Place, Participation & #Unis4All with Benjamin Wilson

Economist Benjamin Wilson joins Money on the Left to discuss heterodox approaches to place, participation, and the politics of university finance. Associate professor of economics at SUNY Cortland, Wilson received his interdisciplinary Ph.D. from University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), where he took courses with some of the leading lights of heterodox economic theory, including Stephanie Kelton, Mathew Forstater, and Fred Lee. In both his research and his pedagogy, Ben combines his commitment to local democratic participation with a deep, MMT-driven understanding of social provisioning to create some of the most compelling community currency projects ongoing today. We chat at length with Ben about the intellectual, historical, and practical frameworks for these projects, which intervene in spaces ranging from the college classroom to the state and regional levels. We also talk with Ben about our collectively authored #Unis4All university currency project, which derives from many of the principles of Wilson's previous work to argue that college and university systems ought to leverage their considerable provisioning capacities in order to reject austerity and provide for the health and welfare of all in their communities. You can read more about this proposal on Monthly Review Online and at Public Seminar.Check out some of Wilson's important papers:"An Interdisciplinary Narrative: Oncology, Capital & Solidarity," American Review of Political Economy, 2018. "A Dirigisme Approach to a Monetary Policy Jobs Guarantee and the Green New Deal," Available at SSRN, 2019."Housing, Health & History: Interdisciplinary Spatial Analysis in Pursuit of Equity for Future Generations," Intergenerational Responsibility in the 21st Century, 2018.Theme music by Hillbilly Motobike.* Thanks to the Money on the Left production team: Alex Williams (audio engineering), Richard Farrell (transcription) & Meghan Saas (graphic art).Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure