What would it mean to take revenge against the capitalist system? And what kinds of vengeance has capitalism itself taken, against workers and other exploited people? Max Haiven examines Marxist, feminist, anti-colonial, and other perspectives on revenge, and he considers what forms of avenging might point the way toward radical social and political transformation.

Max Haiven, “Towards a materialist theory of revenge: The lives of witches” Vagabonds

Max Haiven, Art after Money, Money after Art: Creative Strategies Against Financialization Pluto Press, 2018

The post Revenge Under Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.

The resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline galvanized a generation of activists. It involved hundreds of tribes and thousands of people, standing up against not just the companies that would pollute the region’s water, but to the militarized forces of the state. As Native historian Nick Estes argues, the No DAPL efforts brought into sharp focus both two centuries of native struggles and the complexity of anticapitalist and decolonial resistance today.

Resources:

Nick Estes, Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance Verso, 2019

The post Anti-Capitalism and Indigenous Resistance appeared first on KPFA.

Every society has a technological dimension. So what does, or should, a socialist technology look like? What ends would such a technology serve, and who would decide which products or devices get deployed, and for what purposes? Victor Wallis sketches the contours of what he calls an authentically socialist technology. (Encore presentation.)

Victor Wallis, Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism Political Animal Press, 2018

The post Socialist Technology appeared first on KPFA.

America has long been the country of endless promise, of open vistas, and a sense of providence about its place in the wider world. That optimism has always cloaked the brutality of imperial expansion and limitless growth. And now that centrist ideal of boundless expansion, according to historian Greg Grandin, may be coming to an end, even though the U.S. dominates foreign markets and continues multiple wars abroad. He argues that Trump is a symptom of the closing of that buoyant imperial orientation toward the rest of the world.

Resources:

Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America Metropolitan Books, 2019

The post The End of Endless Expansion appeared first on KPFA.

Class divides and racial dynamics are explored in Nina Revoyr’s new novel “A Student of History.” In it, a biracial graduate student with a blue-collar background gains access to a very different world, that of the superrich descendants of the founders of Los Angeles. Many of them, he discovers, exert tremendous power and influence behind the scenes.

Nina Revoyr, A Student of History Akashic, 2019

The post The Invisible Aristocracy appeared first on KPFA.

The birthrate in the U.S. has hit a historical low, with fewer babies being born than that necessary to replace the existing population.  Organizer Jenny Brown argues that that’s because the social support for women and families is so meager, that women have stopped having children or have reduced the number of kids they’re having.  And this informal birth strike, she argues, has the business class worried — and points to a hidden source of power.

Resources:

Jenny Brown, Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight over Women’s Work PM Press, 2019

The post Having Children? On Strike appeared first on KPFA.

During the Pink Tide, left-leaning governments proliferated across much of Latin America. What was actually accomplished in the Pink Tide era? Elisabeth Jay Friedman’s new book supplies part of the answer, by examining the extent to which Pink Tide governments advanced a gender and sexual justice agenda.

Elisabeth Jay Friedman, ed., Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide Duke University Press, 2019

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Socialist Yugoslavia was born out of resistance to fascist occupation during WW2 and ended in dismemberment and civil war.  Today, Yugoslavia’s demise is much better remembered than what came before it.  Yet socialist Yugoslavia forged a different path from that of the Soviet Union, which broke with it, and experimented with a form of workers’ self-management, which was hailed at the time across the international left, from anarchists to progressives.  Radical educator Andrej Grubacic, who grew up in socialist Yugoslavia, reflects on its history, achievements, and contradictions.

Resources:

Andrej Grubacic, Don’t Mourn, Balkanize!: Essays After Yugoslavia PM Press, 2010

The post Reconsidering Yugoslav Socialism appeared first on KPFA.

Secrecy is a fundamental aspect of the U.S. security state. According to Joseph Masco, the logics and dynamics of official secrecy do more than prevent the release of information; they also have profound effects on U.S. society. What Masco calls the security/threat matrix can be traced back to the effort to withhold information about the atomic bomb.

Maguire, Rao, and Zurawski, eds., Bodies as Evidence: Security, Knowledge, and Power Duke University Press, 2018

Joseph Masco, The Theater of Operations: National Security Affect from the Cold War to the War on Terror Duke University Press, 2014

The post Secrecy and the U.S. Security State appeared first on KPFA.

What are the origins of modern conservatism?  The failed Goldwater campaign?  Or the Cold War era discontent of midwestern small capitalists?  Historian Kathryn Olmstead argues that it should be located even earlier, in the intense and massive labor unrest that took place in the fields of California in the 1930s.  The response by growers and other elites pioneered methods that have become familiar today, from deploying populist rhetoric in the interests of big business to funding ostensibly grassroots organizations. (Encore presentation.)

Resources:

Kathryn Olmstead, Right Out of California: The Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism The New Press, 2015

The post The New Right’s Origins in the Labor Battles of the 1930s appeared first on KPFA.