Zero Books: Advancing Conversations

This week’s podcasts features a conversation with Benjamin Reynolds, whose book The Coming Revolution was published last June by Zero Books. We discuss Fully Automated Luxury Gay Communism, value theory, labor vouchers, and socialism as a political project.

If you’re a fan of this podcast you should consider becoming a patron of the cast through our Patreon page as you’ll gain access to a second podcast every week and, starting in the new year, you’ll get access to a monthly member’s only video tutorial on socialism, philosophy or both. We have several big projects in mind for 2019 including our Realizing Philosophy series, a series of podcasts outlining the history of the socialist left, and the production of longer documentary-style videos. Supporting us on patreon will both make these efforts possible and give you the opportunity to both listen to and watch what we come up with. We currently have just about 500 patrons. Our next goal is to get to six hundred.

I should also point out that Benjamin Reynolds books is the current Zero Books Book Club title, so if you enjoy this podcast you should consider signing up for the book club through patreon.

Harvey J Kaye is currently the Director of the Center for History and Social Change at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. He is the author of The Fight for the Four Freedoms, Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, "Why do Ruling Classes Fear History" and Other Questions and many other books, including one that we are currently negotiating to publish through Zero Books. That book is tentatively entitled Take Hold of Our History: Make America Radical Again. Harvey Kaye, thanks for coming on the Zero Books podcast.

This episode features an introduction recorded from the Lain family Thanksgiving Day dining room table.

If you like this week’s podcast you should support us on Patreon. Patreon supporters receive access to a second podcast every week. Our patrons are helping us continue and expand our online production including doing more podcasts like Symptomatic Redness and expand the content on our youtube channel.

Walter Benn Michaels is a well known literary theorist and the author of political books such as The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and essays like The Beauty of a Social Problem. He is a controversial guest and one I was glad to talk to especially in the context of the reaction to my video critiquing intersectionality.

If you like this week’s podcast you should support us on Patreon. Patreon supporters receive access to a second podcast every week. Our patrons are helping us continue and expand our online production including doing more podcasts like Symptomatic Redness and expand the content on our youtube channel. We currently have 493 patrons and we’re hoping to reach 500 patrons by this time next week.

Zero Books author Rob Larson returns to discuss his most recent writing project on the digital landscape and capitalism. We discuss Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, MySpace, and Usenet and the utopian promise of this series of tubes known as the internet. How much of the US GDP comes from digital content? Does Mark Zuckerberg own our identities? Are we all unpaid laborers producing content for Google?

Michael Brooks is the host of the Michael Brooks Show, the co-host of the Majority Report, and now an author for Zero Books. In this episode, we discuss the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and the rising right-wing populism around the world.

If you like this week’s podcast you should support us on Patreon. Patreon supporters receive access to a second podcast every week. If you’re curious about it then watch this space this coming weekend as we’ll be releasing a special edition of Inside Zero Books with Rob Larson that will be available for everyone in order to entice you to support us. Our patrons are helping us continue and expand our online production including doing more podcasts like Symptomatic Redness and expand the content on our youtube channel. We currently have 493 patrons and we’re hoping to reach 500 patrons by this time next week.

Mateus Grazina is a 27-year-old Brazilian artist living in São Paulo working on a television show for the Cartoon Network about a school-aged penguin named Oswaldo. He is part of what might be called the algorithmic left and in this episode of the podcast we discuss the 2018 presidential election in Brazil, the campaign and victory of the far right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, the recent struggles and the judicial coup that struck the Brazilian Worker’s Party, and the consequences of both the Brazilian recession and the carwash scandal.

If you like this podcast consider supporting us on patreon. Our patreon supporters are helping us continue to produce this podcast and our youtube videos.

Amir of Cold Dark Stars joins C Derick Varn to discuss the over-complexity of capitalism, planning, and understanding dynamic systems. Amir is a Ph.D. student in theoretical astrophysics trying to resist the tyranny of over-specialization. Cold Dark Stars is his notebook for exploring issues concerning society,  philosophy of science,  and capitalism, from a Left perspective using his scientific training as a lens. The name of the blog is a reference to a neutron star – the cold, dead shell left behind after a massive star consumes all its fuel and blows up as a supernova.

Symptomatic Redness is a show on political economy and historical analysis hosted by C. Derick Varn and Amogh Sahu. They interview various people on the subject of economics and politics from a historical materialist perspective and look at alternate modes of economic and political organization as well as offering commentary.

Symptomatic Redness is a show on political economy and historical analysis hosted by C. Derick Varn and Amogh Sahu. They interview various people on the subject of economics and politics from a

historical materialist perspective and look at alternate modes of economic and political organization as well as offering commentary.

The following podcast was recorded at the request of a former Zero Books author named Nicolas Hausdorf after I mentioned on my blog that, in light of the positions he'd taken in essays written for a reactionary online journal, that we would no longer be publishing his work.

In 2015 we published Nicolas Hausdorf’s book Superstructural Berlin, a “frivolous” work that plays around with critical theory in order to provide the reader with an impressionistic picture of Berlin’s nightlife, drug culture, and tourism industry. Since the publication of his book with Zero, Nicolas has moved to the right. Given his transformation politically Zero Books won’t be publishing his work again. Because he was offended to discover our intent not to publish him and because he took to twitter to object, I invited him onto the podcast in order to explain the decision to him.

I want to remind listeners that Zero Books produces two podcasts every week, one for free and one for people who support us on Patreon. We also run a youtube channel featuring video essays from myself and the Zero Books team, and we have just started a Zero Books reading group. The next book on our reading list will be Stuart Walton’s Neglected or Misunderstood: Introducing Theodor Adorno, and Patrons who support us at $15 a month receive access to the book and an invitation to an online discussion group.

The following podcast was recorded at the request of a former Zero Books author named Nicolas Hausdorf after I mentioned on my blog that, in light of the positions he'd taken in essays written

for a reactionary online journal, that we would no longer be publishing his work.

In 2015 we published Nicolas Hausdorf’s book Superstructural Berlin, a “frivolous” work that plays around with critical theory in order to provide the reader with an impressionistic picture of

Berlin’s nightlife, drug culture, and tourism industry. Since the publication of his book with Zero, Nicolas has moved to the right. Given his transformation politically Zero Books won’t be

publishing his work again. Because he was offended to discover our intent not to publish him and because he took to twitter to object, I invited him onto the podcast in order to explain the decision

to him.

I want to remind listeners that Zero Books produces two podcasts every week, one for free and one for people who support us on Patreon. We also run a youtube channel featuring video essays from

myself and the Zero Books team, and we have just started a Zero Books reading group. The next book on our reading list will be Stuart Walton’s Neglected or Misunderstood: Introducing Theodor Adorno,

and Patrons who support us at $15 a month receive access to the book and an invitation to an online discussion group.