The global politics podcast at the end of the End of History. Politics is back but it’s stranger than ever: join us as we chart a course beyond the age of ’bunga bunga’. Interviews, long-form discussions, docu-series.
Episodes
Friday Apr 24, 2020
Friday Apr 24, 2020
On whether new tech can help build decentralised socialism.
Reading Club episodes are for $10+ patrons. Sign up: patreon.com/bungacast
We discuss Evgeny Morozov's New Left Review essay, Digital Socialism? The Calculation Debate in the Age of Big Data. A useful companion to this (mentioned by George in the episode) is a lecture given by Morozov, that can be found at the bottom of this page.
Thanks for all the questions, they are addressed in the last third of the episode.
Friday Mar 27, 2020
Friday Mar 27, 2020
This episode is for our $10 and up patrons. Go to patreon.com/bungacast for access.
On the end of the Age of Imitation.
We discuss Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes' The Light That Failed: A Reckoning and their arguments for why liberal democracy stopped being the model to follow - in Eastern Europe, Russia and even the USA.
Thanks for all the questions, they are addressed in the last third of the episode.
Tuesday Feb 25, 2020
Tuesday Feb 25, 2020
On Applied Ballardianism.
Is it J.G. Ballard's world? Bunga talks Ballard with Simon Sellars, author of a new book on the great British sci-fi novelist J.G. Ballard. Urban decay, social breakdown, consumerism as social control and the Interzone.
Opening passage is taken from Ballard's 2000 novel 'Super-Cannes'.
Reading:
Applied Ballardianism, Simon Sellars, Urbanomic
Subscribe: patreon.com/BungaCast
Tuesday Jan 21, 2020
Tuesday Jan 21, 2020
On The Economist and the contradictions of global liberalism.
Alexander Zevin joins us to discuss his work on the 176 year history of the magazine that has accompanied liberalism's global expansion. Has it just reflected the world or has it actually influenced politics? How has The Economist balanced democracy against the interests of finance and the needs of empire? And is the magazine suffering from N.O.B.S.?
Subscribe: patreon.com/BungaCast
Running order:
- (06:02) Overview & early days
- (29:52) 19th century & empire
- (34:18) 20th century, esp 1930s and '40s
- (48:08) End of the Cold War and NOBS
- (01:02:19) Liberalism & its enemies
Thursday Oct 31, 2019
Thursday Oct 31, 2019
In our second Reading Club, we discuss Eliane Glaser's Anti-Politics (Repeater, 2018) and take readers questions and contributions.
Readings:
For access to this and other bonus episodes, become a patron at patreon.com/bungacast
Thursday Sep 19, 2019
Thursday Sep 19, 2019
On post-work. We discuss Anton's review of David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs and why it seems to have such appeal, even amongst elites. There is a crisis in the work ethic, but is it an error to counterpose work and leisure and simply opt for leisure? Is leisure even 'ours' anymore, or has it been fully colonised by capitalism? Ultimately, is the problem today more about bullshit in jobs, rather than bullshit jobs per se?
Readings:
For the full episode, sign up at patreon.com/bungacast
Thursday Aug 22, 2019
Thursday Aug 22, 2019
In our first Reading Club, we discuss Nancy Fraser's The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born (Verso, 2019) and take readers questions and contributions.
Readings:
- The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born, Verso
- From Progressive Neoliberalism to Trump—and Beyond, American Affairs
Listen to the whole episode by subscribing at patreon.com/BungaCast
Thursday Jun 06, 2019
Thursday Jun 06, 2019
On the unexpected origins of neoliberalism. We talk to Quinn Slobodian, author of Globalists, about how neoliberals look back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the League of Nations. Why does neoliberalism talk about freedom, but promote order? Is neoliberalism about more or less state - or is it about what kind of state?
Plus why the genuine neoliberals didn’t care about the Cold War and how Murray Rothbard laid the ground for Trump.
Readings:
- Globalists, Quinn Slobodian
- Neoliberalism’s World Order, Adam Tooze
- Why I am not a conservative, F.A. von Hayek
- The EU is a betrayal of Europe’s exceptionalism, Douglas Carswell
Subscribe for access to the Synthesis Session, where the guys discuss the broader implications: patreon.com/bungacast
![/72/ Frankly Awesome Lefty Conversation ft. Aaron Bastani [UNLOCKED]](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog2148233/falc3_300x300.png){kind=logo}
Thursday May 30, 2019
Thursday May 30, 2019
Thursday May 23, 2019
Thursday May 23, 2019
Thursday Jan 17, 2019
Thursday Jan 17, 2019
On democratic planning. Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski propose we look at Walmart and other giant corporations as sites of planning, not of markets -- and that this fact proves planning works. Rather than rely on markets and market actors to manage production and distribution, we should it ourselves. Do advances in computing mean that the old problems of planning have been overcome? Does planning lead to authoritarianism -- or does authoritarianism lead to bad planning? Can we overcome the age of Capitalist Übermenschen?
Readings:
- People's Republic of Walmart (Verso, March 2019)
- Planning the Good Anthropocene, Leigh & Michal in Jacobin
- Pt. III of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Friedrich Engels
PATREON: Help us grow (pay what you want) patreon.com/bungacast
Bunga theme music: Jonny Mundey
Bunga design: ramune.io
Thursday Jan 10, 2019
Thursday Jan 10, 2019
On the links between economic liberalism and fascism. Ishay Landa talks to us about the "Apprentice's Sorcerer": how political liberalism enfranchises the masses, to the disgruntlement of economic liberals, who then have to turn to an authoritarian or fascist 'daddy' to save capitalism. What does the liberal divorce between economic and political liberalism tell us about the conflict between democracy and private property? How does the fascist "principle achievement" relate to today's fondness for entrepreneurial heroes? Also, a restatement of how the horseshoe theory is horeshit.
Readings:
- Fascism and the Masses, Ishay Landa
- The Apprentice's Sorcerer, Ishay Landa
- Our episode on Losurdo & liberalism's contradictions
PATREON: Help us grow (pay what you want) patreon.com/bungacast
Bunga theme music: Jonny Mundey
Bunga design: ramune.io
Thursday Nov 22, 2018
Thursday Nov 22, 2018
We discuss Nervous States with its author: How has debate became so angery!1!! and fractious? Why don't we trust institutions any more -- or better, which institutions do we still trust and why? How has war increasingly encroached onto peace? And maybe believing in stats too much means that we now don't believe in anything...
Readings:
Nervous States (William Davies)
Postscript on the Societies of Control (Gilles Deleuze)
Thursday Aug 30, 2018
Thursday Aug 30, 2018
The third in our Neoliberal Breakdown series. In which we discuss the late Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism, 10 years on. Does his analysis still hold? The mood music of the time - the age of 'TINA' and the end of history - was acutely described by Fisher. But did it only really describe Britain? And has the world now entered a new period?
Readings:
Capitalist Realism http://www.zero-books.net/books/capitalist-realism
'Exiting the Vampire Castle' https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/mark-fisher/exiting-vampire-castle
Mark Fisher's k-punk blog https://k-punk.org/
Cover image: 📸 Stephanie Jung
Thursday Aug 16, 2018
Thursday Aug 16, 2018
In which we discuss the work of the late Domenico Losurdo, especially his brilliant Liberalism: A Counter-History. Part of an ongoing series on the contradictions of liberalism, we debate whether Losurdo is right to point to liberalism's complicity with slavery, racism and colonialism. Why were arguments for self-rule often accompanied by justifications for slavery? Why were some liberal abolitionist arguments in favour of despotism?
We tie these discussions into contemporary paradoxes of liberalism and ask why liberalism is unable to realise its own values.
Reading:
Liberalism: A Counter-History (book) https://www.versobooks.com/books/960-liberalism
Obituary of Losurdo (Jacobin) https://jacobinmag.com/2018/07/domenico-losurdo-italian-marxism-counter-history