**Find a transcript of each week’s episode on our Substack, where we also offer links to resources discussed in the interview. Subscribe now at https://realprogressives.substack.com/

Daniel Conceição is back to discuss the social damage of rentier capitalism and the potential to address it through the insights of Modern Monetary Theory.

Rentier capitalism derives profit from ownership and manipulation of assets rather than through productive activity. While industrial capitalism also creates inequality, rentier capitalism, or rent seeking, exacerbates the division.

State-controlled money creation could nullify some of the speculative advantage of rentiers by directly funding critical public services, such as housing and healthcare. It may not be the ultimate answer, but it’s worth looking at.

Daniel and Steve discuss the importance of overcoming mainstream economic fallacies that serve the interests of the financial elite.

Daniel Negreiros Conceição did his undergraduate studies in Economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and his postgraduate studies at UMKC (under Professors Wray, Kelton, et al). He is a professor of macroeconomics and public finance at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He helped create the Institute for Functional Finance and Development (iffdbrasil.org), and he helps run the Brazilian Modern Money Network (https://mmtbrasil.com/) aimed at producing more easily accessible material for teaching MMT to the wider public.

@stopthelunacy on Twitter

**Join us Tuesday evenings for Macro ‘n Chill, an informal gathering where we listen to and discuss this podcast. Register here for our September 10th session https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/29d4cc27-0123-4885-aaa8-6ff95947498d@7d53fbd0-6b43-4143-9400-6b0b36a25e55

Steve’s guest is Nolan Higdon, an author and expert in media literacy. They discuss surveillance in education, which Higdon covers in his book, co-authored with Allison Butler, Surveillance Education: Navigating the Conspicuous Absence of Privacy in Schools.

Surveillance capitalism, which emerged in the late 20th century, profits from datamining, largely without public awareness. Nolan emphasizes the increased intrusion into schools, particularly following changes to FERPA laws in 2012 allowing private tech companies to collect and use student data. The discussion highlights the false sense of security offered by the surveillance tools as well as the biases ingrained in AI used in education.

The topic takes on special significance when considered along with the broader implications for society, including the erosion of democracy and the intensification of neoliberal ideology that prioritizes profit over public welfare.

Nolan Higdon is a founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas, Project Censored National Judge, author, and lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz. Higdon’s areas of concentration include podcasting, digital culture, news media history, propaganda, and critical media literacy. He is the author of The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education (2020); Let’s Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy (2022); The Media And Me: A Guide To Critical Media Literacy For Young People (2022); and the forthcoming Surveillance Education: Navigating the conspicuous absence of privacy in schools (Routledge). Higdon is a regular source of expertise for CBS, NBC, The New York Times, and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Find his work on Substack: nolanhigdon.substack.com

@NolanHigdonCML on Twitter

@ProjectCensored

Macro N Cheese brings you another twist. A couple of months ago, Steve appeared as a guest on 1Dime Radio in a two-part series that we’re now presenting as a single episode. Tony has been on our podcast several times, now Steve is on his turf. The result is a productive meeting of the minds. He and Steve both view the world through a Marxist lens, and they both agree Marxists need MMT.

The discussion goes into the American Revolution as they consider the possibility of democracy in a modern capitalist system. They examine bourgeois control over politics and economics. They look at the limitations of capitalism in meeting society’s vital problems and talk about the devastating effects of privatization. They compare a UBI to a program of universal basic services and agree there’s no contest.

Tony runs the YouTube channel "1Dime" and the podcast 1Dime Radio. On his main channel, 1Dime does video essays and mini-documentaries that involve the political economy, history, geopolitics, leftist theory, and various socio-political topics. 1Dime is known most for his videos involving MMT and Marxian thought, such as "The Problem With Taxing The Rich" and "Why Billionaires Prefer Democrats." Check out his YouTube channel, 1Dime and his podcast, 1Dime Radio, on Apple, Spotify, and most podcast platforms.

@1DimeOfficial on Twitter