Zero Squared

Responding to some recent Zero Books podcasts (The Lenin Legend and Did Marx Hate Liberals?) Chris Cutrone returns to discuss an essay he wrote in 2011 entitled "Lenin's Liberalism." Relevant Essay Lenin's Liberalism by Chris Cutronehttps://platypus1917.org/2011/06/01/lenins-liberalism/

Christine Louis-Dit-Sully is a freelance writer, and she is currently researching for a second PhD. Her research is focused on the issues of race, identity, social justice, and the demand for ‘safe spaces’ in US and UK universities. Her book from Zero Books is entitled “Transcending Racial Divisions: Will You Stand By Me” and in it, she examines the origins of racial thinking and the relationship between race and culture.

Paul Mattick's essay "The Lenin Legend" was published in 1935. Mattick's essay begins with these lines: "The yellower and more leathery the skin of the mummified Lenin grows, and the higher the statistically determined number of visitors to the Lenin Mausoleum climbs, the less are people concerned about the real Lenin and his historical significance." In this video Djene Rhys Bajalan and Kuba Wrzesniewski join Doug Lain to discuss the essay and whether Mattick's polemic holds up today.

Derick Varn and Douglas Lain return to discuss Paul Mattick Sr.'s 1939 essay "Roosevelt's 'New' New Deal." Paul Mattick was a council communist and left critic of Bolshevism. Mattick was heavily influenced by the work of Henryk Grossman, but unlike Grossman, he was a critic of Leninism. His essay on the New Deal argued that support for the New Deal was crippling the workers movement.

Since its emergence in the middle of the twentieth century, the American Empire has been fueled by the search for an enemy. This episode of Zero Squared features a conversation with Daniel Bessner features a conversation about Karl Schmidt, the friend/enemy distinction, the cold war, and American Empire's role in the world today.

Derick Varn and Douglas Lain discuss the failings of a sect of Trotskyism known as "Political Marxism" after discussing just what Chris Cutrone might have meant when he asked Doug to join his effort to create a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat." Can Marx's ideas become politically relevant today? What are the impediments to socialism today? Relevant Essays:The ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ in Marx and Engels by Hal Draperhttps://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/hal-draper/article2.htmIs There Anything to Defend in Political Marxism by Neil Davidsonhttps://isreview.org/issue/91/there-anything-defend-political-marxism

Following up on a panel discussion for the Platypus Affiliated Society, Chris Cutrone stops by to ambush Douglas Lain about whether he'd support a "dictatorship of the proletariat." Other topics include whether Christopher Lasch was a conservative or a socialist, the nature of bourgeoise justice, the political character of Donald Trump, and what it means to be an aging Gen Xer today.

Glenn Edward Greenwald is an American journalist, author, and former attorney. He is the author of the book "Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil," and the King of Twitter. In this conversation he discusses the corruption in Bolsonaro's Brazil and why it is that the American left no longer embraces him.

Dr. Elena Louisa Lange is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer of Japanese Studies at the University of Zurich. Her current research focuses on the reception of Marx's Critique of Political Economy in 20th century Japan, and especially on the critical analysis of its interpretation in the influential economist Uno Kôzô (1897-1977). She views her work roughly situated in the reconstruction movement of the Critique of Political Economy today known as the "Neue Marx-Lektüre" (especially the work of Helmut Brentel) and the legacy of critical Hegelian Marxism. Her teaching broadly covers the intellectual history of modern Japan, with an emphasis on modern philosophy, sociology (critical theory), the history of Marxism, postmodernism, the student and the New Left movement. Joshua Depaolis is an independent researcher on Marxist theory and an editor at an upcoming journal called CounterAttack which was also the name of an anti-communist journal in the 1940s and 50s.

Jesse Singal is a contributing writer at NY Magazine and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, The Boston Globe, The Daily Beast, and other outlets. He is also one of the most hated men on the internet and the target of a perpetual defamation campaign. He is the co-host of the podcast Blocked and Reported, and the author of a new book entitled the Quick Fix.

Has the American left been captured by the Democratic Party? Was Bernie Sanders just a sheep dog after all? Can we build a movement for socialism in the Biden era? Margaret Kimberley is the author of PREJUDENTIAL: a concise, authoritative exploration of America’s relationship with race and black Americans through the lens of the presidents who have been elected to represent all of its people. Relevant Books Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents.

Patrick Higgins is replacing C Derick Varn in this week's Pop the Left. In this episode, we discuss the collection The Science and Passion of Communism. What does Amadeo Bordiga have to offer today's left? What are his limits? Is Central Planning enough?

The coronavirus pandemic, the deepening economic crash, dangerously divisive political responses, and exploding social tensions have thrown an already declining American capitalist system into a tailspin. In this video the economist Richard D. Wolff discusses how capitalism works and doesn't work as he describes his new book from Democracy at Work "The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself" and Douglas Lain tries to set up a conversation on State Capitalism and Workers Co-Ops for the parrot room. Democracy at Workhttps://www.democracyatwork.info/Relevant BooksThe Sickness is the System by Richard Wolffhttps://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/richard-d-wolff/the-sickness-is-the-systemSubscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks​​​Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/​​​Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books​​​Zero Books Manifesto: The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thin

Neal Trotter is a philosophy hobbyist and enthusiast interested in critically thinking with others. He reads philosophy books (primarily classics) and discusses them on Youtube. In this video Neal discusses Kierkegaard, despair, and the power of philosophy.

This conversation with Slavoj Zizek was inspired by a previous interview with Michael Albert. After discussing Albert's ideas about participatory economics, Douglas Lain mentioned that unlike Chomsky and Albert, he believed that critical theory was important to the struggle for socialism and mentioned that Slavoj Zizek's Hegelian leftism was particularly interesting. Albert disagreed. In an effort to clear the air, Lain invited Zizek and Albert to appear on the channel and discuss the matter. Only Zizek agreed to appear.

Are there reactionaries in our midst, people with a right-wing agenda pretending to be leftist? Is "The Bellows," the podcast "What's Left?," Malcolm Kyeyune, part of some secret red/brown alliance? What about Red Scare, Chapo, or even Zero Books? In this Pop the Left conversation Derick Varn and Douglas Lain evaluate two essays from the publication "The Bellows" before discussing just how to handle the possibility of right-wing infiltration of the left.

Derick Varn and Shalon van Tine discuss the writings of Lasch. Derick Varn is the co-host of Pop the Left, a poet, a reader/editor at Zero Books, and an editor at Former People.Shalon van Tine is the co-author of a forthcoming book on Christopher Lasch with C. Derick Varn. She is currently studying for her Ph.D. in American cultural and intellectual history from Ohio University where she is a research fellow with the Contemporary History Institute. She is an associate media editor at Former People.

The hosts of the This Is Revolution Podcast join Douglas Lain to discuss the socialism of Adolph Reed and Walter Benn Michaels. This is Revolution is a new addition to the Zero Books lineup, coming out on the channel every Wednesday with great conversations about socialism and the left.

Derick Varn and Douglas Lain discuss last week's riot at the Capitol Building and the AOC vs. Jimmy Dore debate. Along the way the topics of standpoint epistemology, class consciousness, and the difference between a coup and a revolution will be explored.

This interview explores how "Marxist" ideas, when disconnected from Marx's own theory especially in Capital, can lead radicals in a multitude of directions, including to the right. The subject of the interview is Mickey Kaus.Mickey Kaus is a journalist and political blogger who started the website Kausfiles in 1999. He has written for the New Republic, Newsweek, Slate and the Daily Caller and he is the author of the book “The End of Equality.” He the co-founder of bloggingheads.tv along with Robert Wright and he appears weekly with Robert in their parrot room.