Macrodose

Planet B Productions

4.8 (160)
NEWS COMMENTARY
UPDATED WEEKLY

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

16 HR AGO

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

10 min
6 DAYS AGO

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?

48 min
1 APR

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-warhttps://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

20 min
25 MAR

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

16 min
18 MAR

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

14 min
11 MAR

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

15 min
5 MAR

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.

56 min
4 MAR

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

20 min

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4.8

out of 5

160 Ratings

Essential listening

18 Feb

EceniRising

James Meadway offers sane, grounded , constructive insights into the state of current national and international economics, shifting the Overton window towards a future that could work.
Essential

21/06/2025

LenBurr

sober diagnosis and prognosis on the relationships between economics and ecology
Fabulous content

31/01/2025

martcol

The number of half finished podcasts I have is huge. Mostly because I always listen whilst doing other things but also because I lose interest or the pod runs out of steam! I have the attention span of a goldfish but Macrodose seems to grab my interest and hold it!
My go to podcast!

07/08/2024

Yellow Purple Peg

Great variety of contributors and content. But please cut down on the unnecessary intro music etc. Thanks for your hard work.