Episodes
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
/150/ Shadow Commander ft. Arash Azizi
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
On Iran at the End of History.
When the US assassinated Iran's 'shadow commander', Qassem Soleimani, everyone thought WW3 would break out. What happened instead? We talk to the author of a new book on Soleimani about the "local boy who made it", and look at how Soleimani masterminded Iran's interventions all over the region.
We also discuss how the Iranian Revolution represented a degradation of universalism, as it marginalised secular nationalism, socialism and communism. Would the Shia-Sunni conflict, with Iran as leader of the Shia faction, therefore be yet another step away from universalism? And what role did the US play in fomenting sectarian conflict?
Readings:
- Book: The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran's Global Ambitions, Arash Azizi, OneWorld
- Qassem Soleimani and How Nations Decide To Kill, Adam Entous & Evan Osnos, New Yorker
Thursday Sep 24, 2020
/149/ It's Not Robots, It's Capitalism ft. Aaron Benanav / Liz Pancotti
Thursday Sep 24, 2020
Thursday Sep 24, 2020
On unemployment.
The Covid crisis has led to millions out of work - but the situation was none too rosy before, either. Post-crisis recoveries seem increasingly 'jobless', while the overall labour force participation rate keeps falling as people drop out entirely.
We interview to Liz Pancotti of Employ America for a picture of what's driving US unemployment.
Then we talk to Aaron Benanav about his new book and learn that it's not robots who are stealing jobs, but rather capitalism's own stagnation. Why are both radical Keynesian ideas and UBI proposals no real solution? And, finally, what is the working class to do in a world with depressed demand for labour?
Running order:
- Liz Pancotti - (04:09)
- Aaron Benanav - (53:09)
Readings:
- Automation and the Future of Work, Aaron Benanav, Verso
- Unemployment Benefit Expansions: A Guide for Policy Responses in the Wake of COVID-19, Elizabeth Pancotti, Employ America
- Do not let homeworking become digital piecework for the poor, Sarah O'Connor, FT
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Excerpt: /148/ Three Articles (September)
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
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Of moonshots and bus subsidies: How state aid became a Brexit deal-breaker, The Economist (attached in patreon)
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Sweden’s Covid-19 experiment holds a worldwide warning, Wolfgang Münchau, FT (attached in patreon)
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Why are we racialising Beethoven, Ralph Leonard, Unherd
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We Need a Radically Different Approach to the Pandemic and Our Economy as a Whole, Katherine Yik & Martin Kulldorff, Jacobin
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
/147/ The Past Doesn't Go Away ft. Benjamin Moser
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
On modernism and its end.
We're joined by 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner Benjamin Moser to discuss the tensions between hating your national culture and wanting to leave it behind, and the effacement of national culture by postmodern homogenisation.
We talk about his biography of Susan Sontag, plus a range of other questions: Brazil, USA, literature, architecture, sex, imperialism, Freud, the image and representation, and contemporary wokeness.
Moser's Books:
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
Excerpt: /146/ Class is Cancelled ft. Ben Tippet
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
This is an excerpt. For the full episode, sign up at patreon.com/bungacast
On class.
Class as an idea and an identity is now supposedly redundant. It’s been replaced by conflicts between generations and transcended by more up-to-date identities linking people together through common experiences of victimhood and inequality, rather than along lines related to production or power. Or is it? We discuss these questions with Ben Tippett, author of Split: Class Divides Uncovered to find out whether class still has any place in society and theory (spoiler: it does).
Reading:
- Split: What Love Island Tells Us About Culture & Class In Modern Britain, Ben Tippet, The Quietus (Excerpt from book)
Split: Class Divides Uncovered, Ben Tippet, Pluto Press
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
/145/ The End of Conservatism ft. Julius Krein
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
On political decline and realignment.
The editor of American Affairs joins us to discuss the decay of conservatism and we ask whether this decay doesn't apply to other parts of the political spectrum too. Is today's 'class struggle' really just between the upper-middle class and the elite? And we discuss the 'late-Soviet' USA - the sense of decline embodied in the gerontocracy of the ruling class.
Readings:
- The Real Class War, Julius Krein, American Affairs
- America’s Unhealthy Gerontocracy, Julius Krein, American Affairs
- Conservatism Is A Collection Of Losers. It Doesn’t Have To Be. Julius Krein, The American Conservative