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It was once very difficult for people experiencing poverty in the Global South to obtain credit and loans because they were seen as unable to provide adequate collateral. This situation changed with the emergence of microfinance, a model pioneered by Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh which has now been widely disseminated to countries around the world. 
At the heart of the Grameen system is the organization of borrowers into groups of women (97 percent of the bank’s loans are to women) where collateral is each woman's social connections and reputation. This model is touted for contributing to Women’s Empowerment and for “rising people out of poverty” and even won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. 
But does this model actually empower women? Does it address the structural causes of poverty? Or is it just another frontier for capitalism — a new way of profiting off of the most marginalized, exploiting the trust and social cohesion among groups of women, and even triggering what’s been described as “India’s micro-finance suicide epidemic”?
To answer these questions, we’ve invited on Dr. Sohini Kar, a socio-cultural anthropologist at the London School of Economics who focuses on the economic anthropology of South Asia, particularly in urban India. She is also the author of Financializing Poverty: Labor and Risk in Indian Microfinance. 
In this conversation, Dr. Kar breaks down what microfinance is and how it’s hurting women in India and beyond, she shares stories of the experiences women in India have had with microcredit programs, she connects microlending in India with predatory payday lending in the United States as part of capitalism’s financialization of poverty, and finally, she offers truly transformative and empowering financial pathways for both investors and purchasers alike.
Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode’s cover art and to Gopal Maurya for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns.
Further Resources:
Dr. Sohini Kar at LSE Dr. Sohini Kar Subprime Empire: On the In-Betweenness of Finance, The University of Chicago Press Journals This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

“It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Those words have been attributed to both the philosophers Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek decades ago, but they couldn’t feel more true today. As we continue to stare down the double barrels of climate change and COVID without any meaningful response from those who rule over us, without organized and collective action that has been able to make a transformative material impact, and for many out there without even really fully absorbing the reality staring us in the face…yeah. , it certainly seems like it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of this horrifying social order. 
This phenomenon, which was so aptly distilled into a bite-sized quote by Jameson and Žižek, has come to be known as capitalist realism — a concept popularized by the late Mark Fisher in a book of the same name written in 2008. In Capitalist Realism, Fisher, an author and educator, explains in eighty pages, just how deeply capitalism has permeated our worlds, how totalizing its hegemony has become in the 21st century, how broadly it has flattened not just our institutions but our interactions, our experiences, our emotions, our traumas — how the commodification of everything has enveloped us all in this era we know as neoliberal capitalism.
To discuss Capitalist Realism, the book and the concept, we’ve brought on Carlee Gomes, co-host of Hit Factory, a podcast about the films and politics of the 1990s. Carlee’s immersion in film and media, and her deep understanding of how capitalist realism exists in the realm of culture, gives this conversation a wide-ranging scope spanning from music to film to labor struggles to mental health — and much more. Carlee is also a friend of the show, both Robert and I have been guests on Hit Factory in the past, so we couldn’t be more excited to be continuing our collaboration with such a good comrade on such an exciting and rich topic. 
Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode’s cover art and to Chain and The Gang for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns.
Further Resources:
Hit Factory on Patreon Hit Factory: The Matrix feat. Della Duncan Hit Factory: Slacker feat. Robert Raymond Hit Factory: The Matrix Resurrections feat. Aaron Thorpe What May Have Been, by Aaron Thorpe Revolutionary Left Radio: Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
 

Do you ever feel like time is marching in a particular direction? Towards, say, rising global temperatures, mass extinctions, ever-increasing divisions — and ultimately, towards inevitable collapse? What if this particular perception of time contributes to our feelings of despair and hopelessness about our futures? What if it limits our ability to imagine and fight for a more just, equitable, and regenerative system?
In this conversation, we’ve brought on Bay Area artist and author Jenny Odell to help us unpack and reimagine our experience of time and to foster hope and inspire action for a better future. We focus on insights and stories from Jenny’s two books, her 2019 New York Times Bestseller How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy and most recently, Saving Time: Discovering Life Beyond the Clock.
In this conversation, we learn about the commodification and colonization of time under capitalism, how it happened, when it happened, and how the fungibility of time contributes to human and planetary suffering. We explore her unique reframe of classes to include those who time, those who are timed, and those who self-time. We also talk about a more ecological and place-based sense of time, a life beyond the clock, unbound from capitalism, that shows that neither our lives nor the life of our planet is a foregone conclusion, that we are not alone in our efforts to dismantle capitalism, and that the more-than-human world is actually an active participant in the endeavor — and here to help. 
Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode’s cover art and to Bowerbirds for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns.
Further Resources:
Saving Time: Discovering Life Beyond the Clock, by Jenny Odell How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell The Bureau of Suspended Objects Where Almost Everything I Used, Wore, Ate or Bought on Monday, April 1, 2013 (That Had a Label) Was Manufactured, to the Best of My Knowledge This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and by Resist Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media:
Facebook.com/upstreampodcast
Twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast
Instagram.com/upstreampodcast
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

When you think about the philosophies and practices of Buddhism and Marxism, you might not immediately think that they have much in common. However, you might be surprised at how much overlap and complementary resonance there actually is between these two rich and beautiful traditions. 
In this conversation, we’ve brought on Breht O’Shea, a Buddhist practitioner and Marxist political educator based out of Omaha, Nebraska. Breht is the host of the podcast Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the podcasts Red Menace, Guerrilla History, and, most recently, Shoeless in South Dakota. You might remember Breht from when he was on the show about a year ago to talk about revolutionary leftist theory. 
In this conversation, we explore how both Buddhism & Marxism offer helpful pathways to liberation and provide a spot-on analysis of the root causes of suffering. We also explore some of the potential tensions between Buddhism and Marxism, as well as what each tradition can learn from the other. And we end with a powerful invitation to embark on the path of the Bodhisattva Revolutionary to both end the internal and structural causes and conditions of suffering and to bring forth the systemic changes necessary for the transition to a socialist and eventually communist economy based on liberation, equity, and justice for all. 
This interview was inspired by an episode of Revolutionary Left Radio titled Dialectics & Liberation: Insights from Buddhism and Marxism where Breht read a speech he gave at Arizona State University on the topic of dialectical materialism, Buddhism, and Marxism. Definitely check that episode out when you’re done listening to this — it’s a great complement to this conversation.
Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode’s cover art and to Mount Eerie for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns.
Further Resources:
Upstream: Revolutionary Leftism with Breht O'Shea (In Conversation) Dialectics & Liberation: Insights from Buddhism and Marxism, by Breht O’Shea on Revolutionary Left Radio  Revolutionary Left Radio Red Menace Guerilla History Shoeless in South Dakota This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and by Resist Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media:
Facebook.com/upstreampodcast
Twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast
Instagram.com/upstreampodcast
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
 

When we think of health under capitalism, it's easy to go straight to the fight for universal healthcare, and understandably — that battle is one of the most contentious and important in the ongoing class war between the mass of people and those who rule us, the capitalist class.
But it would be a mistake to think that that’s where our battle ends, that there isn't an expanded struggle over the ways that health and sickness are even conceptualized under the capitalist ideological framework which shapes how we value ourselves and how we are either utilized or abandoned by this system. 
In this episode, we’ll take a deep dive into all of the different places where health overlaps with capitalism, with Beatrice Adler-Bolton, co-host of the podcast Death Panel and co-author, along with Artie Vierkant, of Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto.
This conversation glides from Marxist economic analysis to healthcare policy to history and to some of the most foundational philosophical underpinnings of the political economy of health. Beatrice directs a striking blow against any perceived possibility of true health ever existing under capitalism, arguing that we must fight for our lives, literally, to bring forth the fall of capitalism and to build a new system that works for everyone — what she calls health communism.
Thank you to Carolyn Raider for this episode’s cover art and to Fugazi for the intermission music. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond/Lanterns.
Further Resources:
Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto, by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant Death Panel Podcast Death Panel Medicare For All Week Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition by Liat Ben-Moshe Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and by Resist Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media:
Facebook.com/upstreampodcast
Twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast
Instagram.com/upstreampodcast
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
 

Elements of capitalism have existed throughout history — in institutions like markets, class relations, ownership laws, credit systems, etc. But they were never dominant until they came together, escaping the isolated, laboratory conditions in which they once existed, to coalesce and form a world-dominating capitalist order. 
How did the bubonic plague, the world-shattering pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia in the 14th century, along with the Little Ice Age that followed it, give rise in the 1600s to the mode of production that has now come to take hold of the entire world? What is capital, and how is it a social relation, as Marx wrote? And what exactly is the relationship between capitalism and the state? Are these two opposed, like many on the reactionary right tend to assume, or are they one and the same thing, there to support and uphold one another? And what about capitalism itself — what different stages or phases of capitalism exist? How did we go from the more classic mercantile capitalist system to industrialization, culminating in monopoly, imperialism, and now what we tend to call neoliberal capitalism? And what’s coming next?
To help us zoom out and give us a historical and overarching understanding of capitalism as a system and a process, we’ve brought on investigative journalist and scholar, Christian Parenti. Christian is the author of books such as Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, and, more recently, Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons from a Misunderstood Founder. 
And just in case you were wondering, yes, Christian is the son of the political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic Michael Parenti, author of classics like Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, as well as Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media. You might have come across Michael Parenti on our Instagram where Robert loves to post so-called Yellow Parenti lectures and memes — check out our Instagram page @upstreampodcast if you want to know more.
This conversation is also an excellent complement to our recent documentary, The Myth of Freedom Under Capitalism, which you can learn more about at upstreampodcast.org
Further resources:
Radical Hamilton: Economic Lessons from a Misunderstood Founder
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time By Karl Polanyi
Thank you to James Xerxes Fussell for the cover art. Upstream's theme music was composed by Robert Raymond.
This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and by Resist Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media:
Facebook.com/upstreampodcast
Twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast
Instagram.com/upstreampodcast
You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.tt