On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Afghanistan Taliban spokesperson and US-Taliban negotiator Suhail Shaheen. He discusses the claims made in Western media that Russia has been paying the Taliban bounties to kill US soldiers, and why it is false. He also talks about growing poppy production in Afghanistan after the US-UK invasion, allegations that the Taliban is involved in the drug trade, sources of Taliban financing, the peace deal negotiated between the US and the Taliban facilitating a US withdrawal, and more! Finally, we speak to Leigh Phillips, author of ‘The People’s Republic of Wal-Mart.’ He discusses how crises have shown markets to be inefficient at meeting needs and demand, how capitalist corporations such as Wal-Mart and Amazon operate with central planning instead of market mechanisms, why central planning doesn’t lead to authoritarianism and how, instead, authoritarianism undermines central planning such as in the Soviet Union and China, how coronavirus is forcing capitalist economies to take a central-planning approach, the myth that free markets allow more risk-taking and innovation, and much more
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