Naomi Klein: It was Neoliberal Capitalism all along!

Decoding the Gurus

Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne

Science, Leisure, Social Sciences, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2025

⏱️ 204 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, your favourite neoliberal Decoder shills take a break from managing the decline of late-stage capitalism to examine the insights of famed writer and renegade activist Naomi Klein. The focus is her latest literary offering, Doppelganger, where Klein wrestles with the existential dread of being confused with Naomi Wolf and uses that mix-up as a gateway to explore the "Mirror World" of conspiracy theories and online gurus (a landscape our listeners know all too well).

Along the way, Matt and Chris discover Klein's views on Steve Bannon's dubious charm (and what percentage he gets right), the cause of Russell Brand's descent, the real agenda behind conspiracy theories, and why neoliberal capitalism remains the root of all evil. Plus, special guest interviewer Ryan Grim parachutes to 'just ask questions' about the lab leak, vaccine side effects and other forbidden topics that the people were not allowed to talk about!

So, whether you’re a champagne socialist, a crypto libertarian, a neoliberal shill, or just here for the popcorn, join Matt and Chris as they parse Klein’s content and consider: is Klein speaking truth to power, or just preaching to the choir?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Hello and welcome to Decode the Gurus, the podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist
0:33.9	listen to the greatest finds the world has to offer, and we try to understand what
0:38.4	they're talking about.
0:39.6	I'm Matthew Brown, psychologist from Australia, and with me is Chris Kavanaugh, the
0:45.6	grimmer-worm-tong-to-my Theoden, anthropologist from Japan, and whisperer of dark secrets into my ear.
0:56.5	Hi, Chris.
0:57.5	I feel anthropologists in Japan might be more accurate.
1:02.6	Otherwise, you know, when people see my picture, they'll be like, wait a second, false
1:07.8	advertising, false ad, well, it's by the game. isn't that race essential it is racist isn't
1:14.4	or not from japan looks japanese come on uh true true i might be an indigenous person born and bred here
1:24.8	who just happens to not be ethnically Japanese. But that's not true.
1:30.3	Speaking of indigenity, do you know your family genetic background? Were they always
1:37.6	from that little part of Northern Ireland or did they drift there from other places?
1:43.6	What a fraud question. What a fraught question.
1:45.5	What a fraud question.
1:47.1	I don't want to get you beaten up when you go back home.
1:50.0	No, but as far, the answer is no.
1:53.2	I don't really know my family tree except as far back as my grandfather's parents.
2:01.3	Is that reasonably fair back?
2:03.3	And I know that they were all from Ireland.
2:09.2	But from different parts of Ireland.
2:11.2	Some of them were from the south of Ireland.
	...

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