Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast ABC listen

How did an unknown Marxist scholar sell half a million copies of a book about degrowth communism in his homeland of Japan? And why is a complete transformation of our economic life necessary to save the planet?  

Guest: Kohei Saito is an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, and the youngest-ever winner of the Deutscher Memorial Prize for scholarship in the Marxist tradition. His book is Slow Down: How degrowth communism can save the earth (Hachette Australia). 

At a time when US security feels less assured, should Japan and Australia be forging stronger ties? Japanese author, playwright and translator Roger Pulvers says that while defence is an important arm of our relationship, we should also lean into our shared cultural and commercial interests. 

Adventurer Robyn Davidson's new memoir brings us the story of her nomadic life of constant travel and reveals an unquenchable curiosity about different ways of seeing the world.

Unfinished Woman is published by Bloomsbury

Mexico has filed a case against Ecuador in the International Court of Justice, accusing it of violating diplomatic rights after it raided their embassy to arrest former Vice-President, Jorge Glas. Ecuador has filed a counter-claim saying Mexico is interfering in Ecuadorian sovereignty. So what rights does a nation state have to prosecute people accused of corruption and abuses of power? Is diplomatic asylum being abused in order to avoid being held to account? And when are corruption allegations being misused for political purposes? 

Guest: Eduardo Bohórquez, Executive Director of Transparencia Mexicana – the Mexico Chapter of Transparency International. 

Ian Dunt provides his analysis of the disastrous local council elections for the Conservative Party which will likely push back the General Election to late in the year.

Guest: Ian Dunt, columnist with the "i".

The average farmer in America is no longer someone in gumboots mending fences and riding tractors. Barons is the story of seven corporate titans who now dominate the American food system. Many of them are still family-run companies worth billions. Austin Frerick says there are similar approaches to the industrialised food system that include political donations, cases of animal cruelty, worker abuses, corrupted academic research and the use of trade associations and shell companies to obscure links to their operations. And those companies are also operating in Australia.

Guest: Austin Frerick, fellow of the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale, and author, Barons: money, power, and the corruption of America’s food industry, published by Island Press.