Upstream

This is a free preview of the episode "Decolonizing Money (plus an Introduction and Exchange on Anarchism) w/ Julio Linares." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber, you'll get access to biweekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You'll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going.
In this episode Julio Linares joins us for a wide-ranging conversation on anarchism, debt, the U.S. dollar, and mich more. Julio Linares is an economic anthropologist and author of Decolonizing Money: The Promise of Abolishing the US Dollar.
Our conversation begins with Julio describing how his study of microfinance and microlending led him on the path to eventually writing his book, Decolonizing Money. Julio then describes his recent experience in Barcelona where he got to witness the response to the eviction of 87-year-old María del Carmen Abascal (known as Maricarmen) and the growing movement around housing in Spain. We discuss this movement in the context of the French protests, anti-ICE activism, and the Democratic Party in the US.
After a brief disagreement on the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the global struggle against U.S. imperialism, we discuss the late David Graeber and the influence he had on Julio. Julio then describes his conception of anarchism before he and Robbie launch into a comradely back-and-forth discussion compairing and contrasting anarchism with Marxism (and specifically Marxism-Leninism).
We then turn the conversation towards Julio's work around decolonizing money. Julio provides a brief history of how money came into being thousands of years ago through what he calls a "war-money-bondage" complex before bringing us up to the present form it takes under U.S. hegemony. 
We end with a discusion on universal debt cancelation, modern monetary theory (MMT), Julio's alternative idea of democratic monetary theory (DMT), and finally, we discuss some tactics on how we can bring about the reality that Julio is arguing for.
Further resources:
Decolonizing Money: The Promise of Abolishing the US Dollar, by Julio Linares
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, by Karl Polanyi
Earth's Great Enemey, film by Abby Martin
Debt for Climate
Related episodes:
Microlending and the Financialization of Poverty w/ Sohini Kar
Universal Basic Income Pt. 1: An Idea Whose Time Has Come? (Documentary)
Immigration, ICE, and Working Class Rebellion w/ Cecilia Guerrero
The Democratic Party w/ Cecilia Guerrero
Against White Feminism w/ Rafia Zakaria
Listen to our ongoing series on Iran
Gamified Capitalism and 21st Century Fascism w/ Max Haiven
Revolutionary Leftism with Breht O'Shea
What is To Be Done? w/ Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante
Prefigurative Politics and Workplace Democracy w/ Saio Gradin and Nicole Wires
Be More Pirate w/ Sam Conniff
Everyday Utopia w/ Kristen Ghodsee
Listen to our ongoing series on Cuba
Listen to our ongoing series on Venezuela
Listen to our ongoing series on China
Live Show: Breaking the Chains of Empire w/ Abby Martin (with Bonus Q&A)
Marx's Capital Vol. 1 w/ David Smith
Slow Down or Die w/ Timothée Parrique
The Rise (and Fall) of the US Dollar w/ Fadhel Kaboub
 The Problem with Modern Monetary Theory w/ Doug Henwood
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation through our fiscal sponsor Independent Arts and Media at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

We have unlocked our episode "Nathan Fielder's 'The Curse' w/ Carlee." Enjoy!
What happens when the contradictions of living under late capitalism are revealed in excruciating detail? What happens when our performances break down? When they break us? When they break those around us? What happens when you take all of this and wrap it up in a faux reality TV show which is itself about a reality TV show? 
Well, you get The Curse—the 2023 masterpiece by comedian, actor, writer, director, and producer, Nathan Fielder along with Benny Safdie. You may know Nathan from his satirical docu-reality comedy television series, Nathan For You. You may know him from his more recent TV series The Rehearsal or his brand new movie You Can See Everything. Or you may not know him at all. It doesn't really matter, because in this episode we're going to explain everything you need to know about how Nathan Fielder produces masterful media and art—and we're going to do so by taking a deep dive into the 10 episode mini-series The Curse, written by and starring Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie—and also starring Emma Stone.
 
And to have this conversation, we've invited on friend of the show and TV & film enthusiast Carlee. You may recognize Carlee from our episode on Capitalist Realism, or you may recall a couple of Patreon episodes ago when Robert read her piece, "The Puritanical Eye: Hyper-mediation, Sex on Film, and the Disavowal of Desire."
 
In this conversation, we discuss Nathan Fielder's "The Curse"—walking you through the plot and the characters before analyzing and presenting a wide variety of scenes from the show and discussing what they tell us about our individuated, isolated, tortured, exhausted, and often performative lives under neoliberal capitalism. It really is a great show and this is a wide-ranging discussion that will have value whether or not you've seen the show. It's also a lot of fun. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.
Further resources:
Egress: On Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher, by Matt Colquhoun 
"The Puritanical Eye: Hyper-mediation, Sex on Film, and the Disavowal of Desire," by Carlee
Related episodes:
Capitalist Realism w/ Carlee
Sex, Desire, and the Neoliberal Subject
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation through our fiscal sponsor Independent Arts and Media at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

In this conversation, episode 12 in our ongoing series on Cuba, we're joined by Niki Franco, AKA Venus Roots, for a discussion on what the radically different histories of Cuba and Puerto Rico can teach us about colonialism, capitalism, socialism, and the struggle for liberation in the Caribbean and beyond. Niki Franco is a Caribbean abolitionist community organizer, writer, facilitator of spaces for collective study, and author of Flies in the Tropics published this month by 1804 Books.
The conversation begins with Niki describing her connection to Puerto Rico and introducing us to her working class family history in Puerto Rico and presenting the colonial, imperialist nature of the U.S.'s relationship to Puerto Rico. Niki then describes her upbringing in Miami and the reactionary, far-right politics of much of south Florida before describing how she broke out of the city's suffocating anti-communism and embraced socialism.
We then begin our discussion on Cuba and Puerto Rico—beginning with their intertwined colonial and anti-colonial histories. We talk about how, in the mind of many reactionaries, Puerto Rico is elevated to a "good colony" position while Cuba is vilified as what happens to bad colonies. We end by connecting the struggles in Cuba and Puerto Rico to Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and the entire global South's struggle against imperialism and colonialism.
We are now on Youtube! You can find us and subscribe to our channel at youtube.com/@upstream_podcast
Further resources:
Flies in the Tropics, by Niki Franco (1804 Books)
Related episodes:
Listen to our ongoing series on Cuba
Abolition with Niki Franco (AKA Venus Roots)
Intermission music: "CARACOL" by dj juanny
Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you'll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

This is a free preview of the episode "The Crushing Despair of Class Society." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber, you'll get access to biweekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You'll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going.
In this episode of our reading series, Robbie reads a piece of his own titled "Extreme Inequality Is Driving Anxiety and Depression in the US" published by Truthout in 2019. The piece is about the environmental impacts on mental health, focusing specifically on the impacts of economic inequality.
The reading opens with a look back to the dawn of the COVID era, exploring how the pandemic and long COVID have impacted society in a broader sense but also Robbie's personal experience suffering from mental health challenges and the ways that he is coping with that.
We then begin the reading, which explores how economic inequality impacts mental health in a variety of ways. With frequent commentary breaks, Robbie explains how societies with more economic inequality do worse on a very wide range of mental and physical health indicators. We disucss how it's not just those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder who experience worse outcomes, but how even people on the higher rungs in more unequal societies do worse than their counterparts in less unequal societies.
We explore how status anxiety along with racial and other forms of minority discrimination impact people's mental health and discuss the mechanisms through which this occurs. And finally, we explore how the only way to truly reduce economic inequality is by organizing towards a communist society which abolishes class. 
Further resources:
"Extreme Inequality Is Driving Anxiety and Depression in the US," Robert Raymond
"Abandoned, dismissed and gaslighted: there is no excuse for the way ME sufferers have been betrayed," George Monbiot
The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson
The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone's Well-being, Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson
"Who Feels Inferior? A Test of the Status Anxiety Hypothesis of Social Inequalities in Health," Richard Layte and Christopher T. Whelan
"The Science Is In: Greater Equality Makes Societies Healthier and Richer," Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
Lost Connections: Why You're Depressed and How to Find Hope, Johann Hari
Debunking the Myth of Homo Economicus (Documentary)
Related episodes:
Health Communism w/ Beatrice Adler-Bolton
Disabled Ecologies w/ Sunaura Taylor
The Spirit Level with Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett
COVID and the Pandemic with Beatrice Adler-Bolton 
Stolen Focus with Johann Hari
Capitalism and the Weight Loss Industry w/ Johann Hari
Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

In this episode we're joined by Max Haivan for a conversation on gamified capitalism and 21st century fascism. Max Haiven is Canada Research Chair in Radical Imagination at Lakehead University and author of many books, including most recently, The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to 21st-Century Fascism, which is open-access. He is the designer of the board game Billionaires & Guillotines and teaches a popular education course titled Fighting Fascist Feelings.  
The conversation begins with a broad overview of Max's thesis connecting games and capitalism—what he calls gamified capitalism—introducing the concept of 21st century capitalism as a sort of cruel and unwinnable game in which we are all trapped. We discuss the financialization of capitalism as the foundation upon which gamification has flourished, describing the emergnce of the "cheated player" navigating a never-ending series of financialized games—from dating apps to prediction markets. 
Max explains how fascism on both a micro and macro level emerges out of this material reality through a sort of revenge politics and the creation of the "cheating other" who must be eliminated from society. We go on to elaborate on this and discuss how fascism in the 20th century differs from 21st century fascism as a sort of entrepreneurial form of fascism that places the emphasis on the individual as opposed to the mass. 
We situate Trump in Max's analysis of 21st century fascism as a form of revenge against the cheating other under gamified capitalism, discussing QAnon, the TESCREAL philosophies of Silicon Valley, and other fascistic phenomena along the way. We end by exploring what games can teach the left and how learning from games can contribute to our movements for liberation. 
We are now on Youtube! You can find us and subscribe to our channel at youtube.com/@upstream_podcast
Further resources:
The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to 21st Century Fascism, by Max Haiven
Max's work
Related episodes:
Capitalist Realism w/ Carlee
Listen to our ongoing series on Palestine
Intermission music: "Shit List" by Carsie Blanton
Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you'll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.