The Trump administration has exposed the enormous power, as well as astounding wealth, of the billionaire class. And the power of that class partially emanates from their ownership of much of our media system, with significant political consequences. Economist Rob Larson returns to discuss the 1%, AI and the massive build out of data centers, and the decline of press freedom in the U.S. (Full-length broadcast.)

World Inequality Database

Rob Larson, Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do with Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More Haymarket Books, 2024

Photo by Jingming Pan on Unsplash

The post AI, the Media, and the Billionaire Class appeared first on KPFA.

The revelations of widespread surveillance by the National Security Agency after 9/11 brought to light one aspect of how the government has capitalized on digital technology to amass power – and such dangers have only multiplied. Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has been involved in numerous groundbreaking legal battles with the U.S. government over surveillance and privacy, including establishing encryption as protected speech. She discusses the battles over government spying from the rise of the internet to the present.

Cindy Cohn, Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance MIT Press, 2026

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Surveillance Self-Defense

Section 702 Spying

Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash

The post Fighting Surveillance appeared first on KPFA.

In the 1980s, yuppies were celebrated in the media and reviled by many others. Working in finance or as management consultants or lawyers, they quickly put their stamp on cities around the country, displacing working class people in places like New York, and remaking the Democratic Party. Historian Dylan Gottleib examines whether they were drivers of financialization and growing social inequality — or crucial cogs in the machine.

Dylan Gottlieb, Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York Harvard University Press, 2026

Photo: Charles Hutchins

The post Triumph of the Yuppie appeared first on KPFA.

Are women as strong as men? According to science writer Starre Vartan, in some cases, they are stronger. She argues that scientific research over the last several decades shows that culture shapes strength as much as hormones — and that much of what we presume about sex differences, strength, and athleticism harms all of us.

Starre Vartan, The Stronger Sex: What Science Tells Us about the Power of the Female Body Seal Press, 2025

Photo by Peter Zhan on Unsplash

The post Sex and Strength appeared first on KPFA.

Over the past four centuries, owners have sought to wrest control of the labor process away from the workers in plantations, factories, and warehouse. Ideas about labor management, dressed up as a science, have often failed on the shop floor, but they have served a broader purpose. Labor historian Henry Snow interrogates how theories of discipline and management — from the Bentham brothers’ panopticon to Frederick Winslow Taylor’s ideas of labor optimization to General Electric’s propaganda campaign featuring actor Ronald Reagan — have perennially reinforced the notion that there is no alternative to capitalism.

Henry Snow, Control Science: How Management Made the Modern World Verso, 2026

The post Controlling Workers appeared first on KPFA.

The Republican Party has traditionally been the party of the business class. But since the era of Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, the GOP has been marked by internal strife and ideological chaos — and in the last presidential election, the business class overwhelmingly supported Harris over Trump. Historian Paul Heideman considers the makings of a far rightward shift by the GOP, which has not been matched by an equivalent leftward turn of the Democrat Party.

Paul Heideman, Rogue Elephant: How Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos Verso, 2025

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

The post How the GOP Lurched Further to the Right appeared first on KPFA.

We inhabit a world in which what we look at — what we see, read, scroll through — has often supplanted what we hear. The visual has replaced sound. But, of course, sounds are everywhere, both human-made and made by the rest of nature. Julian Treasure reflects on the importance of sound in our lives — between ourselves, other living things, and in the surroundings of our built environment.

Julian Treasure, Sound Affects: How Sound Shapes Our Lives, Our Wellbeing, and Our Planet Grand Central Publishing, 2025

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

The post Changing Sound appeared first on KPFA.

Over the last half century, diseases carried by insects — such as malaria and dengue, Zika and Lyme disease — have greatly increased. Sociologists Brent Kaup and Kelly Austin argue that the surge in vector-borne disease has been fueled by neoliberal capitalism, at times in unexpected ways, such as through loosened financial regulations governing mortgages and health insurance, as well as the gutting of health care. (Encore presentation.)

Brent Z. Kaup and Kelly F. Austin, The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease UC Press, 2025

The post Capitalism and Insect-Borne Diseases appeared first on KPFA.

If it weren’t obvious before, the Trump administration has exposed the enormous power, as well as astounding wealth, of the billionaire class. And the power of that class partially emanates from their ownership of much of our media system, with significant political consequences. Economist Rob Larson discusses the 1%, AI and the massive build out of data centers, and the decline of press freedom in the U.S.

Please donate in support of KPFA and Against the Grain.

The post Fund Drive Special: Artificial Intelligence, the Media, and the Billionaire Class appeared first on KPFA.

A radio and web media project whose aim is to provide in-depth analysis and commentary on a variety of matters — political, economic, social and cultural — important to progressive and radical thinking and activism.

The post Against the Grain – May 19, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.