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Head to vanta.com slash Spotify to learn more. Hello, Prestige Heads, and welcome to American Prestige. I'm Danny Bessner here alone because I allow Derek to take the day off.

But I'm really actually excited about this episode. I'm welcoming my actual friend,

Andrew DeWord. Andrew is an assistant professor of media and popular culture at the University

of California, San Diego down there in La Jolla. He's literal neighbors with Mitt Romney. And he's also

the author of Derivative Media, How Wall Street Devours Culture. So, Andrew, thank you so much

for joining us. Thank you. Thrill to be here. So we're going to talk about you going through the Romney's

trash. Why? No, just kidding. Let's start talking about this book you have derivative media,

which to my mind is the most important book written on the media that I've come across in the last year or so, having written my Harper's piece, which is actually how I got to know you, Andrew.

So we're going to talk a lot about the media and monopoly and all the financial instruments that go into shaping modern Hollywood.

But before we do, I wanted to ask you a question about the falling rate of profit,

because I think the falling rate of profit, or that idea, is really structuring your book,

and it structures a lot of our own lives when it comes to our experience in capitalism.

So, Andrew, could you explain what you understand to be the falling rate of profit, what that means, and then we could go into how this shapes the actual media.

Yes, thank you.

What I think a lot of scholars and analysts about Hollywood and the media industries miss is that broader history of capitalism and how it informs

what's going on today. So for historians like Bradel and Eriji, the falling rate of profit

and financialization is something that reoccurs every time the world's systems capitalist hegemon reaches maturity once it enters into

crisis. It happened with the Genoese. It happened with the Dutch, happened with the British,

and now it's happening with the American Empire. So there's this great quote. Rodel has every

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