviously we would have capital because we have a fiat currency. We can create capital when we, when we shrink or increase interest rates, all we're doing is creating capital, more money or less money. But what do you say about like there's not going to be an incentive for geniuses like Elon Musk to go and build this stuff or like, you know, I didn't know that I needed a flat screen monitor. I, I thought I was fine with a big bulky monitor and then someone had the profit incentive to go get a flat screen monitor that will all disappear in climatized world. What do you say to that?

[C]

Yeah, I mean that's, I think this is the exact point is that it's so irrational according to the logic of need again stressed because we can't talk about rationality or rationality in general and we have to ask for who is that rational or Irrational. So for us it makes no sense to delegate to few people decisions about what, what is being, how we invest. Because there it's true that they were, they, the big corporation will only invest if there's enough profit expectations. So it's, it is true that as you point out, you can't really question the, the who gets like the, the, the share that goes to profit because if it's too little, in fact these people will just not invest and then we will have nothing being produced. Right? So this is the whole point is that we need to say well, why don't, what if we as people, through cooperatives, through councils, through different form that are absolutely possible, feasible and have existed historically and also got a lot of attacks from the dominant model. What if we took on and as you point out, just operate according to the logic of need, to the logic of use, talk about protecting, sharing and growing what we need. And in that case you wouldn't need to have secure a very fat profit margin to anybody because that very cost concept would disappear. Now the incentive myth is of course required to justify this type of economic system. But I can assure you, I see it with the forum for real economic emancipation. We are an assembly. People feel humanized by participating in an effort that has nothing to do with self interest and you know, maximizing one's utility. Economists have convinced us that the only way in which we can operate is if we maximize our utility and we act in a very self interested way. And this is killing us. Us people do want to participate in economies of care, of solidarity, of horizontality. And that's what allows us to be human and not just, just monsters. And the only way to survive right now is to do that. Because this system requires us to be monster, requires us to not even think about all these children who are starving and dying everywhere while the United States makes escalates its empire and its sources of revenue and extraction. This for me is something that I can no longer tolerate. I have children myself and I understand that the only way in which we can go about without losing our mental health is if we show concretely as the free is doing. And we hope the free will multiply as a model elsewhere. And we have a lot of people who are interested in building something similar. So I'm here if you want to reach out through my freefreeforum.org, we can easily talk about alternatives. This is the point is that people, people need this deeply much more than money. They need the sense of being alive in a collective that empowers Their human spirit.

[A]

And we should say it's not a question of pursuing self interest, it seems to me, but it's pursuing something that is self interest exclusive. Because you cannot win in a capitalist society unless you, your, your endeavor is self interest exclusive. You know, it's like it could be in my interest to, you know, have a Lyme disease vaccine. I only say Lyme disease vaccine because I know a lot of people gotten Lyme disease and there was a vaccine out there like 20 or 30 years ago. It was like 70% effective, but it just wasn't profitable enough. So it just goes away. But there's need for it. But it may be so regional that somebody can't make a profit for it. It, it certainly could provide a need. And it's just that it doesn't have the margin to justify somebody to do it. And we don't have a system now that says like, oh, actually we have a need for these medications, even if they're not profitable, we need them. And because we don't have to worry about making X number over what it would cost to produce this or to research it, we can now actually produce it. And, and that goes across the board with whatever it is.

[C]

Yes. And this is what important is, you see that we need new language, we need new concepts. And this is what my book tries to do because again, of course, it's in, it's in our interest to have things that help us flourish, right? School, art, creativity, public, like green space. Everything that we need is in our interest. But as you point out, like the, the economists have captured these words to their benefit, including the word freedom. This is why we really want to keep the word free in the free form, is to say freedom is not compatible with capitalism. Democracy in the real sense is not compatible with capitalism. We need to reappropriate those words. Words and topic about economic democracy, real freedom because. And an interest in a way that is actually uplifting us rather than like pitting one against the other. We need new language. But I think the only way we will get new language, Sam, is if we participate differently, if we actually take initiative, if we do do these new experiments. Because that's the only way I've realized being in the assembly has changed me. Like I've learned how to deeply sometimes, you know, selfish I actually am. And how, sometimes I. So you learn how to like actually improve as a human being only if you put yourself in a, in a situation in which you can learn from being around others. So our language, our concepts and our facts, this is what Gramsci said. It's praxis, right? It's only through praxis that we can actually get something that is truly revolutionary in the positive sense of the word. Again, they've appropriated the word revolution to mean something, something horrible. Revolution, it means transformation. It's a positive thing. And if there is bloodshed, it usually comes from those who don't want any change and wants to preserve the status quo. This is what historically has happened. So we want revolution in the positive sense of saying, let's, let's, let's escape this horrendous situation we're in because it is enough.

[A]

All right. Lastly, in the context of is there obviously like what you're talking about in terms of the practice and in terms of like setting up these entities to explore and to widen our imagination about and get outside of the structural constraints, both from a language perspective and obviously the system. Is there any room for or value for concurrent parallel political, electoral political movements within the context of that system? Because they're any politician, as much as we may like them, is also sort of stuck within those constraints to a certain degree, it seems to me, because not enough people, we have to acknowledge that. I mean the whole argument is we need more information or imagination. Most people don't have that. Most people will not read your book. Most people will not hear this interview. Will not. I mean, that's just the reality of it. What's your perspective on that?

[C]

So my dear friend and colleague Camila Vergara came up with this concept, systemic corruption. Right. Again, tells you it's not because there's a bad politician in office. It's the rule of the game. And our constitution is meant to structurally detach our representatives from the represented. And this is how liberal constitutions are like, were born. Like that's what they needed to do is again to protect the few wealthy property owners who were actually benefiting off of slavery and capital investment. So this is key. So the. Sorry, now I'm. I'm spacing out. You asked. Oh, yes. So how about what do we do about this? I think the only way you can get those in office office, even at a local level, to be true to the those who supposedly they're representing their base is if the base is organized. And this is why the two like, you know, building assembly spaces and grassroots mobilization that is actually organized through an institution and not just spontaneous and random and elected electoral politics, they go together because the only way you'll get someone in office to respond to the actual logic of need and not to the logic, logical profit, given the systemic corruption and the systemic capture from above from the oligarchy we live in, is if this base is organized and can push and can pressure the local admin, the local and. And federal elected officials to do something according to logic, that is not the one that the system wants. And this is what I think we need to do. This is why I think what's happening in New York is also very interesting thing is whether the organization that have allowed Dani to win will be able to maintain him accountable through organizing locally. And this is what we've done in Tulsa too. You know, we, we got the mayor to come in and, and listen to the concept of why participatory budgeting and wealth taxes on at local level would be a very good way to get resources and to solve homelessness in a way that doesn't just require, you know, incentivizing producers, the real estate sector through tax breaks, which clearly is not helping out the homeless crisis that the US is facing right now. So this is why I think the two things are like you can't have one without the other. The only way we will actually have elected official to respond to people's needs is if these people just don't just think they do their duty just by voting once every X amount of years, but like take action every day of the week, every day of the month to make their voices heard through democratic institutions.

[A]

Clara Matthai, founder of the Free Forum the You can find it at freeforum.org professor of economics at the University of Tulsa. The book is Escape from Capitalism An Intervention. There it is right there, folks. Can get more information there. Clara, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate your coming on. Appreciate your work.

[C]

I appreciate your show very, very much. Keep up the good work. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[A]

All right, folks, we got to take a quick break and head into the fun half of the program, wherein we will probably not have much fun. I mean, we may have some, some, but you know, we may.

[B]

That'll be our teaser. Stay tuned.

[A]

That's right, the suspense. It's a Chuck Schumer clip on the sound sheet. Well, things are looking up, I'm sure. Just remember, it's your support that makes the show possible. You can become a member. Join the Majority Report.com when you do, you not only get the free show free of commercials, but you also get the fun half and just coffee co op, fair trade coffee. Use the coupon code majority. You get 10 off. Matt. Yeah. Left reckoning there's a Sunday show. Sorry I got taken aback by Ben Shapiro's eyebrows in this. I hadn't seen this particular clip. Oh, my God. I hope he's okay. Oh, we're gonna get to the hard news in a moment, folks. The heck is going on? Something very strange has happened happening with Ben Shapiro's eyebrows.

[B]

So he got latisse, but for Latisse is what makes your eyelashes grow. But he got that for his eyebrows.

[A]

He got upholstered. Yeah, yeah, I've seen that. Like with. With. Honestly, with the grease paint and people getting tattoos, but I've never seen it. Like, we get a. We're gonna do a deep dive. Some kind of lab accident.

[B]

Right. I want to know who his. His threader is or. Or maybe he got like a hair transplant on his eyebrows.

[A]

That's the thing is, like, it looks like he put, like, a tonic that's meant to be the top of your head, like, on his eyebrows.

[B]

Yeah, but those don't work that well anyway, so it almost seems like it needs to have been a surgical option.

[A]

He's got Turkish hair on his face. But, yeah, I'm sort of taken aback. I can't remember exactly. I'm sure we talked about the Iran war on the Sunday show. Oh, we actually talked about the things Kamala Harris warned us about. So. Yeah, check that out.

[B]

Patreon.com Lovecom Too distracted by the eyebrows. Understood. Understandable. Emma, I don't have anything. I mean, it's sold out. It's sold out. Our show.

[A]

Sorry, suckers. You were too late. We tried to warn you.

[B]

You know, Francesca was worried about it. I was like, we're cool. Don't worry. We sold out pretty quickly. So I'm pretty happy about that. Happy to excited for our show on the 22nd. So it's in like, a little less than two weeks in LA, but if you want to watch the show and you are unable to go, it's going to be available to patrons for the habituation room. So just if you want to become a patron, you'll be able to see the live show.

[A]

Do that now. It's like, I mean, you get. If you're gonna ultimately join, you might as well get access to the show right now.

[B]

Exactly right.

[A]

See you in the fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's gonna be the same as it looks. Looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now. But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second. Emma. Welcome to the program. Unpack. Matt. What is up everyone? Fun hack. No.

[C]

Me. Keen, you did it.

[A]

Fun hack.

[B]

Let's go, Brandon.

[A]

Let's go, Brandon. Fun hack. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today.

[B]

Fundamentally false. No. I'm sorry.

[C]

Women.

[A]

Stop talking for a second to finish.

[B]

Where is this coming from? Dude?

[A]

But. Dude, you want to smoke this seven egg?

[B]

Yes. Hi.

[A]

Me. Yes. Is this me? Is it me? It is you. Is this me? Hello? It's me. I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm gonna go smart. Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says of course.

[B]

Gobbledygook.

[A]

We nailed him.

[B]

So what's 79 plus 21 challenge?

[A]

Man, I'm positively quivering. I believe 96. I want to say 8, 5, 72108, 501, 1 half. 3, 8, 9, 11.

[B]

For instance. $3,400. $1900.

[A]

5, 4, $3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game. Actually.

[B]

You're making me think less. But.

[A]

But let me say this. You call it satire. Sam goes satire.

[C]

On top of it all.

[A]

My favorite part about you is just

[B]

like every day, all day, like everything do.

[A]

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We see you. All right, folks, Folks. Folks.

[B]

It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously.

[A]

Yeah. Sundown. Guns out. I. I don't know.

[C]

But you should know.

[A]

People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Cares. Our chat is enabled. Folks. I love it. I do love that. Gotta jump. Gotta be quick. I gotta jump.

[B]

I'm losing it, bro.

[A]

Two o'. Clock. We're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[B]

Outrageous.

[A]

Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye.

[C]

Out.

[A]

Love you. Bye. Bye.