Bungacast

/548/ Post-Legitimate Society ft. Will Charles

On the gig economy, big tech, and ideology.

Sociologist Will Charles talks to Alex about a form of social organisation that has stopped trying to justify itself.

• How should the gig economy work and how does it actually work?

• Is any worker in this economy a 'true believer'?

• Why isn't digital sophistication a proof of economic efficiency?

• What's the relationship between secular stagnation, value capture, and rentierism?

• Do workers hold to a latent moral economy that could provide the basis for revolt?

Full episode for subscribers only. Sign up: patreon.com/bungacast

Readings:

• Muskism and the Myth of Productive Revolution, Will Charles

• Post-Legitimate Society, Will Charles & Ryan Gunderson

• Muskism Is the Specter Stalking Our Present, Alex Hochuli, Jacobin

Relevant episodes:

• /538/ Muskism ft. Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff 

• /522/ At the Bottom of the Tar Pit ft. Benjamin Studebaker

• /540/ Welcome to the Apolar and Post-Multilateral World ft. Tom Chodor

• /546/ Reading Club: Are We All Post-Liberal Now? ft. Geoff Shullenberger

• /547/ What Are the Politics of Stagnation? ft. Dylan Riley

/547/ What Are the Politics of Stagnation? ft. Dylan Riley

On political capitalism and divided workers.

Sociology professor at UC Berkeley, Dylan Riley, talks to Alex and Lee about economic stagnation, the state propping up capitalism, and class politics.

• What is "political capitalism"? And is it true that plunder and predation matter more now than exploitation?

• Why hasn't the ruling class purged the system through mass bankruptcies and unemployment?

• How does Chinese state capitalism fit into the story of stagnation and excess capacity?

• What is the difference between economic interests and class interests? How is the working class divided today?

• Is there a way out of the impasse? What possibility is there of a pro-growth politics?

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Links:

Relevant Episodes

• /312/ Consolation-Prize Marxism & the Bunga-Bunga State ft. Dylan Riley

• /515/ State Capitalism Is Now ft. Ilias Alami

Riley & Brenner

• Seven Theses on American Politics, New Left Review, 2022 

• The Long Downturn and Its Political Results, New Left Review, 2025

Some Key Responses

• Reflections on Political Capitalism, Lola Seaton, New Left Review, 2023

• Notes on ‘Political Capitalism’, John Ganz

• Seven Theses on Brenner and Riley's "Political Capitalism", Tim Barker

• Robert Brenner’s Unprofitable Theory of Global Stagnation, Seth Ackerman, Jacobin

• From Politics to Theory and Back, Benjamin Fong, Damage

 Notable pieces in Sidecar by Dylan

• Lenin in America

• First Principles

• Contra Arendt

/546/ Reading Club: Are We All Post-Liberal Now? ft. Geoff Shullenberger

On postliberalism, MacIntyre and Gray.

• How was the 1950s "end of ideology" (Bell, Lipset) different from the Fukuyaman 1990s "end of history"?

• Is John Gray correct in his characterisation of Alasdair MacIntyre as a prelapsarian?

• Does hyperliberal individualism lead to a search for meaning, and thus to communitarianism?

•  Is the competition between liberalism and post-liberalism now our political spectrum? 

• Is contemporary liberalism now reducible to professionalisation of the state and civil society?

• If liberalism has failed – a basic point of this podcast from the start – has post-liberalism now also failed?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• The End of History and the End of the End of History, Alasdair MacIntyre

• How to Save British Liberalism, John Gray, New Statesman

• What ever happened to post-liberalism, Nicolas D Villarreal, Substack

• /533/ Reading Club: Illiberalism?

 

/545/ Orbanism without Orban: the New European Centre? ft. Szilard Pap

On Hungary's elections.

Hungarian political analyst and editor of Partizan, Szilard Pap, talks to Alex about the end of 16 years of Fidesz in government.

• What is the scale of Fidesz’s wipeout?

• Who is Péter Magyar, and is he actually to the right of Orban?

• What was Orban’s rule built on, and what parts of it have been rejected?

• Does Orban mark a shift from national-populism to radical conservatism? From anti-politics to hyperpolitics?

• What is the impact on global radical right? Was there a global Orbanism, and is it over?

• How will this impact European “unity” and will Orban's defeat lead to escalation in Ukraine?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• The Mittel Man, Ivan Krastev, Equator

• Viktor Orbán’s Hungarian Model Has Collapsed, David Broder, Jacobin

/544/ Iran War: Rogue State USA ft. Arash Azizi

On the brave new world we have entered.

Historian Arash Azizi is back on the pod, talking to Alex H and Lee Jones about the ongoing war. We try to draw out some firm consequences, beyond the immediate situtation.

• Why did Trump go to war?

• Is this Netanyahu's war? And will he continue it regardless of the US?

• Will the Islamic Republic become more conservative now? 

• What has the war revealed about asymmetric warfare? About US vulnerability?

• What is the state of the Hormuz weapon now?

For more like this, join us at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Arash Azizi:

• Reasons to be Hopeful in Iran, Arash Azizi, The Atlantic

• /24/ #IranProtest ft. Arash Azizi

• /150/ Shadow Commander ft. Arash Azizi

• /444/ Opportunism & Revenge in the Middle East ft. Karl Sharro & Arash Azizi

Analyses:

• How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, NY Times

• Netanyahu’s Iran War Is Also the War of Global Neocon Elites, Nimrod Flaschenberg, Jacobin

• Trump's War, Daniel Luban Dissent Magazine

• The world energy shock is coming, Isabella Weber and Gregor Semieniuk, New Statesman

• One battle after another: Netanyahu’s new security doctrine, FT 

• /532/ Is This a Paleocon Foreign Policy? ft. JF Drolet

• Atlas Shrugged: Decoding Trump's National Security Strategy, Lee Jones, American Affairs

/543/ Squeamish About Sex, Aroused By Identity ft. Ran Heilbrunn

On abolishing queer theory.

Ran Heilbrunn talks to Lee Jones and Alex Hochuli about his chapter, "Abolish Queer Theory!" in the edited collection Inversion: Gay Life after the Homosexual.

• What is queer theory and why should it be abolished?

• What is the meaning behind the shift in terms: invert, to homosexual, to gay, to queer?

• How does queer theory politicise sex and why is this bad?

• Do our libidos care about social inclusion? Can they?

• Is identity okay but identity politics bad?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Inversion: Gay Life after the Homosexual, Aman Namaman and Pierre d’Alancaisez (eds.), Verdurin, 2025

 

/542/ Letters to the Editors: March 2026

We deal with your questions, comments and criticisms from the past month.

Key issues:

• The difference between radical conservatism and the far right

• Racism in class society in decomposition

• Tech bro übermenschen (or just Uber men)

• Who is doing the work of justifying this order?

• And Ursula, the villainous Cecaelian sea witch, about whom songs must be sung

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• To Keep and Bear Arms, Garry Wills, The New York Review

• David Graeber vs. Peter Thiel: Where Did the Future Go?

• /495/ Heritage America vs the World? ft. James Pogue

 

/541/ Wedging in a Lever ft. Benjamin Fong

On Amazon, labour & logistics, and trains.

Benjamin Fong, of ASU's Center for Work and Democracy, as well as an editor at Damage and co-author of the substack On The Seams, talks to Alex and George about organising workers in locations of corporate vulnerability.

We also preview the forthcoming print issue of Damage, Trains, by discussing modernity and its avatars, and development and de-development in Brazil.

• Why target Amazon above all else?

• What are the "seams" and why are they important?

• Can labour still "go after the big targets"? Do these still exist given the dispersion of production and distribution?

• How much public appetite is there for blockages at pain points?

Links:

• On the Seams, Substack

• The Labor Movement Must Go All In on Organizing Amazon, Benjamin Y Fong, Jacobin

• Organizing Logistics Chokepoints: Hitting Them Where It Hurts, Benjamin Y Fong, New Labor Forum

• The Apotheosis of Point of Sale Data, Benjamin Y Fong, Phenomenal World

/540/ Welcome to the Apolar and Post-Multilateral World ft. Tom Chodor

On "non-hegemony" and world disorder.

Tom Chodor, IR & politics scholar at Monash University, joins us to talk about a world that still retains the formal shells of multilateral institutions but whose contents have been hollowed out.

• What is "multilateralism"? Why is it an important concept to capture the US-led order that is now falling apart?

• If multilateralism was always in crisis, what is new today?

• Is the emerging (dis)order multipolar or apolar? What's the difference?

• Is multilateralism the historic exception that we wrongly take to be the norm? Why is there no going back to the post-1945 – or post-1991 – order?

• What are the prospects for a new hegemonic order? Isn’t prolonged chaos and decay more likely? 

The full episode is for subscribers. Join at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• Non-Hegemony, Tom Chodor, Jack Taggart and Ilias Alami, Phenomenal World

• /377/ The Locked-Up Country ft. Shahar Hameiri & Tom Chodor

• /357/ Lucky, Meaty Nations ft. Shahar Hameiri & Tom Chodor

 

/539/ Reading Club: Where's Our Flying Cars?

On the slowing rate of technological progress.

Alex, George and contributing editor (and science writer) Leigh Phillips discuss David Graeber's 2012 essay, Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit. This builds on two of this year's themes: state capitalism (how planning and growth – or their absence – intersect with technology) and the pre-political (how technology shapes

•⁠  ⁠Were we right to expect jetpacks? And are we looking in the right place for technological advances today?

•⁠  ⁠⁠Has technical progress actually slowed in the way Graeber says? 

•⁠  ⁠⁠Are the explanations he gives for slowdown correct?

•⁠  ⁠⁠What political tasks does this reality impose on us?

•⁠  ⁠⁠What is the role of geopolitics and war in the rate of technological development?

Links:

• Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit, David Graeber, The Baffler

• Science Is Getting Less Bang for Its Buck, Patrick Collison & Michael Nielsen, The Atlantic

• /59/ Übermenschen of Capital Pt. 3 ft. Leigh Phillips & Michal Rozworski

• Progress is in the balance between innovation and implementation, Phil Bell, LSE

• Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (On Robert C. Allen)

• Engels’s Second Theory: Technology, Warfare and the Growth of the State

/538/ Muskism ft. Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff

On the operating system of the 21st century.

Historian Quinn Slobodian and tech writer Ben Tarnoff talk to Alex Hochuli and Alex Gourevitch about their new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, and why we should ask "what is Musk a symptom of?"

• If Fordism characterised the mid-20th century, are our times those of Muskism?

• What are the touchstones of Muskism that the authors identify: fortress futurism, financial fabulism, state symbiosis?

• Who is the real Musk, that of vehicles, energy, infrastructure, or that of the post-industrial stuff of social media, finance, AI?

• What does Muskism promise people? How does it legitimise itself – if at all?

• Is the state actually dependent on Musk, or is Musk dependent on the state?

• How much of Musk's right-wing turn is necessary to Muskism, and how much is contingent? Is the racial component central?

Links:

• Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff, Harper Collins

• /57/ Übermenschen of Capital Pt. 1 ft. Alex Gourevitch

 

/537/ Letters to the Editors: Feb 2026

We deal with your questions, comments and criticisms from the past month or so. Key issues this month are:

• What are the wrongs of the postmodern right – aand left?

• Will the civilisational paradigm become hegemonic?

• Is Trump's foreign policy techno-populist?

• Whether, and how, to protest anti-immigration policing

• To defend or to smash the professions?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

/536/ Can Racism Be Overcome Within Capitalism? ft. Paul Gomberg

On anti-racism, communism, and philosophy.

Alex Gourevitch talks to political philosopher Paul Gomberg about his original and deep Marxist arguments for what makes racism wrong, why racism cannot be eradicated without overcoming capitalism, and the limits of many contemporary anti-racist arguments.

• What does it mean to "alienate" race?

• What is the harm in racism? How does it harm everyone, not just its obvious victims?

• Why does Gomberg argue that can racism cannot be overcome in capitalist society?

• Has official racism been replaced by official anti-racism in the neoliberal era?

• What does it mean to understand anti-racism as communism?

• How did Gomberg's communist militancy impact his philosophy?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• Anti-Racism as Communism, Paul Gomberg, Bloomsbury

• How to Make Opportunity Equal: Race and Contributive Justice, Paul Gomberg, Blackwell

/535/ Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Conservatism ft. Matt McManus

On postmodern conservatives.

Matt McManus talks to Alex and George about a Right increasingly shaped by the parameters of postmodern culture – and his Damage article on this.

• Who are the key thinkers of postmodern conservatism?

• Does truth matter anymore?

• Is "flooding the zone" an act of post-truth politics?

• Does all that is solid melt into advertising – and is it Charlie Kirk's fault?

• Is postmodern conservatism an adequate response the dissolution of the traditional “sources of the self”?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• Conservativism as Postmodernism, Matt McManus, Damage

• Why only Socialism can redeem Conservatism, Maurice Glassman, Together For The Common Good

 

/534/ Is There a Doctrine Called Donroe? ft. Juan David Rojas

On Trump and Rubio, Venezuela and Cuba.

Writer Juan David Rojas talks to Alex and Lee about the abduction of Maduro, what next for Venezuela, and Trump's "hemispheric" foreign policy.

• What is the Trump administration's policy toward Latin America?

• Is the attack on Venezuela a war for oil? Or a war vs 'narcoterrorism'?

• What are the internal divisions in Venezuela, and could it fall into civil war?

• What are the armed groups in the country?

• Who's calling the shots in Washington: neocons or paleocons?

• Is the US open-border policy for Cubans going to cause a rift within the Trump admin?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

• How Maduro Sealed His Own Fate, Juan David Rojas, Compact

• Atlas Shrugged: Decoding Trump’s National Security Strategy, Lee Jones, American Affairs

• From Rogue State to Failed State?: The Perils of Intervention in Venezuela, Juan David Rojas, American Affairs

• Trump’s Venezuela Actions Are About More Than Oil, Matt Huber, Jacobin