The US continues to strike Iran despite a “ceasefire.” Israel continues to occupy Lebanon. The US’s oil embargo on Cuba is causing an energy and humanitarian crisis.
Experts call these interventions violations of international law. Today’s podcast guest, Jason Hickel, calls them symptoms of capitalist imperialism: Western states violently asserting their dominance over sovereign-seeking periphery states to protect their own growth and capital accumulation.
Dr. Hickel is a professor at the Institute for Environmental Science & Technology (ICTA) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and he is the author of two books: The Divide and Less Is More. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ll know how much Jason’s work has informed my worldview. Recording our first episode with him last year felt like a big milestone for me – and now I’m excited to share our second conversation with you.
In this episode, we get into ecosocialism as an alternative to capitalist imperialism, and what economic democracy actually looks like in practice. We discuss how China’s industrial policy is powering the global renewable energy transition, and what China’s rise means for the West and the Global South. We get into how electoral politics can be a lever to build a mass movement, and how to maintain hope for a better future.
Here are a few links to resources mentioned in our conversation:
Mondragon Corporation, the worker-owned cooperative federation in Spain that Jason mentions as a real-world model of economic democracy
GKN Factory in Florence, Italy, which workers have converted from an auto parts plant into a solar panel factory
Jason’s Substack article on “delinking”
Global Inequality Project, a research platform by Jason and team that publishes data on imperialism, unequal exchange, and global inequality
To learn more about his work, visit his personal website and follow him on social media: He’s on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky. You can also follow him on Substack.
As always, you can listen to the Better Future podcast here or on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts or wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch all our clips on Instagram.
Finally, a friendly reminder that Better Future is an independent, reader-supported podcast. If you think conversations like these are important, please consider becoming a paid subscriber today to help us keep them fully free.
As always, stay curious, and stay hopeful. See you soon.
-Michael
Better Future covers the ideas and movements helping steer the world toward a more just & sustainable future. If you believe we need clearer thinking and more inspiration for how to make this vision a reality, please become a paid subscriber. Your support will go directly towards producing more conversations like this one.
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