Episodes

Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
/272/ As Late As Necessary ft. Alex Gourevitch
Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
On abortion.
After the US Supreme Court ruling, where does this leave women in the US? Political theorist Alex Gourevitch joins us to discuss Roe v Wade, and how the fact it rooted abortion in a right to privacy was problematic.
How can we ground the right to abortion in an argument for freedom in general? And is the US really faced with a rising tide of reaction, as liberals claim? Are same-sex marriage and contraception imperilled by the decision.
Reading:
- Wrong Life and Abortion, Ethan Linehan, Sublation
- The Left killed the pro-choice coalition, Kat Rosenfield, Unherd
- A Defence of Abortion, Judith Jarvis Johnson
- How to Win the Abortion Argument, Helen Lewis, The Atlantic

Tuesday May 10, 2022
/262/ The Useless Past ft. Matt Karp
Tuesday May 10, 2022
Tuesday May 10, 2022
On liberals' embrace of the past and history wars.
We talk to Matthew Karp about his essay, "History As End: 1619, 1776, and the politics of the past". It seems as if there's an ideological inversion going on, where liberals see history in terms of original sin and cycles of injustice, or at best, want to relitigate the past in order to fight battles of the present. Meanwhile conservatives have abandoned the past. What does this say about current attitudes to capital-h History and making the future?
Readings:
- History As End: 1619, 1776, and the politics of the past, Matt Karp, Harpers
- Ends in Sight: Marx/Fukuyama/Hobsbawm/Anderson, Gregory Elliott
- The End of the End of History, Bungacast

Tuesday Apr 05, 2022
/252/ Technopopulism & Toxic Politics ft. Carlo Invernizzi Accetti
Tuesday Apr 05, 2022
Tuesday Apr 05, 2022
On the fusion of technocracy & populism.
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti talks to us about his book, Technopopulism, co-authored with Chris Bickerton. This is the "new logic of democratic politics". How are all politicians today effectively technocratic and populist at the same time? How does this distinguish our age from a more ideological age in the past? And what can be done to make politics ideological again?
Part 2, which includes the rest of the interview, and the After Party where Alex, George and Phil debate why politics are toxic today, is available here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64729183/
Readings:
- The Age of Technopopulism? George Hoare, Damage
- Alex's thread on consensus-through-dissensus
- The Berlusconi - cocktail recipe

Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
/249/ Dances with Truckers ft. Ashley Frawley
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
We move on to debate how to understand popular resistance to 'social engineering' today, as well as the uses of 'emotionalism' to undermine political agency.
Readings & Links:
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How the truckers split indigenous Canada, Ashley Frawley, UnHerd
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Lecture: Emotion & Reason, Ashley Frawley, The Academy
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Semiotics of Happiness, Ashley Frawley, Bloomsbury, 2005

Tuesday Feb 22, 2022
/242/ Bureaucracy Rules OK ft. Michael Lind
Tuesday Feb 22, 2022
Tuesday Feb 22, 2022
On class wars, new and old.
Michael Lind, Professor of Practice at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, joins us to talk about what it might take to restore working class power in Western states. He explains some of the arguments in his book The New Class War (2020) in greater depth, as well as discussing his intellectual debt to the ex-Trotskyist theorist turned Cold War conservative, James Burnham.
Plus, Michael talks about how his Texan background and upbringing shaped his outlook on industrialisation, national development and populism.
Part two: https://www.patreon.com/posts/243-bureaucracy-62900197
Readings:
- America’s Asymmetric Civil War, Tablet Mag
- Why ending tenure is only the start, Tablet Mag
- The importance of James Burnham, Tablet Mag
- Bungacast Reading Club on The New Class War

Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
Excerpt: /241/ Three Articles: Peace & Social War in North America
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
Tuesday Feb 15, 2022
On dovish conservatives, Trumpist coup-mongers and Canadian truckers.
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Live debate/book launch in NYC, Feb 22nd: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/live-debate-book-launch-the-end-of-the-end-of-history-tickets-261000468427
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We examine what arguments 'pro-worker conservatives' are making in an aim to rid the GOP of warmongers and what this says about their vision of politics. In that light we also look at the Trumpist wing and ask what they might have in common, if anything, with the former. And we debate the Canadian protests against vaccine mandates and the left's response to it so far.
Three Articles:
- Hawks Are Standing in the Way of a New Republican Party, Sohrab Ahmari, Patrick Deneen, Gladden Pappin, NYT
- The second coming of Donald Trump, The Economist
- As Workers Resist, the Left Recoils, Edwin Aponte, The Bellows

Tuesday Jan 11, 2022
/235/ Political Ritalin ft. Anton Jäger
Tuesday Jan 11, 2022
Tuesday Jan 11, 2022

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How the World Went from Post-Politics to Hyper-Politics, Anton Jäger, Tribune
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Introduction from The End of the End of History, Bungacast, Merion West
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Did the culture wars ever end?, Q&A with Andrew Hartman, Illinois State

Tuesday Jan 04, 2022
Excerpt: /234/ Three Articles: Restoration?
Tuesday Jan 04, 2022
Tuesday Jan 04, 2022
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Millennials Are Supercharging the Housing Market, Nicole Friedman, WSJ (attached)
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A tale of two elites in Washington and Beijing, Gideon Rachman, FT (attached)

Tuesday Nov 23, 2021
Excerpt: /226/ Science Says: No Woke
Tuesday Nov 23, 2021
Tuesday Nov 23, 2021
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Full report (pdf)

Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
/225/ Wokeistan & Lebanonworld ft. Karl Sharro
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
On sectarianism & identitarianism.
Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) is back on Bunga to talk to us about his essay "The Retreat from Universalism in the Middle East and the World".
Lebanon has been used as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, even though its confessional system is a disaster. But Lebanese-style sectarianism isn't a form of 'feudal' backwardness – in fact it represents a precursor of the multicultural and identitarian politics in the West.
Who are the enemies of universalism today, East and West? And what sort of political projects are capable of rejuvenating secular universalism?
See also:
––
Buy our book: The End of the End of History
Subscribe to the podcast: patreon.com/Bungacast

Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
Excerpt: /224/ Three Articles: Labour Revolts?
Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
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Wages are surging across the rich world, The Economist
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The Revolt of the American Worker, Paul Krugman, NYT
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US Workers Are in a Militant Mood, Alex N. Press, Jacobin
The full episode is for subscribers only. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
Excerpt: OK BUNGER! The Problem of Generations, pt. 3
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
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Jennie Bristow, senior lecturer in sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University
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Helen Andrews, senior editor at The American Conservative
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Josh Glenn, semiotician, author, and publisher of HiLoBrow
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Jeffrey Alexander, professor of sociology at Yale University
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Holger Nehring, chair in contemporary European history at the University of Stirling
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Kristin Ross, professor emeritus of comparative literature at New York University
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Medité / A Change in My Heart / courtesy of epidemicsound.com
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Ondolut / Blumen / courtesy of epidemicsound.com
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Elliott Holmes / Bull Chase / courtesy of epidemicsound.com
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Kick Castle / Kick Down / courtesy of epidemicsound.com
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T. Morri / Nuthin' but Nuts / courtesy of epidemicsound.com
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American Pastoral Trailer © 2016 - Lionsgate
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Mai 1968 © France 3 Paris Ile-de-France
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Imitation de Daniel Cohn-Bendit © C'est Canteloup
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Baader Meinhof Complex © 2008

Friday Sep 24, 2021
Excerpt: /217/ Reading Club: Intersectional Stalinism
Friday Sep 24, 2021
Friday Sep 24, 2021

Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
/211/ Unlocking the Lockdown Left ft. @galexybrane
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
On lockdowns, education, and the left.
California middle-school teacher and social critic Alex Gutentag (@galexybrane) joins us to talk about the depredations of lockdown in California and the wider world.
How has lockdown affected different segments of society, and how damaging have school closures been on education? Why has the professional middle class been so in favour of widespread restrictions – and how did the left go from backing Medicare 4 All to cheering on lockdowns in the space of a few months?
Readings:
- The War on Reality, Alex Gutentag, The Tablet
- The Great Covid Class War, Alex Gutentag, The Bellows

Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
/187/ The Huge Package State ft. Anton Jäger
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
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