Class

In this episode, we talk with Aziz Rana about the struggle for democracy and America’s Constitutional Bind.  The interview is split into two parts.  Part two will be released in two weeks.  You can now click on the “Send us a Text Message” link at the top of the episode description to share your thoughts on the episode.  This episode's prompt: should socialists care about the Constitution? Wh...

Send us a Text Message. This is the second part of our conversation with Sanjiv Gupta and Paul Heideman about U.S. politics, conflict within the Republican Party, and the current state of American democracy. We invited Saniv and Paul back onto the podcast as a follow-up to their 2022 presentation at the Socialism Conference in Chicago.  Sanjiv Gupta is a member of the River Valley DSA chapter in W...

In today’s episode, we talk with Sanjiv Gupta and Paul Heideman about U.S. politics, conflict within the Republican Party, and the current state of American democracy. We invited Saniv and Paul back onto the podcast as a follow-up to their 2022 presentation at the Socialism Conference in Chicago.  Sanjiv Gupta is a member of the River Valley DSA chapter in Western Massachusetts and a sociologist a...

This episode is an attempt to make the first part of the Communist Manifesto, the part called “Bourgeois and Proletarians” intelligible for some one knew to socialism. This text is a part of the DSA NPEC “What is Capitalism?” curriculum .  Written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, this is one of the foundational texts of the socialist movement. The first chapter covers the expansion of ca...

Achieving the liberation of the queer community requires realizing the intersecting nature of all U.S. cultural oppressions — including class oppression — ties the liberation of all to the end of capitalism. Today, queer oppression is being used not only to sustain capitalism but to help grow fascism. When so many people’s personal hierarchy of needs requires them to spend their limited resources...

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote that “the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.” Almost two centuries later, the battle for democracy continues. Today, economic precarity and social upheavals have led many to question our present political system. In these times, DSA’s positio...

Local DSA chapters have been conducting what is called Socialist Night School. Socialist  Night School is a democratic space for people to participate in the education process.  In today’s episode we talk with Guy Brown, Molly Culhane and Evan Moravansky. They are members of the National Political Education Committee. Evan is the chair. They will explain more about what the National Political Educ...

Today we are talking with members of the Chicago Teachers Union, Ayesha Qazi, David Stieber and Hadeil Abdelfattah. As you may remember from our episode on the victory Chicago’s mayor, a former CTU member, Chicago’s students and educators have lived through a neoliberal hell. From 2003 to 2013 Chicago closed 50 schools, only making conditions for students worse. These closures moved the members of...

DSA is becoming a true working class organization. Today we are continuing our conversation with three past and present members of DSA’s National Labor Commission , also known as the NLC. The National Labor Commission has several campaigns underway. We have talked about the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee or EWOC on this podcast a number of times. Ayesha Mughal was an NLC Steering Committ...

This has been an important year for the labor movement and for DSA. Workers are seeing the value in forming a union and using the credible threat of a strike to win better pay, working conditions and political power. Today we are speaking with three past and present members of DSA’s National Labor Commission , also known as the NLC. The National Labor Commission has several campaigns underway. We...

NPEC Presents: "Understanding the Israeli–Palestinian Colonial Conflict,” with featured speakers: Moshé Machover and Sumaya Awad. How should we understand what is taking place in Gaza and across occupied Palestine? What history do we need to know to understand and interpret the present? What can we do in the present to shape the future? Moshé Machover and Sumaya Awad will help us answer these...

This episode is going to be different from prior episodes. Today we’re going to be talking about psychoanalysis. Marx esteemed scientific rationality. Many, including many socialists, reject psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience. I have my own questions, honestly. Nonetheless, there is a significant branch of Marxism grounded in Freudian psychoanalysis, including controversial yet influential thinkers...

October 7, 2023 Hamas executed a surprise attack on military and civilian Israeli targets, killing over 1200 people and taking around 200 hostages. Israel’s response to Hamas’s horrific actions has once again been disproportionate and genocidal. We demand a ceasefire and condemn any attacks on civilians.  In recent years DSA has made solidarity with Palestine a priority. We already had plans to do...

Sara Nelson took office as the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO on June 1, 2014, and she is currently serving her second four-year term. Sara became a United Airlines Flight Attendant in 1996 and has been a union activist since nearly the beginning of her career, including serving as strike chair and leading communications for nearly 10 years at AFA’s Un...

Vivek Chibber is the guest on today’s episode, discussing his essay “Why the Working Class?” which maybe not so coincidentally is the name of our series. In this episode Vivek not only answers the question he proposes to answer, but he talks some about what socialism could look like, and DSA’s role to getting there. Vivek Chibber is a professor of sociology at New York University. He is the editor...

Early forms of socialism envisioned a better world for everyone, and before socialist theory workers fought for autonomy and respect from their bosses, but Marx and Engels played an important role uniting the workers movement and socialist movement. Marx’s pamphlet “Wage Labor and Capital” is a concise text for articulating how capitalism functions, and how it exploits the workers. Marx had not ye...

If you’ve been listening to this podcast for very long you probably already know the answer to the question “why the working class?” In some ways this question is the reason for existence for the podcast. We want to raise class consciousness. As members of the working class we have interests that do not align with the large business owners and investors. Only by coming together can we serve our in...

Today’s episode part 2 of a 2 episode series on the National Convention, one of the primary democratic mechanisms within the structure of DSA. To discuss the national convention Justin Charles from the NPC will return. We’ll also be joined by Renée Paradis. Both are members of the Platform and Resolutions Subcommittee. Links: 2023 DSA Convention 2023 DSA Convention Compendium (Resolutions) Registe...

Today’s episode will be the first of a 2 episode series on the National Convention, one of the primary democratic mechanisms within the structure of DSA. To discuss the national convention Justin Charles from the NPC will return. We’ll also be joined by Renée Paradis. Both are members of the Platform and Resolutions Subcommittee. Justin Charles is a member of North Brooklyn DSA, and has been a mem...

Something big has been happening in Chicago. If you have not heard, Chicago recently elected the most progressive mayor in the country. Brandon Johnson was endorsed by a variety of unions, especially the Chicago Teachers’ Union, of which he was previously a member and an organizer. He was also endorsed by Bernie Sanders.  In this episode we have Miles Kampf-Lassin, a journalist from In These Times...

What would a socialist economy look like? Sam Gindin stresses the importance of establishing the feasibility of an alternative socialist society for the development of a strong socialist movement. He presents a vision of a future socialism, and poses important questions that a socialist society will have to figure out. In this episode members of DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) discuss Sam...

Responding to the swelling socialist movement, Tarnoff builds on the work of Nicos Poulantzas and “Eurocommunism” to illustrate how growing a socialist movement requires both competing within the institutions of the state (for example through elections) and developing an autonomous layer of “people power” to act on the state. His essay blends an analysis of tactics and strategy for the socialist m...

Meagan Day, a DSA member and staff writer for Jacobin, wrote an essay in Vox to explain the goals of democratic socialism and respond to common misconceptions about democratic socialists. Since 2016, the mass support for self-declared democratic socialist Bernie Sanders for president and the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress brought democratic socialism into the limelight of mainstr...

Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, but the forces he represented and the ideas he furthered – the contemporary US right – have not gone away. These forces are continuing their efforts to push the US – both at in the electoral and the extra-parliamentary terrains – further towards their anti-democratic vision for the U.S. We hear from and ask questions of Bill Fletcher, John Huntington, and...

This is another bonus episode. This is the recording of a debate called “Path to an Accountable Party”, held on January 27, 2023. The debate covers Reform vs. Revolution, and how DSA should relate to the Democratic Party. This may be the biggest debate internally within DSA. This is why public discussions like this are important. They help our members hear arguments for different positions and dif...