Featuring Ian Gavigan on how the bipartisan neoliberalization of higher education laid the groundwork for Trump’s all-out assault. Workers must unite on every campus, articulate an alternative vision for the university, and fight to win it. Check out HELU higheredlaborunited.org Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Dig 500th Episode Party November 7 in Brooklyn! Emceed by Brace and Liz from TrueAnon . Free for Patreon supporters $10/mo and up. Get your tickets here littlefieldnyc.com/event/?wfe...
Sep 06, 2025•1 hr 51 min
Sam Tanenhaus, author of Buckley: The Life and the Revolution that Changed America , on Bill, his thought, and his influence. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
Sep 04, 2025•53 min
Suzi talked to Vermont state senator and democratic socialist Tanya Vyhovsky, just back from several weeks in Ukraine. Senator Vyhovsky traveled from Kyiv to L’viv, Kryvyi Rih, and Dnipro, meeting with trade unionists, feminists, students, and survivors of Russia’s bombardment. Her visit came as Putin sat down with Trump in Alaska without Zelensky at the table. Tanya shares her eyewitness reflections and analysis of Ukraine’s fight for survival, the central role of labor and grassroots organizat...
Sep 02, 2025•57 min
Featuring Robin D. G. Kelley listening back and reflecting upon old tapes of the interviews with sharecroppers he conducted in the 1980s while researching Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression . This is an episode of Signal Hill , a new audio magazine made by friends of The Dig . Produced by Conor Gillies and edited by Liza Yeager and Omar Etman. Listen to Dan’s Dig interview with Robin Kelley on Hammer and Hoe thedigradio.com/podcast/hammer-and-hoe-with-robin-d-g-kelley...
Aug 28, 2025•42 min
Utilizing class analysis is the bread and butter of socialist politics. But understanding how classes are shaped and reproduced has changed over time. On this episode of Confronting Capitalism , Vivek Chibber breaks down how the Marxist tradition has theorized class, the difference between a class in itself and a class for itself, and how class analysis is used within political organizing. The latest issue of Catalyst Journal is out and you can subscribe for just $20 using the code, CONFRONTINGC...
Aug 27, 2025•48 min
Labor sociologist Barry Eidlin joins Suzi to discuss the recent Air Canada strike, which has now reached a tentative agreement. The strike began when 10,000 flight attendants, organized in the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), walked off the job on August 16, after months of failed negotiations. The Canadian government responded with its usual move: a back-to-work order under Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code — a provision that ostensibly regulates strikes, but is instead used to sh...
Aug 26, 2025•1 hr 4 min
Osita Nwanevu, author of The Right of the People , examines the flaws of US democracy — and some cures. Derek Guy outlines the evolution of upper-class men’s dress over the decades. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global....
Aug 25, 2025•53 min
The war that Benjamin Netanyahu launched against Iran in June killed hundreds of Iranian civilians. After pleading with Donald Trump to intervene on his behalf, Netanyahu even managed to anger his patron in Washington. Still, the possibility of a second Israeli attack on Iran remains. Long Reads is joined by Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi for a conversation about Iran, Israel, and the US. Eskander is a scholar of Middle Eastern politics and history at the University of York and the author of Revolu...
Aug 21, 2025•1 hr 3 min
Ukrainian left activist, historian, and soldier Vladyslav Starodubtsev joins Suzi to connect two moments, separated by more than a century, in the fight for Ukrainian self-determination. We begin with the Trump–Putin Alaska photo op summit on August 15th, an attempt to decide Ukraine without Ukraine at the table. Thankfully, a Munich in Alaska was averted, no deal was struck. We then turn to the Ukrainian People’s Republic of 1917-1923, born in the revolutionary upheavals of 1905, WWI, and the F...
Aug 20, 2025•1 hr 25 min
Aaron Benanav, author of a recent article for New Left Review , outlines possibilities for a democratically planned economy. Jerome Nikolai Warren examines the possibilities for cooperatives. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global....
Aug 19, 2025•53 min
Featuring Sarah Jaffe on her book From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire . The ordinary death of a loved one under a capitalist order that routinely forbids sufficient time off to mourn. Workplace injuries, deindustrialization, police violence, pandemic, genocide, social murder, and how we can make sense of loss through struggle. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Dig 500th Episode Party November 7 in Brooklyn! Emceed by Brace and Liz from TrueAnon . Free for Patreon supporte...
Aug 16, 2025•1 hr 40 min
Suzi speaks to Tariq Ali about Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party — provisionally called Your Party — which has surpassed Labour’s membership with over 650,000 sign-ups. Your Party calls for public ownership, redistribution, and a politics rooted in communities, unions and social movements. Starmer’s Labour government has nothing for the population, but billions for war and complicity in genocide. Supporters see a historic opening for the Left; critics warn it could split the vote and h...
Aug 14, 2025•1 hr 16 min
The “professional managerial class” has become a staple of political debate on the Left. In this episode of Confronting Capitalism , Vivek Chibber explains why the “PMC” is better understood as a heterogeneous layer within capitalism rather than a distinct class, how and why the middle strata have expanded, and what has pushed so many professionals toward anti-capitalist politics. While skeptical of the PMC as a precise analytical category, Chibber argues that the term still captures something r...
Aug 13, 2025•41 min
Jodi Dean, author of a recent article about the “classism of defeat,” makes a case for why going anti-woke is very wrong. Emily Jashinsky analyzes Marjorie Taylor Greene’s use of the word “genocide” and other curious developments on the Right. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html...
Aug 11, 2025•53 min
Gaza is experiencing a man-made famine as Israel blocks the supply of almost all humanitarian aid. By the start of August, Israeli soldiers had killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians as they were looking for food. Most of the killings happened near sites managed by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the GHF. The GHF was sponsored by the Trump administration earlier this year to replace legitimate aid organizations with a track record of operating in Palestine. For this week’s episode, we spok...
Aug 08, 2025•48 min
Featuring Alex Han, Asha Ransby-Sporn, and alderwoman Jeanette Taylor on Chicago’s left political experiment. In the wake of Zohran’s remarkable victory in New York, organizers all over the country are taking a close look at Chicago under Mayor Brandon Johnson. A Chicago Teachers Union leader elected in 2023, Johnson’s win was the culmination of years of militant labor and social movement struggle. But while much has been achieved, Johnson and his allies have also suffered many defeats — and the...
Aug 05, 2025•2 hr 1 min
Alex Vitale, author of a recent Nation article , discusses Zohran Mamdani, the NYPD, and policing generally. Plus: Dwayne Monroe takes on the latest wave of AI mania. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html...
Aug 04, 2025•53 min
Suzi speaks to Yoav Peled of Tel Aviv University about the accelerating crisis in Israel and Gaza. Though there is a “humanitarian pause” in Israel’s war, the relentless and devastating destruction of Gaza grinds on with staggering human costs. Gazans are starving and the world is taking notice. Netanyahu faces growing international condemnation and internal anger. Along with Israeli spokesmen and far right cabinet members, he denies there is starvation, or blames it on Hamas. Polls now show tha...
Jul 31, 2025•55 min
Democratic voters are enraged by their party’s spineless “resistance” to the Trump administration’s draconian agenda. But the party’s dysfunction goes far deeper than just cowardly, uninspiring leaders. On this episode of Confronting Capitalism , Vivek Chibber speaks with Philip Rocco about how the Democrats’ abandonment of organized labor has resulted in a party that is ineffective at fighting the right or putting forward a compelling political vision. Read Philip Rocco’s essay here: https://ca...
Jul 30, 2025•48 min
Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute looks at US relations with the world under the Trump regime, specifically Russia–Ukraine, Israel–Palestine, and US self-evisceration. Samuel Moyn, author of an article for Boston Review , talks about democracy, checks and balances, and the need for “better elites.” Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusines...
Jul 28, 2025•53 min
Back in 2023, Long Reads spoke with Ramaa Vasudevan of Colorado State University for an episode about the development of crypto capitalism. Since then, the crypto industry has launched a concerted effort to establish itself at the heart of the global economic system. Just a few days ago, Donald Trump gave his approval for a major bill designed to boost the sector. Ramaa Vasudevan spoke to Long Reads again about the mainstreaming of crypto and the threat it poses to global economic stability. Thi...
Jul 25, 2025•50 min
Featuring Isabella Weber, Malcolm Harris, and Paul Williams on Abundance. A debate and discussion of: the book; the discourse; the underlying economic and political questions of how we make the affordable housing, green energy, and fast trains we need; and how actual capitalist social relations appear to us in mystified form as “supply” and “demand.” Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Get 50% off A People’s History of Psychoanalysis and other books in your first order from plutobooks.com with...
Jul 24, 2025•1 hr 58 min
Adam Gaffney, co-author of a recent article for the New York Review of Books , looks at Trump & Co.’s dismantling of health care and research. Also on the podcast, Alan Beattie of the Financial Times tries to make sense of Trump’s nonsensical trade policy. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html...
Jul 22, 2025•53 min
At the recent Socialism 2025 conference in Chicago, Suzi moderated a panel about political prisoners in Russia and brings it now to Jacobin Radio. We hear from Ksenia Kagarlitskaya, founder of the Freedom Zone campaign that organizes festivals around the world in support of political prisoners and their families. She plays a recorded message from her father, imprisoned Marxist Boris Kagarlitsky in Penal Colony No. 4. Historian Simon Pirani and exiled scholar Ilya Budraitskis draw attention to th...
Jul 17, 2025•1 hr 8 min
US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last month were a dangerous escalation in the ongoing conflict with Iran. But while a ceasefire has remained in place, there’s good reason to believe that Iranian regime change isn’t off the table just yet. On this episode of Confronting Capitalism , Vivek Chibber looks back on how the US pursued regime change in Iraq and why that disastrous invasion may wind up being the playbook again in Iran. Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst...
Jul 16, 2025•38 min
Juliet Schor, author of the book Four Days a Week , looks at experiments in reducing the workweek. Katherine Moos and Noé Martin Wiener, authors of a paper for the The Economic and Labour Relations Review , discuss the issue of overwork among teachers. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html...
Jul 14, 2025•53 min
Featuring Aslı Bâli and Gabriel Winant on the emerging conjuncture: the Trump regime’s fascist and authoritarian second coming; the giant vacuum created by the Democratic establishment’s inability to act like an opposition party; and the resurgent dynamism and energy now coming so powerfully from our political forces on the socialist left. Conducted before a live audience at the Socialism 2025 conference. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Subscribe to a year of Jacobin for only $15— a specia...
Jul 11, 2025•1 hr 33 min
It’s now ten years since the people of Greece voted in a referendum on the austerity program of the European Union. The referendum was called by the government of Alexis Tsipras and his left-wing Syriza party after months of negotiations with the EU. It brought the attention of the world media to what was happening in Greece after years of economic crisis. To the surprise of many, there was a decisive 61 percent majority for the “no” side. But then, with bewildering speed, Tsipras signed up to a...
Jul 10, 2025•55 min
Lily Lynch , who wrote about the NATO summit, discusses the event. Megan Greenwell , author of Bad Company , talks about the depredations of private equity. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html...
Jul 07, 2025•53 min
Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, just stunned the political establishment — defeating Andrew Cuomo to win New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary. If elected, he’ll be NYC’s first Muslim mayor and the first democratic socialist to lead a major US city in generations, one that is both the epicenter of world finance and marked by extreme economic inequality. Mamdani’s campaign, powered by DSA activists and 50,000 volunteers, grew from years of organizing among young progressi...
Jul 02, 2025•57 min
