System Change Made Simple

The post-capitalist gift economy is explained and proposed in my book  'System Change for a Liveable Future' (Mayfly 2025). Here I am looking at an appendix in that book. I am considering what the anthropologists have to say about non-market economies in pre-class societies. How did gifts function as a means of exchange in these communities? What lessons can we draw from this history? 

 Unpacking Schmachtenberger again. Terry Leahy 2025. This text and podcast provides an alternative world history to that being promoted by podcasters such as Daniel Schmachtenberger. Their theory is heavily based in sociobiology. I will outline a different theory that fits the facts better.So, in the last of five podcasts I will continue with the exposition of my own version of the human condition. Following up what I said about that in the podcast before this one. I will be concentrating on ‘toxic masculinity’. Looking at how toxic masculinity is such a huge factor in what has been happening with the human species. How the account given by Schmachtenberger treats the behaviour that comes out of toxic masculinity as an effect of evolutionary drives to compete and a supposed maximum power principle. How an explanation based in a theory of toxic masculinity is actually a lot more useful in understanding these events. How a theory like this can actually give us some hope that we can come up with a better way to live. 

Unpacking Schmachtenberger again. Terry Leahy 2025. This text and podcast provides an alternative world history to that being promoted by podcasters such as Daniel Schmachtenberger. Their theory is heavily based in sociobiology. Here, I will not go into every detail of Schmachtenberger’s approach. I will outline a different theory that fits the facts better.In this podcast I want to ‘give the devil his due’. There are certainly important events in human history that seem to fit Schmachtenberger’s sociobiological take. I want to look at these. In each case, what we are talking about is a pulse, an expansion of the human population. In an obvious way, each of these is associated with an expansion of production. More people need more food. Where I disagree with Schmachtenberger is that I do not see these events as expressions of the supposed ‘human nature’ that he is talking about. A constant drive to expand population, to expand the production of calories, to expand a surplus — in competition with other human groups. As I have said already and will say again here, the vast bulk of human history does not show anything like this going on. 

Unpacking Schmachtenberger. This third podcast on the interview with Schmachtenberger looks at two issues. One is Schmachtenberger’s idea that there are a small number of particularly competitive and strategic people who have an inordinate influence on how history works. What he calls the 'hyper agents'. The second is to look at what Schmachtenberger proposes as the way forward. A sensible approach to our current crisis, given what he has said so far.

Unpacking Schmachtenberger. This is the second in a set of podcasts on an interview that Nate Hagens (the Great Simplification) did with Daniel Schmachtenberger. In this podcast I talk about the places where Schmachtenberger explains our problems as coming out of the economic structures of our 'superorganism'. I kind of agree with this approach. I like it better than the approach that dominates Schamachtenberger's interview - the maximum power principle and evolution. The discussion ends up with a new take on Genesis and the Adam and Eve story. Why that story has seemed so plausible and what is wrong with it. 

Nate Hagens interviews Daniel Schmachtenberger. This covers a host of topics. I am dividing my comments into four podcasts. This first one relates to the idea that human evolution primes us to work according to the maximum power principle. We are facing environmental catastrophe basically because of that. This pattern of human action can be traced throughout history and in every kind of society. 

This is the fourth podcast on an interview that Sarah Wilson did with Nate Hagens. The angle that they are taking is that collapse is going to happen pretty soon, like in fifteen years or less. In this podcast I take a look at what they think might be an appropriate response to a situation like this. Alternative ways to react. Like the prepper strategy, living in the country, building a mass movement, becoming a rock in a river. I give my own take on what works and what people in degrowth are actually doing. 

In this podcast I look at the argument that problems of debt are going to crash our financial system. Leading to an economic, political and social crisis. A collapse well before environmental problems lead us to that. I am sceptical. Debt crises must be interpreted as moves in a political game. Their outcome is never determined by accounting! 

Nate and Sarah are popular podcasters in the de-growth space. In a series of four podcasts I am commenting on the issues that come up in an interview Sarah conducted with Nate in 2023. There is a great deal in these perspectives that anyone in de-growth might agree with. As I go along I acknowledge these points of consensus. But there are also issues where I disagree with the views they are explaining. A lot of the time, it is more that something that they say in the interview sparks a discussion of a particular topic that features in environmentalist writing. The four podcasts are 1. on complexity, evolutionary drivers and collapse. 2. Our superorganism - what I would call global capitalism! That is this one here. 3. The debt crisis and how it may (or may not in my view) lead to collapse in the near distant future and 4. What Nate and Sarah think is an appropriate response to the environmentalist milieu to the crisis as they see it. Hope you enjoy this one. 

Sarah Wilson and Nate Hagens are both much liked podcasters in the degrowth movement here in OZ and probably also in other countries. There is much they say that anyone in degrowth would agree with.  But there are certain ideas in this interview podcast that I have some qualms about. I am making four podcasts on an interview on Wild with Nate Hagens. This one is on the idea that it is human nature to use complexity to solve problems. Doing this we use energy and end up with a collapse. Like the one we are facing now.

While environmental activism is dominated by the middle class, there are large sections of the middle class that are very hostile to the environmentalist movement. These are people in positions most closely allied to the operations of business – professionals in engineering and finance, commercial workers, executives. They regard environmentalists as people who pay no heed to the practicalities of a market economy. Even as work shy, unwashed, and culturally strange. Leaders in business have a similar negative view. The impractical idealistic views of environmentalists are like a religion. The scientists who inform environmentalism cannot be trusted. Their alarmism about the environment masks self-interest.  

This podcast is based primarily on research conducted in the Hunter region of Australia. The working-class see environmentalists as members of a privileged middle class. They produce endless verbal exhortation but have no practical good sense. They pay insufficient attention to people’s material needs. They can ruin the job prospects and leisure options of ordinary people. Their attempts to control the actions of big business are a humiliating waste of time.

This first podcast in series five is about the way social class is constructed in our society today. I look at two major sources. John and Barbara Ehrenreich on the professional managerial class. Pierre Bourdieu on the mapping of social space – on economic and cultural capital. These takes on social class give us the tools we need to see how class location affects people’s views of environmental politics. This series will help us to understand the supposed culture wars as a typical outcome of the class structure of late capitalism. Ultimately we can use these insights to achieve a more effective environmental politics.

The feminist psychoanalytic tradition provides an excellent account of  ‘excessive’ aggression in human societies. In patriarchy, there's a particular pattern to how men are brought up as boys. From boys to men. It creates a psychology of competitive striving to beat other men. It works against empathetic relationships with women. It fosters anxiety in men about their claim to be regarded as a real man. So competitive striving is part of toxic masculinity but it's not just that. It also includes physical aggression against women, children, and other men. This podcast talks about how this comes about.

Most conservatives believe the sociological view of aggression is naïve. The theory of evolution shows us that animals only survive that are fit for the struggle. They urge us to admit that humans have a basic desire to harm other people – just as important as other basic drives like hunger. This podcast considers three arguments for this perspective and shows why they are mistaken. 

Conservatives believe that competitive aggression is part of human nature. Given this, they argue, no egalitarian society can be possible. Given how often people behave aggressively, it is hard to believe aggression is totally socially constructed. We can look at it two ways. Aggression is one of the basic human motivations. Or aggression is a tool, a capacity that is put into play to pursue other more basic motivations. Sociologists tend to the second view. This podcast starts to examine this debate.

What is human nature? This question breaks down into two parts. One part is what people mean when they talk about human nature. Clearly people have different ideas about what human nature is in fact — or even if there is any such thing. I explain my own view. There are six basic drives. Broadly, hunger; health; sociability; creativity; sexuality; autonomy. Social scientists ignore the topic. Yet a view of human nature is constantly assumed. 

 This podcast considers central concepts of the Marxist account of class. Of systems of exploitation. Surplus, work, product, necessary labour, reproduction, use value. Marx and later Marxists give an account of class that relies on ideas about human nature. The theory assumes these ideas which are not always explicit. It is only in this way that we can look at world history and create an overview of systems of exploitation. 

Marx’s theory of class society has had a huge influence on sociology and on my own thinking. This podcast explains the theory in the simplest way possible. What is the basic structure of all class societies in history? The ruling class owns the means of production. They use this leverage to extract a surplus from the work of the subordinate class. This is just as true in capitalist societies - where this exploitation is masked by the monetary form of market exchange. Marx believes that class comes about as an invention of human societies. This happens when the invention of agriculture allows a surplus to be produced. 

Weber is famous as one of the founders of sociology. He sees history as broken into two key periods. Ancient societies where different ‘life chances’ were allocated on the basis of status. A social estimation of honour. And modernity where life chances are allocated based on a person’s position in the market – their ownership of monetary property or the value of their labour on the market. There is a change between ancient societies based in various kinds of magical ideas and modernity, based in rationality. In this podcast I explain the problems with this viewpoint. 

Class is a unique phenomenon in world history. Like we could look at it as almost like a hoodoo that has been cast on humanity because it's been absolutely impossible to get rid of it. What we've seen in world history since the invention of class 10,000 years ago, is that it has become more and more dominant until the present time. So, this podcast asks, how does this happen? And what makes this social machine work? And why it's so hard to undo class society. And what kind of spanner in the works will actually make class society go away.

Most of what you will hear and read about the birth of civilisation is just propaganda. I am calling these stories 'origin myths'. This podcast explores these origin myths and explains why they are completely bogus. You will never look at a Discovery Channel doco the same way. 

The term ‘civilisation’ is normally used when a society is being praised for glorious technical, social and cultural achievements. I want to turn that assessment on its head. I will use a sociological term for what are typically called ‘civilisations’. Class society. What are the common features of class societies throughout history?  Class is not inevitable and is in fact an invention. Yet, since class society has been established, it has been difficult to dislodge. Understanding how the class machine works can help us to see why.

Continues the discussion of the previous podcast. The changes in the global south with capitalist colonial imperialism. Sylvia Federici’s viewpoint. Gender and the market economy in the majority world. Witches, north and south. Conclusions about liberal feminism and the socialist critique. The psychology of patriarchy as foundational for capitalism and for class society in general. How would a gift economy organize itself to realize feminist goals? 

Different strands of feminist thinking. Liberal feminism and the socialist critique. Radical feminism and dual systems theory. Feudal patriarchy and its replacement. A patriarchy adapted to capitalism. How this worked out in the rich countries. Red Riding Hood in fact and fable. The patriarchal economy as a good cop/bad cop routine. The circularity of domestic and public patriarchy.

Ecofeminism links gender politics to environmentalism. Ideas about gender are often relevant to the way people interpret environmental politics. This podcast explains what this means at the grass roots. How views of gender can link up to a conflict over environmental issues. How people can relate their environmental politics to gender identities.

Summary of the analysis of patriarchy in the podcast series so far. The invention of social class. Patriarchy creates a set of psychological foundations for class society. Contempt for non-human nature can fit into these psychological patterns. Among other factors, this works to drive class societies to collapse. How these links become apparent in classic works of civilisation and in popular culture today. The ecofeminist analysis of class society. 

In patriarchal societies, there's a particular pattern to how men are brought up as boys. From boys to men. It creates a psychology of competitive striving to beat other men. It works against empathetic relationships with women. It fosters anxiety in men about their claim to be regarded as a real man. So competitive striving is part of toxic masculinity but it's not just that. It also includes physical aggression against women, children, and other men. This podcast talks about how this comes about.

Can the term ‘patriarchy’ be applied to other times and places? The Munduruçu, a horticultural society of the Amazon basin. How widespread is patriarchy? What are its basic causes? How patriarchy is also socially constructed. Why feminism is such a successful movement today.

Patriarchy is pretty-well universal in human societies so far. It is a regime of power and exploitation. We can describe this inequality using a theory of human nature. To explain this, I will begin with a well-known sociological study of ‘housewives’ of London in the seventies. I will go on to look at other aspects of patriarchy in current society. 

Anarchism is defined in relation to ‘the state’. Anarchists oppose the state. I examine ideas about the state coming from Marx and Weber, founders of sociology. The state as it appears in class societies throughout history. Why the state is a slightly different kettle of fish in late capitalism. Is there any reason to expect reforms enacted by the state to solve current problems? If we had a revolution to a non-monetary gift economy, would a state be useful? The argument that a state would be impossible in such a society. What version of territorial organisation might work. 

The region of Mexico controlled by the Zapatistas is a ‘temporary autonomous zone’. The podcast explains how the Zapatistas implement community control of economics and politics. The most thorough attempt to set up a gift economy in recent history. Also, a hybrid of the gift economy and capitalism — with some of the problems that go with that. The ‘state’ cannot exist in a gift economy. Yet the Zapatistas show us how we might square this circle, with a state that is not a state. 

This podcast continues the discussion of hybrids of the gift economy and capitalism. Three examples are Margaretta’s Belly Dancing school in an Australian town, the Chikukwa project in rural Zimbabwe and IDEP, an Indonesian permaculture organisation. In each case the discussion explains the market and gift economy aspects of the organisation. The tensions that arise when you are trying to operate a gift economy ethics in a market economy context are evident. Hybrids are a worthwhile strategy to move towards a post-capitalist system, but they are never without problems.

Prefiguring a post-capitalist system through ‘hybrids of the gift economy and capitalism’. Hybrids embody some aspects of the gift economy that ‘prefigure’ a post capitalist system. For example, some control of production by workers or the community. Or some distribution to benefit particular people or the natural environment. This is combined with aspects of a current market-dominated economy. For example, wage labour, selling goods or services as commodities. This episode focuses on a community supported agriculture collective in Wales and on the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain.

How would we actually get from where we are now to a gift economy? There is a range of possible strategies and options. A popular revolution supported by the armed forces. An act of parliament following a landslide election victory. A multiplicity of grassroots initiatives gradually link together and begin to operate without money as the capitalist economy crumbles. 

The most popular alternative for system-change in the environmentalist movement. Intensive government regulation and intervention winds back economic growth to zero. In the rich countries, degrowth is also necessary. Much of the economy remains in private hands and the market operates within government guidelines. Yet key proposals of this pathway are likely to undermine and even destroy a market economy.

The state takes ownership of most of the means of production on behalf of the people. A democratic government plans the economy to avoid environmental damage and ensure social justice. What economic and political problems seem likely with this model? Problems with a market monetary economy would still plague this proposal in practice.

One of three key proposals for system change. The gift economy functions without money. Instead, collectives make agreements to supply goods and services to particular people and groups. Some working groups supply their own communities. Others are units in a production chain, linking up to assemble and distribute what they produce. How could a system like this ensure fair distribution, good environmental outcomes and security for all? 

Most people think of money as a useful tool – to facilitate exchange, a necessity if we are to make a complex economy work. This podcast challenges these ideas. Money and the market go hand in hand. The market gives money priority. Social justice and environmental sanity take second place. The market and money depend on alienated labour. To change to a system that works for people and the planet we need to get rid of money.

How does capitalism work? Capitalism is a social invention. The capitalist social machine divides the population into classes. The ruling class maintains its power  by exploiting people's work.  This episode considers three basic phases of the capitalist machine, from the seventeenth century up to the present day. Why is the capitalist social machine coming unstuck now and what are the prospects for the future?