Ep 71 [2/2]: Jane Ball: Government-designed racist zoning to prevent popular uprising
Welcome to episode 71 of Activist #MMT. Today is part two of my two-part conversation with second-year MMT activist and graduate student Jane Ball. In part one, Jane described their journey to MMT and the flaws of mainstream Marxism. Today, Jane and I discuss two of their academic style posts. The first documents studies that demonstrate the benefits of existing UBI-like programs, including the $5000 a year paid every Alaskan citizen by a fossil fuel company. The regular payment is clearly beneficial to its recipients, with the cruel irony being that the payments are being made by companies which are viciously predatory to those very same recipients in the long run. The second is a fascinating post documenting how racist zoning has been official United States government policy, starting soon after the Russian revolution. The policies were a deliberate effort by the government to prevent a similar kind of popular uprising. This was done primarily and essentially by dangling a nice home in the faces of white people, and by keeping black and brown people out via redlining and discriminatory ordinances. So not only was this country built long ago on the backs and with the blood of black and brown people, that virulent racism continues today in active policy, all around the country. And now back to my conversation with Jane Ball. This is part two of a two-part conversation. Enjoy.