Historian Nikhil Pal Singh, author of a recent article for Equator, talks about how the Trump regime weaves foreign and domestic policy into a single domain of impunity, Homeland Empire. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
We’ve now entered the second week of the US-Israeli war on Iran. Donald Trump’s War Secretary Pete Hegseth has boasted about the US military machine bringing “death and destruction” to the country. Afshin Matin-Asgari joined Long Reads on Monday, March 9, to discuss the war. Afshin is a professor of Middle East history at California State University in Los Angeles. His most recent book is Axis of Empire: A History of Iran–US Relations . Read Afshin’s coverage of the protests from January: https:...
What are Iranians actually experiencing right now? Suzi speaks with Yassamine Mather, an Iranian socialist who has been in direct contact with relatives, colleagues, and comrades inside Iran throughout the bombing. Yassamine is chair of Hands Off the People of Iran, editor of Critique , and researcher at Oxford's Middle East Centre. She describes near-hourly strikes, hospitals hit, internet cut, and a propaganda war in which state TV claims nothing happened while satellite channels say nothing i...
Featuring Ben Mabie and Salar Mohandesi on what the war on Iran tells us about US imperialism, and why the US doesn’t have a massive anti-war movement even amid historic anti-war public sentiment. Capitalist states have changed war-making in ways that insulate imperialism against popular resistance. We must make movements that can thrive and win under new conditions. Find Venezuela in Crisis at haymarketbooks.org Find Anti-Eviction at UCPress.edu Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Dig party i...
Behrooz Ghamari, author of The Long War on Iran , looks at the politics and culture of the country. Anatol Lieven analyzes the effects of the war on Iran on the region and world. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
Featuring Geoff Simpson on Justice Democrats’ massive 2026 slate of insurgent House candidates taking on AIPAC/Big Tech money. Also: the history of post-Bernie 2016 primary challenges, the Israel lobby’s legitimacy crisis, radicalizing liberals, and the role of electoral politics in the larger left project. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Dig party in London with Equator magazine on March 13. Info and RSVP here: eventbrite.com/e/the-dig-x-equator-party-tickets-1982694479561? Subscribe to H...
Why does every new technology seem to make work harder and not easier? In 1974, Harry Braverman published a seminal text Labor and Monopoly Capital to answer that question. Combining a careful study of scientific management and technological innovation with several of Marx’s key concepts, Braverman explained why workers under capitalism are gradually transformed into mere cogs in the machine. On the latest episode of Confronting Capitalism , Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek discuss the process ...
Featuring Peter Linebaugh on the Luddites’ machine-breaking revolt against the enclosure of handicraft production, the central role played by capital punishment in the consolidation of the capitalist state, and remaking the struggle against enclosure for the 21st century. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Dig party in London with Equator magazine on March 13. Info and RSVP here: eventbrite.com/e/the-dig-x-equator-party-tickets-1982694479561? Find Solidarity With Children: An Essay Against Ad...
Tessa West, professor of psychology at NYU, examines the social dynamics that kept the Epstein gang together. Nick Srnicek, author of Silicon Empires , discusses AI. And Wanda Bertram breaks down the costs of mass incarceration following a new report from the Prison Policy Initiative: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/money2026.html Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global....
Last October, the war in Sudan took a new turn with the capture of El Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces. The city in western Sudan had been under siege by the RSF for more than two years before the Sudanese armed forces suddenly withdrew. After taking control of El Fasher, the RSF began to carry out a massacre of civilians. A UN fact-finding mission recently found that the crimes in El Fasher bore “hallmarks of genocide.” The Sudanese catastrophe is all the more depressing because it comes afte...
Suzi speaks to Ukrainian socialist Oleksandr Kyselov, who says the current “peace process” is a dangerous illusion. Russia’s goal, he argues, is not compromise but subjugation — and any ceasefire that doesn’t confront that reality only postpones the next war. We discuss the Witkoff-Dmitriev 28-point plan (critics call it the “DimWit plan”), exhaustion inside Ukraine, and why calls from the Western left for immediate, unconditional ceasefire, without a single protest outside a Russian embassy, ar...
Naomi Hossain analyzes politics in Bangladesh generally and the recent election specifically. Stuart Schrader discusses “authoritarianism from below” — the role of local cops in the Trump crackdowns. Read Stuart’s article: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/02/14/authoritarianism-from-below-trump-city-takeovers-police/ Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global....
The developments in artificial intelligence appear to promise a radical transformation of modern work. But what happens if AI turns out to be much more like previous waves of technological change? In this episode of Confronting Capitalism , Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek discuss the history of automation, the effects of technology on employment and wages, and why socialists should want to harness AI to create human flourishing. Join Confronting Capitalism for a live recording in Brooklyn on A...
Stacy Horn, author of The Killing Fields of East New York , on the damage mortgage fraud did to that neighborhood. David Backer, author of As Public as Possible , on how we finance schools and how we could do better. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global....
Last October, the Trump administration announced a ceasefire deal in Gaza after two years of relentless carnage. Since the deal was announced, Israel has continued to occupy much of Gaza, and its forces have killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has launched his so-called Board of Peace to administer Gaza without any input from Palestinians. Having received a blank check for his scheme from the UN Security Council, Trump now presents the Board of Peace as an alternati...
Featuring Peter Linebaugh on the long histories of commons and commoning, connections between enclosures in Europe and imperial conquest abroad, and writing history from below. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Engineered Conflict: Structural Violence and the Future of Black Life in Chicago at Haymarketbooks.org Buy Global Casino: How Wall Street Gambles with People and the Planet at Versobooks.com Dig party in London with Equator magazine on March 13. Info and RSVP here: eventbrite.com/...
When federal immigration raids went from brutal to deadly in Minneapolis, the epicenter of Trump’s escalating war on immigrants and Blue cities, residents responded with coordinated “no work, no school, no shopping” shutdowns that drew tens of thousands into the streets there and around the country. It wasn’t technically a general strike — but it demonstrated how unions, clergy, and community networks could create the organizing infrastructure to transform outrage into collective power, building...
David Harvey speaks about his new book The Story of Capital . We hear an excerpt from Mark Carney’s Davos speech. Adam Federman discusses Trump’s Greenland obsession. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global....
The Trump administration has ramped up its bellicose rhetoric against the Iranian regime after it clamped down on the latest wave of protests. Is the regime teetering on the edge of collapse? In this episode of Confronting Capitalism , Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek contrast the Iranian Revolution of 1979 with the current protests, and discuss what makes a revolution possible. Join Confronting Capitalism for a live recording in Brooklyn on April 6! Find more details and RSVP here: https://www...
David Austin Walsh, author of Taking America Back , looks at the relationship between the kooks and respectables on the Right. Laura Field, author of Furious Minds , examines the intellectual wing of Trumpism. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global....
Featuring Emilia González Avalos, Greg Nammacher, and JaNaé Bates Imari on how Minneapolis achieved its fight back against ICE/Border Patrol occupation. A decade building aligned mass movements has made Minneapolis among the best-organized cities in the country. Those carefully built structures, however, had to be nimble in confronting the federal onslaught. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Listen to Unruly Subjects, a new podcast from Chenjerai Kumanyika and The Dig’s producer, Alex Lewis ...
As this episode was being finalized, the Trump administration was threatening to attack Iran for the second time in less than a year. The threats come against the backdrop of mass protests inside Iran that appear to have been repressed by the state security forces for the time being. Long Reads is joined by Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi. He’s a lecturer on the international politics of the Middle East at the University of St Andrews. And the author of Revolution and Its Discontents: Political Thou...
David Bier of the Cato Institute looks at what’s behind Trump’s war on immigrants. Aurélie Daher examines the current state of Hezbollah and why Israel is bombing Lebanon. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
Featuring Nick Srnicek on Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI . A deep exploration of the political economy of AI: the fulcrum of the authoritarian tech oligarchy — and of global contests for economic and military dominance. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Cold War on Five Continents at Haymarketbooks.org Check out equator.org for long-form articles, public events, and reading groups The Dig goes deep into politics everywhere, from labor struggles and political economy to i...
Suzi speaks with historian Robert Brenner and sociologist Dylan Riley about the deeper meaning of Trump’s return to power. Is Trump just a narcissistic strongman — or the carrier of a coherent counterrevolutionary project? Brenner and Riley argue that Trumpism is not a return to the past but an attempt to reorganize society for a future in which capitalism can no longer grow — only command, police, and exclude. They trace the roots of Trump Two to decades of economic stagnation, the collapse of ...
Forrest Hylton, contributor to the London Review of Books , discusses Venezuela past, present, and future. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
While European labor movements established foundations for their welfare states in the late 19th century, it was not until the New Deal that the US began instituting policies like unemployment insurance and old-age pensions. But although working-class struggle was also key to this success, several unique factors in American history proved an impediment to more egalitarian policies. In this episode of Confronting Capitalism , Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek continue their deep dive into the his...
Over the past several weeks, Iran has experienced its most serious wave of protests since the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022. What began as an economic protest quickly turned political, with chants calling for an end to the Islamic Republic — and the most brutal response of repression in the history of the Islamic Republic, with killings, mass arrests, executions, and an internet blackout. UCLA historical sociologist Kevan Harris reconstructs the spark that ignited the protests — a techno...
This is a special, extra episode of Long Reads . It’s now two weeks since the US attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. Donald Trump and Marco Rubio made explicit threats to countries like Colombia and Cuba in the aftermath, washed down with the usual fantasies about drug trafficking. Tony Wood joins Long Reads to discuss the attack on Venezuela and what it means for the Latin American left. How have left-wing governments and parties been reacting, and what are the long-term i...
Featuring Aslı Bâli and Greg Grandin on the MAGA model of US imperialism. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Subscribe to the Unite and Win podcast at podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unite-and-win-a-guide-to-workplace-organizing/id1866713309 Check out equator.org for longform articles, public events, and reading groups. The Dig goes deep into politics everywhere, from labor struggles and political economy to imperialism and immigration. Hosted by Daniel Denvir....
