Jacobin Radio

Socialism is in the air. But the idea of socialism is under attack—and not only from the Right. Within the Left itself, there is suspicion of an ideal many view as single-mindedly focused on economic issues and distant from other everyday sufferings, especially those of black and brown people.The underlying assumption is that socialism, a supposedly Western and white ideology, while capable of addressing economic injustices, can't speak to the lived experience of oppression and discrimination in the Global South and to oppressed groups elsewhere. Is there any validity in this criticism? We pose the question to Nivedita Majumdar, an associate professor of English at John Jay College and secretary of the Professional Staff Congress, the CUNY faculty and staff union.This is the third episode of The ABCs of Socialism, a four-part series taking up some of today's common questions asked about socialism. Each of those questions is also a chapter in The ABCs of Socialism, which was produced by Bhaskar Sunkara and the

What a moment to read, or to re-read, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, political scientist Corey Robin’s 2011 collection of essays — especially if you need to disabuse friends and family of the notion that Trump is some historic degradation of conservatism’s good name rather than a malignant, nasty outgrowth of a long history of violent reaction against left movements for equality. Robin is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center and a contributing editor at Jacobin. We’ll take a look back at The Reactionary Mind and discuss how its pre-Trumpian insights apply to a political moment quite that is quite different but, upon closer inspection, still all too familiar. A new edition of The Reactionary Mind is due out in September with new chapters on Trump and Trumpism, a chapter on Burke and his economic theory, and a chapter on Hayek, Nietzsche and neoliberalism. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Doug Henwood interviews the former Greek minister of finance Yanis Varoufakis, discussing the interminable euro crisis, austerity, Brexit, the nationalist international (Trump, Le Pen, etc.), and DiEM25, among other things. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Democratic Socialists of America are growing — suddenly and explosively. Last June ahead of the Democratic National Convention, DSA counted 6,500 members. Today, after a presidential bid from a self-proclaimed democratic socialist and Trump’s terrifying election, membership has grown to more than 19,000 and counting. People are considering socialism, long a dirty word in American politics, in far larger numbers than in decades past — especially young people. Today, Daniel Denvir talks to DSA National Political Committee member Sean Monahan and National Director Maria Svart to discuss some tough questions about the fight for socialism in the coming months and years, both for DSA members and those who aren't.You can support the Dig by visiting its Patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4839800 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We are happy to announce that we will be hosting journalist and author Doug Henwood’s show Behind the News on Jacobin Radio.In addition to writing a number of excellent books and many articles on finance and politics over the years, Henwood has hosted a consistently excellent radio show, interviewing experts on a wide range of topics both domestic and international. Behind the News is one of the best radio shows on the Left, and we’re proud to be a home for it. For his first show on Jacobin Radio, he interviews Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program on Ryancare, Obamacare, and the prospects for single-payer, and Cinzia Arruzza on what’s next after the March 8 women's strike. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Since leaving the joke-rap/not-joke-rap group Das Racist in 2012, Victor Vasquez, AKA Kool AD, has stayed busy. His many artistic endeavors—music, visual art, a novel, and even a kids book ('The Selfish Shellfish')—frequently seek to imagine life in a post-capitalist utopia.In an interview with Jacobin's Tanner Howard, he discusses gentrification in Oakland, "the hustle" under capitalism, and why Karl Marx would make a great rapper. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Suzi Weissman interviews longtime Marxist writer Mike Davis on the questions facing the Left in the wake of Donald Trump's victory. How did Hillary Clinton and Democrats lose this election so badly? How should we think about the white working class in Trump's win? Can the Sanders coalition be kept alive as an independent movement bridging the racial and cultural divides among American working people?You can read Mike Davis's piece "The Great God Trump and the White Working Class" at jacobinmag.com. The piece comes from the forthcoming first issue of Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, edited by Vivek Chibber and Robert Brenner.Mike Davis is the author of many books including Planet of Slums, City of Quartz, and Late Victorian Holocausts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sure, the concept of socialism sounds nice, but people aren’t very nice, right? Isn’t capitalism much more suited to human nature — a nature dominated by competitiveness and venality? Isn't socialism great in theory but terrible in practice? Adaner Usmani, a PhD candidate in sociology at New York University, answers these questions in a discussion with Jacobin's Jason Farbman.This is the second episode of The ABCs of Socialism, a four-part series taking up some of today's common questions asked about socialism. Each of those questions is also a chapter in The ABCs of Socialism, which was produced by Bhaskar Sunkara and the editors of Jacobin, and published by Verso Books. You can buy the book for just $5 at the Jacobin store: https://www.jacobinmag.com/store/The sessions are recorded at the Verso loft in Brooklyn, New York, in front of a live audience. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On the Left, few forms of mainstream journalism are more detested than political reporting. It often substitutes the horse race for substance, dresses up conventional inside-the-Beltway wisdom as real analysis, and resorts to the false balance of he-said-she-said instead of establishing facts. Political reporters took a serious hit after Donald Trump won the Republican primary and then the presidency, and Bernie Sanders mounted a real challenge to the Democratic Party’s anointed candidate. Trump is now using his bully pulpit to wage an assault on empirical reality, clinging to his own “alternative facts” and labeling the media as an opposition party purveying “fake news.” My guest today is Dave Weigel, a reporter at the Washington Post who is amongst the best in the game. Weigel has also worked for Slate and, in his early years, at the libertarian outlet Reason. He doesn’t come from the Left, but he gets us better than any mainstream reporter out there. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out informatio

Socialists put the working class at the center of their political vision. But why, exactly?Vivek Chibber, Professor of Sociology at New York University and the author of Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital, answers this question here, as well as capitalism's inability "to deliver the goods" for workers, who exactly workers are, the precarity of work today, and the problems with the twenty-first century labor movement. Chibber is in discussion with Jason Jacobin's Farbman.This is the first episode of The ABCs of Socialism, a four-part series taking up some of today's common questions asked about socialism.Each of those questions is also a chapter in The ABCs of Socialism, which was produced by Bhaskar Sunkara and the editors of Jacobin, and published by Verso Books. You can buy the book here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2219-the-abcs-of-socialismThe sessions are recorded at the Verso loft in Brooklyn, New York, in front of a live audience. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out informati

The Movement for Black Lives’ insistence that black lives matter is deceptively straightforward and minimal. But it has transformed black politics, and American politics as a whole. From the tension and contradiction of the Obama years, in which a black man became the most powerful person on earth but conditions continued to worsen for black people as a whole, the Movement for Black Lives erupted and made radical demands for social and economic justice, and to an end to police violence and mass incarceration. The movement now has to find a way forward in the time of Trump’s law-and-order backlash. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Episode 2 of Stockton to Malone. No interview here, just RL and Micah discussing RL's performance of the socialist equivalent of Kendrick Lamar's "Control" at the Young Democratic Socialists conference, Micah's years speaking with extreme vocal fry to atone for his white male privilege, that time Obama took the bowling alley out of the White House and replaced it with a basketball court, and RL's cousin who was in Kriss Kross.Follow us on Twitter at @RLisDead and @micahuetricht.Thanks to Tanner Howard for producing the show. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mass incarceration should be central to any analysis of American political economy. It's also a moral monstrosity. But before The New Jim Crow and anti-mass incarceration activists across the country loudly insisted this was the case, it received little attention. Marie Gottschalk, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics, and The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America. She talks with The Dig about prisons in American life. You can read Gottschalk's recent piece for Jacobin "Conservatives Against Incarceration?" here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/12/carceral-state-mass-incarceration-conservatives-koch-trump/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

American slaveholders before the Civil War oversaw an incredibly brutal economic system that generated enormous wealth for a tiny elite while denying enslaved Africans the most basic rights. But they also presided over American foreign policy, overseeing US territorial and economic expansion. As historian Matt Karp explains in This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy, they didn't just want an independent slaveholding south — they wanted to spread their empire of slavery to the entire United States and beyond. In November 2016, Karp spoke at the New School in New York City with historian Eric Foner, Dewitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and author of many books on the Civil War including Reconstruction and The Fiery Trial. Karp is an assistant professor of history at Princeton University and a contributing editor at Jacobin. Follow him on Twitter at @karpmj.Produced by Tanner Howard. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The horrors of the Trump administration have shown no signs of slowing in the month he has been in office. But so far, neither has the pushback we've seen in the streets. The protests have reminded Ellie Mae O'Hagan of the anti-austerity protests in the United Kingdom — both in terms of the hope they represent and the potential dangers and pitfalls they face. O'Hagan wrote about this in a recent article for Jacobin, "Lessons from the Anti-Austerity Movement," which you can read here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/lessons-from-the-anti-austerity-movement/ Ellie Mae O'Hagan is a frequent contributor to the Guardian who lives in London. Follow her on Twitter at @MissEllieMae. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Donald Trump's viciously xenophobic policies have put the word "sanctuary" on many people's lips. But immigrant rights organizers under Trump don't have to reinvent the wheel: the 1980s saw a vibrant sanctuary movement in response to US intervention in Central America.Hilary Goodfriend is a researcher based in San Salvador, El Salvador, who has covered Central America for Jacobin. Here, she talks about the sanctuary movement's history, its practical and ideological components, and the movement's lessons for today. You can read Goodfriend's article on the Central American sanctuary movement here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/sanctuary-movement-central-america-el-salvador-trump-deportations/ And you can follow her on Twitter at @HilaryGoodfrien.Produced by Tanner Howard. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

All eyes have turned to the judiciary. It’s the one potential institutional check on Trump on the federal level (aside from the national security state). But the judiciary, despite pretenses to the contrary, is fundamentally political. It has historically shred civil rights and economic protections more often than it has protected them.Today, Dan Denvir speaks to Jed Purdy about the judiciary and other matters. Purdy is a professor at Duke Law and the author of three books on American political identity including The Meaning of Property. His most recent book is After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene and he has published articles in many, many publications. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Salvadoran Civil War is one of the most brutal conflicts in recent history. The United States funded far-right, quasi-fascist forces who had no qualms with bathing the country in blood in the name of anti-communism. Few incidents illustrate this better than the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the country's top Catholic leader, whose brief period speaking out on behalf of the poor and against the military led to his murder while giving mass. Matt Eisenbrandt is the author of Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice, a fast-paced, often heartbreaking look into a uniquely depraved period of the Cold War. Eisenbrandt is a former attorney at the Center for Justice and Accountability, which brought a case in the United States against Romero's killers. Here, he walks through the history of the Salvadoran conflict and the attempts to pursue the architects of the archbishop's assassination in both the United States and El Salvador. See acast.

The first episode of Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman, featuring a wide-ranging interview with Bhaskar Sunkara and Robert Brenner that covers prospects for resistance with a rising anti-Trump sentiment but a weakened labor movement, the Democrats' refusal to learn any lessons from November's election, and the widespread support for a social-democratic agenda that the Left can capitalize on.Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin. Robert Brenner is the director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA, author of numerous books including The Economics of Global Turbulence, and coeditor with Vivek Chibber of Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, forthcoming from Jacobin. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Betsy DeVos is now Secretary of Education. A far-right billionaire heiress to a pyramid scheme — sorry, alleged pyramid scheme — who has never spent a day teaching but has devoted much of her career to dismantling public education, her tenure will likely prove disastrous for schools. But DeVos's nomination also drew unprecedented pushback, forcing a tie on her confirmation vote that Vice President Mike Pence had to break in her favor. Activists actually turned her away from a public school in Washington, DC, last week by blocking an entrance. While things look bleak for public education, there is also an opportunity for teachers and parents to fight back, as Megan Erickson, a public school teacher in Brooklyn, explains in this conversation. Erickson is a member of Jacobin's editorial board and the author of Class War: The Privatization of Childhood. You can read her articles for Jacobin here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/megan-erickson/ And buy her book here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/1954-class-w