Pod Academy

This podcast is presented and produced by Craig Barfoot In 2007, Alan Greenspan, then Chairman of the US Federal Reserve was asked by the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger who, in his view, would be the next president of the United States.  He replied, "We are fortunate that, thanks to globalization, policy decisions in the US have been largely replaced by global market forces. National security aside, it hardly makes any difference who will be the next president. The world is governed by market forces" So, is electoral democracy compatible with the forces of global capitalism?  Or are western governments just ‘buying time’ with short term economic fixes in order to win elections, while real power lies not with the people but somewhere else entirely? These are the questions at the heart of Craig Barfoot’s conversation with German sociologist Professor Wofgang Streeck, Director of the Max Planck Institute as they discuss Professor Streeck’s book  Buying Time: The delayed crisis of democratic capitalism (Verso, 2