Bungacast

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

On Trump's government, his motives and his modus operandi.

Political theorist Corey Robin talks to Alex H and contributing editors Lee Jones and Alex Gourevitch about Trump II from a domestic perspective. We look at the three main things he's done so far: cutting the civil service, imposing economic sanctions domestically, and his immigration terror politics.

• Is Trump a strong president? Does the reliance on executive orders indicate weakness?

• What happened to the #Resistance?

• Why has the tariff issue, instead of uniting Republicans as in the 19th century, divided them?

• Is the bond market the main force limiting Trump's agenda?

• Has Bernie Sanders' prediction come true – this is now an oligarchy?

• Does Trump just represent patrimonialism and even gangsterism? A degradation of democracy?

• What does reaction looks like when there’s very little left to react against?

Links:

• /129/ The Right Is Weak ft. Corey Robin | Bungacast

• Notifications, Corey Robin, Sidecar (on Trump & tariffs)

• Corey Robin's facebook posts

• The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics, Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, Princeton UP

/479/ El Tarifazo: Trump's Tariff Thwack ft. Lee Jones

On Trump's 'liberation day' tariffs and the end of globalisation.

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

Contributing editor Lee Jones talks to Alex about the tariffs, as they try to reconstruct the Trump admin's thinking, and consider avenues and consequences.

• Why is this a retro-80s moment, and how much does China take the role that Japan used to in Trump's thinking?

• How much strategy is there to this? Is it possible to disentangle the competing logics?

• Is this a return to the 19th century: small state, no income tax, high tariff walls?

• How credible an attempt at reindustrialising the US is this?

• Is Trump trying to weaken the dollar? What store to put in the Mar-a-Lago accord?

• Do Europeans kick the can down the road and hope for the best?

• Is this a global restructuring or just a reset in terms more favourable to the US? The end of neoliberalism or a new iteration on it?

Links:

• Will anybody buy a ‘Mar-a-Lago accord’?, FT

• A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, Stephen Miran, Hudson Bay Capital 

• Is Trump 2 the End of ‘Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome’?, Lee Jones, TNS 

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Breaks Down Trump's Tariff Plan and Its Impact on the Middle Class, Tucker Carlson, YouTube

• Back to the ’80s?, Andrew Liu, n+1

• MAGA and the Fragmentation of Europe, Tim Pendry, Substack

/470/ Political Reaction to System Failure ft. Tim Pendry

On the world under Trump, and British responses. 

Tim Pendry, author of the Unstable Times substack, as well as an international affairs consultant, talks to Alex H and Lee Jones about the world under Trump II, the massive shifts underway, and his own policy work with the Workers Party of Britain.

• How has intra-bourgeois struggle shaped the past decades in politics?

• What is "American imperial nationalism (MAGA)" plus a "real-estate negotiation style"?

• Who are the winners & losers of a "rational" return to classical great-power, sphere-of-influence politics?

• Why are the UK's tensions and problems an extreme version of what may soon apply to any ostensible American ally?

• What is the Workers Party of Britain's pitch and strategy?

• Are the bulk of British people really "left on economics, right on culture", and how does the WPB try to appeal to workers?

• What are the practical challenges of building and organising a new party?

Links:

• Manifesto – Britain Deserves Better, Workers Party of Britain

• The Foundations of the Liberal Polycrisis, Unstable Times, Tim Pendry

• Taking Trump Seriously, Unstable Times, Tim Pendry

• Trumpism and Geo-Politics, Unstable Times, Tim Pendry

/451/ Capitalism Needs No Help Abolishing Families ft. Dustin Guastella

On pro-family politics, and the US election and labour.

[Patreon Exclusive - in association with Damage magazine]

Dustin Guastella talks to Phil and Alex about what the election of Trump will mean for US labour organisations. We then move on to Dustin's proposal for progressive pro-family policies.

• What actually is "the family" today? 

• Social democrats are proud of policies but wary of encouraging family growth. Why?

• What would pro-family policies look like, what would they do, and what might their negative effects be?

• Is the family not a pillar for the reproduction of authoritarian norms?

• How do we explain the fertility crisis in global terms?

• How do we confront the growing marketisation of everything?

Links:

• Damage issue #3 - MOTHERS - Bungacast subscribers get free access

• NY live event: issue launch - Family Trouble

/439/ We Can Shape Our Own Environment ft. Ted Nordhaus

On "eco-modernism".

Ted Nordhaus, co-founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, talks to Leigh and Alex the 20th anniversary of "The Death of Environmentalism" and the 10th anniversary of "The Ecomodernist Manifesto". We discuss:

• The fundamental philosophical differences between "building-out" and "restraint".

• Whether industrial policy like the Inflation Reduction Act is in line with the ecomodern approach

• Why environmentalism differs in the US versus Western Europe

• Why modernisation gets lost in discussions on the environment

• What techno-optimism and what techno-fixes are

• What the Abundance Agenda is

Links:

• The Death of Environmentalism, Breakthrough Institute

• An ECOMODERNIST MANIFESTO

/434/ Bodiless Bodies ft. Matthew Thompson & Jonny Gordon-Farleigh (sample)

On the NGO-isation of the state.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Researchers and writers Matthew Thompson and Jonny Gordon-Farleigh join us to discuss their recent Damage article with George Hoare.

Civil society was once occupied by popular forces that could function as a bulwark against both capitalist marketization and state authoritarianism. Today, it has been colonized by the NGO, which, in turn, colonizes our hollowed-out politics. We ask:

• What are 'private NGOs', and what are quangos?

• How has 'projectification' taken over?

• What does the NGOisation of society mean? How does this kill public accountability?

• What are concrete examples of this process?

• What comes next? Any possibility for resurrecting things like Working Men’s Clubs? 

Links:

• Bodiless Bodies: The Rise of Para-Institutions, George, Matt & Jonny, Damage

• Reconstructing Public Housing: Liverpool’s hidden history of collective alternatives, Matthew Thompson

• The NGOization of the West, George Hoare, Café american

/420/ Fertility Freefall & Gender Strife in South Korea ft. Hyeyoung Woo (sample)

On baby bust, feminism and male resentment.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Alex and regular contributor Leigh Phillips call up Korean sociologist Hyeyoung Woo, director of the Institute for Asian Studies at Portland State University, to talk about demography, family and gender in the Republic of Korea.

• How urgent is the national debate on fertility?

• What policy measures have been introduced to reverse the decline?

• How is work organised and how do long hours contribute to the lack of family formation?

• What has been the impact of feminist movements in Korea?

• Is there a male backlash against feminism underway?

• Why is there such a huge gender gap in voting behaviour among the young?

Links:

• /394/ Girls, Left / Boys, Right ft. Nina Power

• The Real Reason South Koreans Aren’t Having Babies, Anna Louie Sussman, The Atlantic

• Foreign maids and no military service: South Korea criticised over ideas to boost birthrate, The Guardian

• South Korea's incel election, S. Nathan Park, UnHerd

• Why South Korean women aren't having babies, BBC News

• This demographic catastrophe will hit us all, Peter Franklin, UnHerd

• Korean Families Yesterday and Today, eds. Hyunjoon Park & Hyeyoung Woo

/419/ Who Owns Power ft. Fred Stafford (sample)

On the electricity grid and the institutions involved.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Fred Stafford, a STEM professional, a writer on energy and power, and an editor at Damage, talks to Alex and regular contributor Leigh Phillips about the utility of utilities and his recent essay in the second print issue of Damage, "Deinstitutionalized"./

• What actually is a utility: is it a question of ownership, structure, purpose..?

• How did the 70s energy crisis, neoliberal economics, and environmentalism create a perfect storm that broke up regulated utilities?

• How does the regulatory regime on energy in the US actually work?

• Why have environmentalists been so keen to line up with neoliberal deregulation and to attack utilities – in Europe as well as the US?

• Why should the left think about a restoration of the investor-owned utility model, and not just jump straight to public ownership?

Links:

• The Utility of Utilities, Fred Stafford & Matt Huber, Damage

• Big Public Power from the Atom, Matt Huber & Fred Stafford, Damage

• Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System, Richard F Hirsch

 

/377/ The Locked-Up Country ft. Shahar Hameiri & Tom Chodor

On Australia's lockdown.

 

We welcome back Shahar Hameiri and Tom Chodor to talk about their new book, The Locked-Up Country, to try to learn some lessons from Australia's response to Covid-19. We also talk about the country's recent Indigenous Voice referendum and ask whether it was Oz's "Brexit Moment".

 

In the episode we ask:

• Was the pandemic another success for the 'lucky country'?
• How was the Australian state transformed from the 1970s to the 2020s?
• Why was Australia's pandemic planning inadequate?
• What was up with the hotel-based quarantines?
• Why did the public largely support these measure?
• And what can the rest of the world learn from the experience?

Excerpt: /363/ Outsourcing the State

On the politics of consultancy

 

[Patreon Exclusive. Sign up @ patreon.com/bungacast]

 

The past 40 years have seen a whole range of things the state used to do itself outsourced to third parties. Now there is a turn against these practices. But can the state actually get stuff done, or is it doomed for its prior reliance on consultants?

 

It's not just the left the criticises outsourcing - the right now does too. How do these positions differ? And how are these questions related to another critique – that of 'bullshit jobs'?

 

Readings & Links:

• In Clover, Laleh Khalili, LRB (attached)
• The Big Con — the case against consultancies (review of Mazzucatto & Collington), Diane Coyle, FT (attached)
• Letter: Groundless assertions about a trusted profession (response from a consultant), FT
• How PwC captured Australia, Shahar Hameiri, Unherd
• Consultancies Have Been the Handmaidens of Neoliberalism, Nathan Akehurst, Jacobin
• Radical Centrism: Uniting the Radical Left and the Radical Right, Ashwin Parameswaran, Macroresilience
• The limits of government outsourcing, Martin Bortz, Pursuit
• /267/ South Africa Mafia State ft. Benjamin Fogel

/338/ The Energy Theory of Everything ft. Matt Huber

On who owns the power.

Matt Huber joins us to discuss his article, "Socialist Politics and the Electricity Grid", and how organised labour is central to a politics of plenty. What is the grid and who owns it? What are the limitations of a "100% renewables" approach? 

On the politics of energy, the left is divided in a similar way to the ruling class. How do we move from a strategy of 'blocking' (preventing new infrastructure) to one of 'building'? And why does a movement to limit climate change need to focus on production, rather than consumption?

We conclude by discussing the conflict between struggles around "the end of the month" (living standards) and those around "the end of the world" (climate change).

Readings & Links:

• Socialist Politics & the Electricity Grid, Matt Huber & Fred Stafford, Catalyst
• Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet, Matt Huber, Verso
• On post-neoliberalism: /326/ What Did Capitalism Do Next?, Bungacast
• On de-growth: /310/ Do You Want to De-Grow?, Bungacast
• On green activism: /91/ Exhaustion Revealing ft. Leigh Phillips, Bungacast
• Matt's Twitter thread on Kokei Saito's degrowth communism 

 

/331/ The Zone (pt. 1) ft. Quinn Slobodian

On cracked-up capitalism.

Historian of ideas Quinn Slobodian joins us again, this time to discuss his latest book, Crack-up Capitalism – the vision of a global capitalism with its constituent nation-states perforated by ‘zones’ shorn of any national oversight or democratic accountability. We talk through these archetypal zones encompassing deregulation, investment and sweatshop labour, ranging from the glittering city scapes of Hong Kong, Singapore and Canary Wharf to forgotten zones such as Ciskei in apartheid South Africa as well as the gated communities of California and bit-coin paradise Honduras.

We also talk about archetypal crack-up capitalists such as Peter Thiel, William Rees-Mogg and Milton Friedman’s offspring. How did crack-up capitalism feature in the Tory vision of Brexit? Plus, why is Dominic Cummings the one true Singaporean, and why do crack-up capitalists love medieval LARPing?

For part two, sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

Readings:

• Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, Quinn Slobodian
• The Ciskei experiment: a libertarian fantasy in apartheid South Africa, Quinn Slobodian, The Guardian
• /115/ Singapore Shangri-La ft. Lee Jones
• As special enclaves proliferate, what are the consequences for democracy?, Kwasi Kwarteng MP, The Spectator
• Dominic Cummings understands Singapore. The Tories still don’t, Quinn Slobodian, The Spectator

• Crack-up Capitalism video trailer, Twitter

/321/ Covid Dissensus ft. Toby Green & Thomas Fazi

On The Covid Consensus.

 

We're joined by two authors whose new book asks why lockdowns were adopted almost universally. National and transnational health authorities dropped pre-pandemic plans in favour of open-ended nationwide lockdowns which were to remain in place until vaccines were developed. Why this course of action? 

 

And how to account for the unprecedented level of policy alignment across the majority of countries: was it coordination, imitation, or coercion?

 

In part two of the interview, we discuss the devastating impact of lockdowns on poor and middle-income countries where the informal economy is the norm.  

 

For access, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast 

 

Links:

• The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left, Toby Green & Thomas Fazi
• /213/ The Leopard Lockdown ft. Adam Tooze
• /38/ The Economics of Exit ft. Thomas Fazi

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

/222/ Nukes 4 Kids ft. Emmet Penney, pt. 1

On the global energy crisis. 

 

Nuclear energy advocate Emmet Penney (@nukebarbarian) joins us to discuss the growing energy crunch in Europe, the US and beyond. Nuclear power is opposed by an unholy alliance of environmentalists and neoliberals - yet it seems the best solution for providing plentiful, reliable, and clean energy. As a demand, it seems an open goal for the left - so why are so many resistant?

 

Part 2 is available here for patreon subscribers. 

 

Links & Readings:

• Nuclear Barbarian - pro-nuclear podcast & newsletter
• ex.haust - Emmet's other, co-hosted pod
• Undeveloping America, Emmet Penney, The American Conservative
• Political Life in the Lottery of Babylon, Emmet Penney, The American Conservative
• How we happened to sell off our electricity, James Meek, LRB 
• A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations, Robert Bryce, Public Affairs (book)