Scene on Radio · Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University

S7 E13: CAPITALISM Bonus, Live at Motorco

December 11, 2024·1 hr 12 min·5 clips

Cameron Smith cites Dr. Henry McCoy's data: after the pandemic, Black Durham's cumulative wealth had fallen back to the level it held at emancipation from slavery.

The night begins in Durham. A producer collects voices near the farmers market, then brings the season back to a question that follows the whole conversation. Emmy answers without dressing it up: concentrated wealth limits freedom. That moves the talk away from clean market language and toward the room people actually have to live, work, and make choices. The host treats freedom as more than corporate latitude, asking whether economic life should be judged by restraint or by shared capacity. Then it gets local. A guest talks about well-meaning white people who see gentrification as opportunity while Black communities take the hit. When criticism lands, the guest says, people often close ranks instead of staying with the harm long enough to repair it. Liberal cities do not get much comfort here. The sharpest critique is for charity that helps without giving up ownership, power, or durable control. No party gets an easy pass. The speaker refuses a partisan label, but still notes how talk of work and ownership can expose blind spots in progressive self-understanding. Whiteness becomes the harder subject, especially the commitment to whiteness that people dodge even while talking about a common future. The exchange stays practical. The conversation moves through Communities in Partnership, food sovereignty, workforce development, and Courtney Smith's Culinary Femme Collective. The credits widen the circle with Motorco, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, PRX, and the season's partners, and keep the live room attached to a public argument that is not finished.

As heard by us

A live Durham conversation that treats economics as a question of freedom, ownership, and security.

This Durham episode starts with Gabriela Glick asking people at a farmer's market how they would describe the current economic system and what they would change.

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Why you'd press play

You want capitalism unpacked through real voices, not slogans.

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