Lisi Krall on How Economics Overpowers Culture
From the archives: Our journey from agriculture to capitalism
How can we change an economic system that has a life of its own?
10,000 years ago, homo sapiens began farming a grain surplus. This surplus led to the creation of societal and cultural hierarchies which divorced our species from our long relationship with the natural world.
This week’s guest, Lisi Krall, argues that our current economic system of fossil-fuelled capitalism is an interpretation of that same system—and we must repair our relationship to the more-than-human world if we are to change the system. But it is a momentous challenge. One, she argues, we must not think culture alone can overcome.
Lisi Krall is a Professor of Economics at the State University of New York Cortland where she researches political economy, human ecology, and the evolution of economic systems. She's also the author of Bitter Harvest: An Inquiry into the War Between Economy and Earth. She explains how systems self-propagate, evolve and dominate culture, arguing acts of local resistance are key to building a sustainable world, and warns against projects like the Green New Deal, which she claims is the status quo masquerading as the solution.
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