Bungacast

Excerpt: /386/ Reading Club: Globalisation (III & IV)

Double episode! On Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing.

 

[Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive]

 

We wrap up the 2023 syllabus by taking on the second half of Arrighi's book, in which he analyses the over-reach and decline of the US empire, and whether China's rise and role in world affairs presents a different model, one that might be more peaceful. We discuss:

• How important was the neo-cons' Project for a New American Century?
• What were the long-term consequences of the Iraq invasion?
• What do we make of Arrighi's theoretical account of imperialism and the tension between territorial and capitalistic logics?
• Did the USA represent a "world state" after WWII, and how did it fail?
• What is the world-historic meaning of China’s development?
• Do we buy Arrighi’s attempt at a Smithean vision of inter-civilizational harmony?

Links:

• Adam Smith in Beijing:Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, Giovanni Arrighi
• /305/ Techno-Feudal Unreason - on 'political' capitalism and plunder
• /250/ Oil & Disorder ft. Helen Thompson - on imperialism, the world system and energy
• /195/ No Shock China ft. Isabella Weber - on China avoiding neoliberal shock-therapy

/384/ Millennial Rule ft. Amber A'Lee Frost

On Dirtbag and the Millennial Left.

 

Bungacast regular Amber A'Lee Frost is back to talk about her new book, Dirtbag — part memoir, part critical essays on millennial socialism. In this episode we discuss:

• Why "millennial"? Does it make sense to talk in generational terms?
• What are the left's "perversions" as Amber sees them?
• 'Occupy' was all leaderless, horizontalist crap. Why did Amber stick around?
• Bernie Sanders did not leave an organizational legacy – why?
• After the failure of left-populism, in US and Europe, was it all worth it?

At patreon.com/bungacast we continue discussing the problems of DSA, as well as look forward to the US election and ask whether there's a vibe-shift at Davos. 

Links:

• Dirtbag
• OK Bunger! The Problem of Generations (5-part Bungacast docu-series on generations)

 

/383/ Stare into the Abyss with Us ft. Juliano Fiori

On what comes after human rights.

 

Juliano Fiori, essayist and director of Alameda Institute, joins us to talk about catastrophism and organising around "the end". We discuss:

• What was humanitarianism, and why was it the "last utopia"?
• What does humanitarianism look like in an era of multipolarity?
• Does Western liberal democracy have any gas left in it? What should we defend?
• What politics are generated by the prevailing sense of anxiety and melancholia?
• If modernity is over, do we need to reject all progressivism?
• And how do we orient around catastrophe without falling into the trap of emergency politics?

Links:

• "Notes on our Melancholy Present" in Amidst the Debris: Humanitarianism and the End of Liberal Order, Juliano Fiori
• Towards a strategic catastrophism - a radicalism for catastrophic times, Juliano Fiori
• About Alameda

Excerpt: /382/ Death of the Millennial Left ft. Chris Cutrone

On the missed opportunity of the 2010s.

 

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

Chris Cutrone of Platypus joins us to talk about his collection of essays, The Death of the Millennial Left. We discuss:

• Why define it as the "Millennial" Left?
• Was the anti-Stalinism of leaderless protests a good thing?
• Did the talk of "winning" from 2015 onwards represent maturity?
• Should the turn to a more public, statist capitalism make us more optimistic?
• How will the 'lawfare' used against Trump play out?

Links:

• The Millennial Left is dead, Chris Cutrone, Platypus
• The Death of the Millennial Left: Interventions 2006-2022, Chris Cutrone, Sublation

UNLOCKED: /373/ Take a Stand: Be Neutral! ft. Lily Lynch

On NATO expansion and the end of neutrality

 

Previously a Patreon Exclusive. For more like this, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

 

Lily Lynch is back on the pod to talk about Northern and Eastern Europe and growing hawkishness. We discuss:

• Why did Sweden and Finland give up decades of neutrality - and why now?
• What happens with an enlarged alliance in light of the conflict in Ukraine?
• How does the current moment compare to the apogee of the Non-Aligned Movement?
• Why were the realists right?
• How is tech mythology helping to build 'digital nationalism'?
• Why is there beef over grain between Poland and Ukraine?
• And what the hell are the "skin suit of social democracy" and the "Waluigi of neutrality"?

Links:

• Joining the West, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
• The realists were right, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
• The EU’s great power delusions, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
• Guns, grain, and history, Lily Lynch, New Statesman
• Tech-Mythologies, Lily Lynch, Sidecar
• Imperfect Unity, Lily Lynch, Sidecar

[FROM THE VAULT] /104/ The Aristocracy of Finance ft. Alexander Zevin

FROM THE VAULT: ALEX'S PICK (2)

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.? 

Subscribe: patreon.com/BungaCast

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

 

[FROM THE VAULT] /44/ Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome (N.O.B.S.)

FROM THE VAULT: ALEX'S PICK (1)

In which we lay the liberal establishment down on the shrink's sofa. It's a systematic analysis of liberal derangement: of the inability to accept, explain, or respond to the breakdown of the current order. Why can't the liberal establishment accept that the 2008 crisis would eventually have political consequences? Why can't liberals explain why they keep losing? Why can't they offer anything but more of the same?

Symptoms:

• Incredulity and denial of political change
• Unwillingness to take responsibility
• Moralisation
• No belief in political causation (things just happen)
• Fetishising disinformation
• Elite persecution complex
• Hysteria & catastrophism
• Nostalgia for a very recent past & rewriting history
• Repetition compulsion

 

[FROM THE VAULT] /74/ Order Not Freedom ft. Quinn Slobodian

FROM THE VAULT: GEORGE'S PICK (2)

On the unexpected origins of neoliberalism. We talk to Quinn Slobodian, author of Globalists, about how neoliberals look back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the League of Nations. Why does neoliberalism talk about freedom, but promote order? Is neoliberalism about more or less state - or is it about what kind of state?

Plus why the genuine neoliberals didn’t care about the Cold War and how Murray Rothbard laid the ground for Trump.

Readings:

• Globalists, Quinn Slobodian
• Neoliberalism’s World Order, Adam Tooze
• Why I am not a conservative, F.A. von Hayek
• The EU is a betrayal of Europe’s exceptionalism, Douglas Carswell

Subscribe for access to the Synthesis Session, where the guys discuss the broader implications: patreon.com/bungacast

[FROM THE VAULT] /161/ Culture is Bad for You ft. Mark Taylor

FROM THE VAULT: GEORGE'S PICK (1)

On “culture”.

 

We discuss who produces culture and who consumes it – and what those inequalities reveal about culture today. Also, we ask what’s the ploblem with culture anyway and end up defending “low culture” from Red Hot Chili Peppers (well, sorta) to food guys.

 

Reading:

Culture is Bad for You, Orian Brook, Dave O'Brien and Mark Taylor, Manchester UP

[FROM THE VAULT] /46/ Exiting Capitalist Realism

FROM THE VAULT: PHIL'S PICK (2)

The third in our Neoliberal Breakdown series. In which we discuss the late Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism, 10 years on. Does his analysis still hold? The mood music of the time - the age of 'TINA' and the end of history - was acutely described by Fisher. But did it only really describe Britain? And has the world now entered a new period?

Readings:

Capitalist Realism http://www.zero-books.net/books/capitalist-realism 

'Exiting the Vampire Castle' https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/mark-fisher/exiting-vampire-castle 

Mark Fisher's k-punk blog https://k-punk.org/ 

 

Cover image: 📸 Stephanie Jung

[FROM THE VAULT] /136/ Banana Monarchy ft. David Edgerton

FROM THE VAULT: PHIL'S PICK (1)

On British decline.

Much ink has been spilled over the Britain’s fate since the end of its empire. Could it be that decline has been overstated? And what will happen to Britain as it leaves the European Union? We discuss how the history of the Industrial Revolution and Cold War militarism still shapes British politics today, as David Edgerton joins us to talk about the his latest book, 'The Rise and Fall of the British Nation'.

Readings:

• A misremembered empire, David Edgerton, Tortoise
• Britain’s 20th-century industrial revolution, Colin Kidd, New Statesman (review of Edgerton's book)
• Britain's persistent racism cannot simply be explained by its imperial history, David Edgerton, The Guardian

/381/ Contemporary Art: Inane Spectacle & Pompous Discourse, ft. JJ Charlesworth

On contemporary art.

 

Critic and editor at Art Review, JJ Charlesworth, joins us to talk about why so much contemporary art is bad. We discuss:

• Why is art no longer about beauty?
• Are we stuck between art that is either superficial or hyperpolitical?
• Why has there been a turn towards the mystical and irrational in art?
• How are ideas of the indigenous and the ecological represented in art today?
• Is there a romantic revolt against reason and is it new?

Links:

• Criticism, Art and Theory in 1970s Britain: The Critical War, JJ Charlesworth
• The Return of Magic in Art, JJ Charlesworth, Art Review
• Gabriel Massan’s Decolonial Games, JJ Charlesworth, Art Review
• The naked truth about Marina Abramović – her ‘art’ is a joke, JJ Charlesworth, Telegraph

Excerpt: /380/ Josephine’s Body Count

On Ridley Scott's Napoleon.

 

[Patreon Exclusive]

 

We couldn't avoid discussing the new biopic about the "world soul" himself, Napoleon Bonaparte. The film isn't great, but what can we learn from it? And how does it sit in a context in which most biopics today are about musicians, business leaders and scientists?

 

We discuss:

• Why did Scott choose to focus on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine?
• What is Scott trying to say, if anything, about Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars?
• Where are the depictions of youth, revolution and modernity?
• Are there any redeeming aspects to the film?
• What do we make of Phoenix's portrayal?
• Are we seeing the return of films about Great Men of History?

/379/ Sexy Pictures of Taylor Swift (Not Brexit)

On taking control.

 

The Netherlands has elected an anti-EU rightist, but he won't take the Netherlands out of the European Union. Britain left the EU, but net migration to the UK has soared to its highest levels. What's going on?

 

In this special episode, Alex treats Phil and George as interview guests and grills them over their book, Taking Control: Sovereignty and Democracy after Brexit. We discuss:

• Why all the fuss for Brexit, when things have ended up the same as they were before?
• Why Brexit when the same politicians are still in charge?
• Why was no section of society able to lead Brexit with a positive vision of the future?
• Did Brexiteers need a more concrete proposal beyond "democracy"?
• What lessons can be learned from Brexit by others in the EU?

Excerpt: /378/ Reading Club: Globalisation (II)

On Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century

 

[Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive]

 

We discuss the Part 2 of this landmark book from 2008, debating theories of Western economic decline: Robert Brenner's, and Arrighi's critique of it.

 

Points discussed:

• Are you 'Team Brenner' or 'Team Arrighi'?
• Was neoliberalism a counter-revolution? A passive revolution? A restoration?
• How does the depression of the 1870s compare to that of the 1970s or the post-2008 period?
• What are the characteristics of our own Belle Époque (1993-2007)
• What matters more in explaining the downturn: inter-capitalist global competition? Upward wage pressure? The role of the global South?

Links:

• Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century, Giovanni Arrighi, Verso (2008)