Culture, Power, Politics » Podcast

What historical lessons can we learn from the UK’s one experience of a truly transformative progressive government? What were the social and political conditions that made it possible, and are there any useful political lessons that we can infer to advance our own prospects in the 21st century? And can YouTube influencers really substitute for a ground-level political movement?

Jem tackles these questions here in an episode requested by listeners.

(We posted a slightly cleaned up audio file shortly after posting this, so if your podcast client was set to automatically download as soon as the new episode was released, you might want to delete the download and re-download it)

Organisations mentioned in the pod: https://leftbookclub.com, https://rootandbranchorganising.org

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Some relevant books

Mary Langan & Bill Schwarz (eds), Crises in the British State 1880–1930

Steven Fielding, Peter Thompson and Nick Tiratsoo, ‘England Arise!’: The Labour Party and Popular Politics in 1940s Britain 

Angus Calder  The People’s War: Britain 1939–194

Selina Todd The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910–2010 

Matthew Worley Labour Inside the Gate: A History of the British Labour Party between the Wars

Ben Pimlott , Labour and the Left in the 1930 

Ross McKibbin Classes and Cultures: England 1918–1951 

Ross McKibbin Parties and People: England 1914–1951 

Lynn Hollen Lees  The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700–1948

Michael Freeden The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform 

Gareth Steadman Jones Languages of Class

George R. Boyer The Winding Road to the Welfare State: Economic Insecurity and Social Welfare Policy in Britain 

Bernard Harris The Origins of the British Welfare State: Social Welfare in England and Wales, 1800–1945

Pat Thane The Foundations of the Welfare State 

Keith Burgess The Challenge of Labour: Shaping British Society 1850–1930 Languages of Class 

Eric Hobsbawm Worlds of Labour: Further Studies in the History of Labour

Theodore Hamm Run, Zoran, Run! 

In this emergency podcast, Alan Finlayson and Jeremy Gilbert analyse the key speeches at this year’s Labour Party conference from Prime Minister Andy Burnham, and Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey. The official slogan of the conference was ‘Hope Again.’ Are we feeling it?

Along the way we ask: what is ‘hope’? Must a politics of the future of be free of all nostalgia? Why has Burnham set out the most radical programme for government since the 1960s, while not including anyone from the political left in his government? And how long can we spend discussing the politics of 1980s / 90s Liverpool ‘baggy’ band, The Farm?

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

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What makes us, a couple of professors at modern British universities, ‘experts’ on anything? What makes anyone an acknowledged expert on anything, and why does it matter? Why does the political right hate ‘experts’, and are they correct to do so? And what should radicals, socialists and democrats think about the role of ‘intellectuals’ in our movements?

In the third of a three-part series,  Alan Finlayson and Jeremy Gilbert continue to explore the question of what counts as ‘knowledge’ or ‘expertise’ in our society, where the idea of ‘the intellectual’ came from, whether it has any relevance today, and what the point is of ‘theory’, ‘analysis’ or any other kind of knowledge of expertise.

Yes, the discussion does start off very self-referential, but over the course of three episodes we put forward a decent history of ideas of truth in modern societies, and finally land on an analysis of why everyone is so frustrated by the inability of the professional political class to envisage a new way of living.

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/xu2grba5tt

Btc donations: bc1q64590fsdzxe7rmfgp7f2jc97v7rp8fr4n0lspf

What makes us, a couple of professors at modern British universities, ‘experts’ on anything? What makes anyone an acknowledged expert on anything, and why does it matter? Why does the political right hate ‘experts’, and are they correct to do so? And what should radicals, socialists and democrats think about the role of ‘intellectuals’ in our movements?

In the second of a three-part series,  Alan Finlayson and Jeremy Gilbert continue to explore the question of what counts as ‘knowledge’ or ‘expertise’ in our society, where the idea of ‘the intellectual’ came from, whether it has any relevance today, and what the point is of ‘theory’, ‘analysis’ or any other kind of knowledge of expertise.

Yes, the discussion does start off very self-referential, but over the course of three episodes we put forward a decent history of ideas of truth in modern societies, and finally land on an analysis of why everyone is so frustrated by the inability of the professional political class to envisage a new way of living.

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/xu2grba5tt

Btc donations: bc1q64590fsdzxe7rmfgp7f2jc97v7rp8fr4n0lspf

What makes us, a couple of professors at modern British universities, ‘experts’ on anything? What makes anyone an acknowledged expert on anything, and why does it matter? Why does the political right hate ‘experts’, and are they correct to do so? And what should radicals, socialists and democrats think about the role of ‘intellectuals’ in our movements?

In the first of a three-part series,  Alan Finlayson and Jeremy Gilbert start to explore the question of what counts as ‘knowledge’ or ‘expertise’ in our society, where the idea of ‘the intellectual’ came from, whether it has any relevance today, and what the point is of ‘theory’, ‘analysis’ or any other kind of knowledge of expertise.

Yes, the discussion does start off very self-referential, but over the course of three episodes we put forward a decent history of ideas of truth in modern societies, and finally land on an analysis of why everyone is so frustrated by the inability of the professional political class to envisage a new way of living.

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/xu2grba5tt

Btc donations: bc1q64590fsdzxe7rmfgp7f2jc97v7rp8fr4n0lspf

Part 4.  What would it mean for a UK government to fully break with the history of neoliberalism? 

In the final episode of a four-part mini-series, Alan Finlayson and Jeremy Gilbert consider what it would mean for a UK government actually to break with the history of neoliberalism. What kind of economic policies, systems of government, media culture and rhetoric would it need? Is Andy Burnham’s emphasis on devolution and re-industrialisation enough to overcome the deep sense of disempowerment that so many people experience after decades of neoliberalism?

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/xu2grba5tt

Btc donations: bc1q64590fsdzxe7rmfgp7f2jc97v7rp8fr4n0lspf

Part 3. Why do some people say neoliberalism does’t exist? How did neoliberalism respond to the conditions of the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic? Is it still the ruling ideology of our age? And is neoliberalism always socially conservative? 

In the third episode of a four-part mini-series, Alan Finlayson and Jeremy Gilbert address the idea that ‘neoliberalism’ is a meaningless term, then explore how neoliberalism mutated under the historically unique conditions of the aftermath of the 2008 crash and the Covid-2019 pandemic. As new forms of capitalist nationalism emerge from the wreckage, we ask if neoliberalism is always socially conservative, and if it’s still the ruling ideology of our age.

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/xu2grba5tt

Btc donations: bc1q64590fsdzxe7rmfgp7f2jc97v7rp8fr4n0lspf

Part 2 How did neoliberalism become the ruling idea of our age? Was its victory inevitable? 

In the second episode of a four-part mini-series, Alan Finlayson and Jeremy Gilbert explore how neoliberalism went from being a set of obscure academic ideas to the governing philosophy of late twentieth-century capitalism.

nb: towards the end of the episode, Jem briefly mentions a book by David Graeber, the correct title of which is The Utopia of Rules.

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/xu2grba5tt

Btc donations: bc1q64590fsdzxe7rmfgp7f2jc97v7rp8fr4n0lspf

Part 1 What is ‘neoliberalism’ and where does it come from? 

In the first of a four-part mini-series, Alan Finlayson and Jeremy Gilbert explore the meaning and origins of ‘neoliberalism’.

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/xu2grba5tt

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This is actually an episode of the Love is the Message podcast that I decided to pop in the Culture, Power, Politics feed, partly because I think it will interest many listeners, and also because I still haven’t finished editing the mini-series that Alan Finlayson and I have recorded on neoliberalism and how to end it. Sincere apologies to the people who have already heard it! And to everyone patiently waiting for the return of fan favourite Alan Finlayson: I should have the mini-series out in the next few days.

In this episode Jeremy Gilbert talks to David Wilkinson about his article ‘Mark E. Smith, Brexit Britain and the Aesthetics and Politics of the Working Class Weird’ and his book Post-Punk, Politics and Pleasure in Britain.

For more information about Culture, Power, Politics, including information about live events, see culturepowerpolitics.org

If you can support us with a small regular donation, please do so here: https://patreon.com/culturepowerpolitics.

If you’d like to make a one-time donation, please do so here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/xu2grba5tt

Btc donations: bc1q64590fsdzxe7rmfgp7f2jc97v7rp8fr4n0lspf