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Historical materialism is the science of Marxism. It's the theory developed by Marx and Engels that explains how human societies develop and change over time based on economic organization. Like Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection, historical materialism serves as a powerful tool in understanding the world around us. It explains why societies are arranged the way that they are,...

Anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Being Black and fat in our capitalist, white-supremacist, ableist, heteronormative society is to live in a body that is subjected to a form of unique violence marked by policing, misdiagnosis, discrimination, abuse, trauma—the list goes on.  And anti-fatness and anti-Blackness are not simply two separate things—disparate nodes on a circuit of oppression—anti-fatness...

This is a free preview of the episode " Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism: An Introduction ." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, an...

It's been said that "the shortest path to the future is always one through the deepening of the past." But how do we balance the past, present, and future, when all three weigh so heavily on our consciousness and our social existence? Perhaps one way to find a balance—or at least to distill these various webbed threads of temporality—might be to pose them as questions: what can we learn from the p...

This is a free preview of the episode "Palestine Pt. 14: Decolonial Marxism w/ Patrick Higgins." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other...

Exhaustion . What a perfect and powerful word to describe our times. Exhausted bodies—over-worked, over-productive, over-stretched. Bodies pushed to their limits, treated like machines whose sole existence is to produce profit. Exhausted ecosystems—extracted, ruined, plundered. Viewed as nothing but raw material for the ceaseless flow of capital accumulation. Exhausted minds—hurried and harried, n...

This is a free preview of the episode "The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness w/ Da'Shuan Harrison," which will be unlocked in a few weeks. To can get early access to the full episode  by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog o...

Prefigurative politics, building the new within the old, exercising our muscles of collectivity and collaboration—muscles that have grown weak and atrophied under capitalist hegemony—these are all ideas and practices that play a crucial role in our revolutionary movements. And examples of prefiguration can and do take many interesting and inspiring forms—one of these forms is worker self-direction...

"This is the most important election of our lifetimes." "Voting for a third-party candidate? Might as well throw away your vote!" "You may not like her, but you've just got to hold your nose and vote for her — otherwise, Trump might win."  We're sure you've heard each of these lines many times — we know that we have. But, at some point you have to ask: how can every election be the most important...

This is a free preview of the episode "Disabled Ecologies w/ Sunaura Taylor." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here:  https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like sti...

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, or The DRC, is—despite being in one of the most resource-rich regions on the planet—one of the poorest countries in the world. It sits atop a wealth of minerals that form the central components to much of our technology in the 21st century, and yet, none of this wealth remains in the country. Well, almost none of it—there is of course some that is skimmed off...

This is a free preview of the episode "Western Marxism w/ Gabriel Rockhill." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like sti...

The Al-Aqsa Flood operation, which took place one year ago today, was perhaps one of the most important blows against U.S. imperialism that we've ever seen—both ideologically and materially. Nothing can ever be the same—and it shouldn't, because what we considered normal, if we even thought about it at all, was a nightmare for the vast majority of people on the planet. The Global South and the Res...

Oil is much more than just a source of energy—it's a commodity that has shaped—and has been shaped—by the forces of capitalism perhaps more so than any other commodity. The story of oil is one of monopoly capitalism, one of imperialism, one of cheap labor, resource extraction, ecosystem devastation, climate change, assassinations, environmental disasters, genocides—the list goes on. Oil is the com...

This is a free preview of the episode "Will the Revolution Be Funded? w/ Nairuti Shastry and Zac Chapman." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episode...

Capitalism's addiction to growth doesn't just show up in the external world. It can also be found inside us—in our manufactured desire for more and better. Not only do we have to keep wanting to keep the machine going, we have to keep wanting what is "scarce" and easily privatizable or commodifiable so that the capitalist class can continue to profit. Critical hedonism(s) is an approach to pleasur...

U.S. empire—the world's greatest enemy. U.S. imperialism is not a "single issue," it's directly connected to hundreds of millions of people's lives, capital accumulation and global inequality, climate change, fascism in the US, crumbling infrastructure, monopolies, and much, much more. U.S. imperialism is the issue that ties all of the other issues together, founded as it is on capital's need to a...

This is a free preview of the episode "Oil, Monopoly Capitalism, and Imperialism w/ Adam Hanieh." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and ot...

We're often told that it would be unfeasible for everyone on the planet to live good lives—that if there wasn't some degree of poverty—or at least lower living standards—in the rest of the world, then we'd blow right through the ecological limits of the planet. Even if it's not said explicitly, the argument is that some people need to be poor in order for us in the Global North to live good lives....

You can listen to the full episode "Nathan Fielder's 'The Curse'" by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which t...

Facts don't care about your feelings. Logic isn't fair. Reason isn't concerned with your emotions. These oft-regurgitated cliches hurled at the left by those on the right might sound familiar to you. Hey, maybe they've even been directed at you personally. And, aside from seeing these claims from the right as simply funny, they're also quite ironic. Because, when you actually dig down into the arg...

Weight loss has become a fully fledged industry in the United States—another classic trick by the capitalist class: manufacture a problem to make profits, and then sell a half-solution back to the population to purportedly address that problem. Are you experiencing health issues from the poisonous food manufacturing industry in the United States? No problem, we got you. Here's a drug.  You might h...

You can listen to the full episode "The Liberal Virus" by subscribing to our Patreon here:  https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you su...

Pan-African Marxist, underdevelopment theorist, guerrilla intellectual, father, husband, radical—these are all terms that we could use to describe Walter Rodney. You may know him from his classic text, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, you may know that he was assassinated at the age of 38 for his activism, or you may not know who he was at all—either way, his ideas and his influence have most lik...

You can listen to the full episode "Sex, Desire, and the Neoliberal Subject" by subscribing to our Patreon here:  https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—dependin...