Bungacast

Excerpt: /115/ Singapore Shangri-La ft. Lee Jones

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Singapore is held up as a free-market utopia: rich, orderly and clean. But the reality is quite different. Why does Singapore exert such a magnetism for neoliberals, when its reality strays from orthodox prescriptions? What and who made this model 'global city', and how does its communist and anti-colonial past lead to its hyper-capitalist present?

Excerpt: /114/ Reading Club: The Light That Failed

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On the end of the Age of Imitation.

We discuss Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes' The Light That Failed: A Reckoning and their arguments for why liberal democracy stopped being the model to follow - in Eastern Europe, Russia and even the USA.

Thanks for all the questions, they are addressed in the last third of the episode. 

/113/ Globoville ft. Richard Williams

On global cities. 

Global cities flaunt themselves to global capital and are shaped by it. They are self-conscious and eager to transmit 'globalness'. But why? And how has the city under globalisation been reshaped? What is the role of money and power - not to mention sex and culture? And does the sameyness of global cities now mean that medium and small cities are where we should be looking for cultural and political change? 

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Excerpt: /112/ Ideologies of the Near Future

On political conflict over the next decade

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We debate what ideological contestation is going to look like in the next 2/5/10 years. Will liberalism adopt Silicon Valley solutionism? Does the centre-right become fully nationalist? And the far right have a future if that happens? And where does the left go next?

/111/ Big Money Talk: The Case for MMT ft. Bill Mitchell

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has been hailed by some and scorned by others as offering a new framework to understand the financial system. But what is specifically 'modern' about MMT, and how does it differ from rival accounts of the financial economy? We talk to Bill Mitchell, one of the leading proponents of MMT, who gives us an introductory rundown, plus tells us why the Japanese economy is unfairly maligned and explains what the future has in store for MMT as its inexorably advances against orthodox rivals.  

 

-> Our earlier episode with Doug Henwood, a critic of MMT, can be found here: Episode 68 

-> The episode with Bill Mitchell's co-author, Thomas Fazi, is here: Episode 38

 

Readings:

• Reclaiming the State, Bill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi (book)
• MMT Has Been Around for Decades. Here’s Why It Just Caught Fire, Ben Holland & Matthew Boesler, Bloomberg
• An MMT response on what causes inflation, FT
• What you need to know about modern monetary theory, Gavyn Davies, FT
• MMT Is Already Helping, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, Jacobin
  
  

Excerpt: /110/ Three Articles: De-democratising

In this latest Three Articles, we discuss American democracy and those who pretend to save it or undermine it. 

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Readings:

• It’s time to give the elites a bigger say in choosing the president, Julia Azari, WaPo
• Michael Bloomberg: Smirking Id Of America’s Elites, Matt Purple, The American Conservative
• Bernie Sanders Was Right to Talk About Wage Slavery. We Should Talk About It, Too., Alex Gourevitch, Jacobin

/109/ Bunga Goes Ballard ft. Simon Sellars

On Applied Ballardianism.

Is it J.G. Ballard's world? Bunga talks Ballard with Simon Sellars, author of a new book on the great British sci-fi novelist J.G. Ballard. Urban decay, social breakdown, consumerism as social control and the Interzone. 

Opening passage is taken from Ballard's 2000 novel 'Super-Cannes'. 

Reading:

Applied Ballardianism, Simon Sellars, Urbanomic 

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/108/ Coronageddon? ft. Mark Honigsbaum / Lee Jones

On pandemics, panics, and China.

The 2019 Novel Coronavirus is yet another new epidemic to appear on the scene this century. What accounts for their increasing frequency, and who decides if an epidemic is classed as a pandemic? More importantly, what governs that choice? The WHO and the whole intergovernmental management of health has 'securitised' these questions. Are they privileging the free flow of capital over public health? And what of China's draconian response and lockdown of Wuhan - is it effective? And who will bear the blame if things go wrong? Might Coronavirus become a threat to Xi Jingping and the Chinese regime?

Readings: 

• ‘Rumormonger’ Doctor Who Raised the Alarm Says He Has Coronavirus, Sixth Tone
• 'Hero who told the truth': Chinese rage over coronavirus death of whistleblower doctor, The Guardian
• The Free Market Isn’t Up to the Coronavirus Challenge, Leigh Phillips, Jacobin
• Locked-down Wuhan and why we always overplay the threat of the new, Kenan Malik, The Guardian
• Coronavirus: nature fights back, Michael Roberts blog

Guests' books:

Mark Honigsbaum: The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris

Lee Jones (& Shahar Hameiri): Governing Borderless Threats: Non-Traditional Security and the Politics of State Transformation

Running order:

• (00:44) Introduction
• (06:21) Mark Honigsbaum
• (38:48) Lee Jones

 

 

/107/ Ireland’s Return to History ft. Colin Coulter

On Ireland's elections.

With Sinn Fein riding high in the polls, are we looking at an upset? Is this a populist upsurge in Ireland, finally, more than a decade after the start of the crisis? We discuss what Ireland's 'end of history' was like and how the 'Celtic Tiger' economy sustained it; and look at how the country was the EU's "model prisoner" of austerity. Are there new stirrings? And what are the prospects for unification?

Readings: 

• Mary Lou McDonald could take Sinn Féin into the political mainstream, Jason Walsh, The New European
• This Month’s Elections in Ireland Are a Historic Opportunity, Michael Taft, Jacobin
  
• The End of Irish History, Colin Coulter et al., Manchester UP (Edited book; pdf)

Excerpt: /106/ The Endless Scrolling of Cinema ft. Maren Thom

On film in 2019/20. 

 

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We saw yet more sequilitis the past year, the endlessness and onwardness of contemporary cinema. So what were the worst films of the year and did their badness represent something wider? If 2018 saw the arrival of Trumpian cinema, what did 2019 bring? Has there been a backlash against 'woke' cinema criticism centred around representation? And are streaming services having an effect on how we view cinema? 

Excerpt: /105/ The Lorax & the AK-47 ft. Leigh Phillips

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On ecofascism.

Both the shooters in the Christchurch and El Paso massacres were declared 'ecofascists'. Now, a new governing coalition in Austria brings together Greens and the hard right in an unconventional union.

How does Malthusianism link the far right and ecology? What are the dangers of 'lifeboat politics', and how can the Left resist this logic? Is the Green New Deal a solution?

Readings:

• Eco-fascism: The ideology marrying environmentalism and white supremacy thriving online, Sarah Manavis, New Statesman
• First as Tragedy, Then as Fascism, Alex Amend, The Baffler
• Austria’s new government includes the pro-environment Greens. That’s a first., The Washington Post
• Why White Supremacists Are Hooked on Green Living, Sam Adler-Bell, TNR
• What Is Eco-Fascism, the Ideology Behind Attacks in El Paso and Christchurch?, Luke Darby, GQ
• Only a Green New Deal Can Douse the Fires of Eco-Fascism, Naomi Klein, The Intercept

/104/ The Aristocracy of Finance ft. Alexander Zevin

On The Economist and the contradictions of global liberalism.

Alexander Zevin joins us to discuss his work on the 176 year history of the magazine that has accompanied liberalism's global expansion. Has it just reflected the world or has it actually influenced politics? How has The Economist balanced democracy against the interests of finance and the needs of empire? And is the magazine suffering from N.O.B.S.? 

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Running order:

• (06:02) Overview & early days
• (29:52) 19th century & empire
• (34:18) 20th century, esp 1930s and '40s
• (48:08) End of the Cold War and NOBS
• (01:02:19) Liberalism & its enemies

 

Excerpt: /103/ Three Articles: The Future!

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On forecasts for the next decade.

 

In this month's 'Three Articles' - in which we each bring to the table a key article to unpick and unpack - we take apart mainstream predictions of the future, over the next decade, the next couple of years, and 2020.

Readings:

• 25 Ideas That Will Shape the 2020s, Various, Fortune
• Boris Johnson is reinventing one-nation Conservatism, Bagehot, The Economist
• Forecasting the world in 2020, Various, Financial Times

[UNLOCKED] /77/ CaliBunga: Tech, Drugs & Capitalist Soul, Pt. 2

On drugs and mental health. 

In part two, we chat about recreational drugs and mental states in a Hollywood bar with friends of the podcast, Amber A'Lee Frost and Alex Gendler. But mostly, we delve deeper into capitalism and depression with the 'States of Wellness' group at UC Irvine (Catherine Liu, Thomas Williams, Michael Mahoney, Benjamin Kruger-Robins).

#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.

/101/ UK Election: A Disaster Foretold

On how Labour lost.

Was it Brexit that did for Labour? In what sense? What now for the British Left - and for democracy?

Running order:

• (02:40) Opening chat
• (05:15) The electoral map, the generational divide
• (21:46) Class
• (33:52) The leadership and the media
• (48:10) Holding our prediction to account
• (53:30) Reaction of various Labour factions 
• (01:03:10) Future of left-populism

Readings:

• How class, turnout and the Brexit party shaped the general election result, Financial Times
• The Failure of the Left to Grasp Brexit, Michael Wilkinson, Verfassungs Blog
• Anti-politics & the last gasp of British Labourism, Tad Tietze, Left-Flank
• Hate to say it, but #BrexitWouldveWon, Alex Hochuli
• Don’t blame Corbyn or Brexit: Labour failed to rage against the hated political system, Adam Ramsay, openDemocracy

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