Give Them An Argument

A day late because Ben had to write a Jacobin article about all this instead of doing the episode (sorry about that!) but there's a lot to cover. Last Friday he recorded a debate on the war in Iran (hosted by philosopher Spencer Case). In this episode, we play the debate and chat a little bit about the truly bizarre developments since it was recorded. Ben argues that it's good to be clear on what TACO Tuesday was, because that strengthens the anti-war case going forward.

Watch the debate on Spencer's podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ScPGb91B2k

Here's the Jacobin article that delayed the episode a day:

https://jacobin.com/2026/04/iran-war-trump-threat-ceasefire

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Consider donating to Andy's GoFundMe so he can replace his computer and fully go back to doing what he does best:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-andy-get-back-to-creating-art-jtwet

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Last week at York University in Toronto, there was a panel to pre-launch a book of essays called "Analytical Marxism and Democratic Socialism in the 21st Century: Revisitng G.A. Cohen" co-edited by Ben Burgis and Matt McManus. Contributors Les Jacobs and Christine Sypnowich spoke first, then Matt and Ben. Q&A includes some spicy exchanges on dialectics and whether analytical Marxism is too academic to be of much use to the workers' movement. In this episode, Ben starts with some context on Cohen's life and the major themes of the work and then we play the full video of the panel. At the end, Ben comes back to chat a bit more about the trip to Toronto and the GTAA episode schedule going forward.

Prices in academic publishing being what they are, we can't exactly tell you to go out and buy this thing, but if you want to get your library to order a copy, here's the link for that;

https://www.amazon.com/Analytical-Marxism-Democratic-Socialism-Century/dp/3032028930

Prof. Sypnowich's website:

https://www.christinesypnowich.com/

Prof. Jacobs's profile at York:

https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/jacobs/

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Consider donating to Andy's GoFundMe so he can replace his computer and fully go back to doing what he does best:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-andy-get-back-to-creating-art-jtwet

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Matt McManus joins to discuss the complicated legacy of philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who died last Saturday.

Read Matt's article "Jürgen Habermas Showed What Philosophy Could Be" in Jacobin:

https://jacobin.com/2026/03/habermas-obituary-critical-theory-philosophy

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Consider donating to Andy's GoFundMe so he can replace his computer and fully go back to doing what he does best:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-andy-get-back-to-creating-art-jtwet

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Returning champ Matt McManus joins us once again, this time to explore a reactionary weirdo who somehow hasn't been the subject of a GTAA episode yet!

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Consider donating to Andy's GoFundMe so he can replace his computer and fully go back to doing what he does best:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-andy-get-back-to-creating-art-jtwet

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

We're back, baby!

Ben Burgis breaks down the idiotic arguments made by the MAGA faithful in defense of Trump's decision to wage an unprovoked, illegal, open-ended war against a country with far more capacity to defend itself than Afghanistan had in 2001 or Iraq in 2003, and makes the case that opposing it isn't just a question of anti-imperialism or harm-minimization (though it certainly is all that) but that there's a basic question of American democracy at stake.

Read Ben's article in Jacobin:

https://jacobin.com/2026/03/trump-iran-war-public-opinion

Read Branko Marcetic's too while you're at it:

https://jacobin.com/2026/03/trump-iran-war-public-opinion

Consider donating to Andy's GoFundMe so he can replace his computer and fully go back to doing what he does best:

https://gofund.me/f8ec78c56

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Ben Burgis and Matt McManus chat with Laura K. Field about her excellent new book "Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right."

Order the book::

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691255262/furious-minds

Follow Laura on Twitter: @lkatfield

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Deep State Kuba and New York Cynthia join Ben Burgis to talk about Curtis Yarvin's demented new essay "The Situation and the Solution."

Follow Kuba on Twitter: @DrKuba2

Follow Cynthia on Twitter; @c_cook1988

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substac

Marxist Twitter has been fighting about Vivek Chibber lately. Ben Burgis takes the opportunity to address the immediate controversy but also the much broader value of Chibber's work.

Read the Jacobin Chibber interview on the origins of capitalism that everyone is freaking out about:

https://jacobin.com/2025/12/colonialism-transition-feudalism-capitalism-history-economy

Read Ben's essay "Taking the Red Pill: William Clare Roberts vs. Vivek Chibber on the Class Matrix":

https://benburgis.substack.com/p/taking-the-red-pill-william-clare

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Ben Burgis talks about why he doesn't buy Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò's defense of identity politics in Táíwò's book "Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)."

Check out the book:

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1867-elite-capture

Read Ben's review:

https://damagemag.com/2025/06/11/uncaptured-identity-politics-is-no-substitute-for-a-politics-of-class/

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Are service workers part of the "productive" part of the working class? And what does that mean? How about public sector employees--if they're not productive workers, does that mean that their interests don't align with productive workers and socialists shouldn't support the welfare state after all?

Ben Burgis talks about what the Trotskyist leader and Marxist economist Ernest Mandel gets right and wrong in his introduction to Capital Vol. 2.

Read Ben's essay:

benburgis.substack.com/p/are-service-workers-and-public-sector

Watch the Erik Olin Wright "Understanding Class" lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmiiSSMZPnE

Read his review of Jodi Dean's book:

https://unherd.com/2025/05/the-21st-century-belongs-to-marx/

Read Dean's response to Ben:

https://www.sublationmag.com/post/analogies-and-tendencies-a-response-to-ben-burgis

Read Ben's response to Dean's response:

https://www.sublationmag.com/post/service-workers-aren-t-servants-a-response-to-jodi-dean

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com