That right-wing people in the US and Europe have made George Soros the answer to so many troubling questions is not very surprising: he's a billionaire, he's Jewish and, unlike most of his cohort, he is an intellectual who spends much of his money on substantively progressive causes. Daniel Bessner's essay on him in n+1 , however, not only sketches out the Right's obsessions but also offers a detailed analysis of Soros as a thinker and philanthropist — coming to the conclusion that Soros's hope ...
Aug 11, 2018•39 min
Adam Tooze and Leo Panitch, separately, on globalization, Trump, the American empire, declinism, etc. Tooze is a professor of history at Columbia University and serves as director of the European Institute. His new book Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises C hanged the World is out this week. Panitch is a professor of political science at York University and the author of many books, including The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy Of American Empire.
Aug 10, 2018•52 min
Sorry to Bother You is a hilarious film about the dead-serious shittiness of life under neoliberalism's flexibilized and precarious labor regime, a system teetering upon a thin line between free labor exploitation and a form of expropriation reminiscent of full-on slave labor — all at the mercy of the thinly veiled barbarity of Palo Alto-style techno-utopianism. It's about how capitalist society divides and conquers friends and family to claim not only our obedience but also our very souls, and ...
Aug 09, 2018•1 hr 11 min
If Kerri Evelyn Harris wins in Delaware, she will have knocked out an incumbent US Senator. And that would be a really big deal. Harris, a left candidate backed by Justice Democrats, is Dan's guest today. She is the latest candidate putting forward the bold proposition that in a democracy, ordinary people should govern themselves — particularly since well-credentialed incumbents like her opponent, Senator Tom Carper, so often do the bidding of corporate interests. Live recording of The Dig comin...
Aug 03, 2018•41 min
Suzi talks to Jacobin 's executive editor, Seth Ackerman, and editor of Critique (and Russia expert) Hillel Ticktin, about the actual state of US-Russia relations and how they are portrayed. Seth Ackerman skewers mainstream-media reporting on Russia and asks why there is such a divergence between the substance and fact of US Russia policy — and what the media obsession and hysteria over the supposed Russian threat represents. Hillel Ticktin asks why the US has been so harsh on Russia, when Putin...
Aug 01, 2018•55 min
The SESTA/FOSTA law purportedly aims to curb sex trafficking. But as my guest Melissa Gira Grant explains, it actually denies sex workers access to online platforms to more safely conduct their business. It received just two "no" votes in the Senate: from Rand Paul and Ron Wyden. It's a problem of hegemony: prohibition has long been plain common sense. So, it's our job to change that. The first step is to make it clear that there is dissent, and that prohibition is self-evidently neither good po...
Aug 01, 2018•1 hr 21 min
Kaniela Ing ( kanielaing.com ) is a DSA member running in Hawaii's 1st Congressional District, calling for an end to imperialism and rule by the wealthy, and for housing rights, a green New Deal, Medicare for All, and free college. And he's Dan’s guest. Ocasio-Cortez became an overnight celebrity when she defeated Joe Crowley. But what's most important is that you know who these candidates are before election day — because that's when they most need your help. Live recording of The Dig coming up...
Jul 27, 2018•38 min
Janus was an entirely expected and atrocious decision. The conservative business interests that successfully obliterated private sector unions hope it will do the same to their public sector counterparts. Chris Maisano, a contributing editor at Jacobin , argues that labor has no choice but to return to its militant roots if it hopes to survive. In other words, to survive, labor has to fight for a lot more than mere survival. Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in t...
Jul 25, 2018•1 hr 11 min
Journalist Jason Wilson on Trump's pardoning of Oregon ranchers Dwight Lincoln Hammond Jr. and his son, Steven Hammond, as well as on the recent right-wing riot in Portland. Then, sociologist Christy Thornton analyzes AMLO’s victory in Mexico’s election.
Jul 23, 2018•52 min
Checking your privilege. Invisible knapsacks. Intersectionality. In his new book from Verso, Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump , Asad Haider questions the terms and concepts that underpin much liberal and left conversation about race and racism, exploring critiques advanced by the black radical tradition to mount a thoroughgoing demolition of what we now refer to as "identity politics" — something that had a quite different meaning when it was first coined by the black, radic...
Jul 18, 2018•1 hr 39 min
Suzi talks to Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of UC Berkeley’s School of Law, about the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Chemerinsky writes that Senators should exercise their power and insist Kavanaugh reveal his views on crucial constitutional issues — and that Kavanaugh should not be confirmed if he refuses to answer questions. Suzi also talks to Dan La Botz about the landslide victory of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico’s recent presidential election. AMLO arguably had...
Jul 18, 2018•47 min
The last episode in this week's Ocasio-Cortez super series. First, an interview with Seth Ackerman on his essay "A Blueprint for a New Party," which lays out a strategy for building independent socialist power effectively, which means opportunistically seizing the Democratic Party ballot line when necessary ( jacobinmag.com/2016/11/bernie-sanders-democratic-labor-party-ackerman/ ). Then, Kate Aronoff on her article "A Revolution From Within," which explains Our Revolution and Justice Democrats, ...
Jul 16, 2018•1 hr 30 min
This week's super series on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's victory and the future of left politics continues with Julia Salazar, a DSA member running for a Brooklyn state Senate in New York's District 18. Salazar's campaign worked hard for Ocasio-Cortez; now, Ocasio-Cortez's team is returning the favor. Recently, The New York Daily News wondered if Salazar might be the new Ocasio-Cortez. Ocasio-Cortez responded: Salazar "isn’t the next me, she’s the first HER." Indeed, Salazar has her own story to t...
Jul 12, 2018•38 min
Capitol Hill used to be a lonely place for a leftist. And, frankly, it still is. But now that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appears to be headed to Washington, Senator Bernie Sanders will likely have some powerful company. Today, Sanders is Dan's guest, and they're talking about the impact of Ocasio-Cortez's victory and where the Left goes from here. This is the latest interview in this week's Ocasio-Cortez super series, which has already included interviews with Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon. Next...
Jul 11, 2018•18 min
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's victory should make New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a larger-than-life bully and ideologically-chameleon Democrat, very afraid. He faces a challenge from Dan's guest today, Cynthia Nixon, who has spent the years after her time on Sex in the City organizing for public education. After what happened to Joe Crowley, the left is more energized than ever. And what once appeared to be a long-shot attack on the king of New York politics now appears like it might just hit its targ...
Jul 10, 2018•25 min
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a 28-year old Latina working-class champion committed to social transformation who beat one of the most powerful men in Congress: the King of Queens. Dan had an extended conversation with her about how organized people won her election, how she’ll stay accountable to those movements now that she’s a rock star, establishment myopia and denial, The Congressional Progressive Caucus' shortcomings, and where the insurgency goes from here. Then Intercept D.C. Bureau Chief R...
Jul 09, 2018•1 hr 35 min
Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, won an overwhelming victory in Mexico's presidential election, shattering a corrupt, old party system that brought ordinary Mexicans rampant violence and economic immiseration. But AMLO faces powerful political and economic constraints once in office—including some of his own making. Dan's guest is Christy Thornton, a professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins. During the last week, she was an election observer for the Scholar...
Jul 07, 2018•49 min
Today, we're talking about Italy, where a so-called "populist" alliance of the Five Star Movement and right-wing League just took over the government with anti-migrant and Euro-skeptic agenda. Dan's guest is David Broder, a historian of French and Italian communism and frequent contributor to Jacobin. The Five Star Movement was for a time welcomed by some on the left. But it’s not of the left; rather, it is a product of the Italian left’s collapse. Thanks to Verso. Check out Radical Technologies...
Jul 03, 2018•1 hr 24 min
Suzi talks to Joel Jordan and then Alissa Quart, who in different ways are both looking at our squeezed post-recession lives and the fight to win or win back a decent standard of living. Longtime teacher and teacher-union strategist Joel Jordan joins us to talk about the spectacular mass strikes of the red-state teachers — and draw comparisons with the worsening conditions for teachers in California. Then, Suzi seapks with Alissa Quart about her new book, Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford ...
Jul 02, 2018•53 min
Stephen Wertheim, a Lecturer in American and international history at Birkbeck, University of London, breaks cuts through the suffocating foreign policy debate that shapes American Empire under Trump. Peace has broken out across the Korean Peninsula—or, at least, the odds that Donald Trump will blow the world up have gone down a just a bit—at least temporarily. Yes, Trump is the one who pushed us way too close to the brink of nuclear war. And yes, he likely sought peace with Kim Jong-Un because ...
Jun 30, 2018•49 min
Everyone wants to know what's wrong with Appalachia. But beginning in the 1960s, it was "white ethics"—Italians, Irish, Polish, Jews and other non-WASPs—who broke from the New Deal coalition, embracing their Ellis Island immigrant roots in reaction to the Black Freedom struggle and, ultimately, Latin American migration. Dan’s guest today is Matthew Frye Jacobson, an historian at Yale and the author of Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post–Civil Rights America, from Harvard University Press. Th...
Jun 27, 2018•1 hr 16 min
Vox immigration reporter Dara Lind, one very bright spot in an often disappointing landscape of mainstream immigration journalism, discusses the historical, political, and legal context of Trump’s family separation policy. Dan also just wrote a lengthy piece on this for Jacobin , which you can read at jacobinmag.com/2018/06/trump-immigration-child-family-separation-policy Thanks to Verso Books. Check out the new paperback edition of China Miéville’s October: The Story of the Russian Revolution v...
Jun 22, 2018•32 min
David Harvey has taught Capital to huge numbers of people. Dan interviews him about his latest book, Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason . Harvey explains why he thinks all three volumes are of Capital are key, why we’re still living under neoliberalism at least unless and until ethnonationalist autarchy pushes it aside, how capitalism might survive climate change via mass immiseration, and linking struggles over production and consumption in the fight to transform society toward so...
Jun 20, 2018•1 hr 11 min
Suzi speaks with David Graeber, whose earlier Debt: the First 5000 years was an international best-seller. From Adbusters to Occupy to the history of debt, Graeber has demonstrated his creative and provocative thinking. He takes on the biggest shibboleth — our very work — in his new book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory . A recent UK poll found that 37 percent of full-time workers were sure that their jobs made no meaningful contribution to the world. Bullshit jobs are the pointless ones that could be er...
Jun 19, 2018•40 min
The US colony of Puerto Rico has been repeatedly shocked and Puerto Ricans are traumatized. That is precisely what successful shock doctrines like this one — which wants to remake the island into a utopia for rich Americans and crypto-bros and a dystopia for everyone else — depend upon. This is also the subject of Naomi Klein's new book from Haymarket, The Battle For Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists . Today, Klein returns to The Dig, and is joined by Mercedes Martínez, pre...
Jun 13, 2018•54 min
Last week, we posted an interview Dan recorded in Barcelona on Spanish politics — specifically, on the question of Catalan independence, and the municipalist movement governing cities like Barcelona. What wasn't discussed much was the fact that the conservative Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy was about to fall — which it did, just a few days later. So, Dan brought sociologist Carlos Delclós back for a follow-up interview. Production note: Dan sounds like he’s speaking in an aquarium or calli...
Jun 10, 2018•44 min
For libertarians, liberty means something different. It’s about liberty for property owners. And in their quest to preserve that absolute freedom for the ownership class — whether their assets be human slaves, factories, or extractive industries — democracy must be curtailed and the power of the people must be checked and repressed. This is the argument put forward by Dan’s guest, historian Nancy MacLean, in her book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for A...
Jun 06, 2018•1 hr 15 min
On this edition of Jacobin Radio, Suzi talks to legendary street-fighting man, author and playwright Tariq Ali about 1968 — as seen from today, fifty years later. The first cover of Black Dwarf, founded by Tariq and others in May 1968, is reproduced in the latest London Review of Books : “We Shall Fight, We Will Win, Paris, London, Rome, Berlin.” Now there is an emerging strike wave in France — and the slogan is “ We are not commemorating 1968, we are continuing 1968.” Suzi talks to Tariq Ali ab...
Jun 05, 2018•38 min
Fifty years ago, a mainstream group of high-profile Americans declared the following: "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal. Reaction to last summer’s disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American. This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed. Choice is still possible. O...
Jun 02, 2018•50 min
Spanish politics are complicated. Dan speaks to Carlos Delclós, Kate Shea Baird, and Bécquer Seguín to help clarify the Catalan independence movement, the radical municipalist governments that now govern major Spanish cities including Barcelona, and the promise and problems of the left-wing party Podemos. Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War by Hito Steyerl versobooks.com/books/2553-duty-free-art . And Deport, Deprive, Extradite: 21st Century Stat...
May 30, 2018•1 hr 37 min
