Jeremy Gilbert returns to PTO for the final part of our conversation on his new book, co-authored with Alex Williams, Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (and How We Win it back). In this part of our conversation we talked about some of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's key concepts, including the assemblage and multiplicity, and how their ideas inform Jeremy and Alex's understanding of political change and left strategy.
On this week’s episode of Macrodose James Meadway breaks down the economics behind the strikes that are spreading across the U.K, from the railways, to teachers to nurses and oilworkers (0.49s). We take a historical view on this new wave of industrial action (7:10), and then reflect on the U.K’s worsening energy crisis, examining how record levels of debts could push households over the edge this winter (10:55).
On the first episode of Macrodose James Meadway breaks down the the OECD warning that the UK’s growth prospects are the worst of all the G7 countries (1:06); the austerity 2.0 measures of Rishi Sunak’s government (6:05); and the new IMF report on inflation, which debunks the idea that advanced economies, like the UK, are experience rising prices due to an increase in worker pay (13:05).
Richard responds to the questions that were sent in by listeners on the seeming demise of Twitter, the Democrats' surprisingly strong showing in the US mid-terms, and Cop27 and where the global climate movement goes from here.
Richard responds to the questions that were sent in by listeners on the seeming demise of Twitter, the Democrats' surprisingly strong showing in the US mid-terms, and Cop27 and where the global climate movement goes from here.
Nancy Fraser joins PTO to talk about her new book, 'Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System Is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet—and What We Can Do About It'. In the book, Nancy argues that we need to move away from seeing capitalism solely in economic terms, and instead reckon with how capital is always reliant on cannibalising the non-economic, from the natural environment to providers of care and social reproduction, and from the political sphere to racialised populations subject to bruta...
Richard Seymour on why Lula's margin of victory was so narrow in Brazil's presidential election and how it is that Jair Bolsonaro maintained such substantial support, despite Brazil's poor economic performance and his disastrous handling of the covid-19 pandemic. We also talked about what to expect from Lula's third term in office, both domestically and regarding Brazil's foreign policy.
Narges Bajoghli returns to PTO to talk about the ongoing protests in Iran, which erupted in mid-September following the killing of the twenty-two year old Mahsa Amini, by officers of the so-called guidance patrol. We talked about why Amini's death has sparked such wide scale opposition to the Iranian regime, and the class composition and geographical spread of the protests. We also talked about how the regime is seeking to portray the protest movement as being instigated by foreign powers, and f...
Richard Seymour discusses the resignation of Liz Truss and the ongoing civil war within the Conservative party. We also talked about why Richard characterises the conservatives as a "middle class protest party", and finally we discussed whether or not Labour's impressive poll leads are vindication of the strategy of labour leader Keir Starmer.
In part two of our three-part interview on Jeremy's new book - co-written with Alex Williams - Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back) we discuss what Jeremy and Alex call 'actually existing neoliberalism' - the distinct form of the ideology fostered by the hegemony of finance and Big Tech through the 1980s, 90s and 2000s. We also discussed how neoliberal ideology was propagated, as much through material practices as through the mass media, and we touche...
Last month historian David Broder joined the show to talk about Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy's election victory. Today David has kindly returned to answer some of the excellent questions sent in by listeners. Before putting those questions to David, I began by asking him to comment on developments in Italy since the election and I asked him for his thoughts on how the expected coalition of Meloni's Fratelli D'Italia, the Lega led by Matteo Salvini, and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Itali...
Jeremy Gilbert returns to PTO to talk about his new book - co-authored with Alex Williams - Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back). In part one of our three part conversation we talked about Antonio Gramsci's notion of Hegemony and how, in the view of Jeremy and Alex, we live in an era in which an alliance between big tech and finance structures the global economy and whose values suffuse the cultural field. We talked about why tech and finance play the...
In today's episode Richard Seymour responds to the UK government's partial u-turn on its disastrous mini-budget, and discusses why Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have demonstrated such political ineptitude since Truss came to power.
Historian of Italian politics David Broder returns to PTO to discuss the victory of Giorgia Meloni, who is set to lead the most right-wing government since World War II. We talked about the history of the Brothers of Italy and their neofascist roots, and why the far left achieved such a poor result in the election.
Earlier this month, the people of Chile voted to reject the new draft constitution that promised to be the most progressive constitution of any country on the planet, and which was the fruit of the popular uprisings in the country that in December also swept the left wing approved dignity coalition into government. Earlier this year I spoke with Camila Vergara, who argued that for all the potential benefits of the new constitution, it also risked canalising popular ferment in the country in ways...
Richard Seymour on Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss. We talked about how she might govern, her likely response to the cost of living crisis, and how she is far from the obsessive ideologue she's portrayed as in some quarters. We also talked about the devastating floods in Pakistan, and about the death and legacy of the late Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Arun Kudnani joins PTO to talk about his article, The Racial Constitution of Neoliberalism which appeared in the Race & Class journal. We talked about how neoliberalism has generated novel forms of racism that cannot be understood simply as residual phenomena from the pre-neoliberal era, why it was that the key neoliberal thinkers were as fixated on defeating leftist movements in the global south during the Cold War as they were on defeating the European and American Labour movements, and finall...
David de Jong joins PTO to talk about his extraordinary new book, Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties, which tells the story of how German tycoons made billions during the Nazi era and WWII and how many of those industrialists and financiers and their heirs continued to be central figures in first the West German Economy and then the reunited Germany. We talked about the Quandt family - for decades the controlling interest behind BMW - and their intimate links t...
Sophie Lewis returns to PTO to discuss the US Supreme Court's decision to reverse Roe vs. Wade. We talked about why millions of Americans already lived in a post-Roe situation - with abortion services made punitively difficult to access. We also talked about the weaknesses of the original Roe vs. Wade ruling, whether the Supreme Court's decision may herald a breakdown in support for American institutions amongst American liberals and we also discussed Sophie's article in the Nation, in which she...
Government intervention is back in a big way, as countries turn back on years of free market ideology to actively support national industries in an increasingly competitive and unstable world. The session presents the case for an active industrial strategy to meet social and economic goals. Chair: Patrick Allen Speakers: Paul Sweeney, David Edgerton, Michael Jacobs
Covid-19 accelerated the digitisation of our economy, as more and more activity has moved online. But the technologies we have threaten an uncertain future at best: unemployment, huge inequalities of wealth and power, and a lack of democratic oversight. What might we expect, and what are the alternatives? In this panel discussion Dalia Gebrial, Aaron Benanav and Ursula Huws grapple with these questions about our digital future.
Last month the Progressive Economics 2022 conference, a one-day festival of transformative economic thinking, took place at the University of Greenwich. In a world battered by crises, facing environmental collapse, PEF brought together leading thinkers from across the progressive movement to present the arguments and solutions we need to build a radically better economy. Speakers included Gargi Bhattacharryya, Aaron Benanav, Francesca Bria, James Meadway, Kate Pickett, John Mcdonnell MP, and Dav...
Richard Seymour and I discuss the Conservative Party leadership election and the legacy of Boris Johnson. We talked about which conservative candidate has the most dangerous agenda and why it is that both labour and the conservatives seem so intellectually adrift. Finally, Richard explained why the presence of several BAME candidates in the election can't simply be dismissed as mere tory tokenism.
Richard Seymour on the recent wave of strikes in the UK, and whether the upsurge of industrial action signals the long hoped for revival of Britain's labour movement.
Sebastian Budgen returns to the show to talk about the second round of the French legislative elections. We discussed the breakthrough of Jean Luc Melenchon's NUPES coalition and the broader prospects for the left following Emmanuel Macron's failure to secure a majority. We also talked about the historic breakthrough of Marine Le Pen's national rally and the breakdown of the so-called Republican front against the far right. Finally, we talked about where Emmanuel Macron goes from here, and wheth...
Anna Della Subin joins PTO to talk about her book Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine. The book tells the stories of men who have inadvertently been turned into living Gods - from Gandhi and Haile Selassie to Prince Philip and Narendra Modi. In the book Anna shows how deification and violence were intertwined in the colonial enterprise and in the present day cult of the political strong man, yet - she argues - it's also a process that's been central to struggles of liberation. In o...
Sebastian Budgen returns to PTO to discuss the upcoming French legislative elections and the prospects for the new left popular union coalition, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and La France Insoumise. We talked about the prospects for the popular union and whether Mélenchon becoming Prime Minister is a realistic prospect. We also talked about the creation of the new coalition which includes the french socialists and the greens, hitherto fierce critics of Mélenchon. Finally, we discussed why Marine Le...
Ukrainian filmmaker and writer Oleksiy Radynski joins PTO from Kyiv. We talked about the current situation in the city and the popular mood in Ukraine. We went on to talk about Oleksiy's article 'The Case Against the Russian Federation' which appeared in E-Flux magazine. Oleksiy described the key features and history of Russian nationalism and why it is that Vladimir Putin, and the clique around him, repeatedly misunderstand the political realities of Ukraine.
The 2nd of May marked the 25th anniversary of New Labour's coming to power and the election of Tony Blair as prime minister. I spoke to Jeremy Gilbert about how he viewed the New Labour project at the time and about how the Blairites succeeded in winning support within the party, despite a distinct lack of enthusiasm for their neoliberal policy agenda. We also talked about why Jeremy disagreed with Stuart Hall's analysis that saw New Labour as a hybrid project containing both neoliberal and soci...
Richard Seymour discusses his new book, The Disenchanted Earth: Reflections on Ecosocialism and Barbarism. We talked about why the Marxist left for a long time gave relatively little attention to the ecological crisis and about Richard's own turn towards environmental writing. We also talked about the process of the earth's disenchantment in the 16th and 17th centuries and how it made possible capital's hyper exploitation of the natural environment.
