Sam is back! He and Emma speak with Naomi Oreskes, professor of the History of Science at Harvard University, author of The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, co-authored with Erik Conway. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on another “low-confidence” government report on COVID emerging […]

Sam and Emma host Lily Geismer, professor of history at Claremont McKenna College, to discuss her recent book Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality. on the shift from New Deal democratic ideology, to the neoliberal tactic of entrusting social development in private enterprise in a pivot to the white suburbanite. Professor Geismer first discusses the […]

Emma hosts Elizabeth Popp Berman, associate professor of organizational studies at the University of Michigan, to discuss her recent book Thinking Like An Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality In U.S. Public Policy, on how the era of neoliberalism saw a new mode of reasoning in Washington, and the lasting effects it has today. First, Emma and Professor Berman […]

Sam and Emma host Ryan Cooper, national correspondent at The Week, to discuss his new book How Are You Going to Pay For That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Questions in Politics, on how the self-immolating ideas of the free market have locked us into a vision of government that is impotent in the face of any economic stress on […]

Sam hosts Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, to discuss his recent book The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back that he co-wrote with Allen Mikaelian, on how neoliberal policies have cut up the public sphere, dividing its profits between a narrow subset of people, […]

Emma hosts Ted H. Miller, associate teaching professor at Northeastern University, to discuss his recent book A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism, on the anti-communist paranoia that helped found the educational and political beliefs that define modern conservatism. Professor Miller begins with the birth of Robert Welch, eventual founder […]

Sam hosts James W. Russell, public policy affiliate scholar at Portland State University, to discuss his recent book The Labor Guide to Retirement Plans: For Union Organizers and Employees, on the importance of fighting for good end-of-life security and how employers and banks have capitalized off of the switch from pensions to 401ks. Russell and Sam begin by […]