Renegade Inc.: Recent Episodes
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Renegade Inc. is a new kind of talk show for people who think differently. We interview thinkers, writers, leaders and creators in search of new ideas. No soundbites. No shouting. No hype. Just great guests and entertaining conversation for people who want to question the conventional wisdom of modern life. Renegade Inc is hosted by award winning independent filmmaker and broadcaster Ross Ashcroft. It’s the show for the renegade spirit in everyone.
What do you do when inflation is so high that your people are having to choose between heating and eating? Well, logically you should admit that your economic management has been poor. The reality? Western nations are now looking around the world for a war…
Ross Ashcroft is joined by financial expert Matthias Weik and Alex Krainer, founder of Krainer Analytics, to discuss how to navigate the uncertain times ahead.
We all know that we are being watched, listened to, tracked, traced, and monitored. Ross Ashcroft is joined by Peter Bloom, author of ‘Monitored: Business and Surveillance in a Time of Big Data’, to discuss an important question: who ensures that people in positions of power and those with corporate monopolies remain accountable?
There are just three words that make any right-thinking British person convulse. Those words are 'Sir Tony Blair.’
With only 14% of Britons approving of former-PM Blair’s knighthood and a petition to have it rescinded garnering well over a million signatures, it is clear that the ‘honours’ system is anything but democratic, and in urgent need of reform.
Ross Ashcroft speaks with politician George Galloway and convenor of Stop the War Coalition Lindsey German, about why Tony Blair’s knighthood should be revoked.
We often hear the proclamation that ‘capitalism has failed’, but, actually, capitalism has worked perfectly according to the rules upon which it was created. Within its DNA is a mechanism that uses oppression to maintain control. Until we understand that mechanism and begin telling a different story, its retribution will continue unabated.
Ross Ashcroft is joined by Max Haiven to discuss his book ‘Revenge Capitalism’.
It has long been the plan to dismantle the NHS and sell great swathes of it into private hands. The profits that can be made from healthcare are staggering – just ask the Americans. So have British politicians, lobbyists, and corporate interests used the pandemic to speed up the steady creep toward a US-style pay-to-play healthcare system that puts profits above patient interests? Ross Ashcroft is joined by Dr. Bob Gill to discuss the future of the NHS.
In a rare moment of candor, the then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan gave us an insight into what he feels are optimum conditions for workers. The so-called “healthy” economy that he presided over owed its success to what he called “growing worker insecurity.”
Workers with precarious existences are not going to make demands, and this compromised position, coupled with diminishing wages, is the cornerstone to the global gig economy.
This week Ross Ashcroft is joined by documentary filmmaker Shannon Walsh to discuss her new film – The Gig Is Up.
On this episode, Ross Ashcroft catches up with some of our Renegade Inc friends and asks what surprised them over the past year, and what they foresee happening in 2022. Strap in – it’s about to get interesting.
This week’s guest is a man who single-handedly steers the Tory government through the high seas of politics. Based in Clapham, but with a global perspective, Rafe Hubris BA (Oxon) joins Ross Ashcroft to discuss politics, writing his memoirs, and himself.
It’s been a busy 2021, so in this episode we look back over the year and select choice cuts from some of our excellent contributors.
It’s unlikely that you’ve heard of it, but it’s likely that you’re part of it. As neoliberalism rages on, the human scrap heap gets bigger and bigger, and this is creating a dangerous new class called the Precariat.
Ross Ashcroft is joined by Prof. Guy Standing to discuss the growing Precariat and why the political class should be taking them seriously.
The league tables that cause plenty of consternation among the Western political classes show the Nordic countries constantly at the top in education, media freedom, lack of corruption, happiness and quality of life.
Ross Ashcroft is joined by geographer and author of 'Finntopia' Danny Dorling, to discuss how they got there, how they stay there, and why the UK hasn’t managed to emulate their success.
With the US invasion of Afghanistan coming to end and Iran joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Middle East, otherwise known as West Asia, is seeing major shifts in geopolitical power dynamics.
Ross Ashcroft is joined by Beirut-based journalist and analyst Sharmine Narwani, and journalist and investigative historian Gareth Porter to discuss the future of West Asia and the end of US hegemony.
In early March 2020, we sat down with investor and author Mitch Feierstein and Alan Day, CEO of global procurement consultancy State of Flux, to discuss how Covid would affect the world’s supply chain. As their predictions came true and we find ourselves facing shortages and price rises, Ross Ashcroft invites them back on the show to make sense of the mess we’re in.
The word ‘degrowth’ was suspiciously absent from the COP26 talking shop, but unless you’re actively talking about degrowth, you’re just peddling corporate, political and billionaire propaganda. Ross Ashcroft is joined by political economist Jason Hickel to discuss why, when it comes to growth, less really is more.
After spending so much of his academic career systematically disproving the many myths peddled by mainstream economists, Professor Steve Keen has written a manifesto.
He joins Ross Ashcroft on Renegade Inc to detail a blueprint that will allow us to reboot our relationship with the economy, each other, and with the plundered planet on which we all entirely depend.
Famously, the broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough said that someone who believes in infinite growth is ‘either a madman or an economist.’ One of the big problems we face today is that in our hunt for growth, mainstream economics has been taken over by madmen. But not everyone has fallen for it… We speak to writer and activist Christian Felber about how to build an ‘Economy for the Common Good’.
It is incredibly rare that the BBC ever admits that one of their reports on Douma in Syria failed to meet the Corporation's editorial standards for accuracy by reporting false claims… Blink and you’d have missed this admission, but we didn’t, and it adds to a volley of misreporting that has dogged journalism and peace in the Middle East for decades.
Ross Ashcroft is joined by political scientist Dr. Piers Robinson and journalist Vanessa Beeley to discuss the crumbling narrative around the alleged Douma chemical attack.
Understandably, whenever we hear “Get off my land” it’s met with incredulity. But that phrase does depict the mindset of many landowners who go to extraordinary lengths to keep people off what they deem to be theirs… However without proper access to land we have no ability to have an intimate understanding of nature, or ourselves…so is it now time to reclassify trespass as a revolutionary act?
Ross Ashcroft meets Nick Hayes, author of ‘The Book of Trespass’ in Oxfordshire to discuss how land monopoly is at the root of social inequality in the UK.
The explosion of QE, the epic monetisation of debt, the rise of cryptocurrencies, frothy stock markets, and furlough schemes all seem to imply we have an endless supply of money. But it also means that we now see money very differently. In a world where we know the price of everything but the value of nothing, Ross Ashcroft speaks to economist Dr. Howard Nicholas to help us understand what money really is.
With China’s increasing wealth, Western investors want some of the action… One of those investors is a bullish gentleman called George Soros. However, the Chinese are acutely aware that with Western investment comes inequality – so as Beijing begins to rethink how to do proper economic growth, we ask whether China will learn from Western mistakes. Ross Ashcroft is joined by economist and author Michael Hudson to discuss the West’s attempts to turn China neoliberal.
Here’s the new British university business model: charge students full price for their course and their campus accommodation, then deliver only around 15% of the course while restricting access to their digs. And now the masterstroke: rebrand all this as “blended online learning” and claim ‘because Covid’ there’s no alternative. It’s a massive money-maker! Ross Ashcroft is joined by student campaigners Ben Dusserre-Robinson, of cross-university action group Pause or Pay UK, and Annette Tshisekedi, of Queen Mary University of London’s QMUL Rent Strike, to discuss just how egregious the unholy trinity between funding-obsessed chancellors, overpaid administrators, and rent-seeking landlords has really become.
Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires. After a 20-year war that has cost tens of thousands of lives and over $2 trillion, the US is the latest country to retreat from the country after a failed invasion. Ross Ashcroft is joined by former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter to discuss the military context, and analyst Alex Krainer to talk geopolitics and geostrategy.
Hubris in The West today means we think we are so advanced that we can escape the collapse of complex societies. Our recent history has cemented an air of invincibility, but if you look closely, all the signs are present that the empire is far more vulnerable than we think. So, is our societal decline preordained, or will we be the first civilization to cheat the inevitable?
Ross Ashcroft is joined by anthropologist and historian Dr. Joseph Tainter to discuss what we can learn from our past about how and why complex societies collapse.
Since Nelson Mandela’s long walk to freedom, South Africa has faced hurdle after hurdle – politically and economically. Mandela’s release from prison unified the nation; however, the incarceration of the last president, Jacob Zuma, lit a national tinderbox. Ross Ashcroft is joined by filmmaker Rehad Desai, whose documentary ‘How to Steal a Country’ investigates how South Africa and her people have been looted by shadowy fixers, venal politicians and dodgy corporate deals that have all but bankrupted the country.
This week Prof. Richard Werner joins Ross Ashcroft to cover all things banking: Japanification, the Weimar Republic, Central Bank digital currencies, credit creation, the war on cash, crypto, gold, the date of the next crash, and – most importantly – your personal sovereignty…
As the Russian Proverb goes: There is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. Quantitative Easing was introduced to buy central bankers time so they could fix the structural problems in the economy. But quickly, QE became the solution to every possible economic hiccup. Temporary QE has now become the permanent problem which has juiced asset prices, created epic amounts of private debt, and left most of us poorer… Ross Ashcroft is joined by Professor Richard Werner, who first coined the term Quantitative Easing, to discuss what went wrong.
There has never been a more dangerous time to be a whistleblower. Western governments are working in concert to enact legislation that conceals their wrongdoing. Ten days ago, during sentencing, drone whistleblower Daniel Hale said, “I am here because I stole something that was never mine to take – precious human life.” Hale was sentenced to 45 months in prison. He joins a growing list that includes Jeffrey Sterling. Mr Sterling, a former CIA agent who was sentenced to 42 months in prison under the Espionage Act, joins Ross Ashcroft on Renegade Inc to tell his story…
Within the global economy, winners and losers can be split into two specific groups: the Have Nots and the Have Yachts. For the yachties… They get the wind of cheap money printing constantly filling their sails, which allows them to speculate, juice asset prices and end up with yet more yachts. However, the have-nots have to sit marooned and becalmed awaiting some imaginary trickle-down cash that never comes. Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by economist Frank Shostak and investor and author Mitch Feierstein to discuss how Western leaders, policy makers and central bankers have managed to create such a divide…
In an information age in which most media brands deliberately nail their colours to the mast, one organisation – which that has just reached its 200-year anniversary – still can’t explain what it really stands for. The Guardian is loved by some, hated by others, but when it comes to an editorial standpoint, its mercurial choices have left many flummoxed.
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by Des Freedman and Justin Schlosberg to discuss ‘Capitalism’s Conscience: 200 Years of The Guardian’. Edited by Freedman and with a chapter by Schlosberg, the book takes an in-depth look at both the newspaper’s journalism and its political values.
One of the biggest Covid-19 casualties on a global level has been education. But what many have missed during the pandemic is that the crisis in higher education is being ruthlessly exploited.
Management teams and consultants think they can now –without all that pesky academic consultation– make mega bucks by cementing a fully neo-liberal educational regime. What could possibly go wrong?
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by Peter Fleming, author of 'Dark Academia: How Universities Die,’ to discuss the future of higher education.
One of the most complicated geopolitical areas to lucidly explain is events in the Middle East – many pundits try to do so using think tank briefings from the comfort of their own country.
So that we could get truly independent insight, we caught up with the veteran war correspondent and political analyst Elijah J. Magnier, who has been on the ground in the Middle East for nearly four decades.
He joins Ross Ashcroft on Renegade Inc to discuss what the latest American bombing campaign means for the wider region.
With football’s Euro Championship under way, many people love the passion that comes with supporting their team. But this reminds us that many more people feel disconnected from domestic football – and not because of the pandemic or stadium exclusions. The problem is much more about absentee owners, sky high ticket prices and the ruthless fracturing of the fan-club relationship.Ross Ashcroft is joined by professor of sports management Stefan Szymanski and football writer Devon Rowcliffe to discuss how rampant profit seeking is ripping the soul out of the beautiful game.
The rise of hyper-individualism and an I, Me, Mine culture has encouraged two personality types to dominate business and politics. Where money, power, and status lie, the corporate psychopath and the narcissist can reliably be found relentlessly chasing so-called success at the expense of everyone else.
Ross Ashcroft is joined by journalist & social philosopher Anne Manne, and professor of management and author Clive Boddy, to discuss corporate psychopaths and the rise of narcissism in society.
Dr. Lawrence C. Smith is one of the world’s leading climate scientists and author of 'Rivers of Power and The New North'. He joins Ross Ashcroft this week to discuss a common theme in the books: how looking at the past is the only way to anticipate the future.
So as climate breakdown begins to bite, how will it reshape our societies, economics and politics…?
It was the Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde who said “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” Today much of the ugliness remains but the timespan has shrunk from six months to just a few weeks… Fast fashion has boomed but at the expense of garment makers, consumers and the environment.
Ross Ashcroft is joined by Dana Thomas & Dr. Patsy Perry to discuss the true cost of fast fashion.
Over the last few years the subject of money has come into sharp focus. Increasingly we want to know: who creates it, who issues it, who controls it, and importantly, who decides who gets it first… The simple paradox is why, with so much money now created, do we still have so much inequality and poverty?
Ross Ashcroft is joined by author and financial activist Brett Scott to discuss how much we really know about the dynamics of money.
The Renaissance is known as the cradle era of the modern world, for both its art and ideas. Less known is that it was also the era when the modern banking system was created. The Medici Bank was the most influential, yet the trouble it attracted from both church and state, over using usury as a business model, is a problem that our societies still face today.
Ross Ashcroft is joined by Tim Parks, author of 'Medici Money,' to delve into the world of 15th-century banking and to explore the parallels between then and now.
In ‘Poverty Safari’ – his first award-winning book – writer and rapper Darren McGarvey paints an honest picture of Britain’s class divide. In his forthcoming book, ‘The Social Distance Between Us’, he takes his argument further. He claims the pandemic has laid bare the contours of class inequality, but it has also shown us that, if the will is there, political and economic mechanisms do exist to solve poverty and inequality.
Darren McGarvey joins host Ross Ashcroft to discuss what lessons we can learn from the pandemic and how to move forward from here.
You would think that the sixth largest economy in the world would be able to organise itself to provide decent school meals for its children, but alas… the UK has faltered. It’s astonishing that the Manchester United number 10 has done more for hungry schoolchildren than the occupant of Number 10. The former knows all about childhood hunger; the latter thinks the so-called free market can deliver everything. Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by the founder of School Food Matters, Stephanie Slater, and Johnbosco Nwogbo from ‘We Own It’ to discuss whether we should be relying on the free market to solve childhood hunger.
There’s nothing like the idea of unionised workers to make the predatory capitalist convulse – for them, precarious employment is profitable.
But what if this subjugation and short-termism had its time, particularly as younger generations of workers increasingly see the benefits of trade unions?
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by labor law specialist Carolyn Jones and Carolyn Steinhoff of Amazon Labour Union to ask if the tide has turned on those companies who have long exploited workers to swell their bottom line.
It is claimed that the silver market is one of the most manipulated markets in the world. It is also claimed that there is a drastic shortfall between how much of the precious metal is above the ground versus how much has been sold in paper contracts. So, is this the year that sends the silver price to the Moon? Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by silver guru David Morgan and Ivan Bayoukhi to find out if the so-called silver stackers are about to have their long-awaited moment in the Sun.
Less than 100 days into his presidency, Joe Biden is already angling for war with Russia…
The excuse? Ukrainian sovereignty.
But Russia has 200 years of experience when it comes to Western forces piling up troops against its borders – and it’s led to a series of devastating wars. And again today, we are seeing the highest number of NATO and US troops stationed close to the Russian border.
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by analyst Alex Krainer and author Dmitry Orlov to discuss why the real reason behind this growing tension is something quite different.
Gentrification and spiraling property prices are forcing generations all over the world into debt and out of cities.
We’re seeing housing – which should be a human right and a social good – being financialized into an asset class by the banks, then played with on stock markets.
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by Leilani Farha, former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, and award-winning filmmaker Fredrik Gertten, who together created the documentary ‘Push’, to understand both what is going on and what we can do about it.
The much-quoted linguist Noam Chomsky said, “We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.”
Yet in the age of individualism, we have often confused good ideas with a search for a hero. This ego festival has created saviour complexes that have become so pernicious they have derailed the most well-intentioned plans.
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by journalist and author Jordan Flaherty and Degan Ali, the director of Adeso, to look beyond the saviour models that have been killing us for too long.
It was the American writer Gore Vidal who cynically quipped, “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” This perfectly sums up the US’ desire for global domination. But will the US Oligarchy remain unsatisfied with its success and continue to push for the failure of other countries?
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by journalist Ben Norton to explore whether there is any stopping the insatiable quest for US so-called superiority and exceptionalism.
The trauma created by the pandemic has understandably meant we’re looking for rapid solutions to complex problems.
Rich Western countries have bought up most of the supply of vaccines in a headlong rush to protect their own populations.
But isn’t the key to universal public health access to medicine for all?
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by public health activist Achal Prabhala and Andrea Taylor from the Global Health Innovation Center to ask if this blinkered approach will end up costing everyone much more.
The Biden administration has wasted no time in showing that it, too, is going to continue the great American tradition of the 'forever war'. So, will there be another unjustified precursor to the next US-led conflict? Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by Robert Fantina and Piers Robinson to ask if American citizens have grown suspicious of forever wars abroad – especially when there is so much economic demise and division at home?
For over 20 years, the United States was allowed by the Irish government to use Shannon Airport as a military base. Two renegades hopped over the fence of a base from which the US used to wreak havoc across the world. Arrested and sent to court, they managed to turn the case on its head, and in the end, it was Irish foreign policy that was put on trial. Members of European Parliament and activists Clare Daly & Mick Wallace join host Ross Ashcroft to tell the full story.
The disaster has been dubbed the Amazon Chernobyl. Between 1964 and 1992, the oil company Texaco, later acquired by Chevron in 2001, was allegedly responsible for the dumping of over 30bn gallons of toxic waste and crude oil into the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. The impact on local communities has been devastating, destroying livelihoods and causing a spike in cancer and birth defects. Lead US attorney for the indigenous plaintiffs Steven Donziger joins host Ross Ashcroft.
A year on for the beginning of the pandemic, we reconnect with Professor Steve Keen to talk climate breakdown, fraudulent economics, the so-called Great Reset and how we can think about charting a different course.
There’s one word that causes everyone in Washington to convulse...
Professor of Wellbeing Economics Paul Frijters and journalist Matthew Ehret join host Ross Ashcroft to discuss America’s need for a new enemy and Cold War 2.0.
All you ever hear business leaders calling for is certainty... the problem with this is that the only thing in life that’s certain is uncertainty. So how does philosophy allow us to navigate uncertain times?
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by business philosopher and author Anders Indset to discuss.
For decades we have been brainwashed into believing that unlimited growth is good.
Economic growth is apparently the holy grail, rooted in outdated measurements like GDP and arbitrary stock-market digits... But what if these assumptions are wrong and actually, for our well-being and the future of the planet, we have to redefine success and embrace degrowth?
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by economic anthropologist Jason Hickel and global justice activist Asad Rehman to unpick.
Capitalism’s central plank is that competition is king, creating a level playing field that champions only the best products, the most efficient services and the most effective people.
Yet a cursory glance around the business world shows us that corporates don’t like competition – they aggressively protect their monopolies which stifles products, shrinks services and prevents personal accountability. So, what if this so-called competition is actually killing us…? Joining Ross Ashcroft is author and lawyer Michelle Meagher to discuss.
Most of us are trapped in the cult of busy. Packed schedules, immediate gratification, wall-to-wall Zoom calls and the incessant ding of your so-called smart device. It’s not making us happy, and all the associated consumption is trashing the planet for those who aren’t here yet... So how do we free ourselves from this tyranny and become Time Rebels?
Author and philosopher Roman Krznaric joins host Ross Ashcroft to discuss.
We all can see we live in a world of misallocated capital. But we also live in a society of misallocated labour. We disproportionately praise and pay those who work with their heads yet when it comes to people who work with their hearts or with their hands they end up with crumbs in comparison – so how did the cult of the knowledge worker become so pervasive?
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by journalist and author David Goodhart to discuss.