On Filipino politics and geopolitics.

Renowned public intellectual Walden Bello talks to Alex and contributing editor Lee Jones about his recently published memoirs, former president Rodrigo Duterte's arrest, warring political dynasties and more.

What's behind Duterte's arrest? Is it lawfare?

How did the Philippines comes to be an ‘anarchy of families’?

What are the barriers to doing left-wing political work in the Philippines?

How has Walden been involved with the social-democratic party Akbayan?

What does China's rise mean for developing countries and the global South?

What are Walden's key lessons for the ‘end of the End of History’?

Links:

GLOBAL BATTLEFIELDS: Memoir of a Legendary Public Intellectual from the Global South, Walden Bello, Clarity

Duterte Is Right to End the U.S.-Philippine Military Exercises, Walden Bello, NYT

/52/ Duterte’s Despotism ft. Nicole Curato

/351/ Eating the Left’s Lunch? ft. Cecilia Lero & Tamás Gerőcs

On Trump's government, his motives and his modus operandi.

Political theorist Corey Robin talks to Alex H and contributing editors Lee Jones and Alex Gourevitch about Trump II from a domestic perspective. We look at the three main things he's done so far: cutting the civil service, imposing economic sanctions domestically, and his immigration terror politics.

Is Trump a strong president? Does the reliance on executive orders indicate weakness?

What happened to the #Resistance?

Why has the tariff issue, instead of uniting Republicans as in the 19th century, divided them?

Is the bond market the main force limiting Trump's agenda?

Has Bernie Sanders' prediction come true – this is now an oligarchy?

Does Trump just represent patrimonialism and even gangsterism? A degradation of democracy?

What does reaction looks like when there’s very little left to react against?

Links:

/129/ The Right Is Weak ft. Corey Robin | Bungacast

Notifications, Corey Robin, Sidecar (on Trump & tariffs)

Corey Robin's facebook posts

The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics, Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, Princeton UP

On Perry Anderson's "Internationalism: A Breviary".

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We kick off the second block/theme of the 2024/25 Reading Club on Nations & Internationalism in the 21st Century by looking at a 2002 essay which charts nationalism against internationalism from the Atlantic revolutions through to the age of globalisation. It is particularly apposite to revisit this text in light of an acceleration in de-globalisation brought on by the second Trump presidency.

What are the cultural aspects of "internationalism"?

While nationalism can be good or bad, internationalism is usually seen as positive. Is this still the case?

How has internationalism accompanied, seperated from or stood against nationalism throughout the latter's history?

How is internationalism different from cosmopolitanism today, if at all?

How could we update Anderson's charting of internationalism along 5 coordinates: capital, geography, philosophy, nation-definition, and class relations?

Internationalism: A Breviary, Perry Anderson, New Left Review

On Trump's 'liberation day' tariffs and the end of globalisation.

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Contributing editor Lee Jones talks to Alex about the tariffs, as they try to reconstruct the Trump admin's thinking, and consider avenues and consequences.

Why is this a retro-80s moment, and how much does China take the role that Japan used to in Trump's thinking?

How much strategy is there to this? Is it possible to disentangle the competing logics?

Is this a return to the 19th century: small state, no income tax, high tariff walls?

How credible an attempt at reindustrialising the US is this?

Is Trump trying to weaken the dollar? What store to put in the Mar-a-Lago accord?

Do Europeans kick the can down the road and hope for the best?

Is this a global restructuring or just a reset in terms more favourable to the US? The end of neoliberalism or a new iteration on it?

Links:

Will anybody buy a ‘Mar-a-Lago accord’?, FT

A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, Stephen Miran, Hudson Bay Capital 

Is Trump 2 the End of ‘Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome’?, Lee Jones, TNS 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Breaks Down Trump's Tariff Plan and Its Impact on the Middle Class, Tucker Carlson, YouTube

Back to the ’80s?, Andrew Liu, n+1

MAGA and the Fragmentation of Europe, Tim Pendry, Substack

On revolution, epic poetry, John Milton, and freedom.

George and contributing editor Alex Gourevitch talk to Orlando Reade, who teaches English at Northeastern University London.  We discuss Orlando’s new book What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost and the history of readings of John Milton’s great epic poem.

Is Paradise Lost a poem about darkness?

What does a poem written in the seventeenth century have to tell us about the age of Trump and the contemporary Right?

What can we learn about freedom today from the rebellious Satan in the poem? Or the disobedient Eve?

What did Malcolm X get from the poem and why is Jordan Peterson so hot on epic poetry?

Links:

What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost, Orlando Reade, Penguin

John Milton’s Paradise Lost Mourned a Revolution Betrayed, Orlando Reade, Jacobin

Why Is the Right Obsessed With Epic Poetry?, Orlando Reade, The Nation

On Erdogan's World and the revolt against it.

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Historian Djene Bajalan joins George and Alex to review the past month – ceasefires in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, winning and losing US patronage, Trump's inconsistent strategy and leaks, and the gold rush. We then turn to a country exemplary of the contradictions of the end of the End of History: Türkiye. And finish by answering your questions and comments on internationalism, free speech, Die Linke, anti-immigration, and domination.

What's driving the protests and how do they compare to past revolts against Erdogan?   

What is the meaning of charges – corruption & terrorism – against Istanbul mayor and potential opposition leader İmamoğlu?

Who is the opposition?

What has sustained Erdogan's rule – repression, conservatism, modernisation, growth?

Why is Erdogan one of the winners of the past 20 years, and how is he a world-historic figure? 

Links:

Erdoğan's new world order, Lily Lynch, UnHerd

/339/ Erdogone? People vs Nation in Turkey ft. Alp Kayserilioglu

Kultur Kampf TR, Selim Koru, Substack

On critical theory and autonomy.

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Jensen Suther, a junior fellow at Harvard working in philosophy and literature, talks to Alex H and contributing editor Alex Gourevitch about art, culture, and socialism. He also offers a riposte to previous guest Anna Kornbluh's discussion of immediacy, and its cultural forms such as autoficition.

What does Suther think Kornbluh gets wrong – and right – in her critique of contemporary culture?

How autonomous is art from society and the economy?

To what extent can we tie cultural forms to deep changes in the economy?

What is the right response to the historical defeat of the working class? What does it mean for critical theory?

What is the difference between immanent critique and critique from the outside – and how dow this relate to freedom?

And what does it matter if you read Hegel right?

Links:

The Theory of Immediacy or the Immediacy of Theory?, Jensen Suther, Nonsite.org

/458/ The Society of Pure Vibe ft. Anna Kornbluh

/473/ Make Alienation Great Again ft. Todd McGowan (features a different response to the question about critical theory after the defeat of the working class)

Jensen's thread on X on capitalist totality and the end of the working class

Jensen's thread on X on the return to Hegel, against economic determinism

On class formation, fragmentation, pessimism and optimism.

George and contributing editor Leigh Phillips talk to Dan Evans, a writer and academic based in South Wales. We discuss his piece in the New Socialist, ‘Is the Working Class Back?’ and themes emerging from it.

How important are definitions of class?

If the working class remains weak and fragmented, and its politics increasingly chaotic, what is to be done?

How does Gabriel Winant's pessimism about the industrial working class compare to Evans'?

What are the class contradictions of the contemporary Left?

Who is the real oppositional class today? Should we be more positive about the petite bourgeoisie?

Links:

Is the Working Class Back?, Dan Evans, New Socialist

A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of the Petty Bourgeoisie, Dan Evans, Repeater Books

/349/ The PMC & Their Politics ft. Dan Evans & Catherine Liu

On cities and the politics of development.

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Ben Bradlow, assistant professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton, talks to Alex about his book Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg.

If our future is urban – and it is – why is it different to what we imagined?

Are Johannesburg and São Paulo representative of what is going on in cities?

How did democratic promise and neoliberal disappointment go together in the 1990s, through to today?

What has been the role of social movements (e.g. for housing) in transforming cities and municipal government?

Is the radical right in the global North and South fundamentally different? What is the urban dimension?

What does China's lead in industries like electric vehicles mean for countries like Brazil?

Is industrial upgrading possible under post-neoliberalism?

Links:

Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg, Benjamin Bradlow, Princeton UP

A processual framework for understanding the rise of the populist right: the case of Brazil (2013–2018), Tomás Gold and Benjamin Bradlow, Social Forces

Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation, Peter Evans, Princeton UP

On Embracing Alienation.

Todd McGowan is back on the pod, talking to George and Alex about his book, Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try To Find Ourselves.

Why is alienation good actually? What does it give us?

How is alienation related to subjectivity and freedom?

What is the problem with anti-alienation politics of Left and Right?

What happened to the 1960s concern with alienation, where did it go?

Why is an embrace of the public realm, against therapy culture, the right response?

What is the task of critical theory today?

Links:

/167/ The Kingdom of God Is on Main Street ft. Todd McGowan

Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try To Find Ourselves