This week I am delighted to welcome back to the show Michael Roberts, author of the ‘Next Recession’ blog. We talk about the new reports out on the world economy from the IMF and the Bank of International Settlements, and how Ben Bernanke has come out as a closet Marxist after all these years.

We also discuss the recent debate between David Harvey on one side, and Michael and Andrew Kliman on the other, about the relevance / reality of the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit, and the politics behind it all.

You can find Michael’s most prolific Blog here:

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/

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After repeated requests from a number of listeners, this week I am delighted to  welcome back to the show Dr Paul Cockshott, a reader in the computer science department of Glasgow University. We talk of the Socialist Calculation debate, the Soviet plans for their own internet, Google vs a planned economy, and the problems with Council Communism.

If you’d like to listen to the show on your phone, you can now also listen with TuneIn here:

http://tunein.com/radio/From-Alpha-To-Omega-p686756/

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This week I am delighted to welcome back to the show Doug Lain, host of what was once called the Diet Soap podcast, but which is now the Zero Squared podcast. We talk about why Doug’s new job as publisher of Zero Books doesn’t make him a capitalist, what econophysics has to do with Marx, capitalism as objective reality, base vs superstructure, radical politics and the current balance of forces, how Woody Allen has lost his way, the latest book Doug’s working on, and how cool and communist Star Trek is.

You can find the shows new Stitcher presence here:

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/from-alpha-to-omega

You can find the Zero Squared podcast and all of Doug’s other stuff here:

DouglasLain.com

Here is Zero Books:

http://www.zero-books.net/

The music on this show was:

‘The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters’ by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
‘Maple Leaf Rag’ by Scott Joplin
‘Si tu vois ma mère’ by Sidney Bechet
‘For The Love Of Money’ by O’Jays
‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ by Django Reinhardt

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This week I am delighted to welcome Gavin Mendel-Gleason to the show. Gavin works as a Post-Doctoral researcher in the computer science department at Dublin City University. Gavin also writes for the very interesting blog: Spirit of Contradiction, which focuses on various different aspects of leftist or socialist politics and theory.

Gavin recently wrote a really interesting article on some empirical and theoretical evidence from the world Econophysics that chimes with Marx’s two-class analysis of capitalism. These results are extremely interesting and serve as another illumination of the accuracy and power of Marx’s work. We also talk about Gavin’s experiences working as an anarchist activist in Ireland, and his journey from that to more formal party politics.

You can find his Spirit of Contradiction blog here:

The music featured on this show was:

‘The Order of the Pharaonic Jesters’ by Sun Ra and his Arkestra
‘Working Man’ by Rush
‘Top Hat, White Tie and Tails’ by Fred Astaire
‘Time Will Tell’ by The Lafayette Afro Rock Band
‘Water No Get Enemy’ by Fela Kuti

Here are the instructions on how to leave a review on iTunes:

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2. If you don’t already have an apple_id, please carefully follow the instructions here where you can create an account without having to give them your bank details (i know… swine!) http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht2534
3. Got to the iTunes website for the show: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/from-alpha-to-omega/id530114975?mt=2
4. Click on the ‘View in iTunes’ button
5. Click on the ‘Ratings and Reviews’ tab
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8. Write the review, and click on the submit button.
9. If you are having any trouble with all of this, drop me an email to: alpha2omegapodcast (at) gmail (dot) com

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This week I am delighted to welcome Thom Workman to the show, Professor of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick. Thom’s research explores the philosophical and sociological critiques of modernity, especially as these have developed over the post-Enlightenment era. In this episode we discuss the history of the Philosophy of Science, Marx’s understanding of science at the time of writing ‘Das Kapital’, Postmodernism, and how this notion of science has come under attack over the years, from various quarters, both from outside and within Marxism itself.

Thom has also published a number of books, his latest called: ‘If You’re in My Way, I’m Walking: The Assault on Working People since 1970’.

http://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/if-youre-in-my-way-im-walking.

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