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What are the mental roadblocks to achieving a system that creates prosperity for all? We often talk about the neoliberal narrative on this podcast, but this week’s guest, Lua Yuille, peels the onion a few more layers to reveal the structure beneath the story-telling — what some may call brain-washing — showing us how our minds have been colonized and need to be untrained.
Our entire legal system is framed and structured to convince people that they are achieving or failing on their own. We frame certain types of support as supporting their initiatives. It’s deeper than storytelling; it’s a structure that exists to make invisible all of the ways the government props you up. If someone buys a house there are tax breaks for the homeowner. Estate laws allow you to inherit a house you didn’t pay for. In these ways you’re rewarded for being an autonomous individual (or being born to one). On the other hand, if you need housing assistance, you’re in public housing. It’s seen as largesse for losers.
You can look at any tiny thing that happens in your life and see the ones that are coded positively and negatively. The government has made those choices. The government makes itself undetectable by coding things positively, and it highlights itself – and the people are denigrated – by coding negatively. When we call some support “welfare” but call other kinds of support “breaks” or “benefits” we’re teaching ourselves to see these things in a divisive way. It makes it hard to engage with one another and find solutions.
Lua demands that we deal in actual reality. She says we need to engage in a clear-eyed process of “naming, claiming, blaming” — calling things out for what they are. We must understand the way economic policy itself shapes our brain and convinces us what is possible and what is not. When our conversation about policy includes the “pay for” question we’re training the entire nation to understand that the necessary consideration is “how do we pay for it?”
Steve and Lua use the latter part of the interview to talk about their own lives and delve into the complex questions of race and privilege. In the civil rights movement, Black people literally put their lives on the line because they felt they had nothing to lose. Will we reach the point where white people are willing to do the same? In a world of winners and losers — where very few are winners — what will it take for people to risk it all?
This is a fascinating episode that will add nuance and clarity to your understanding of our social, political, and economic crisis. It may be that nothing short of a revolutionary movement will free us.
Lua Kamál Yuille is an interdisciplinary scholar whose current work connects property theory, business law, economics, critical pedagogy, and group identity. She is Associate Professor in the School of Law and Core faculty in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kansas.
@ProfYuille on Twitter
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What are the mental roadblocks to achieving a system that creates prosperity for all? We often talk about the neoliberal narrative on this podcast, but this week’s guest, Lua Yuille, peels the onion a few more layers to reveal the structure beneath the story-telling — what some may call brain-washing — showing us how our minds have been colonized and need to be untrained.
Our entire legal system is framed and structured to convince people that they are achieving or failing on their own. We frame certain types of support as supporting their initiatives. It’s deeper than storytelling; it’s a structure that exists to make invisible all of the ways the government props you up. If someone buys a house there are tax breaks for the homeowner. Estate laws allow you to inherit a house you didn’t pay for. In these ways you’re rewarded for being an autonomous individual (or being born to one). On the other hand, if you need housing assistance, you’re in public housing. It’s seen as largesse for losers.
You can look at any tiny thing that happens in your life and see the ones that are coded positively and negatively. The government has made those choices. The government makes itself undetectable by coding things positively, and it highlights itself – and the people are denigrated – by coding negatively. When we call some support “welfare” but call other kinds of support “breaks” or “benefits” we’re teaching ourselves to see these things in a divisive way. It makes it hard to engage with one another and find solutions.
Lua demands that we deal in actual reality. She says we need to engage in a clear-eyed process of “naming, claiming, blaming” — calling things out for what they are. We must understand the way economic policy itself shapes our brain and convinces us what is possible and what is not. When our conversation about policy includes the “pay for” question we’re training the entire nation to understand that the necessary consideration is “how do we pay for it?”
Steve and Lua use the latter part of the interview to talk about their own lives and delve into the complex questions of race and privilege. In the civil rights movement, Black people literally put their lives on the line because they felt they had nothing to lose. Will we reach the point where white people are willing to do the same? In a world of winners and losers — where very few are winners — what will it take for people to risk it all?
This is a fascinating episode that will add nuance and clarity to your understanding of our social, political, and economic crisis. It may be that nothing short of a revolutionary movement will free us.
Lua Kamál Yuille is an interdisciplinary scholar whose current work connects property theory, business law, economics, critical pedagogy, and group identity. She is Associate Professor in the School of Law and Core faculty in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kansas.
@ProfYuille on Twitter
Coming Soon
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Episode 109 - Institutions with Linwood Tauheed
Episode 108 - Knowledge is Power with Rev. Delman Coates
Episode 107 - We Are Losing the Media War with Jordan Chariton
Episode 106 - Reform or Revolution with Danny Haiphong
Episode 105 - The Case for Scottish Independence with Kairin Van Sweeden
Episode 104 - Focus on the Family with June Carbone
Episode 103 - Anatomy of a Job Guarantee with Fadhel Kaboub
Episode 102 - The Global Scourge of Neoliberalism with Patricia Pino
Episode 101 - Beat Back Better: Organizing in 2021 with Emma Caterine
Episode 100 - Flying with Sara Nelson
Episode 99 - A Modern Debt Jubilee with Steve Keen
Episode 98 - Imminent Collapse with L. Randall Wray
Episode 97 - Solidarity with Joe Burns
Episode 96 - Treasury's Gift To The Fed with Robert Hockett
Episode 95 - The Land Value Tax with Joshua Vincent and Rich Nymoen
Episode 94 - Political Sobriety with Rohan Grey
Episode 93 - The Public Banking Act with Rohan Grey
Episode 92 - Propaganda and the Vortex of Centrism with Esha Krishnaswamy
Episode 91 - Crisis Management with Warren Mosler
Episode 90 - The MMT Sequence with Warren Mosler
Episode 89 - Juxtapositions with Bill Mitchell
Episode 88 - Debt Deflation and the Neofeudal Empire with Michael Hudson
Episode 87 - A Just Transition Through Participatory Governance with Cindy Banyai
Episode 86 - 2020 with Margaret Kimberley
Episode 85 - Shadow Banking with Robert Hockett
Episode 84 - African Sovereignty and a Global Green New Deal with Fadhel Kaboub
Episode 83 - Mutual Credit and the War on Cash with Brett Scott
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