Bungacast

Excerpt: /94/ Reading Club 2: Anti-Politics

In our second Reading Club, we discuss Eliane Glaser's Anti-Politics (Repeater, 2018) and take readers questions and contributions.

Readings:

• Anti-Politics: On the Demonization of Ideology, Authority and the State, Repeater

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/93/ Hot Chile and Other Neoliberal Failures ft. Pablo Pryluka

On Argentina's elections and Chile & Ecuador's revolts. 

Macri's election was heralded by the right across the continent as the end to a sequence of centre-left governments in South America. Now only four years later, he is likely to be thrown out of office by the return of 'Kirchnerismo'. Next door, the supposedly "stable and growing" Chile is in flames as protests and riots challenge the conservative Piñera administration and the country's deep inequality. This follows on the heels of weeks of mobilisations in Ecuador against the ending of a fuel subsidy. What's going on and what does it all signify?

[Chile & Ecuador discussion starts at 46mins]

Readings:

• The Day After Macri’s Downfall, Martín Mosquera, Jacobin
• Lenín Moreno Has Betrayed Ecuador. Now the Country Is in Revolt, Guillaume Long, Jacobin
• Did Chile ditch its authoritarian government 26 years ago? Not quite., Jennifer Prible, WaPo
• If Piñera wants to wage war in Chile he should fight the real enemy: inequality, Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Guardian

Excerpt: /92/ Three Articles

A new format in which we each bring to the table a key article to unpick and unpack.

 

This week we take a sharp look at the crumbling US political establishment and its empire: impeachment and regime legitimacy; centrist rebels against their lefty parents; and the betrayal of the Kurds.

 

Readings:

• Impeachment is regime suicide, Daniel McCarthy, Spectator USA
• Centrist-child syndrome, Shuja Haider, The Outline
• The US is now betraying the Kurds for the eight time, Jon Schwarz, The Intercept

/91/ Exhaustion Revealing ft. Leigh Phillips

On environmental protest politics. Extinction Rebellion and the Climate Strike have brought eco protest back to the front pages. But it all seems a bit of a flashback to the 2000s. We examine the protests' alarmism and post-political positioning. After inequality and class have been put on the agenda again, do these protests represent a step back? We also ask what might be done about climate change if we don't go along with these groups' interpretations and demands. 

Excerpt: /90/ Work, Bitch ft. Amber A'Lee Frost

On UBI and social reproduction.

 

Following on from ep. 88 where we discussed post-work with Anton Jäger, we have Amber on to talk about her recent article in Jacobin on Andrew Yang's proposals for a Universal Basic Income. Is a citizen under a UBI regime really assimilable to a mid-century American housewife? How free is either? Does fully automated luxury communism put too much emphasis on luxury and not enough on communism? And would UBI lead to a more or less alienated society?

 

Reading:

Andrew Yang and the Failson Mystique, Amber A'Lee Frost, Jacobin

 

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/89/ On the Lam: Hong Kong Rebels ft. Toby Carroll

On the Hong Kong rebellion. Four months of protests is forcing a confrontation with the Hong Kong authorities and the Chinese state. The demands are for civil liberties and some more democracy - but what are the social conditions underlying the protests? How important is colonial nostalgia and Hong Konger chauvinism? How is this playing with mainland Chinese - and what will be the CCP's response?

Reading:

• Hong Kong is one of the most unequal cities in the world. So why aren’t the protesters angry at the rich and powerful?, Toby Carroll, The Conversation
• Four Points on the Hong Kong Protests, Kevin Lin, Jacobin

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Excerpt: /88/ Vouchers for Toxicity ft. Anton Jäger

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:

• Back to Work: Review of David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs, Nonsite
• Anton's writing in Jacobin

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/83/ Now It’s Syrizous [UNLOCKED]

Syriza lost the last Greek elections after 4 1/2 years in power. What happened to a party that, for a time, represented the European radical left's hopes? Did it achieve anything in power? Many talk about Tspiras' "betrayal" - is that the right way to look at it? And what are the wider consequences of this defeat: is time up for this wave of "left populists"? 

 

Readings:

• Greece’s Long Road Ahead, Costas Lapavitsas, Jacobin
• Defeat and decomposition, Panagiotis Sotiris, Historical Materialism
• Syriza’s rise and fall, Stathis Kouvelakis, NLR
• New Democracy Against Democracy, Various (incl. Leo Panitch), Jacobin
• The Radical Left: The Time for its Re-founding, Costas Lapavitsas & Stathis Kouvelakis, Verso blog
• Book Review: The Populist Radical Left in Europe, Anton Jäger, LSE blog

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Excerpt: /87/ Berluscoming

We discuss Paolo Sorrentino's "Loro" (2018), a dreamlike cinematic depiction of Silvio Berlusconi. Does the film succeed in capturing Silvio, or does it glamourise him? What explains the appeal he had - and why was the left never able to properly dethrone him? What does it say about 2000s Italy, and its relevance to our times?

 

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If you can't find the film where you are, try this magnet link to torrent it:

 

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/86/ Monsters of the Interregnum ft. Rune Stahl

Why hasn't neoliberalism died? We talk to Rune Møller Stahl about his paper "Ruling the Interregnum" in which he examines previous interregnums, such as the 1920s or the 1970s, and the forces that led to the establishment of new orders. What points the way forward today: resilient neoliberalism, economic nationalism or left populism?

Reading:

Ruling the Interregnum: Politics and Ideology in Nonhegemonic Times, Rune Møller Stahl

Excerpt: /85/ Reading Club No.1

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

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/84/ How To Fail Better ft. Adam Proctor

Scenario-planning for Bernie: what is success, what is productive failure? We attempt to "dream realistically" with Adam Proctor (Dead Pundits Society): how far can this wave of 'democratic socialism' go? Bernie will fail - he won't bring in socialism, so how do we make that failure something to build on? How do we avoid the risk of demoralisation? And most dangerous of all, how to not interpret failure as success?

Plus bonus stuff on Syriza, Brexit and talking in platitudes. 

Excerpt: /83/ Now It's Syrizous

Syriza lost the last Greek elections after 4 1/2 years in power. What happened to the party that for a time represented the European radical left's hopes? Did it achieve anything in power? Many talk about Tspiras' "betrayal" - is that the right way to look at it? And what are the wider consequences of this defeat - is time up for this wave of "left populists"? 

 

Readings:

• Greece’s Long Road Ahead, Costas Lapavitsas, Jacobin
• Defeat and decomposition, Panagiotis Sotiris, Historical Materialism
• Syriza’s rise and fall, Stathis Kouvelakis, NLR
• New Democracy Against Democracy, Various (incl. Leo Panitch), Jacobin
• The Radical Left: The Time for its Re-founding, Costas Lapavitsas & Stathis Kouvelakis, Verso blog
• Book Review: The Populist Radical Left in Europe, Anton Jäger, LSE blog

Subscribe for the full episode at Patreon.com/BungaCast

/82/ Socialist Trumplandia ft. Eric Blanc

2018 saw a strike wave in the US, as anger was given material form. We talk to Eric Blanc about his book on the wave of teachers' strikes in otherwise 'conservative' states. How can this experience be broadened out to other sectors? Is education a site for future struggle? And what is the role of public opinion in trade union victories? We also try to recover some lost radical history of West Virginia and Oklahoma. 

Readings:

• Red State Revolt, Eric Blanc
• America's new redneck rebellion, Edward Luce, FT

/79/ CaliBunga: Tech, Drugs & Capitalist Soul, Pt. 4 [UNLOCKED]

In part four, we broaden the scope, to talk about the Frankfurt School, the humanities and 'romantic anti-capitalism'. If modernity features a battle between romanticism and rationalism, then the hippies represented an attempt to re-enchant a disillusioned world. But as that spirit was incorporated into market dynamics, it became rationalised and commodified. George and Alex sat down with Catherine Liu and Tyrus Miller (Dean of the UCI School of Humanities, and expert on Lukács) to mull over these questions.

 

#CaliBunga is a special multipart series on the Californian Ideology: the seemingly paradoxical hybrid of New Left and New Right ideas - the synthesis of hippies with yuppies, all tied together with the promise that technology might liberate us.

 

Thanks to UC Irvine School of Humanities for sponsoring this series.

 

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