Grace Blakeley | How Capitalism Became Oligarchy

In this episode of LIMINAL NEWS, Daniel Pinchbeck speaks with economist and writer Grace Blakeley about the rise of vulture capitalism, the convergence of tech elites and authoritarianism, and what a leftist path forward might look like in an era of social disintegration and political despair. The conversation explores AI, neoliberalism, historical fascism, and the role of organizing in reclaiming democracy. 👤 About Grace Blakeley: Grace Blakeley is a staff writer at Tribune Magazine and author of: 📘 Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom 📘 The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism 📘 Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation She’s a former economics commentator for The New Statesman, a former Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and a frequent commentator across BBC Question Time, Good Morning Britain, Piers Morgan Uncensored, and MTV News. 🌐 Official Site: https://graceblakeley.co.uk/ 📬 Substack: https://graceblakeley.substack.com/ ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #danielpinchbeck  #liminalnews  #podcast

Sarah invited me to join a livestream on her Substack back on 3.7.25 to chat about my article "The Rise of Sovereign Individuals". Sarah Wilson is a multi-New York Times and Amazon bestselling author, social philosopher, international keynote speaker, minimalist and philanthropist. She edited Cosmopolitan magazine Australia at 29, founded the global I Quit Sugar movement, hosted the most-watched TV series in the nation’s history – Masterchef Australia – and wrote the bestseller First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, which Mark Manson described as “the best book on living with anxiety that I’ve ever read.” Her most recent book, This One Wild and Precious Life, won the US Gold Nautilus Prize, and she has ranked in the top 200 most influential authors in the world (two years in a row). Sarah leads dynamic, global conversations about modern philosophy, creativity, existential risk and climate change via her keynote speaking, Wild  podcast, and her Substack and social communities (of 550,000 subscribers). She lives nomadically, but is based between Paris and Sydney, is a compulsive hiker and adventurer. "The Rise of Sovereign Individuals" - Substack Post from Daniel Pinchbeck: Sarah Wilson Official Site: https://www.sarahwilson.com/ Sarah Wilson on Substack: https://sarahwilson.substack.com/ ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #danielpinchbeck #liminalnews #podcast

I had a chance to talk with Starhawk about a wide range of topics on a Substack Livestream on 4/21/25.  Hope you enjoy! Starhawk is an author, activist, permaculture designer and teacher, and a prominent voice in modern earth-based spirituality and ecofeminism. She is the author or co-author of thirteen books, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess and the ecotopian novel The Fifth Sacred Thing, and its sequel City of Refuge. Her most recent non-fiction book is The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups, on group dynamics, power, conflict and communications.  Starhawk founded Earth Activist Training, teaching permaculture design grounded in spirituality and with a focus on activism. She travels internationally, lecturing and teaching on earth-based spirituality, the tools of ritual, and the skills of activism.  Starhawk Official Site: https://starhawk.org/ Starhawk on Substack: https://starhawk.substack.com/ ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #danielpinchbeck #liminalnews #podcast #starhawk

A recording of a Substack LIvestream on 4/1/25 I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jamie Wheal, founder of The Flow Genome Project and author of "Recapture the Rapture", among other books. We started with a discussion about Silicon Valley’s sudden embrace of Christianity, which Wheal characterizes as “a little soft, chewy 15% center of semi-sincere yet rudderless seekers, and 85% opportunistic pile on.” Along with Wheal, Erik Davis and Jules Evans have written about the new techno-Christianity recently. Wheal said: “Dude, I think the era of looking for or tracing or tracking or policing or calling out ideological inconsistency is over, because the people who are the least coherent and consistent don't give a fuck about coherence and consistency. So you're sort of like spluttering and puffing like an old modern major general. No one gives a fuck anymore. You just play through. Everyone's like, “What about her emails?” I don't care. But how are terrorists part of a conservative free market ideology? It doesn't matter. And the same with Silicon Valley's turn to Christianity. It's like, ‘Wait, did Jesus really say build bombs? Did he really say build a totally fucking satellite-enabled fascist surveillance state and say it's for Jesus and for Western values and to defend civilization and the Shire? Oh, by the way, the Shire, don't forget, because we're hobbits. We're not orcs.’ You know, it's loopy.” https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/ Jamie Wheal on Substack: https://jamiewheal.substack.com/ ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #jamiewheal #danielpinchbeck #liminalnews #podcast #tech #siliconvalley

A recording of a Substack LIvestream on 3/5/25 Brett Scott is a campaigner, monetary anthropologist and former broker. He is the author of The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money and Cloudmoney: Why the War on Cash Endangers Our Freedom. Brett has appeared in a wide range of TV shows, radio broadcasts and documentaries, including BBC World News and Sky News. He has written extensively on financial reform, digital finance, alternative currency, blockchain technology and the cashless society for publications like the Guardian, New Scientist, Huffington Post, Wired Magazine and CNN.com, and also publishes the Altered States of Monetary Consciousness newsletter on Substack. Excerpt from our discussion: “One of the things I'm interested in right now in terms of the underlying ideologies or the seeming inconsistencies between them is something I was calling in my last piece, "fractal libertarianism." Again, I'm still unsure about this, but if you look at the underlying image in a libertarian worldview—which is a native cosmology in capitalism anyway—it’s of the solo islands, right? Each man is an island. This is the division that Margaret Thatcher put out: "There is no society, there are only individual men and women." Buy  'Cloud Money: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and War for Our Wallets" Subscribe to Brett’s Substack Newsletter: https://brettscott.substack.com/  ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #brettscott #cloudmoney #crypto #cryptocurrency #cash #danielpinchbeck #liminalnews #podcast

A recording of a joint Substack LIvestream on 3/1/25 I have been in intermittent contact with Nafeez Ahmed over the years. We are both systems theorists with many areas of overlap. What became clear during our dialogue is that we share a very similar — almost identical — analysis of the current geopolitical crisis. We also share a number of ideas about how to address it.  Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is the founder of the Age of Transformation, a newsletter exploring what he calls ‘the planetary phase shift’ and Director of the System Shift Lab, a systems transformation consultancy based in London. A systems change expert, Ahmed has worked with some of the biggest organisations in the world, including United Nations agencies, national governments, Fortune 500 companies, and the world’s largest philanthropic foundations - helping to build and deliver high-impact change strategies. The Evening Standard has twice named Nafeez in its Power 1,000 list of the top most influential Londoners. His award-winning journalism, praised by the Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Independent and many others, has been read and watched by millions. His new book is "Alt Reich: The Network War to Destroy the West from Within (2024)": an investigative history of how the Nazi-aligned Pioneer Fund has given birth to a global far-right network on the cusp of subverting Western democracies. Official Website: https://www.nafeezahmed.net/ ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #danielpinchbeck #authoritarianism  #trump #fascism #liminalnews #nafeezahmed

A recording of a joint Substack LIvestream on 2/21/25 “America's decline is not solely Trump's doing. Rather, this is the inevitable consequences of decades of Western economic and military dominance built on short-term exploitation, corruption, and global predation. Trump's role is to mask this systemic unraveling with populist rhetoric while enabling the true power holders, the transnational, financial, and corporate elite, or what Bolsen calls the anational owners and controllers of global financial capital, to consolidate their wealth, power, and control as America is hollowed out and broken.” Marianne's Official Website IG: https://www.instagram.com/mariannewilliamson FB: https://www.facebook.com/williamsonmarianne Substack: https://substack.com/@mariannewilliamson ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #danielpinchbeck #mariannewilliamson #trump #fascism #liminalnews

Daniel and Ashanti will be hosting an upcoming seminar presented by The Elevator, a global consciousness incubator and think tank, where Ashanti is the Executive Director. You can sign up to receive more information (including access to reduced price or early bird tickets) at www.liminal.news Ashanti Kunene is a South African storyteller, strategist, and art activist dedicated to decolonial education, social justice, and regenerative leadership. Born into South Africa’s born-free generation—those born after Nelson Mandela’s release—she has navigated the complex intersections of race, privilege, and cultural identity in a post-apartheid society. She has worked in the UN and other organizations, using narrative power to shift cultural consciousness and drive systemic change, and has been a speaker at global forums on youth leadership, climate justice, and African spirituality. With a background in anthropology and political science, Ashanti brings a unique perspective that blends indigenous wisdom, social activism, and spiritual awakening. She is passionate about Ubuntu—the African philosophy of interconnectedness—and sees the current global crises as part of a profound initiation process, requiring a radical shift in consciousness and action. Her work challenges Western paradigms of leadership and progress, advocating for community-driven, regenerative solutions that honor both ancestral wisdom and future pathways. The Elevator Official Website Ashanti Kunene: Official Website ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #danielpinchbeck #liminalnews #podcast #ubuntu #consciousness  

Would the full deregulation of psychedelics be a good thing? In today’s podcast, author Jay Michaelson and I discuss the rapidly evolving legal and cultural landscape of psychedelics, including their potential fast-tracking under the new Trump/Musk/RFK regime. Will deregulation — long a goal of advocates — make it more difficult to responsibly integrate these powerful substances into society? We also explore broader societal concerns, such as the erosion of democracy, systemic inequality, and the tension between technological advancement and cultural decay. I hope you enjoy it! Michaelson is the author of ten books, including The Secret That Is Not A Secret and the National Jewish Book Award-winning The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth. He is the Field Scholar at the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality and will be a visiting professor at Harvard Law School in Spring 2025. He holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Thought, a JD from Yale, among other degrees. He clerked for Judge Merrick Garland. As a journalist, his work explores the intersections of politics, religion, and ethics, appearing in Rolling Stone, The Forward, and his Substack, Both/And. He was also the Supreme Court columnist for The Daily Beast. Michaelson blends Jewish, Buddhist, and secular mindfulness traditions, frequently teaching at universities, companies, and religious institutions. Jay Michaelson: Official Website ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #danielpinchbeck #liminalnews #podcast #psychedelics  

Recently, investigative journalist and MAGA mainstay Laura Loomer was "deplatformed" on Twitter/X by Elon Musk, for comments about the H1B visas. Loomer describes herself as a "free speech absolutist" whose book, Loomered, chronicles how she was previously censored and banned by tech platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and even UberEats. For many Leftists, this seemed a big "I told you so" moment: it was obvious to many on the Left that Trump was an opportunist whose alliegiance lies with the billionaire class. For Loomer and other MAGA members, there is a dawning sense of betrayal and perhaps the beginning of class consciousness, as it becomes clear that Trump's alignment with Musk could lead to a system of technocratic control without the free speech and support of American workers they were anticipating. The rift between the MAGA base and the tech billionaires who joined the campaign recently could be a bump in the road or a portent of more serious ruptures to come.   https://x.com/LauraLoomer ================================== Please subscribe to the LIminal News Substack Newsletter! https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck Please buy my books! https://tinyurl.com/mrsmtpwv Please join my online seminars and community at THE LIMINAL INSTITUTE: www.liminal.news Instagram:   @danielpinchbeck Official Website:  www.pinchbeck.io/ #danielpinchbeck #liminalnews #podcast #lauraloomer #populism #elonmusk #technocracy #monarchy