Macrodose

Planet B Productions

Your weekly fix of everything economics. Hosted by James Meadway.

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277 episodes
Updated Thursday

Episodes277

Newest first

April 30 · 41 min
Power in the Periphery w/ Gabriel Tupinambá
⁠⁠Event Tickets: Political Economy in a Time of Monsters⁠ (May 12th) Welcome back to After Order - a series from Macrodose and the Alameda Institute - exploring power and crisis in today’s unstable world. In this week’s episode, we’re turning to the concept of Popular Sovereignty. At a moment when the old order is breaking down - when states are less able to guarantee rights, stability, or even the basic conditions of life - what does it mean for movements, communities, and working people to build power for themselves? Joining James to explore that question is Gabriel Tupinambá, Senior Researcher at Alameda. In an upcoming paper titled ‘Popular Sovereignties Under Peripheral Conditions’, Gabriel looks to social movements, especially those in Brazil, to understand how communities are attempting to reclaim sovereignty on new terms. Gains that once seemed durable - access to land, political representation, legal recognition - now appeared increasingly fragile. Right-wing forces are reorganising both inside and outside the state, and progressives are too often clinging to outdated institutions that have themselves become unstable. Under these conditions, Gabriel argues that we need to rethink sovereignty from the ground up. Not as a juridical status, or as participation in a national project, but as something more material and immediate, the means of life itself - food, land, shelter, social reproduction - as the basis for any sustained political struggle. Was the stability of the postwar period always more fragile than it appeared? Are the conditions long associated with the global periphery now becoming generalised across the world? And if movements today can still disrupt systems of power, why is it so much harder to build alternatives that last? All that and more, in this week’s After Order. Image Credits: Arquivo e Memória, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) Sebastiao Salgado c/o⁠ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=2560,quality=82,format=auto,fit=contain/filestore/images/after-months-of-occupation-of-the-cuiaba-plantation-by-landless-families-the-peasants-celebrate-the-official-expropriation-state-of-sergipe-brazil-1996.jpg⁠ Wellington Lenon c/o ⁠https://www.brasildefato.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/MST-_-Foto-Wellington-Lenon.jpg ⁠ Gilvan Oliveria, c/o ⁠https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/01/22/lasdless-workers-movement-celebrates-40-years-and-becomes-the-longest-running-peasant-movement-in-brazil/⁠ Douglas Mansur, c/o ⁠https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/01/22/lasdless-workers-movement-celebrates-40-years-and-becomes-the-longest-running-peasant-movement-in-brazil/⁠ Eraldo Peres, c/o ⁠https://www.thenation.com/article/world/brazil-mst-landless-workers-movement/⁠ Alf Ribeiro, c/o ⁠https://dissentmagazine.org/article/brazils-landless-workers-rise-mst-land-occupation/⁠ Duda Oliva c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03_Duda-Oliva-2.jpg⁠ Judy Duarte c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/02_Juliana-2.jpg⁠ Natália Gregorini c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/04_Natalia-2.jpg⁠ Artworks Duda Oliva c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/03_Duda-Oliva-2.jpg⁠ Judy Duarte c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/02_Juliana-2.jpg⁠ Natália Gregorini c/o ⁠https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/04_Natalia-2.jpg⁠
April 29 · 15 min
BP's Iran War Mega Profits
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at BP's mega-profits - this time as an inevitable result of the war on Iran (0:42), whether or not we could be on the verge of another 2008-style financial crisis (3:26), and the shock announcement that the UAE is leaving OPEC (9:57). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Event Tickets: The Break—Down Issue #3 Launch Party! Event Tickets: Political Economy in a Time of Monsters To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Listen to Death In Westminster - a new documentary podcast from Planet B Productions & Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/category/audio/death-in-westminster/#the-station
April 23 · 44 min
Digital Sovereignty vs Big Tech w/ Cecilia Rikap & Paolo Gerbaudo
Event Tickets: Political Economy in a Time of Monsters Welcome back to After Order - a series from Macrodose and the Alameda Institute - exploring power, sovereignty, and crisis in today’s unstable world. In this week’s episode, we turn to Digital Sovereignty in the age of Big Tech. What does it mean that the infrastructures underpinning our everyday lives - from search and cloud computing to communication and logistics - are owned and controlled by a tiny handful of Silicon Valley elites? What does that concentration of power mean for democracy, for states, and for the possibility of political autonomy in the digital age? And what, if anything, can we do about it? Joining host James Meadway to explore these questions are Cecilia Rikap and Paolo Gerbaudo. Cecilia is Professor of Economics and Head of Research at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London. Paolo is Senior Researcher at the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology at the Complutense University of Madrid, and author of The Great Recoil: Politics after Populism and Pandemic. In 2025, Cecilia and Paolo co-authored a major report for the Alameda Institute titled Reclaiming Digital Sovereignty: A Roadmap to Build a Digital Stack for People and the Planet. The report sets out a bold vision: to treat digital infrastructure as a public good - one that is democratically governed, ecologically sustainable, and oriented toward social need rather than private profit. Their argument centres on a simple but far-reaching claim, that digital infrastructure is not just technical - it’s geopolitical. From the dominance of US Big Tech to the rise of Chinese platform ecosystems, control over data, computation, and networks has rapidly become a fundamental and contested terrain of global power. But if that’s true, then the challenge is not just to critique existing systems - it’s to build new ones. What would it take to construct a public-interest digital stack? Who has the capacity to do it? And how do you navigate a world shaped both by corporate monopolies and intensifying geopolitical competition? In a moment where sovereignty is increasingly exercised through platforms and protocols, this question becomes unavoidable. So what would it mean to reclaim digital infrastructure? All that and more, in today’s After Order.
April 22 · 16 min
Six Weeks of Fuel in Europe
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at how Europe now has only six weeks’ worth of jet fuel supplies left (1:52), how the big six investment banks are making record profits on the back of the Iran War (7:22), and some positive news around the decline of fossil fuels, and the future of our energy markets (11:48). James also pays tribute to the life and work of economist and biographer of Keynes Robert Skidelsky. Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Event Tickets: Break-Down Issue #3 Launch Party Event Tickets: Political Economy in a Time of Monsters To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Listen to Death In Westminster - a new documentary podcast from Planet B Productions & Novara Media:https://novaramedia.com/category/audio/death-in-westminster/#the-station
April 16 · 47 min
Order as Fiction w/ Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla
Welcome back to After Order - a series from Macrodose and the Alameda Institute - exploring power, sovereignty, and crisis in today's unstable world. ⁠⁠Event Tickets: Political Economy in a Time of Monsters ⁠⁠ In this week’s show, host James Meadway is joined by Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla - political strategist, activist, Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, and Executive Secretary of the Hague Group, a coalition of Global South nations launched in 2025 to hold Israel accountable for its crimes in Palestine. Varsha’s work sits at the intersection of law, empire, and resistance - as both an organiser and an intellectual, grappling with what it might mean to build a decolonial internationalism rooted in the Global South. From Honduras, where a US corporation is suing the state for billions in a secret tribunal, to Ecuador, where an authoritarian regime with the direct assistance of the US is crushing democracy in the name of the War on Drugs, to the bombs falling on Gaza - in flagrant violation of international law - it’s clear we are living through a rupture in the global “order”. But Varsha argues that “order”, the so called “rules-based international system”, was always and fundamentally a veneer, one that masked the systems of coercion, extraction and exploitation that uphold global capitalism. In the context of war on Iran, it’s a particularly prescient argument. The veil has lifted, we are seeing the return of hard power across the world, and an open defiance of international institutions, from Cuba to Palestine. But we’re also seeing something else. A wave of solidarity with the victims of colonial oppression, and new forms of coordination among states seeking to resist through the cracks of disorder. So the question at the heart of today’s conversation is this: as the old fiction of order breaks down, what comes next? And what would it mean to build a different kind of sovereignty - and a different kind of internationalism - in a world After Order? Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠⁠. Listen to Death In Westminster - a new documentary podcast from Planet B Productions & Novara Media.
April 15 · 9 min
Starmer's Shifting Rhetoric
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at some changing rhetoric from Keir Starmer on the changing world we live in, and how it affects our economy. But does he really get it? (1:02), And second: how the surge in energy prices is prompting a jump in home installations of renewable energy generation (5:52). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Event Tickets: Political Economy in a Time of Monsters To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Listen to Death In Westminster - a new documentary podcast from Planet B Productions & Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/category/audio/death-in-westminster/#the-station
April 9 · 45 min
The New Age of Extraction w/ Thea Riofrancos
Event Tickets: Political Economy in a Time of Monsters Welcome back to the After Order podcast - a series from Macrodose in collaboration with the Alameda Institute. In our opening episode, host James Meadway spoke with Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff about their book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, using Elon Musk as a lens to examine the intellectual contours of our emerging post-liberal moment. Together, they traced how new ideological formations may be taking shape in the aftermath of neoliberalism. In today’s episode, we shift from those ideological roots to something more tangible, the material foundations of contemporary capitalism, and in particular, the accelerating green energy transition. To explore this, James is joined by Thea Riofrancos, author of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism. As governments and corporations race to decarbonise the global economy, demand for critical minerals such as lithium has surged dramatically. Yet as Thea’s work shows, this transition is not simply a story of technological progress or environmental necessity. It is also opening up new frontiers of extraction - reshaping landscapes, transforming communities, and reconfiguring geopolitical relations in the process. At the centre of this conversation lies a pressing question: can the shift to renewable energy avoid reproducing the same extractive dynamics that defined the fossil-fuel era? And are we witnessing the emergence of a new form of “green capitalism” that carries forward many of the old logics under a different guise? In a world After Order, where crises no longer appear as temporary disruptions but as enduring conditions, the stakes of these questions are difficult to overstate.
April 8 · 9 min
Cheaper Drones, Fewer Profits
TICKETS: Political Economy in a Time of Monsters On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at a surprising side effect of the war on Iran. As shares in arms manufacturers take an unexpected dip, has this conflict actually damaged the Western arms industry? Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Listen to Death In Westminster - a new documentary podcast from Planet B Productions & Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/category/audio/death-in-westminster/#the-station
April 2 · 48 min
Neoliberalism’s Last Man w/ Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff
Welcome to the After Order podcast - a new series from Macrodose and the Alameda Institute. This series emerges from Alameda’s ongoing After Order research project, which begins from a simple but unsettling proposition, that we may no longer be living through an interregnum between stable systems, but in a period defined by recurring crises - a time after stable orders. Over the coming weeks, host James Meadway will sit down with leading thinkers from around the globe, exploring topics from the decline of American hegemony and the rise of a multipolar world, to the struggle to reclaim digital sovereignty from Big Tech, and the geopolitical tensions emerging from the global energy transition under green capitalism. We’ll ask, where does power actually lie in a world after order, and what new pathways might still be opened within it? In today's episode, James meets with Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff to discuss their new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Using Elon Musk as a lens, Quinn and Ben unpack what they call Muskism - a new political-economic logic emerging out of the ashes of neoliberalism, and one that might - just as Fordism did a century earlier - provide a roadmap to the ideological terrain of our present moment. If the neoliberal era is coming to an end, can Muskism help us interpret the ensuing disorder? And what can be done to push back against it?
April 1 · 20 min
A DOGE For The Left?
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at the latest economics fall-out from the war on Iran (2:25), oil thieves in East Anglia, and how they are a harbinger of the near future (11:14), and Verdant - a new think tank launched by James himself (14:22). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Listen to Death In Westminster - a new documentary podcast from Planet B Productions & Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/category/audio/death-in-westminster/#the-station UK Food resilience: https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/news/article/uk-food-needs-radical-transformation-on-scale-not-seen-since-second-world-war https://nationalpreparednesscommission.uk/publications/just-in-case-7-steps-to-narrow-the-uk-civil-food-resilience-gap/ Verdant's first report on government efficiency sacings: https://www.verdantthinking.org/publications/wastenot
March 25 · 16 min
The Third Gulf War
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at how the ongoing Iran war forms part of a longer story of US decline (0:45), why a direct consequence of the war is higher borrowing costs for government (7:50), and what the UK government actually doing in response to the crisis (12:22). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Listen to Death In Westminster - a new documentary podcast from Planet B Productions & Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/category/audio/death-in-westminster/#the-station
March 18 · 14 min
Warflation
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at the disruption to global food supplies that surge in oil prices is now causing (2:01), how fossil fuel companies are profiteering from the crisis (5:51), and why the fresh enthusiasm for motorhome ownership is an unexpected side-effect of climate change (10:40). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Listen to Death In Westminster - a new documentary podcast from Planet B Productions & Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/category/audio/death-in-westminster/#the-station Come to the 'Dark Money' launch event on March 19th: https://dice.fm/event/oevl5r-dark-money-how-billionaires-destroyed-britain-and-how-to-make-them-pay-19th-mar-earth-london-tickets
March 11 · 14 min
Iran, Food & Fertiliser
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at the how the US-Israel war on Iran will impact global food prices (3:07), and how data centres are the newest target in modern warfare (9:47). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Apply for Planet B's Digital Content Lead job opportunity: https://planet-b-productions.homerun.co/digital-content-lead/en Listen to Death In Westminster - a new documentary podcast from Planet B Productions & Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/category/audio/death-in-westminster/#the-station
March 5 · 55 min
Free Gifts w/ Alyssa Battistoni
Capitalism is often defended on the basis of freedom — “free markets”, free choice, as well as being credited with producing the wealth and material abundance that has freed countless people from poverty. Marx, meanwhile, described workers under capitalism as “free in the double sense”: “free” to sell their labour power in the market, and “free” or divorced from the means of production: the land, machinery or materials to sustain themselves on their own. In other words: not particularly free, at all. We can add to this the countless things that are, within market systems, “free” insofar as they are assigned no value, from the free gifts of nature to uncompensated environmental destruction and the unpaid labour that creates and sustains life. What, then, does freedom really mean within a capitalist society? When wealth is so vastly unequal, can it really be argued that market exchange is “free” in any real sense? And when the harms of our economic actions are invisible in the prices we pay—from deforestation to child labour—can we really be said to be making “free choices”? These are the questions at the heart of Alyssa Battistoni’s book Free Gifts. In this episode, she joins Adrienne to talk about value, the politics of nature, and how we might live freely in a finite world.
March 4 · 20 min
The Illegal War On Iran
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at the US and Israel’s illegal war on Iran (1:18), and the stark international economic constraints now facing the UK (9:37). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. Apply for Planet B's Digital Content Lead job opportunity: https://planet-b-productions.homerun.co/digital-content-lead/en
February 25 · 17 min
Trump's Tariffs Shot Down
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at the US supreme court shooting down Trump’s tariff bonanza (1:00), how a global hotel chain is preparing for climate change affecting their business (7:45), and the possible “green shoots” of the UK’s economic recovery (11:14) Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠.
February 18 · 17 min
Climate Change Shakes Food Security
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at fresh warnings that climate change is coming straight for your supermarket shelf (0:40), and a rare piece of good climate news - from India - where a solar boom is helping leapfrog the old, fossil-fuelled path to industrialisation (8:26). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠.
February 12 · 46 min
Beyond Techno-Optimism w/ David Edgerton
In this episode of The Break–Down, Deputy Editor John Merrick is joined by historian and author David Edgerton to discuss how his historical work has shaped his understanding of the climate crisis, the rise of China as both a major emitter and a green tech powerhouse, the retro revivalism of the British right, and the ubiquity of AI boosterism. The history of the climate crisis is often told as a story about technology. Growing out of the dark satanic mills of the Industrial Revolution and accelerating with new forms of production and consumption in the mid-twentieth century, we are frequently told that it is technological development and innovation that got us into this mess. But technology is also presented as the way out: a new green industrial revolution, expanded nuclear power, or even forms of geoengineering are held up as solutions. In this conversation, Edgerton asks whether a more nuanced history of technology and production might tell us something different about the politics of the climate crisis. And whether it might help us imagine paths beyond fossil-fuelled capitalism altogether.
February 11 · 16 min
Past Peak Coal
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at how coal use has now passed it's peak since the industrial revolution (0:41), how far short the world is from adapting to the costs of climate change (6:59), and some dodgy claims being made to support the UK government’s rush to roll out data centres (13:07). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠.
February 4 · 16 min
China's Global Reserve Currency Push
On this week's Macrodose, James Meadway looks at how China is pushing for an end to the dollar’s domination as the global reserve currency (0:35) and how resource constraints in the world economy are pushing governments to build up stockpiles of essentials (10:32). Subscribe to support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose.⁠⁠⁠⁠ Your pledge is a donation supporting free public education; perks are thank-you gifts for your support. Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at ⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠. To learn more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, head to ⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠.