In Solidarity - by openDemocracy

Governments hand out billions in lucrative contracts to tech corporations to build surveillance systems, track migrants, and process public health data. Yet those same companies use every legal loophole available to avoid paying tax on their profits.
In this episode of In Solidarity, openDemocracy editor Aman Sethi and tech reporter Jade-Ruyu Yan sit down with Jason Ward, principal analyst at the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR), to analyze Palantir’s global tax practices.
Palantir supplies technology to US immigration enforcement, the Israeli military, and the UK’s NHS. Despite reporting 55% profit margins and over $1.6 billion in net income, Palantir maintains an effective global tax rate of just 1.4% and pays zero federal income tax in the United States.

Chapter Timestamps
00:00:00 - Introduction & What is Palantir?
00:03:25 - Palantir in the UK: NHS Contracts & Low Tax Bills
00:04:37 - Why Investigate Palantir's Tax Practices?
00:05:37 - Peter Thiel, JD Vance, and Silicon Valley Ideology
00:07:02 - The 1.4% Effective Tax Rate: How Palantir Dodges Taxes
00:10:47 - Explaining the Stock-Based Compensation Loophole
00:15:15 - Corporate Taxes, Democracy, and Inequality
00:18:48 - Who Works for Palantir? Inside Employee Motivations
00:20:21 - The France Exception: Why Worker Power Matters for Tax
00:23:14 - Australia’s Tax Transparency Revolution
00:26:32 - Debunking Corporate Excuses & Pushing for Reform
Credits:
Presented by Aman Sethi
Produced by Harry Beney
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nine months after the US abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a highly unusual oil deal has surfaced. The US claims to have struck an agreement to take control of about a fifth of Venezuela's oil reserves. But this isn't a standard international trade agreement; it’s structured through a Barbados-based private company owned by a controversial businessman, with the US Department of Defense taking a 35% stake.
In this episode, we sit down with Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist and author of The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched-Earth Politics and Economic Decline. Rodríguez dismantles the mechanics of this unprecedented $100 billion deal, explaining why major oil companies are nowhere to be found and why Venezuela is currently shipping 40,000 barrels of oil to the US at cost.

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:03:00 - The Barbados Company and the Missing $100 Billion
00:05:00 - Replenishing the US Strategic Reserve at Venezuela's Expense
00:07:00 - Bypassing Venezuelan Law and the National Assembly
00:09:00 - Comparisons to the 1996 Russian Privatization
00:13:00 - Hugo Chávez and the Origins of Economic Collapse
00:18:00 - The Devastating Impact of US Sanctions
00:22:00 - The Opposition’s "Faustian Bargain" with Washington
00:25:00 - "Regime Compliance" and the Future of US Intervention

Credits:
Presented by Aman Sethi
Produced by Harry Beney

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is Reform fascist, far-right or merely right wing? And do we really need to get into this?

Our guest on this episode, thinks we should: Daniel Trilling is a journalist, a long-time openDemocracy contributor, and the author of a new Book: If We Tolerate This: How the British Establishment Made the Far Right Respectable.

Daniel has spent decades covering the wild west of right-wing politics in England— from the fascists to the conservatives.

And his point, which we dig into over the length of this episode, is we need to correctly diagnose what Reform is, and what they are tapping into, before we decide what to do about it.

I found this conversation particularly thought provoking for two reasons: Whenever we cover Reform on openDemocracy (and we go at them very hard), we often get readers writing in saying, “I support Reform but I’m not racist”; On the other hand, I worry — to borrow from the title of Daniel’s book, if we are making a dangerous group respectable.

So yes, we need to get into it, and Daniel is just the person to do this with.

Buy Daniel's book: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/8711/9781037411571

Subscribe to openDemocracy: opendemocracy.net

00:00 Introduction
01:05 The Collapse of the UK's Two-Party System
02:18 The First-Past-The-Post Lottery
03:07 What is the "British Establishment"?
04:19 The Media Elite & Private School Pipelines
05:32 The "Punitive State": Working Class vs. The State
07:37 The Nigel Farage Playbook
10:48 The False Promise of "Fixing the Country"
13:30 "Anti-Nationals" & The Right-Wing Identity Crisis
16:32 Scottish Nationalism vs. Englishness
18:23 The Identity Void of Post-Empire Britain
21:40 How to Actually Defeat Reform UK & The Far-Right
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The climate crisis is changing the way nations think about food, energy, resources, war and peace. Melting ice caps are opening up new trade routes fought over by the world's great powers, conflicts are waged over food and mineral resources, shifting climates are fuelling migration – and Donald Trump says it's all just a scam.

Join Arthur Snell as he discusses his new book Elemental: the new geography of climate change and how we survive it. Spanning conflict in the Sahel, Russia's war in Ukraine, the US coveting Greenland, NEOM in Saudi Arabia, and China's energy push, Snell explores how the climate crisis is now in every part of our politics. But while there is much to concern us here, there's hope too. The world faces various futures, and it can adapt and respond to the realities of a changing climate.

📕 Buy Elemental: The New Geography of Climate Change and How We Survive it
https://uk.bookshop.org/a/8711/9781035412945

👉 Stay informed. Sign up for the openDemocracy newsletter: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/newsletters/
✊ Support our work. In Solidarity is openDemocracy’s podcast about people, power, and politics. We rely on listeners like you to keep our independent journalism free. Donate today: https://www.openDemocracy.net/donate/

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:20 The Petro-State Panic: Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the End of Oil
03:32 The Sahel Crisis: Climate Migration and Fragile States
08:24 Uranium & Mercenaries: Russia vs. France in Africa
10:25 The Arctic: Melting Ice, Shipping Routes, and Donald Trump
16:21 Ukraine: Why Putin is Weaponizing Food and Farmland
21:35 China’s Monopoly & Russia's Future as an "Economic Colony"
28:18 The Surprising Winners: Morocco, Interconnectors, and Climate Hope
32:41 Outro

Credits: Presented by Sian Norris
Audio engineering by James Battershill
Theme song ‘Odyssey’ performed by Edward Abela

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"My ultimate vision... was to achieve by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his panopticon." — UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
When the state openly admits it wants its eyes on you at all times, how do citizens fight back?

In this episode of In Solidarity, Matthew Linares sits down with Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group. We cut through the Silicon Valley PR to expose the terrifying reality of the modern surveillance state. From the aggressive rollout of facial recognition and predictive policing to the "revolving door" between Big Tech lobbyists and policymakers, we explore how our democratic infrastructure is being hollowed out for corporate profit.

This isn't just a warning - it's an escape plan. Jim breaks down the illusion of corporate regulation, the realities of "enshittification," and the actionable steps you can take to reclaim your digital sovereignty today.

Get involved offline. Find an Open Rights Group meetup near you: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/get-involved/

👉 Stay informed. Sign up for the openDemocracy newsletter: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/newsletters/

✊ Support our work. In Solidarity is openDemocracy’s podcast about people, power, and politics. We rely on listeners like you to keep our independent journalism free. Donate today: https://www.openDemocracy.net/donate/

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:01:27 - The AI Panopticon
00:04:18 - The Lobbyist Loop & The “Rip-Off”
00:10:26 - “Enshittification” & The Illusion of Choice
00:14:48 - Why relying on tech regulators is a “mug’s game”
00:18:51 - Escaping the Matrix: Interoperability, analog meetups, and fighting back

Credits: Presented by Matthew Linares
Audio engineering by James Battershill
Theme song ‘Odyssey’ performed by Edward Abela
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.