Taking a short break – back in late August.

On politics and football.

Alex is joined by Karl Sharro, Juan David Rojas, Tim Abrahams, and Euan Marshall to pick over the stories of this World Cup.

If the World Cup is a branding exercise for the hosts, what exactly is the USA selling here? And Mexico? Canada?

Are conspiracy theories good, actually?

Is Argentina evil? Should you support the global South against the colonisers?

Are evangelicals responsible for Brazilian failure?

Do you need central planning to become good at football?

When 23% of players at the WC are foreign born, how can globalisation be ending?

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Links:

Football won’t rescue the nation, Alex Hochuli, Africa Is a Country

Note to Leftists, Do Not Squander The World Cup!, Juan Rojas, Substack

Blood ties and opportunity: Why more World Cup players than ever are not representing their birth nations, BBC

On 'imperialist realism'.

Daniel Bessner, historian, is back on to discuss the relation between US foreign policy and ideology. He talks to Alex and Lee about his forthcoming book and other writings.

Why has acceptance of imperialism accompanied declining support for empire?

What is the US's sense of mission and how does this coexist with cynicism?

Is US politics stuck between liberal guilt and conservative suprematism?

Does nothing ever actually change? Is the US even a democracy?

What would an effective anti-imperialist politics look like?

The full episode is for subscribers only, sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Power without Ideology, Daniel Bessner, The Ideas Letter

Imperialist Realism: Politics and Culture at the End of the American Century, Daniel Bessner, Zer0 Books

/464/ Decline Under The Donald ft. Daniel Bessner

On Roland Barthes' Mythologies.

(This is an unlocked episode from our Reading Club. Subscribe for more like this.)

Alex, George, and contributing editor Catherine Liu delve into Barthes' 1957 classic to understand the form of ideology critique it proposes – and particularly as it relates to left and right.

If the bourgeoisie generates myth, is revolution a cathartic act that gets us beyond myth?

Is the direct producer also unable to speak myth, or is this a romanticisation?

What are predominant left-wing myths today? Is "left vs right" a myth of sorts?

Is the critic of myths condemned to live a "theoretical sociality"? Should people just be allowed to enjoy things?

On writing the history of capitalism.

Political theorist Corey Robin talks to Alex H and Alex G about what is wrong with Sven Beckert's monumental new Capitalism: A Global History.

Have historians returned to writing about big themes and grand narratives?

Why does Beckert date capitalism's emergence to 12th century Arabia?

Is capitalism essentially about free markets and free trade – or about the state, coercion, violence?

If capitalism has no beginning and no end, then does that mean we're still at the end of History?

Links:

The Long Revolution, Corey Robin (review of Sven Beckert), The Nation

/481/ Everything is Plausible: Oligarchy – or Worse ft. Corey Robin

On global shortages and their political consequences.

Benjamin Bradlow, assistant professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton, talks to Alex and Lee about the world-historic impact of the Hormuz Strait closure.

How will shortages – beyond oil and gas – reverberate through global supply chains?

Why are markets so sanguine about all this? Are financial economic elites too insulated from consequences?

Will China be the big beneficiary as more countries turn to importing its tech for renewables?

Do countries want to trade dependency on the Middle East or US for dependency on China?

Would a world of energy autarky be more or less peaceful?

Are "electrostates" a thing?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

The Winners and Losers of the Iran Energy Shock, Benjamin Bradlow, Foreign Affairs

The energy crisis may just be starting, Martin Wolf, FT

Audio from the live event held at Verdurin, London, on 28 May 2026.

The OG Bunga Boys - Alex, George, and Phil - present their takes, followed by responses from contributing editor Lee Jones and friend-of-the-pod Nina Power - and audience questions.

On Roland Barthes' Mythologies.

Alex, George, and contributing editor Catherine Liu delve into Barthes' 1957 classic to understand the form of ideology critique it proposes – and particularly as it relates to left and right.

If the bourgeoisie generates myth, is revolution a cathartic act that gets us beyond myth?

Is the direct producer also unable to speak myth, or is this a romanticisation?

What are predominant left-wing myths today? Is "left vs right" a myth of sorts?

Is the critic of myths condemned to live a "theoretical sociality"? Should people just be allowed to enjoy things?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

On world money and war.

Costas Lapavitsas, professor of economics at SOAS, London, talks to George and Alex about financialisation, arrested development, and the Strait of Hormuz.

What is the state-led stabilisation of finance capital?

How does today's imperialism differ from prior versions – even if they also inhibited development outside the core?

What is the "liquidity tribute" that developing countries must pay?

How is the war on Iran a perfect case of dollar imperialism: "the dollar and the F35"?

Why is the talk of "colonialism" today a distraction?

London event: History's Back, Baby!

Links:

A Topography of the New Dollar Imperialism, Costas Lapavitsas, NLR

Trump’s Chaotic Imperialism: Economic Warfare, Geopolitical Truculence and Domestic Authoritarianism, Costas Lapavitsas, Socialist Register

For forthcoming Monthly Review article, see here

/139/ Dollar Empire ft. Yakov Feygin & Dominik Leusder

/142/ Dollar Empire (2) ft. Daniel Bessner

History’s back, baby! 

Thu 28 May, Verdurin, London

Tickets: https://verdur.in/store/historys-back-baby-admission/

It is obvious today that the “end of history”, postulated by Francis Fukuyama in 1992, is over. Liberal democracy as the final form of human organisation? Pah! The arc of history tending towards justice? Pah! 

Will the end of twentieth-century modernity be the start of something new? The building blocks of the past – political parties, ideologies, and institutions – are decaying around us, and nothing new emerges to take their place. 

Yet history now has new protagonists: states, corporations, and oligarchs, often acting in synthesis. What if history’s back but not as we wanted it? The stakes are high: the sunset of the US hegemony is in sight and even Fukuyama now agrees on the impending primacy of the “Chinese model”. Yet even such geopolitical shifts aren’t leading to the creation of a new hegemony – disorder is the order of the day. 

Five years on from the publication of The End of the End of History, its authors and hosts of Bungacast reflect on a world in a state of accelerated decay, with responses from guests Lee Jones and Nina Power.

They say that “nothing ever happens”. Pah! Something ever happens.