Jacobin Radio

Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, on why cops are being so brutal and what should be done with them. Then, Ben Tarnoff, co-founder of Logic magazine, on tech worker organizing (essay here). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Antibody is a narrative series about how Covid-19 has changed everything and nothing at all.In this episode:The Corner (featuring Pablo Alvarado and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network)Stranger Pleasure (featuring Samuel Delany; produced by David Gutherz)One House in Oakland (produced by Sophie Kasakove)Role Call (produced by Andrea Long Chu)Support day laborer economic survival with a contribution at ndlon.org See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dan interviews Cathy Cohen, Jasson Perez, and Malaika Jabali on this uprising, the conditions that made it possible, and where it might be headed.Support Black Visions Collective at blackvisionsmn.orgCheck out Malaika's short film Left Out. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Every Saturday starting at 1 PM ET,  Ana Kasparian and Michael Brooks broadcast live from the Jacobin YouTube channel. The guest on May 30, 2020: culture writer at The Athletic, Wosny Lambre on the protests against police brutality, politics in the NBA, and more.Weekends on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxlNhP2f0kULVe45TbPaF-uLuMQYMJcLkBrooks on Twitter https://twitter.com/_michaelbrooksKasparian on Twitter https://twitter.com/AnaKasparianLambre on Twitter https://twitter.com/BigWos See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Antibody is a new narrative series about how Covid-19 has changed everything and nothing at all.In this episode:Zoom Canvass (featuring Nikil Saval)Hardwood Flesh (produced by Ari Mejia)Dial 3 to Admit Your Personal Failure (produced by Ian Lewis and Caroline Kanner)You Can't Go Home Again (written by Alex Press)The International Trans Person Helpline (produced by Cass Adair and Arlie Adlington) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We talked with longtime socialist thinker Leo Panitch about key socialist concepts beyond the basics. The conversation is based on Leo's book The Socialist Challenge Today: Syriza, Corbyn, Sanders (coauthored with Sam Gindin and Stephen Maher).You can read Eric Blanc's review of the book here: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/the-socialist-challenge-today-corbyn-sandersYou can buy the book here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1473-the-socialist-challenge-todayAnd you can watch Leo's lecture on Ralph Miliband here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBJR3xfmgA4 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From The Dig and Jacobin: a new narrative series about how COVID-19 has changed everything and nothing at all. The first of three episodes is coming soon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chapters eight and nine of EP Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class.Additional reading:Aaron Benanav, "Automation and the Future of Work—1" https://newleftreview.org/issues/II119/articles/aaron-benanav-automation-and-the-future-of-work-1Aaron Benanav, "Automation and the Future of Work—2"https://newleftreview.org/issues/II120/articles/aaron-benanav-automation-and-the-future-of-work-2E.P. Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism" https://www.sv.uio.no/sai/english/research/projects/anthropos-and-the-material/Intranet/economic-practices/reading-group/texts/thompson-time-work-discipline-and-industrial-capitalism.pdf See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Suzi talks to historians Mike Davis and Jon Wiener, touching on some of the many intersecting stories they tell in their long awaited and absolutely compelling history, Set the Night on Fire: Los Angeles in the Sixties.Here we see Los Angeles as a hotbed of political, social and cultural upheaval — from the Watts rebellion to the Chicano Blowouts, the anti-war movement, youth protests and strikes, the women’s and gay movements, the cultural flowering and media expressions, including KPFK, the Los Angeles Free Press and the Ashgrove — as well as the ferocious, racist and violent police response at every turn. Their account of the ever increasing mass protests and the movements behind them convey that “special excitement that occurs when a group of people can see and visibly measure their potential power for the first time.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dan interviews anthropologist Adia Benton on the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa and what its politics reveal about the Covid-19 pandemic today.Please support this podcast with your money at patreon.com/thdig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're on to Part II of The Making of the English Working Class. We cover chapter six and seven--"Exploitation" and "The Field Labourers," plus discuss the 1986 film Comrades, which follows the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a group of laborers who were transported to Australia for organizing an early trade union.No secondary reading this week, though if you can find Comrades online, watch it! In the United States at least, it's available on Vimeo. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Thea Riofrancos, co-author of this book, on why the Green New Deal is more urgent than ever. Then, Alexander Zaitchik, author of this article, on how the profit-driven drug industry is an obstacle to developing a vaccine. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dan interviews Frank Rosenthal on the history of the radical science organization Science for the People and Nafis Hasan on everything about a left-wing politics of science.Subscribe to Science for the People at magazine.ScienceForThePeople.orgPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With guest Asad Haider, we discuss at length the theoretical polemic of E.P. Thompson against Louis Althusser. What was the historical context for each side of this conflict (in which Althusser never participated directly)? What was Thompson’s critique? Asad argues that Thompson did not understand Althusser correctly, or even provide a satisfactory conceptual account of what was best about his own empirical research. The two, may have been closer to each other than Thompson understood. A humanist, he preferred the young Marx; Althusser, an anti-humanist, argued systematically for the importance of the mature Marx. Both, however, were reacting to the Stalinist ossification of their respective national Communist parties.Readings discussed in this episode:Louis Althusser, For Marxhttps://www.versobooks.com/books/35-for-marxLouis Althusser, “Contradiction and Overdetermination” (from For Marx)https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1962/overdetermination.htmLouis Althusser, Etienne Balibar, Roger Est

Dan is playing catch up. Here's a fav interview from the archives: critical theorist Nancy Fraser on how a total analysis of capitalism requires analyzing capitalism's totality, including socially reproductive work that makes possible the world that capitalism exploits. This is painfully relevant today as people everywhere do the work of staying at home and social distancing to beat this pandemic while capitalists reap the rewards of the world's reproduction.Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We cover Chapter Five, but first have an extensive discussion of the debate between Thompson and Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn over the history of social class and economic development in England, with sociologist Jonah Stuart-Brundage. What should we make of liberalism in England at the end of the eighteenth century and what it meant for the prospects of revolution?Secondary readings:Perry Anderson, “Origins of the Present Crisis” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I23/articles/perry-anderson-origins-of-the-present-crisisPerry Anderson, “Socialism and Pseudo-Empiricism,” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I35/articles/perry-anderson-socialism-and-pseudo-empiricismArno Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War https://www.versobooks.com/books/475-the-persistence-of-the-old-regimeTom Nairn, “The British Political Elite” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I23/articles/tom-nairn-the-british-political-eliteTom Nairn, “The British Working Class” https://newleftreview.org/issues/I24/articles/tom-na

Michael Seltzer is a cultural anthropologist and professor emeritus at Oslo University in Norway. There is a sharp contrast in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic between Norway, Finland, and Denmark, where isolation and quarantine are in effect, as compared to Sweden, where the economy is open, and the death rate is much higher. Mike says learning from the experience of Scandinavia is instructive for the United States as some states open for business, while others stay locked down. Mike looks at the history and politics behind these different approaches.Michael Goldfield discusses his new book, The Southern Key: Class Race & Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s. He argues that the political economic evolution of the South has been the key to determining the peculiar nature of American politics. Today the South is the center of reaction, leading the fight against choice, women and LGBTQ rights, the right to unionize — and even in the fight against the lockdown and quarantine necessary to halt the spread of

No book better captures what it's like to be a socialist who has jumped headlong into the fight for a better world than Vivian Gornick's The Romance of American Communism. Thankfully, Verso has reissued it after the book was out of print for decades. Micah Uetricht talks to Alyssa Battistoni, Sean Estelle, and Meagan Day about it.You can buy Romance from Verso here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3110-the-romance-of-american-communismRead Alyssa's review here: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/bad-romanceBuy Bigger than Bernie for just $12.95 here: https://jacobinmag.com/store/product/69 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dan interviews Aaron Benanav, who argues that the problem isn't that robots are stealing our jobs but rather that capitalist growth is finding its limits and making jobs worse.Read "Automation and the Future of Work" in New Left Review. Parts one and two.Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We cover chapters three and four—"Satan's Strongholds" and "The Free-Born Englishman." With guest John Bohstedt (author of The Politics of Provisions: Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England, 1550-1850) we discuss the history and logic of riots in early modern England: why did riots occur so frequently? What did they mean? And how did they relate to the widely held ideas about English liberties, which both contributed to and inhibited the development of popular radicalism? Secondary Readings:John Bohstedt, Riots and Community Politics in England and Wales, 1790–1810. John Bohstedt, The Politics of Provisions: Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England, 1550–1850.Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh, John G. Rule, E.P. Thompson, and Cal Winslow, Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England.Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution.George Rudé, The Crow