Bungacast

Excerpt: /311/ Reading Club: The Precariat

Is there a new 'transformative' class?  

[Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive]

We close of the 2022 Reading Club, and the final section on 'Neo-Feudalism', by discussing how class is changing. Through readings by Guy Standing and Ruy Braga, we ask if the precariat are the new serfs in a supposed feudal-ish social formation.

It's clear the old Fordist arrangements have broken down, so what does the working class look like today? Is it still a class in the old sense? Braga argues we are witnessing 'class struggle without class'. But why then do the precariat's revolts only target state political authority, and not property relations?

Readings:

• A return of class struggle without class? Moral economy and popular resistance in Brasil, south Africa and Portugal, Ruy Braga, Sociologia & Antropologia
• The Precariat: Today's Transformative Class?, Guy Standing, GTI

Excerpt: /310/ Do You Want to De-Grow?

On 'degrowth communism'.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Why the rage for degrowth now? With deindustrialisation, energy rationing and severe pressure on standards of living, it looks increasingly like degrowth is official policy.

Yet its advocates, drawing from the work of radicals like Mike Davis, John Bellamy Foster, Jason Hickel, and Kohei Saito, would argue that ecological Marxism or degrowth communism is wholly different from stagnant capitalism. How much continuity is there between much older generations of socialists and the contemporary left?

Readings:

• The paradox of Degrowth Communism, Thomas Fazi, UnHerd
• ‘A new way of life’: the Marxist, post-capitalist, green manifesto captivating Japan, Justin McCurry, Guardian
• The degrowth delusion, Leigh Phillips, openDemocracy

Excerpt: /301/ Reading Club: Neo-Feudalism

On Joel Kotkin's The Coming of Neo-Feudalism 

We start off by discussing your points on the last RC, on conspiracy theory.

Then we delve into Kotkin's book, asking whether he has an adequate understanding of feudalism, and whether this is the right lens to understand transformations underway now. Is 'techno-feudalism' not just a downturn in 'systemic cycles of accumulation', related to the decline of the US empire? And what are Kotkin's politics and how do they relate to his analysis?

Thanks for all the questions received on this one, we discussed them as we went through the episode.

Reading:

• The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class, Joel Kotkin, Encounter Books
• Techno-Feudalism Is Taking Over, Yanis Varoufakis, Project-Syndicate 

Next month: Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Capitalism, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Atle Mikkola Kjøsen and James Steinhoff, Pluto Books

Excerpt: /296/ Last-Gasp Neoliberalism (Trussonomics)

On Trussonomics.

 

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

Having stumbled upon a successful recipe under Boris Johnson which would see greater state intervention, Britain's Tories then pivoted to a much more pro-market approach. But the markets haven't liked it – they've hated it.

 

What does this say about neoliberalism and what the new orthodoxy is? Why did markets react so badly against a budget that featured things they normally like, such as lower rates of corporate taxes? And does this mean the market's authority has been restored, but under a new guise?

Readings:

• Liz Truss’s Britain Is a Morbid Symptom of the World’s New Era, Adam Tooze, Foreign Policy
• The markets are wrong about ‘Trussonomics’ just like they were about Brexit, Julian Jessop, Telegraph
• What is Kwasi Kwarteng really up to? One answer: this is a reckless gamble to shrink the state, Adam Tooze, Guardian
• Britain's Tory Meltdown Is a Case of Socially Determined Stupidity, David Jamieson, Jacobin
• The economic consequences of Liz Truss, Martin Wolf, FT

/286/ What Was Communism? ft. Branko Milanovic

On Communism's historic role.

 

We talk to renowned Serbian-American economist Branko Milanovic about growing up in Yugoslavia and how, in much of the world, History never ended. We then dedicate much of the episode to discussing Branko's claim that communism was essentially an engine of economic convergence, allowing developing countries to haul themselves into the industrial age.

 

We also talk about Branko's work on inequality and why growth still matters. 

 

Readings:

• Capitalism, Alone, Branko Milanovic, Harvard UP
• The Aloofness of Pax Sinica, Branko Milanovic, Global Policy Journal

Excerpt: /265/ Three Articles: Inflation!

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

On the economic drivers and political choices of inflation.

 

In the absence of workers demanding higher wages, where is inflation coming from? Is there more to it than pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and the Ukraine war? How responsible is Biden's spending package? And how can generations who have never known serious inflation respond?

 

Three Articles:

• Chartbook #122: What drives inflation?, Adam Tooze, Substack
• Inflation Is No Accident, Christopher Caldwell, Compact
• Britain is drifting towards economic oblivion, Ben Marlow, Telegraph

/250/ Oil & Disorder ft. Helen Thompson

On energy, the material basis for all our politics?

Helen Thompson, podcaster and professor of political economy at Cambridge and author of Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century, joins us to talk about the geopolitics of oil, stretching from the 1956 Suez Crisis to the Fracking Revolution of today. How does US energy independence help explain shifting politics in Europe and the Middle East?

Plus, did the End of History stay afloat on a sea of cheap oil?  

Part 2 of the interview, plus our After Party, is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/251-oil-disorder-64394535

Readings:

• Profits from fossil fuel energy power Russia's war machine, and Ukraine suffers, Helen Thompson, New Statesman
• What Is Fueling Our Century’s Global “Disorder”?, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, The Nation
• How Did Europe Get Hooked On Russian Energy?, Paul J. Davies, Bloomberg
  

Excerpt: /234/ Three Articles: Restoration?

On Millennial homeowners, the USA falling apart, and restoration in the UK.

As better-off 30-somethings start to get on the property ladder, does this put paid to 'Generation Left'? Will American decline be accompanied by a second civil war - as China serenely watches on? And does Britain represent a return to the 'End of History'? Is everything becoming boring again?

 

This is an excerpt. For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Articles:

• Millennials Are Supercharging the Housing Market, Nicole Friedman, WSJ (attached)
• A tale of two elites in Washington and Beijing, Gideon Rachman, FT (attached)
• British politics suddenly feels small – and the old order is ‘taking back control’, Julian Coman

Excerpt: /224/ Three Articles: Labour Revolts?

On rising wages after the pandemic.

 

Workers are quitting their jobs and not going back. Restricted supply is seeing wages go up. Does this signal a new militancy, or are workers just deciding to make do with less? How has the pandemic shaped people's outlooks?

 

Articles:

• Wages are surging across the rich world, The Economist
• The Revolt of the American Worker, Paul Krugman, NYT
• US Workers Are in a Militant Mood, Alex N. Press, Jacobin

 

The full episode is for subscribers only. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

/213/ The Leopard Lockdown ft. Adam Tooze

On Covid and the end of the end of history.

Adam Tooze joins us to discuss his new book, Shutdown. In 2020 everything changed... so that everything might remain the same.

What were the reasons behind the global shutdown? Was it a result of over-protection, a policy of repression, or the result of structural tensions? Has China been the winner of the pandemic? How have central banks been victims of their own success? And does this represent the end of neoliberalism?  

The latter part of the interview continues over on patreon.com/bungacast

/204/ Three Articles: People's Republic of Fleeing

On Chinese investment, Swiss democracy, and fleeing from Afghanistan.

In this Three Articles, we discuss flight or departure in various ways: China opening the gates for its huge savings to spill onto world markets; Switzerland leaving (or remaining outside) the EU; and the US's sudden departure from Afghanistan, without telling anyone. 

'Three Articles' episodes are normally for subscribers only - but this one's free. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast for regular access.

London book launch/bunga party: Register here

Articles:

• What happens if Chinese household wealth is unleashed on the world?, Thomas Hale and Tabby Kinder, FT (pdf in patreon)
• Swexit, Wolfgang Streeck, Sidecar-NLR
• US troops abandoned Bagram airport base in the dead of night..., various, Daily Mail

/195/ No Shock China ft. Isabella Weber

On China, economic reform, and the future.

While Russia famously succumbed to destructive neoliberal "shock therapy", China managed to avoid it. How and why? Isabella Weber, author of How China Escaped Shock Therapy, tells us about China's opting for gradual reform instead. 

What did reform mean for understandings of socialism? Do communists make the best capitalists? And is the pursuit of growth and development at any cost China's own version of the End of History?

Excerpt: /192/ Three Articles: Pandemic (Dis)Satisfactions

On consequences of the pandemic + important local election results in Spain & UK.

 

We start off by discussing the telling results of some recent local and regional elections: in the UK, Labour continues its drift to becoming a middle-class party; while in Spain, Madrid goes to the right. Podemos flops, while voters seem to endorse an anti-lockdown stance.

 

Then we get to our three articles on the consequences of the pandemic: is live-streaming complicit with power? Are liberals now anti-science? Will inflation return?

 

Three Articles:

• Stayed home, live streamed, got the T-shirt, Lev Parker, The Conservative Woman
• The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown, Emma Green, The Atlantic 
• Broad commodities price boom amplifies ‘supercycle’ talk, Neil Hume et al, FT 

/187/ The Huge Package State ft. Anton Jäger

On cash welfarism and state investment. Plus regionalism in Belgium & the UK.

Anton Jäger is back on the pod to discuss the emerging 'transfer state'. We examine Biden's massive trillion-dollar spending plans and ask if this means we're leaving neoliberalism. What are the limitations to the 'cashification of welfare'? Also comparisons with cash transfers or lack thereof in the UK, Brazil and Belgium.

Plus Anton talks us through recent Belgian history and why its immobilism and bureaucracy has actually prevented a full-on neoliberal assault. 

[Part 2 available at patreon.com/bungacast]

Readings:

• “Welfare without the welfare state”: the death of the postwar welfarist consensus, Anton Jäger & Daniel Zamora, New Statesman
• Joe Biden Is a Transformational President, David Brooks, NYT

Excerpt: /158/ Three Articles: Cosmopolitan Austerity & Control

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

In this latest Three Articles, we discuss cosmopolitanism, the end of austerity (maybe?) and social control in the pandemic. 

Readings:

• Is cosmopolitanism our destiny?, Aris Roussinos, Unherd
• Meet the Philosopher Who Is Trying to Explain the Pandemic, Christopher Caldwell, NYT
• Global economy: the week that austerity was officially buried, Chris Giles, FT