Give Them An Argument

Steve Paxton studied with the great Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen as a graduate student at Oxford. Since then, he's had blue-collar jobs, white collar jobs, and been unemployed, but he's never stopped writing and thinking about socialism and Marxism. For this special Bastille Day episode, Ben Burgis talks with Steve about his book "How Capitalism Ends." Oh, and it's graphic designer Andy's birthday, so we'll raise a toast to our Bastille Day Boy. In the postgame for patrons, believe it or not, we actually finish our long march through Jordan Peterson vs. 20 Atheists.

Order Steve's book:

https://stevepaxton.co.uk/buyNowHCE.php

Follow Steve on Twitter: @Steve__Paxton

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

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benburgis.substack.com

Visit benburgis.com

Labor scholar Shaun Richman joins us to talk to Ben Burgis about his book "We Always Had a Union: The New York Hotel Workers’ Union, 1912-1953." Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument on the absurd attacks on Zohran that have been made everywhere from National Review to Reason to...Matt Taibbi's Substack. (Goddamnit, Matt.) In the postgame for patrons, Ben and the crew get heart-breakingly close to finally being done with "Jordan Peterson vs. 20 Atheists."

Read Ben's MSNBC article on the hysteria about city-owned grocery stores:

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/zohran-mamdani-grocery-stores-food-deserts-panic-rcna216332

Read his Jacobin article on the "seize the means of production" hysteria:

https://jacobin.com/2025/07/zohran-mamdani-socialism-bernie-taibbi

Order Shaun's book:

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p088537

Follow Shaun on Twitter: @Ess_Dog

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Visit benburgis.com

Two authors from the new anthology "Flowers for Marx" (returning guests Matt McManus & Conrad Hamilton) join Ben Burgis to chat about the book. Before that, Ben and the crew debunk more smears of Zohran. In the postgame for patrons, Matt puts in a shift joining us on our long march through Jordan Peterson vs. 20 atheists.

Order Flowers for Marx:

https://www.revolpress.com/flowers

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Conrad on Twitter: @BongardConrad

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Visit benburgis.com

Philosophical and comedic YouTube person Michael O'Neill Burns comes on GTAA for the first time and political science professor Matt McManus comes on for the billionth time (rough approximation) so they can discuss Marx and ideology. Before that, Ben and the crew break down some of the worst pro-war talking points wrt Iran. In the postgame, we continue our long march through Jordan Peterson vs. 20 Atheists.

Watch Michael's channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelOBurns

Follow him on Twitter: @michaeloburns

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 patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Visit benburgis.com

Natasha Hakimi Zapata joins us to chat w/Ben about her important new book "Another World is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe." From Britain's NHS to Singapore's publicly-leased housing system to New Zealand's egalitarian pensions to Norway's family policies, her book documents the way that countries around the world have proven that social problems that seem intractable in America are in fact perfectly fucking tractable given the political will. Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument on the ongoing insanity in Los Angeles and how to think about the class politics of ICE raids and resistance to them. In the postgame for patrons, we continue to watch Jordan Peterson vs. atheists.

Read Ben's article on the ICE raids:

https://jacobin.com/2025/06/la-unions-immigration-huerta-trump

Buy Natasha's book:

https://thenewpress.org/books/another-world-is-possible/

Follow Natasha on Twitter: @natashakimiz

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Visit benburgis.com

Bruno Leipold joins Ben Burgis to talk about his excellent book "Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought." Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument responding to Jodi Dean on "neofeudalism." In the postgame for patrons, RM Brown joins Ben and the crew to break down some more of Jordan Peterson's bizarro debate with 20 atheists. And, oh yeah, scattered around all this there's some discussion of the spiraling insanity and authoritarianism going on outside our windows in Los Angeles.

Read Ben's review of "Citizen Marx" and Jodi Dean's "Capital's Grave":

https://unherd.com/2025/05/the-21st-century-belongs-to-marx/?us=1

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:

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

Order "Citizen Marx":

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691205236/citizen-marx

Follow Bruno on Twitter: @BrunoLeipold

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson joins Ben Burgis to talk about his and Noam Chomsky's new book "The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World." In the postgame for patrons, Ben and the cre watch some of Jordan Peterson's Jubilee debate, in which Peterson realizes he can brilliantly defend his position by the 5D chess strategy of angrily taking exception to every background assumption and every turn of phrase and never actually committing himself to anything.

Order Nathan (and Noam)'s book:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/738224/the-myth-of-american-idealism-by-noam-chomsky-and-nathan-j-robinson/

Follow Nathan on Twitter: @NathanJRobinson

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Andrew Hartman joins Ben Burgis to talk about his fascinating book "Karl Marx in America," where he traces interest in Marx's ideas by American commentators from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression to the Vietnam-era New Left to the present. Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument responding to Ro Khanna on socialism. In the postgame for patrons, Ben and the crew watch a slightly less serious discussion about Marx by Tim Pool and Sargon of Akkad and some other person who's name none of us can be bothered to remember (+ Donald Trump telling a story about how his fat billionaire friend in London).

Sign up for the Capital Vol. 2 class:

patreon.com/benburgis

Buy Andrew's book:

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/K/bo245100866.html

Follow Andrew on Twitter: @HartmanAndrew

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Eric Blanc joins Ben Burgis to talk about his new book "How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big." Then in the postgame for patrons, Ben and the crew will watch a bit of Ethan Klein vs. Hassan Piker for some reason.

Buy Eric's book:

https://www.ucpress.edu/books/we-are-the-union/paper

Read Eric's Substack:

https://www.laborpolitics.com/

Follow Eric on Twitter: @_ericblanc

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) comes on to talk about the swirling chaos of Trump 2.0 and where Dems are falling short in response. Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument about why the Left should trumpet the fact that social democratic policies are objectively pro-natalist. Pressuring people to have kids is obviously illiberal and bad, but we should take the W on the fact that the economic policies we want would make things a lot easier for people who want to make that choice (and the fact that this would be good for our society). Musician and commentator José Ayerve joins us in the postgame for patrons..

Follow Ro Khanna on Twitter: @RepRoKhanna

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com