Episode 313 – CHE with Clara Mattei

Steve Grumbine
00:00:42

Alright folks, this is Steve with Macro N Cheese.

Folks, it’s been a long time. It’s been, I mean, it’s been a hot minute since I had my friend Clara Mattei join me.

She reached out to me because she’s got something really cool cooking. You know, we’ve watched everyone losing their mind with The Trump Part 2 here and watching the austerity kick in.

I mean, like slash and burn, we’re talking. Everybody is on pins and needles to see what’s getting cut. And, you know, austerity has been the name of the game for a long time.

We’ve talked about it extensively here when we had Clara Mattei come through and talk about her book, The Capital Order, which we have done more to promote because it is so unbelievably important. But Clara, Clara’s moving on.

Clara is out there in Tulsa, Oklahoma, right now starting up the Center for Heterodox Economics, conveniently titled CHE, CHE. I don’t know if it’s pronounced that way, but I’m going to romantically say it is. And Clara, for those of you who don’t know who she is.

Clara Mattei is Professor of Economics and Director of the CHE.

She previously taught at the New School for Social Research, Economics Department, and has been a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton. Her research contributes to the history of capitalism, exploring the critical relation between economic ideas and technocratic policy making.

Her first book, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism, University of Chicago Press, 2022. It’s been translated in over 10 languages.

Her current book project critically reassesses the golden age of capitalism, 1945-1975, and its Keynesianism through the lens of austerity capitalism. Without further ado, I bring you Clara Mattei. Welcome so much to the show.

Clara Mattei
00:02:39

Thank you so much, Steve, for having me here. It’s such a pleasure.

Steve Grumbine
00:02:43

Absolutely. When I saw you… Folks, we do this without video, but when she came on, she came on via video and she was just beaming.

And I’m still suffering from pneumonia, getting on the other side of it, and she just perked me right up. So I’m really, really happy to have you on here. Thank you so much again. So tell me what the heck CHE is. I mean, obviously this is so cool.

Clara Mattei
00:03:08

Yeah, the CHE is really cool. We hope to make it cool in the sense that it’s really at its beginnings.

We are inaugurating the CHE with an amazing conference on 6th and 7th and 8th of February [2025 CHE Inaugural Conference] coming up, but also visible on YouTube after the conference.

And I think it speaks to the fact that we’re able to bring in economists, critically minded economists, the most world famous, from Jamie Galbraith to Anwar Shaikh to Branko Milanovic, even Robert Brenner, big names of people that are interested in helping out with a project that I think everyone thinks is exciting. The CHE is a new center that has ambitious goals on various fronts.

The first goal is to be a point of reference for young scholars, young minds, young students who are fed up about how the education and economics is ultimately a way to distract students from the real life problems they face every day.

They see they want to understand, but the conceptual tools that they offer in mainstream economics programs that are everywhere, are by now clearly insufficient.

And clearly students suffer from a lack of possibilities to using knowledge to empower them to look critically and ultimately hopefully change pressing social issues that we’re facing today. So that is really crucial. We are building the first [academic] minor in the country called the Heterodox Economics and the Study of Capitalism.

And again, heterodox economics is the idea that we’re bringing in a plurality of traditions, from the Marxian to the Post Keynesian to the institutionalist to the Sraffian, that is basically united in saying the dominant economics is not providing sufficient elements for us to scrutinize and change the world in a way that is for people, not for profit. Right? Mainstream economics has served the game of power by hiding instead of explaining, by justifying.

In my own work, I’ve shown how it has often allied with fascist regimes in the name of the capital order. Here it’s about using economics differently. And for this reason there are tools already out there that we need to strengthen and move ahead.

So this is the first super important project and hopefully we start with this minor, we get a major, we get a graduate center, we become in a way the Tulsa School of Economics to oppose the Chicago School of Economics that has dominated the past, basically at least 70, 80 years.&
This is the first project. The second project that I think goes hand in hand, because they’re understood as combined, is the idea to really break the walls of academia.

I’ve suffered in my past positions also at the New School, from this remoteness and the way in which even, you know, supposedly radical scholars tend to stay away from people and from real problems. Right? There’s academia, of course, is a very privileged place. Once you make it – it’s very hard to make it – once you make it, you have privileges, you have job security, a job that is actually exciting because you get to, you know, teach and research and you kind of lose sight of how I think scholars have to have a social role and be organic to the class struggle in the Gramscian sense, in the sense of actually participating, taking responsibility in helping out, transform society in a way that really is more inclusive and regenerative. And in this sense, here is where we have these monthly events.

We have explored downtown Tulsa and we are going to offer food and a nice space, and I’m going to bring together both scholars and organizers so that we have a nice ensemble of different perspectives to speak to problems that are at once local and global. And this is the interesting thing about Tulsa, Oklahoma. We are here in the deep red state of Oklahoma.

People are experiencing all of the contradictions of our economic system, from the climate degradation to, you know, the marginalization of the native people. Of course, racial, class marginalization. We had Black Wall Street here that was demolished in the 1920s, and of course, great inequality.

It’s a very segregated city. You know, there are very rich neighborhoods and very, very poor neighborhoods. And the median income in Tulsa is around $33,000 a year.

So clearly a place that has seen the harsh reality of capitalism that is polarizing and that takes resources away. The social resources are lacking. Homelessness is soaring. There’s a huge problem of homelessness. There is a carceral state that is very strong.

There’s a private prison here that people are opposed to.

So this is why we’re bringing to the floor topics like the right to housing, topics like, again, the carceral state, topics like the climate crisis, topics that people can feel that they can have a say in.

And I think this is, Steve, is one of the main points is to say, do not leave economic policies to supposed experts, because supposed experts do not necessarily do what is good for the community and for the people. Actually, usually it’s quite the opposite. Right? And we’re seeing now with Trump, this wave of austerity is getting really serious.

It’s not just going against immigrants, it’s targeting all working class families. Right?

With this Project 2025, the idea of abolishing Head Start, for example, which is early childhood education and health, the idea now just Yesterday, they froze. They’re saying that they’re going to freeze federal funding for education and disaster relief and housing.

There is a bunch of austerity that is immediately underway. There’s clearly an attack on Medicaid. So people will suffer a loss of social services, and we’ll see regressive taxation even more enacted.

We know that there’s a serious sense by which Trump will continue to take away taxes on the wealthy, on corporations, while people are becoming poor because they have to pay taxes. And here in Tulsa, you know, I take Uber to go home as we’re just settling in. And these Uber drivers, they have three jobs to pay their bills, right?

And Uber is one of them. And people feel it, that this is unfair. And they have taxes to pay that are very high.

And we know that those who do have money in this country really don’t pay any taxes. Capital is taxed much less than labor in the United States and elsewhere. So, yes. So this is the general spirit.

Bring conversation about economic issues to the table so that people can feel that they can participate, hopefully, in this way. Also influence local policymakers that I will try to involve in our activities.

We have a pretty cool mayor that just got elected, and so we will see that whether we can create a sense of, okay, we can transform something. That’s the initial idea.

Hopefully, we’ll have documentary screenings, we will build summer schools, and become, hopefully, an experiment that is positive and can be reproduced elsewhere in this country.

Steve Grumbine
00:10:52

That’s absolutely amazing. I gotta ask, because I know these things take an incredible amount of effort. Behind the scenes, it’s like a duck.

You see the duck calm on the water, but the feet are just going like nuts. How did this come to be?

Because I remember when we talked about The Capitol Order, and you were talking about your next book project and so forth, but you were at the New School then. What transpired? How did this come to be? What was the inspiration?

Clara Mattei
00:11:19

Yes, thank you.

Well, actually, here’s where I really want to bring to the table the important work of my colleague, and he’s the chair of the Economics Department here at the University of Tulsa, Scott Carter, who is a great heterodox economist.

He’s worked a lot on Piero Sraffa, and also someone who really organizes from below, and he’s been very active at the level of the university, pushing for the rights of students and professors, especially when during COVID this university was cutting a lot of the humanities programs and the social sciences.
So he, I think, was able, through his own way, to convince the administration that this CHE could be something that could actually benefit the university. And even on the marketing level, this is the thing: universities of course function with the very market based logic, unfortunately, everywhere, especially we’re talking here about private universities. So I think there is a sense that the time is right and this is… I see it in my students.  Students do want programs and curricula that are in fact thought provoking and kind of aimed at looking at the issues of our times. And this is very rare to find, especially in economics.

So I think there’s a sense by which the higher administration was convinced and they were receptive of a project that could benefit them in terms of enrollment and prestige of the university, but could also be something that hopefully is socially innovative. So Scott has been great. Now I’m working here with Jisoo Park, my assistant director we brought directly from New York, just like myself. And Bruno Miller Theodosio, who is my other colleague. Wonderful. Originally Brazilian. Professor in economics, working on macroeconomics from a heterodox perspective.

So this is the small team of people who are starting it up.

I’m doing a lot of work to of course find resources to hire more professors, hopefully postdocs, so that we can also be a resource for people who want to be in their career as economists in a critical way, but don’t really find a lot of space to do that. And I’ve seen a lot of that myself. My own story is kind of I was stuck in a PhD program that was very, very narrow in how they understood economics.

I was very depressed.

I passed all the exams, but I really didn’t know what to do in terms of I couldn’t do the research that they demanded me to do because I felt it was pointless and not at all motivating for me. So I found my own way to study historical political economy. But it wasn’t well seen.

And in Italy , they told me very clearly, you know, there’s no job for you here. So I was lucky through a conference to get to know about the New School. I kind of wrote to at the time, Anwar Sheikh, who’s coming to the conference as well, was the chair of the department of the New School. Very important colleague, my mentor really now, and at the time I didn’t know him. And he’s like, oh, why don’t you come and give a talk?

And for the first time at the New School I found out that they thought history was constitutive of theory and important to understand economics. That was my experience. That’s what I would like to give here. The New School doesn’t have a lot of resources at all.

And you know, the New School is already in New York City. A lot of things are happening already in New York City.

But I think we need to leave the bubble, come to places in which there’s a lot of possibility of getting interest from people.

Tulsa, apart from the students who are great, I just met them in the past two weeks, they care, they’re interested, you know, even about what’s happening in Palestine with Gaza, topics that are quite taboo, unfortunately, in the craziness of our time.

We were discussing very openly how does the genocide connect to the political interests that are ultimately economic interests, how does our economic system propel these eternal destruction of people and how this is a stimulating effect on the economy and what is problematic about this. Right? And so kids are very, very aware that there’s taboo topics that have to be discussed.

And Tulsa is also a place full of grassroots social activities. You know, there’s one store called She Brews. She hires women who were incarcerated and had addiction problems and helps them come out of it.

And like, there are a lot of these solidarity networks that help out the homeless.

So there is a reality also, apart from the students who I think are very interested in new thought provoking experiences. There is also a reality of the big sense of supporting the local businesses. I was impressed, you know, kind of a sense of solidarity that is very, very spontaneous here.

And I just think we could help build more of a network and get people together in a way that perhaps an academic institution can be helpful for that reason.

Steve Grumbine
00:16:16

First things first, let me just say this.

I am so proud that you’re addressing Gaza, that you are not just rolling on and just smiling and saying Biden stuck the landing or any nonsense like that. You’re actually addressing real meaningful things. And I’ve seen far too many just sort of passively ignore it, strategically ignore a genocide.

And it’s, it’s really broken my heart over the last year plus. So hats off to you. It means the world to me. The other thing that I think is really important is there is a lot of snobbery in academia.

There is a lot of elitism. And the working class, which is what we need to organize and bring together to create a countervailing force against these despotic capitalists, is going to have some unsavory people.

It’s going to have some people that maybe we don’t think of as allies, natural allies, because we’re so conditioned not to think as a class, but to think as political parties. You’re right there in the heart of working class struggle. Even if it doesn’t feel like it’s some outside that is right there where it’s happening.

They’re unwashed, they’re unclean, they’re not perfect, they’re ideologically wrong, they are bitter, they are left behind. And maybe they make choices that we wouldn’t like them to make.

So your work, if this is successful, it’s going to be incredibly important to our success as a movement, you know, as a leftist space, as a working class struggle. I really applaud that. Very much so.

Clara Mattei
00:17:56

Yeah. So two thoughts on the two points.

One is that, you know, for me, the genocide in Gaza was a big turning point in how I understood the complicity of so many of my colleagues who considered also themselves, you know, lefties. I have a child, I’m expecting another child.

As a mother, it really makes a difference every time that you hear that children are getting mutilated and slaughtered and orphaned because you just had a concrete sense of what that means. Right. Just when my kid asked for water every night, I was like, man, these kids don’t have water to drink.

And this we know, is this very clear economic decision from the part of the United States this would not have been happening without our money. And so I had in the last year and a half a really hard time ultimately coping. So now, now I’m relieved because of the very limited truce.

They, by the way, killed a five year old just yesterday. Bomb. They droned Gaza, even with the ceasefire. So I don’t know how long it will last. But indeed, in the last week I’ve been breathing more.

But it’s been something that has deeply affected me in terms of my just my capacity just be even functional and healthy and happy.

But it has also affected the way I understand my colleagues and I really am of the idea that one needs to be courageous and stand up, even if it’s not what is convenient, of course, for your career. And this is something, though, that I’m not going to change.

Intermission
00:19:27

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Clara Mattei
00:20:20

Even here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, you know, there is a lot of support for Israel from the part of the big nonprofit sector that leads in a way, a lot of activities in town. And I’m aware of this, like any other American town, you know, this is the money we’re talking about.

There’s a lot of investment in Israel, especially in the surveillance and in the war technology. So we have a very cool session on the political economy of occupied Palestine coming up in our conference.

And we invited actually the very important scholars from Palestine. We have Raja Khalidi, who actually runs the Center of Macroeconomic Research in Rafah.

We have Ibrahim Shikaki, who’s actually a professor in Connecticut [Trinity College]. I learned so much from him in terms of how dependency theory applies to the region.

And then we have Shir Haver, Jewish German scholar who’s worked on the political occupation for a long time. Lamis Faraj, a wonderful scholar who is also from Palestine. And we also are getting the session moderated by Rabbi Feldman.

Rabbi Feldman is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who has been mobilizing with a lot of Jewish rabbis in New York City to say Jewish people do not support genocide.

So we are saying, you know, the reduction of everything that has to do with understanding the historical complexity of the economic and political oppression that has a very long history to antisemitism is absolute nonsense. And we are stopping it just by who we’re populating this seminar, the panel, with.

So, of course, this is getting a lot of, I think, people here not so happy in terms of the power structure. So for me, it was the first challenge is, okay, how do we situate a conference that has clearly a very important panel on a topic that is taboo in a city in which very hardcore Zionism exists? And this is the first challenge we’re facing, right? How do we maintain our intellectual integrity?

I’m not going to cut conversations because I want my center to be successful. This is where I draw the line. I’ve seen this happen.

I’ve seen friends who have decided to put their careers first and their centers first in accepting kind of this blackmailing of, okay, give you the money, but you don’t talk about certain topics. And this is everywhere. So this is what we’re not doing. And this is probably risky. It might get us in trouble.

But I also told the upper administration, they were asking me, hey, what about this panel? How do we… should we think about it? And I told them, I’m coming here because I want to do something I think is right.

And if we can’t do it, then I’m not interested. Right? But I think we can do it because I think the students in the first place, that’s the session they’re most excited about over the whole conference. And we have big names coming for a lot of other topics, including climate crisis, care crisis, inflation, and approaches to economic history and much more.

So, yes, I think that’s really important is, okay, this, what’s happening in Gaza is I think, a test for many of us in terms of, you know… I have my relatives who died fighting the Nazi fascist occupation in Italy and they were victims of antisemitism and they fought for liberation. And if I don’t stand up for the current genocide, I would be disgusted by my own kind of, you know, existence.

So that’s a point that is very solid for me. And the other point you were making that is also very important is, is about this, yes, this snobbery of a lot of academics.

And that’s really another thing that I think is crucial. I think the radical chic left is unbearable because of this snobbery.

And they are ultimately the reason why the system is so much pushing for this authoritarian capitalist regime, right? They abandoned a lot of the working class and this is true of many lefty parties.

There’s very little left parties, supposed left parties that actually have a base in working people because working people are fed up by the liberal kind of progressive establishment many times, and I think many times it is because they feel like their voices are not present in the conversation. And that’s something that I think we want to change.

We want to say, hey, yes, I love the name CHE, of course, and I think Che as a historical man has been of incredible. I mean, if one reads the history of Che Guevara and is very fascinating.

But I also think that it’s true that we don’t want to have too many labels connected with an easy way to kind of put us aside. Right? I want us to be presented as we’re for fresh ideas, for ideas that go beyond any party lines.

We’re not for Democrats, we’re not for Republicans.

We are standing for knowledge that can help people and, you know, all the labels that you can use to disparage initiatives that are ultimately for what is rational. Everyone wants to spend money on health care and not for bombs on Gaza children. Right. This is something that everyone would agree on.

So I think there’s so many points in which people can unite because it’s such fundamental, obvious we’ve gotten to such a low level that I think anyone would agree that people who work should have a living wage.

I mean, it’s not very, you know, it’s such basic, we’re at such basic level of just denial of economic rights that I think the reality is that all these people, that a lot of the left alienates, as you know, oh, Trump supporters, oh, terrible mob. That’s the worst way of doing it. Because actually you should find ways to say, hey, let’s find ways to communicate issues that we all agree with.

And let’s also realize, and this is very important, there’s no paternalism involved. I don’t have to come up here as an academic to try to like, teach you what to do. That’s not the right approach.

We are saying economic theory needs to be connected with social issues, with social struggles, with real people in order to advance theory itself. Right? So it’s a reciprocal learning, what Gramsci called the democratic philosopher. The philosopher only advances its philosophy if this philosophy is grounded in the real life struggle. That means participating in the same projects with people that are actually making up the economy. We know.

So this is very important. It goes two ways. Yes, we can offer tools to advance these struggles, but we are also learning from these struggles to advance our theory. And this is the concept of praxis that is so crucial. So praxis is really, I think, a key element. There’s three pillars for our center.

Praxis is one of them. Right. So theory not just serves an abstract function, but has to serve real life transformation.

And again, this real life transformation can only come from knowing what people do and creating theory with people.

So no paternalism, no top down, no kind of detached expert knowledge, knowledge that serves basic human need of social transformation for economic rights, that again, I think can find a very wide consensus on the ground.

Steve Grumbine
00:27:09

I think that’s amazing.

I mean, it’s always this pie in the sky abstractions that people gloss over and they just sort of their eyes roll back in their head and they say, why am I listening to this? What is the value here? To me, how does this change my life one iota?

And then to be able to take it and put it into practice and to say, hey, it was theoretical over here, but now let’s put theory to practice. Look, here’s what we’ve got. Now, what do you think? I think that is transformational. I really think that’s the most important.

That’s what drew me to MMT [Modern Monetary Theory]. That’s what’s drawn me to understanding Marxist Leninist theory.

I’ve really tried my best to envision both worlds in the current vernacular and the way the Federal Finance works in a modern sense, while also simultaneously understanding how capital is, what capital does and what its modes of operation, what its intents are. And when you understand what it’s trying to do and why it’s leading the way that it’s leading.

You stop looking at people, you start looking at systems. And I think systems are really, really important because most people, I don’t think most people think in a systematic way.

I think most people think very transactionally [Yes] . And I’d be interested, how do you plan on bringing more of a systemic approach to this to people who are typically allergic to systemic thinking?

Clara Mattei
00:28:37

Yes, that is so important. And that’s really, I think, the value of we can say Marxian analysis or I would like to read you a quote from Anur Sheikh.

I asked him to write something about the center and this is what he wrote.

“In this turbulent and troubled world, the role of economics is of critical importance.

Yet too much of the economics profession is entangled in a framework derived from some notion of perfect economic system. Inevitably, actual historical and empirical phenomena appear as imperfections.

The center seeks to engage with economic approaches derived from real historical and economic patterns and to support and encourage dialogue among them.

So this is, I think, really important, is that you can only have a systemic approach if you have approach that is realist and historical.

And the systemic approach is ultimately very empowering. Because there’s nothing to do with determinism, right?

One thinks, oh, well, if you don’t give importance to subjective preferences, then it’s determinist. No, it’s actually about saying it’s about collective action.

Our economic system has nothing natural to it; has been on the planet for 0.1% of the time homo sapiens has been on the planet. So it’s a very young system, yet very destructive in so many ways. And it’s a system that has nothing natural to it, nothing objective.

It’s about social relations that are historical and that come out of collective action.

So we need to understand these tendencies that are part of the evolution of capitalism through this historically minded, politically minded understanding that the economy is us. And I think this is something people understand because unfortunately, if you reduce everything to, ‘Oh, no, that CEO is greedy,’ ‘Oh, Trump is a bad guy,’ that brings you absolutely nowhere. You know, it brings you to think that the reason why there’s bad policies is because people just are either corrupt or irrational, right? Oh, it’s all about corruption.

No, let’s talk about systemic corruption first.

Like, how is it that people’s actions are embedded in a structure of incentives that make them act on behalf of interests that ultimately are functional to capital accumulation? And this again means understanding how the complexity of why economics is interesting. Economics tells you.

Economics, done in a way, in a critical sense, should tell you how the system evolved. What are these forces in which people are trapped?

But again, the people are not only trapped in these forces, they are the architects of these forces. And this is the most important element that I think Gramsci has been very attentive to, is that we are trapped in them.

So it’s not just about being bad or greedy. There’s something, something more profound that we need to understand. We need to understand real competition.

We need to understand how inflationary pressures are a real problem for the system and what is the wiggle room. And we need to understand the limits of capitalism. Capitalism has serious limits in the sense that it does put exchange value over use value.

And this is by definition irrational according to logic of need, but very rational according to logic of profit. So this is what we need to understand clearly. But we also need to understand that we are the ones who have produced the system.

And that’s where the empowering voice comes out, because it says, okay, if we have created it, we can also change it. And guess what? The system is really fragile. That’s why we need austerity constantly to protect it.

So maybe I can end with a really cool quote that Jamie Galbraith gave us. He says heterodoxy… He’s also gonna come to the conference. He’s gonna be on the opening panel on Thursday, February 6, together with Anwar Sheikh and Ingrid. “Heterodoxy is the authentic economics of the Northern American heartland. Institutionalist, evolutionary, pragmatic. May the new center foster and support this tradition and may Tulsa become a new Mecca for independent, relevant, and above all, useful economics.” I think this is very much the spirit, right?”

We want to be independent and relevant and do something that indeed, hopefully can help us move forward and not just get depressed and nihilistic. Because I guess that’s not a great alternative, right? We actually want to use knowledge to say, no, we matter, people matter.

Let’s make something out of that.

Steve Grumbine
00:33:03

That’s amazing.

You know, I’m looking at your website and I’m looking at the curriculum, and, you know, I have a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science and Technology Management.

And I’m wondering if a guy like me with a double masters could come in there and take this het minor, or if this is something that you have to be engaged in a major to take the minor. I mean, you got Econ 101, economics, the social issues. And what are you doing here?

Clara Mattei
00:33:33

That’s a great question. We need to figure that out bureaucratically.

But definitely we plan to have summer schools as early, I think, as already, if not this summer, next summer.

We also have a really cool exchange program, hopefully happening with Cuba, because we have a colleague called Gabriel Vignoli who teaches this class in which she really shows how, again, a different historical context, the meaning of economic issues changes dramatically. Right. So it’s very interesting to have a comparative lens.

I think part of how we’re going to develop this curriculum is through comparative economic systems. It’s very important to be able to understand the specificities of our economic system by comparing it with others without idealizing other systems.

And of course, students that go to Cuba with this study abroad program that we are going to adopt here – it’s already happening in New York, but we’re trying to bring it here as well – is that they see the limits and the problems of the Cuban system, especially today, right? In which there’s lots of problems and a lot of inequality also in Cuba. But they see it comparatively.

And this, I think, really opens people’s minds. So hopefully these summer schools will have, like, intensives on heterodox economics.

And also with this practical element of like, going places and actually seeing different economic systems in operation, not just studying them, will be something that will be offered to everyone. Undergrads, graduate students, people that want to go back and like, study a bit.

But hopefully we’ll also have a graduate program and we can have you and others and whoever wants to participate come. For now, I would like to say our events will all be physical in Tulsa once a month, but also broadcasted on our YouTube channel.

Our first public speaking event is March 4th. There is going to be Rick Wolf, very important economist with Kali Akuno, who is an organizer who works for Cooperative [Cooperation] Jackson.

So in Jackson, Mississippi, they have a cooperative movement there. And they’re going to be talking about worker self management as a way out of exploitation for the 21st century.

So, again, topics I think that people can care about because, you know, they feel the compulsion of their wage labor on their own skin every freaking day.

Steve Grumbine
00:35:48

Excellent. This is wonderful. I’m very excited. Let us know as we’re closing out here. What would you want everybody to know as we walk away from this?

What is the most important thing about the CHE?

Clara Mattei
00:36:02

I would say that the CHE is an experiment in the making at its very early stages. But it is an experiment that we hope multiplies.

And it’s the idea of putting at center stage the responsibility of intellectuals to participate in creating knowledge that empowers students as well as citizens for a world that needs to become better. Otherwise we are really at the brink of disaster. And we know this and we can change this. This is not a one way street.

We can definitely turn it around in favor of people. Again, capitalism is historical, is political, it’s fragile because also it ultimately only benefits a very small elite.

And so the majority should participate in order to change. And hopefully the change is one of the things we can do. But I think it’s what we could do as professors.

So we’re trying our best to give our little contribution and hopefully everyone will feel you’re doing your contribution with this wonderful podcast. We’re all, I think contributing to saying, well, thinking is radical, thinking is revolutionary, but we need to think outside the box.

Steve Grumbine
00:37:17

Wonderful. I really appreciate it. I wish I could be there. I’m looking forward to seeing the videos of it.

Folks, if you can get to this kickoff, It’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma was it the 5th, 6th and 7th?

Clara Mattei
00:37:29

Yes, the 6th, 7th, 8th [of February] Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Yes.

On our website – if you Google Center for Heterodox Economics Tulsa, you can find the whole program, the speaker’s bios, really impressive and also of our future events and also our newsletters. If you want to subscribe to the newsletter, please don’t hesitate to reach me, and my email is easily findable online.

Steve Grumbine
00:37:55

That’s awesome. I look forward to talking to you again in the near future. Clara Mattei , my guest. This is Steve Grumbine with the podcast Macro N Cheese.

Folks, we are part of Real Progressives which is a not for profit 501c3 in the United States. We survive on your contributions. Please consider donating. We are also on Substack.

You can find us on Patreon, you can find us on YouTube and this podcast wherever podcasts are found. With that, on behalf of my guest Clara Mattei, myself Steve Grumbine, Macro N Cheese we are out of here.

End Credits
00:38:38

Production, transcripts, graphics, sound engineering, extras, and show notes for Macro N Cheese are done by our volunteer team at Real Progressives, serving in solidarity with the working class since 2015. To become a donor please go to patreon.com/realprogressives, realprogressives.substack.com, or realprogressives.org.