Bungacast

Grand Reset

Bungacast is back for 2022, refreshed and reloaded.

 

We've got a completely revamped Reading Club, arranged along three themes: Emergency Politics & Control; Cynical Ideology; and Techno-Feudalism.

 

And there will be plenty of deep dives on national politics around the globe and discussions of big ideas with top guests.

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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?

 

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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: /233/ Aufhebonus Bonus

For the last time in 2021, we take your questions, comments and criticisms.

 

As always, lots of debate about Covid - and we start by remarking upon a possible u-turn on the issue on the British left.

 

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Excerpt: /232/ Reading Club: Cold, Hard / Warm, Soft

On Eva Illouz's Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism

How has the cold and hard world of bureaucratic, instrumental rationalism penetrated the intimate sphere of love and relationships? And how has open communication and emotional understanding been used to advance economic interests?

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/231/ New Class Analysis ft. Catherine Liu

On Thursday 9 November, George Hoare and Alex Hochuli took part in a conversation with Catherine Liu about their recent books – The End of the End of History and Virtue Hoarders, respectively. The focus was on the social and political role of the Professional-Managerial Class in historical context.

The webinar was hosted and presented by the UCI Humanities Center, as part of their Ideas with Impact series and we're reposting the conversation as a podcast here.

Excerpt: /230/ Repetition Compulsion ft. Doug Lain, pt. 2

On the left outflanked.

 

We continue our discussion with Douglas Lain, formerly of Zer0 Books and now of Diet Soap Media. Has the left been overtaken by events - yet again? And we propose a typology of a left divided between progressives, populists and Marxists – progressives who are authoritarian, populists who are opportunists, and Marxists who are lonely.

 

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Links:

• Diet Soap Media: Patreon | YouTube
• OK Bunger! The Problem of Generations

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

/229/ Repetition Compulsion ft. Doug Lain, pt. 1

On branding and the left. 

Douglas Lain, until recently publisher of Zer0 Books and now of Diet Soap Media, joins us to talk about what happened with Zer0. Mainly, we discuss the left at the End of History, revisit No Logo and the anti-branding stance, and compare Gen X and Millennial lefts - is it just a continual story of decline?

Links:

• Diet Soap Media: Patreon | YouTube
• OK Bunger! The Problem of Generations

/228/ Three Articles: Popular Backlash in Chile, India, Europe

On people power on three continents.

We discuss Chile's landmark elections, the first after the uprising of 2019-20, which see a face-off between left and far-right; Modi's repeal of controversial laws that provoked a huge mobilisation of farmers in India last year; and protests and riots against new lockdowns and vaccine mandates across Europe.

Articles:

• Has the Backlash to Progressivism Come to Chile?, Lili Loofbourow, Slate
• In Rare Show of Weakness, Modi Bows to India’s Farmers, Various, NYT
• Violence in Belgium and Netherlands as Covid protests erupt across Europe, Jon Henley, The Guardian

Other relevant episodes

• /93/ Hot Chile and Other Neoliberal Failures ft. Pablo Pryluka
• /198/ Universal India ft. Achin Vanaik

 

Excerpt: /227/ Reading Club: All That Is Solid

On modernity's contradictions.

 

In this month's Reading Club, we discuss the introduction to Marshall Berman's marvellous All That Is Solid Melts Into Air.

 

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Can we revive, as Berman intends, the truly dialectical, 19th century attitude to modernity? What value is there in talking about "modernity" rather than “capitalism”? And how to we recognise possibilities for transcending today's impasses, where the question of "modernity" isn't even on the table?

 

The final Reading Club of 2021 will be on Eva Illouz's Cold Intimacies.

Excerpt: /226/ Science Says: No Woke

On the Jacobin & YouGov survey of the US working class.

 

A study (pdf) carried out by YouGov on behalf of Jacobin magazine and the Center for Working-Class Politics has learned that "working-class voters prefer progressive candidates who focus primarily on bread-and-butter economic issues, and who frame those issues in universal terms." What can we learn from the study, beyond the obvious? What are its limitations, who is it for, and what does the survey say about those who commissioned it?

 

Plus: does it make sense to frame your politics as 'anti-woke'?

 

Reading:

• Jacobin executive summary
• Full report (pdf)

/225/ Wokeistan & Lebanonworld ft. Karl Sharro

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:

• /141/ Oh Lebanon, What Now? ft. Rima Majed
• /198/ Universal India ft. Achin Vanaik

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Subscribe to the podcast: patreon.com/Bungacast

 

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

 

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/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)

Excerpt: /221/ Reading Club: Truth About Class

This month we discuss GM Tamas' essay "Telling the Truth About Class" published in the Socialist Register. Is Tamas' division between Marxist and Rousseauian socialism useful? Does it help us to understand the Left today? And is Tamas right that "authentic proletarian revolution... has never occurred in its anti-capitalist purity anywhere"?

 

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Additional readings:

• Why the left must abandon the myth of British decline, David Edgerton, New Statesman
• Ellen Meiksins Wood on the Nairn-Anderson thesis and the Bourgeois paradigm, Verso Books blog

Excerpt: /220/ Aufhebonus Bonus

Responding to your questions, comments & criticisms.

 

It's a big mailbag this time round, including plenty on Covid (lockdowns, vaccines, etc), incels and dating culture, breaking out of neoliberalism's clutches, and much much more.

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Bungacast will be live in New York on 19 November. Come see Alex Hochuli in conversation with Adam Tooze & Amber A'Lee Frost. Tickets at Eventbrite

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