Bungacast

UNLOCKED: /551/ Reading Club: Mythologies ft. Catherine Liu

On Roland Barthes' Mythologies.

(This is an unlocked episode from our Reading Club. Subscribe for more like this.)

Alex, George, and contributing editor Catherine Liu delve into Barthes' 1957 classic to understand the form of ideology critique it proposes – and particularly as it relates to left and right.

• If the bourgeoisie generates myth, is revolution a cathartic act that gets us beyond myth?

• Is the direct producer also unable to speak myth, or is this a romanticisation?

• What are predominant left-wing myths today? Is "left vs right" a myth of sorts?

• Is the critic of myths condemned to live a "theoretical sociality"? Should people just be allowed to enjoy things?

/554/ Capitalism Is When the State... ft. Corey Robin

On writing the history of capitalism.

Political theorist Corey Robin talks to Alex H and Alex G about what is wrong with Sven Beckert's monumental new Capitalism: A Global History.

• Have historians returned to writing about big themes and grand narratives?

• Why does Beckert date capitalism's emergence to 12th century Arabia?

• Is capitalism essentially about free markets and free trade – or about the state, coercion, violence?

• If capitalism has no beginning and no end, then does that mean we're still at the end of History?

Links:

• The Long Revolution, Corey Robin (review of Sven Beckert), The Nation

• /481/ Everything is Plausible: Oligarchy – or Worse ft. Corey Robin

 

/553/ Energy Sovereignty = Political Independence? ft. Benjamin Bradlow

On global shortages and their political consequences.

Benjamin Bradlow, assistant professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton, talks to Alex and Lee about the world-historic impact of the Hormuz Strait closure.

• How will shortages – beyond oil and gas – reverberate through global supply chains?

• Why are markets so sanguine about all this? Are financial economic elites too insulated from consequences?

• Will China be the big beneficiary as more countries turn to importing its tech for renewables?

• Do countries want to trade dependency on the Middle East or US for dependency on China?

• Would a world of energy autarky be more or less peaceful?

• Are "electrostates" a thing?

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

Links:

• The Winners and Losers of the Iran Energy Shock, Benjamin Bradlow, Foreign Affairs

• The energy crisis may just be starting, Martin Wolf, FT

/552/ Bunga Live: Is History Back (Baby)?

Audio from the live event held at Verdurin, London, on 28 May 2026.

The OG Bunga Boys - Alex, George, and Phil - present their takes, followed by responses from contributing editor Lee Jones and friend-of-the-pod Nina Power - and audience questions.

/551/ Reading Club: Mythologies ft. Catherine Liu

On Roland Barthes' Mythologies.

Alex, George, and contributing editor Catherine Liu delve into Barthes' 1957 classic to understand the form of ideology critique it proposes – and particularly as it relates to left and right.

• If the bourgeoisie generates myth, is revolution a cathartic act that gets us beyond myth?

• Is the direct producer also unable to speak myth, or is this a romanticisation?

• What are predominant left-wing myths today? Is "left vs right" a myth of sorts?

• Is the critic of myths condemned to live a "theoretical sociality"? Should people just be allowed to enjoy things?

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

/550/ The New Dollar Imperialism ft. Costas Lapavitsas

On world money and war.

Costas Lapavitsas, professor of economics at SOAS, London, talks to George and Alex about financialisation, arrested development, and the Strait of Hormuz.

• What is the state-led stabilisation of finance capital?

• How does today's imperialism differ from prior versions – even if they also inhibited development outside the core?

• What is the "liquidity tribute" that developing countries must pay?

• How is the war on Iran a perfect case of dollar imperialism: "the dollar and the F35"?

• Why is the talk of "colonialism" today a distraction?

London event: History's Back, Baby!

Links:

• A Topography of the New Dollar Imperialism, Costas Lapavitsas, NLR

• Trump’s Chaotic Imperialism: Economic Warfare, Geopolitical Truculence and Domestic Authoritarianism, Costas Lapavitsas, Socialist Register

• For forthcoming Monthly Review article, see here

• /139/ Dollar Empire ft. Yakov Feygin & Dominik Leusder

• /142/ Dollar Empire (2) ft. Daniel Bessner

History’s back, baby! (Event in London)

History’s back, baby! 

Thu 28 May, Verdurin, London

Tickets: https://verdur.in/store/historys-back-baby-admission/

 

It is obvious today that the “end of history”, postulated by Francis Fukuyama in 1992, is over. Liberal democracy as the final form of human organisation? Pah! The arc of history tending towards justice? Pah! 

Will the end of twentieth-century modernity be the start of something new? The building blocks of the past – political parties, ideologies, and institutions – are decaying around us, and nothing new emerges to take their place. 

Yet history now has new protagonists: states, corporations, and oligarchs, often acting in synthesis. What if history’s back but not as we wanted it? The stakes are high: the sunset of the US hegemony is in sight and even Fukuyama now agrees on the impending primacy of the “Chinese model”. Yet even such geopolitical shifts aren’t leading to the creation of a new hegemony – disorder is the order of the day. 

Five years on from the publication of The End of the End of History, its authors and hosts of Bungacast reflect on a world in a state of accelerated decay, with responses from guests Lee Jones and Nina Power.

They say that “nothing ever happens”. Pah! Something ever happens.

/549/ Why Has Politics Genderised? ft. Ashley Frawley

On angry young women.

Ashley Frawley, sociologist and senior editor at Compact, joins Alex and George to delve more deeply into young people's political polarisation on gender lines.

• Why is there a lack of mutual understanding or goodwill between young men and women when we have never been more equal?

• Why do differing political views on anything from Israel/Palestine to Donald Trump cause such interpersonal rancour?

• Young women are centrally concerned with pain, trauma, and empathy – and see men as lacking. What's behind this?

• How is the conservative explanation (bad lefty ideas) just as faulty as the lefty one (patriarchy)?

• What will the political consequences be of gender polarisation?

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

Links:

• Revealed: the new radicalism among young women, Scarlett Maguire, New Statesman

• Meet the Angry Young Women, Emily Lawford, New Statesman

• Why young women are so angry, Pippa Bailey, New Statesman

• Don’t panic about “Angry Young Women”, Jack Davey, The Critic Magazine

• Why do young women hate men?, New Statesman, YouTube

• /394/ Girls, Left / Boys, Right ft. Nina Power (see for additional links)

• Girls and Boys are becoming very different, Alex Hochuli, Substack

 

/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?

–> For more like this, subscribe: patreon.com/bungacast <–

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