Nicholas Vrousalis, author of "Exploitation as Domination: What Makes Capitalism Unjust" joins Ben Burgis to talk about his book, how to rigorously think about capitalist exploitation, what it was like to work with G.A. Cohen in grad school, and more. Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument about the bizarro arguments of pro-Trump libertarians. In the postgame for patrons, Ryan Zickgraf joins us for a dramatic reading of Sophie Lewis's thoughts about the sex with octopuses. Order Nicholas's bo...
Jul 25, 2025•2 hr•Season 7Ep. 22
Steve Paxton studied with the great Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen as a graduate student at Oxford. Since then, he's had blue-collar jobs, white collar jobs, and been unemployed, but he's never stopped writing and thinking about socialism and Marxism. For this special Bastille Day episode, Ben Burgis talks with Steve about his book "How Capitalism Ends." Oh, and it's graphic designer Andy's birthday, so we'll raise a toast to our Bastille Day Boy. In the postgame for patrons, believe it or not, ...
Jul 20, 2025•1 hr 50 min•Season 7Ep. 21
Labor scholar Shaun Richman joins us to talk to Ben Burgis about his book "We Always Had a Union: The New York Hotel Workers’ Union, 1912-1953." Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument on the absurd attacks on Zohran that have been made everywhere from National Review to Reason to...Matt Taibbi's Substack. (Goddamnit, Matt.) In the postgame for patrons, Ben and the crew get heart-breakingly close to finally being done with "Jordan Peterson vs. 20 Atheists." Read Ben's MSNBC article on the hyst...
Jul 18, 2025•2 hr 6 min•Season 7Ep. 20
Two authors from the new anthology "Flowers for Marx" (returning guests Matt McManus & Conrad Hamilton) join Ben Burgis to chat about the book. Before that, Ben and the crew debunk more smears of Zohran. In the postgame for patrons, Matt puts in a shift joining us on our long march through Jordan Peterson vs. 20 atheists. Order Flowers for Marx: https://www.revolpress.com/flowers Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf Follow Conrad on Twitter: @BongardConrad Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis F...
Jul 16, 2025•2 hr 2 min•Season 7Ep. 19
Philosophical and comedic YouTube person Michael O'Neill Burns comes on GTAA for the first time and political science professor Matt McManus comes on for the billionth time (rough approximation) so they can discuss Marx and ideology. Before that, Ben and the crew break down some of the worst pro-war talking points wrt Iran. In the postgame, we continue our long march through Jordan Peterson vs. 20 Atheists. Watch Michael's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelOBurns Follow him on Twitter: @m...
Jul 14, 2025•1 hr 51 min•Season 7Ep. 18
Natasha Hakimi Zapata joins us to chat w/Ben about her important new book "Another World is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe." From Britain's NHS to Singapore's publicly-leased housing system to New Zealand's egalitarian pensions to Norway's family policies, her book documents the way that countries around the world have proven that social problems that seem intractable in America are in fact perfectly fucking tractable given the political will. Before that, Ben does an Openin...
Jun 20, 2025•2 hr 18 min•Season 7Ep. 17
Bruno Leipold joins Ben Burgis to talk about his excellent book "Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought." Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument responding to Jodi Dean on "neofeudalism." In the postgame for patrons, RM Brown joins Ben and the crew to break down some more of Jordan Peterson's bizarro debate with 20 atheists. And, oh yeah, scattered around all this there's some discussion of the spiraling insanity and authoritarianism going on...
Jun 15, 2025•2 hr 6 min•Season 7Ep. 16
Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson joins Ben Burgis to talk about his and Noam Chomsky's new book "The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World." In the postgame for patrons, Ben and the cre watch some of Jordan Peterson's Jubilee debate, in which Peterson realizes he can brilliantly defend his position by the 5D chess strategy of angrily taking exception to every background assumption and every turn of phrase and never actually committing himself to anything...
Jun 12, 2025•2 hr 18 min•Season 7Ep. 15
Andrew Hartman joins Ben Burgis to talk about his fascinating book "Karl Marx in America," where he traces interest in Marx's ideas by American commentators from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression to the Vietnam-era New Left to the present. Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument responding to Ro Khanna on socialism. In the postgame for patrons, Ben and the crew watch a slightly less serious discussion about Marx by Tim Pool and Sargon of Akkad and some other person who's name none of us c...
May 16, 2025•1 hr 57 min•Season 7Ep. 14
Eric Blanc joins Ben Burgis to talk about his new book "How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big." Then in the postgame for patrons, Ben and the crew will watch a bit of Ethan Klein vs. Hassan Piker for some reason. Buy Eric's book: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/we-are-the-union/paper Read Eric's Substack: https://www.laborpolitics.com/ Follow Eric on Twitter: @_ericblanc Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show Become a GTAA Patron and re...
May 09, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Season 7Ep. 13
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) comes on to talk about the swirling chaos of Trump 2.0 and where Dems are falling short in response. Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument about why the Left should trumpet the fact that social democratic policies are objectively pro-natalist. Pressuring people to have kids is obviously illiberal and bad, but we should take the W on the fact that the economic policies we want would make things a lot easier for people who want to make that choice (and the fact that this ...
May 02, 2025•1 hr 32 min•Season 7Ep. 12
First-time GTAA guest Borna Radnik and frequent GTAA guest Matt McManus join Ben Burgis to chat about Borna's book "Freedom, in Context:Time, History, and Necessity in Hegel." Before that, in lieu of an Opening Argument and for the first time on YouTube, we'll play a talk Ben gave a while back called "Karl Marx Deserves Better Critics." ...and, last but not least, Jason Myles hangs out in the postgame for patrons! Check out Borna's book: https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Context-History-Necessity-H...
Apr 25, 2025•2 hr 9 min•Season 7Ep. 11
Matt Bruenig and Luke Savage join Ben Burgis to talk about their reviews of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book, "Abundance," and what it all signifies about the drift of contemporary liberalism. Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument about why we should reject the false dichotomy of having to either support Donald Trump's "liberation day" insanity or neoliberal free-trade absolutism. Last but definitely not least, Victor Bruzzone and Ethan from Confronting Capital join for the postgame for ...
Apr 18, 2025•2 hr 15 min•Season 7Ep. 10
Jake and Andy are joined by Teen Driver’s Mark Gurarie to talk about protest music. Ben shows up for a bit at the beginning but then disappears because he has bad priorities and chose to spend his birthday with his "literal" family instead of his podcasting family. We're not sure what's wrong with him. Ticket link for the San Francisco live show on April 17th: https://www.universe.com/events/is-trump-the-end-of-history-tickets-J30WT9 Check out Teen Driver: https://teendriver.bandcamp.com Follow ...
Apr 14, 2025•2 hr 19 min•Season 7Ep. 9
Ben Burgis faces off with the Libertarian Institute's managing editor Keith Knight in a wide-ranging debate about capitalism, socialism, coercion, authoritarianim, exploitation, and more. Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going: patreon.com/benburgis Read the weekly philosophy Substack: be...
Apr 04, 2025•1 hr 31 min•Season 7Ep. 8
Ben Burgis and philosophy professor and "Micro-Digressions" host Spencer Case hash out their disagreement on Zionism. Before that, Ben and the crew watch a fascinatingly strange AI video and Ben gives an Opening Argument on the Trump administration's authoritarianism, whether it's fascism, and why that even matters. Mean Djene Bajalan joins us for the postgame for GTAA patrons to break down GroupChatGate. Tickets to the live show in San Francisco on April 17th: https://www.universe.com/events/is...
Mar 29, 2025•2 hr 5 min•Season 7Ep. 7
Far-right Russian thinker Aleksandr Dugin just sat down with Glenn Greenwald for an extensive interview, and we can't look away. Deep State Kuba joins Ben Burgis to watch some of it and discuss. Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument on the issues raised by the outrageous assault on free speech at Columbia. At the end of the main show, we play some of Daniel Tutt's guest appearance on Ben Burgis's Sunday afternoon Zoom Capital class to talk about the lumpenproletariat and tease Richard Wolff'...
Mar 14, 2025•2 hr 10 min•Season 7Ep. 6
A couple weeks ago, Ben Burgis and Jason Myles went to UC-Irvine to speak at a panel on neoliberalism at the West coast conference of the Platypus Affiliated Society. It was a pretty interesting conversation, and we're excited to finally be able to share it. Before that, Ben gives us an Opening Argument about Jeff Bezos's diktat the Washington Post will no longer publish anything critical of "free markets" and look back at a moment from Ben's debate with Curtis Yarvin where Yarvin claimed that t...
Mar 07, 2025•4 hr 37 min•Season 7Ep. 5
Last week, Ben Burgis debated libertarian economist Walter Block. Tonight, we're playing you the recording. (The debate was hosted by the magazine Merion West, which will be simultaneously releasing it on their podcast.) This was a continuation of a written debate that started with Ben's article "The Case for Democratic Socialism": https://merionwest.com/2024/12/07/the-case-for-democratic-socialism/ ...and continued with Walter's reply: https://merionwest.com/2024/12/19/rejoinder-to-ben-burgis-t...
Feb 21, 2025•2 hr 31 min•Season 7Ep. 4
Vivek Chibber is an sociology professor at NYU, the editor the socialist journal Catalyst, and the host of Jacobin's new podcast "Confronting Capitalism." He's written a few books, including "The Class Matrix." Recently, a lot of the most unhinged people on Left Twitter got very mad at him for a "Confronting Capitalism" episode he did trying to analyze the historical origins, material dynamics, and counterproductive consequences for the Left of the phenomenon generally referred to by the imperfe...
Feb 18, 2025•1 hr 55 min•Season 7Ep. 3
Philosophy professor and "Micro-Digressions" host Spencer Case joins Ben Burgis for a friendly debate on abortion rights. Before that, Ben talks about RFK's insane critique of Medicare for All. No postgame, sorry, but we'll make it up to our loyal patrons with a particularly awesome one next time! Check out Micro-Digressions: https://www.youtube.com/@Micro-Digressions Follow Spencer on Twitter: @ADigressions Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show Become a GTAA Patro...
Feb 11, 2025•2 hr 13 min•Season 7Ep. 2
A lot has happened since the last episode of GTAA. Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America (thus ending our long national nightmare of having to accept an "of Mexico" body of water touching our sacred American soil), and Matt McManus came to L.A., where he and Ben Burgis did a live event to discuss Matt's book on liberal socialism. Ben's talks about the former (and other possibly more consequential aspects of Trump 2.0) in the Opening Argument, and then we play the full video of the...
Feb 08, 2025•2 hr 9 min•Season 7Ep. 1
In our last episode before this year's season break, Matt McManus & Robert Myles join Ben Burgis to break down Jordan Peterson's new book "We Who Wrestle with God." (He doesn't seem to have read any more Marx since 2019.) Before that, Ben and the crew take a look at Ben's article at MSNBC about Obama and the various responses it's provoked--a disdainful sniff from uber-popular historian Heather Cox Richardson on her Substack, what can only be described as a right-populist haiku from Steve Ba...
Dec 27, 2024•2 hr 25 min•Season 6Ep. 44
[Many apologies about the delay! Lots going on lately. The other delayed ep will be posted by the end of the week.] Jihadists are taking over Aleppo, US missiles are striking deep into Russia, and the atrocities in Gaza have reached the point that a *former Israeli Defense Minister* (and Likud Party member!) recently accused Netanyahu of "ethnic cleansing." This seems like a good time to bring in the foreign policy duo of Mean Djene Bajalan and Deep State Kuba to help Ben Burgis make sense of wh...
Dec 24, 2024•2 hr 16 min•Season 6Ep. 43
Ben Burgis welcomes back major friend of the pod Matt to talk his new book: "The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism," in which he "presents a comprehensive guide to the liberal socialist tradition, stretching from Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine through John Stuart Mill to Irving Howe, John Rawls, and Charles Mills." Buy the book here: https://www.routledge.com/The-Political-Theory-of-Liberal-Socialism/McManus/p/book/9781032647234?srsltid=AfmBOopS7HP7ywGhn4LB27-wBYa_vGV9tmNts-t-GIdllMV_b...
Dec 01, 2024•2 hr 4 min•Season 6Ep. 42
Juan David Rojas joins Ben Burgis at the top of the show to discuss the reasons Claudia Sheinbaum romped to victory as an economic populist in Mexico's presidential election a few months before Kamala Harris crashed and burned. (Some liberals would prefer to blame sexism for the latter, but the contrast makes that...a bit implausible!) After that Vanessa, Wills joins us to talk about her fascinating new book "Marx's Ethical Vision."
Nov 23, 2024•2 hr 16 min•Season 6Ep. 41
Nov 16, 2024•56 min•Season 6Ep. 40
David Lay Williams comes on to talk about his excellent new book, "The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx." Order the book: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691171975/the-greatest-of-all-plagues Read Ben's review of the book in Compact: https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-ancient-curse-of-inequality/ Order Ben's pamphlet "Four Essays on Palestine": https://everyday-analysis.sellfy.store/p/four-essays-on-palestine-by-ben-...
Nov 02, 2024•1 hr 59 min•Season 6Ep. 39
Deep State Kuba joins Ben Burgis for a deep dive into the ongoing atrocities in Palestine--both debunking Zionist apologetics and pushing back against the dumb and counterproductive things leftists sometimes say in the name of Palestine solidarity and crafting a better and more effective message. Order Ben's pamphlet "Four Essays on Palestine" from Everyday Analysis: https://everyday-analysis.sellfy.store/p/four-essays-on-palestine-by-ben-burgis-print-and-digital-edition/ Follow Kuba on Twitter:...
Nov 01, 2024•2 hr 35 min•Season 6Ep. 38
First-time guest Tony Annett and Matt "I Brought My Own Mic" McManus return for an in-depth look at thinkers like Alasdair McIntyre and Paul Tillich, the relationship between left-wing economic ideas and Catholic social teaching, and more. (Turns out that, while an adamant atheist when "in the streets" arguing about philosophy, Ben is "in the sheets" of political practice extremely friendly to this kind of thing.) The launch event for Ben's pamphlet "Four Essays on Palestine" is going to be in O...
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 50 min•Season 6Ep. 37
