Everyday Anarchism

Amit Chaudhuri joins me to discuss his new collection of essays, Incompleteness . In these essays and his novels, Amit is constantly searching for new language that will acknowledge the instability and flux of the world around us. It is intellectual anarchy of the highest order, as well as artistically breathtaking. You can find all of Amit's books published by NYRB here: https://www.nyrb.com/coll...

Kim Stanley Robinson comes back to discuss Aurora , his novel of a generational starship, in which generations of humans are born, live, and die onboard without ever seeing a planet. We discuss the generational starship as a science fiction genre, whether humans will ever be able to travel to the stars, and what it would mean for science fiction if we can't. We also take a detour into the question...

Dan Chiasson joins me to discuss his combined Bernie and Burlington biography, Bernie for Burlington , and the connections between Bernie's socialism and Mamdani's socialism. You can purchase Dan's book here: https://flyleafbooks.com/book/9780593317495 Here's Dan's article about Mamdani: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/11/06/have-you-met-z-zohran-mamdani/ And we discuss Corey Robin's piece on...

For almost 20 years, PM Press has been publishing brilliant anarchist books, including many covered on this podcast. Co-Founder Ramsey Kanaan joins me to discuss what PM Press does, how it works on anarchist lines, and why they need to own their own building to secure their future. If you'd like to contribute to that future, here's the fundraising link for the merch page, which also has the GoFund...

Leonard Williams, who was my second guest on this podcast back in November of 2021, returns to talk about Trump's presidency over the past year, what it means, and what we can do to fight it. To hear more from Leonard, here's his 2024 podcast on what to expect from the Trump regime: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-hbbe4-17349e4 And here's Leonard's Substack: https://crosspollination.substack.com/ No...

Ray Dorsey joins me to discuss The Parkinson's Plan , his new book about fighting and hopefully ending the disease. Ray and his co-author Michael S. Okun show that Parkinson's is primarily caused by human-made chemicals, chemicals we can stop using. As with climate change or ultraprocessed foods, we've made an environment that's sickening us. Now it's time to make a new, healthier world. You can l...

The modern anarchist movement began in 1999, when the World Trade Organization met in Seattle in order to create a set of rules which would require every country to accept the worst excesses of capitalism. Waiting for them in Seattle was a loose coalition of anarchists, farmers, organized labor, punks, Zapatistas, and giant puppets. Team Puppet won. D.W. Gibson's new book One Week to Change the Wo...

Ever since C. Thi Nguyen appeared on the podcast, I've been trying to use games to understand more about the relationship between rules and life. Jay Dragon, whose game Wanderhome is almost ruleless, joins me to discuss games, rules, and anarchy, and we especially talk about how we can analyze oppressive real-world systems as if they're games. Here are some links for more from Jay: https://possumc...

Robin Schuldenfrei rejoins me to talk more Bauhaus! In this episode, we discuss her book Luxury and Modernism , covering the complexities of the Bauhaus, which had a leftwing ethos but produced luxury objects, and made them by hand to appear machine made. Robin talks us through how the contradiction between luxury and egalitarianism ran from Morris's arts and crafts movement to the Bauhaus, and mo...

John McGowan joins me to discuss Liberty as Independence , Quentin Skinner's new book about the way that our ideals of liberty were formed in in 17th and 18th century debates. The book covers legendary figures, such as Hobbes, Milton, Locke, Swift, Paine, and Jefferson, as well as many lesser-known figures that they engaged with. For more from John McGowan, here's the link to his blog: https://jzm...

Nathan Gelgud joins me to discuss Reel Politik , a comics collection about a group of Brechtian revolutionaries who take over the movie theatre they work in. Nathan and I discuss our shared love for movies, the radical nature of paying attention to a movie screen, and The Chelsea Theate r, a local movie theatre in Chapel Hill that Nathan and I both love (I even worked there!). Many thanks to Bruce...

Pastor Micah joins me to share a radical reading of the Book of Genesis in which wealth isn't a blessing on God's people, but a curse! I recently appeared on Micah's podcast, The Word in Black and Red , to discuss the 10 Commandments with Micah. That link is here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s-2-20-exodus-19-20-arrival-at-mt-sanai-the-ten-commandments/id1682991552?i=1000730399185 I also...

Alfie Kohn returns to the show to discuss his new podcast, the role of teachers in social progress, and why someone's view on chatbots in the classroom tells you eveything you need to know about their view of education. You can listen to Kohn's Zone wherever you get your podcasts, or get it straight from his website: https://www.alfiekohn.org/podcasts/

It's not your imagination: everything is getting worse. And there's a reason why.

More than any other individual, Henry Fonda was a symbol for better, more leftist, more social democratic America, from The Grapes of Wrath to 12 Angry Men. He even played an English professor who faced cancellation for teaching anarchist literature! Then in the 1960s, he was the literal father figure that New Left Hollywood figures Jane and Peter Fonda were rebelling against. And Henry let himsel...

According to conventional history, the last 12,000 years has seen the steady march of progress from primitive savagery to enlightened civilization. In the age of Trump, Elon, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Putin, Xi, Orbán, Netanyahu, Erdoğan, and Khamenei, this story can't be true. Luke Kemp joins me to offer another story, one in which mutual aid is what makes humans special - and what historians call "civi...

Happy 4th Anniversary to Everyday Anarchism! For this year's anniversary episode, Ruth Kinna comes on to talk about a couple of Hollywood Westerns: Fort Apache (John Ford, 1948) and Rancho Notorious (Fritz Lang, 1952). Hollywood Westerns are about law and order, violence and vigilantism, community and individualism, savagery and civilization, and imperialism and resistance. They're perfect for ill...

In normal cinema, the goal of the director is to control the audience, to direct their gaze, to dictate their emotions. What does it mean when directors make movies where the audience is allowed to decide what the film means to them? Legendary filmmaker Paul Schrader (screenwriter of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull ; director of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and First Reformed) , joins me to discus...

Alyssa Battistoni joins me to discuss her new book Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature . Capitalist theory generally describes nature as a "free gift." If gifts are already free, why does capitalism have to claim that nature is a "free gift"? And why does capitalism keep declaring that nature is "worth" some billions or trillions of dollars? Alyssa and I discuss the tragic, yet comic...

Alex comes back on the podcast and we try to separate liberalism and anarchism, with some success! (I think the problem is that what Alex and I agree on is democratic socialism - so liberal socialism and anarchist socialism end up pretty close). The business of basketball is our central example, so sorry if that part bores you to tears. Being bored by the business of basketball is more than reason...

Lyndal Roper joins me to discuss her book The Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War . 500 years ago, German peasants learned that Martin Luther had declared that they should be free. They agreed - and Europe was plunged into war.

Alexandre Lefebvre, author of Liberalism as a Way of Life , joins me to discuss the many ways that anarchism and liberalism are compatible. Later this month, you'll here Alexander back on the show, as we try to divorce the two traditions.

In celebration of his new album Winged Victory , Folksinger Willi Carlisle joins me to discuss the connections between folk music and leftism, especially anarchism. I love all of Willi's albums. Here's his website: https://www.willicarlisle.com/

Everyday Anarchism goes back to where it all began: the romantic anarchism of J.R.R. Tolkien. Meredith Veldman, author of Fantasy, The Bomb, and the Greening of Britain , joins me to talk about the romantic protest underlying The Lord of the Rings. We discuss the romantic quest for reintegration at the heart of the novels, the appeal that romanticism has for both anarchists and fascists, and why P...

My colleague David Hill rejoins the show to discuss Twilight of the Idols, one of Nietzsche's last works, and one in which Nietzsche directly discusses anarchism. In addition to Nietzsche's putdowns of anarchists, David and I also discuss the ancient Greeks in Nietzsche's thoughts, the unsavory aspects of Nietzsche's philosphy, and Nietsche's attacks on liberalism. For background to this conversat...