Episode description

While Marxist friend and historian Cosimo Pataleoni was in town from Italy, Sean decided to bring along Ross Wolf to get a taste of some badass history of piracy. We discuss Cosimo's work on the Uskoks, Croatian rebel sailors of the early modern period, as a lens for understanding the rise of commercial capitalism, proletarianization, debt bondage, and incarceration on the frontiers and the high seas. How do Cosimo's studies-inspired by figures like Eric Hobsbawm, Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker-help us understand the transition towards capitalism and, ultimately, how the transition towards communism might unfold?

In the second half we talk about Cosimo's Italian Bordigist futurism project N+1 (no, not that one) then speculate about Houthi rebels and Yemeni pirates, maritime multipolarity, the fetters that your home wifi imposes on production and why intellectual property and the internet have become the new frontier in capitalist development... and perhaps its overcoming?

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Song: Vandals - Pirate's Life