Bungacast

On your questions and criticisms.   Bumper edition of Aufhebonus Bonus where we discuss whether we're technologically determinist with regard to artificial intelligence; whether the left should be bulding stuff; why criticising wokeness is boring; work, retirement and time; more on family abolition; and everyone's favourite topic – the PMC/new elite, etc.   Event: The Professional-Managerial Class...

On reactionary feminism.    [ Patreon Exclusive ]   We continue our discussions on contemporary feminism by looking at the diametric opposite of the atomistic vision presented by Sophie Lewis: the conservative, communitarian approach advanced by Mary Harrington.     Harrington is critical of 'Progress Theology'. What does that mean, beyond rejecting new orthodoxies on gender – does that mean rejec...

RIP Silvio   Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi died on 12 June 2023 at the age of 86. In this special episode, we say goodbye to the towering figure of the End of History, and explore how the contradictions he exemplified spoke to our age.    Contributions in order of appearance: Mattia Salvia Alice Oliveri Nadia Urbinati  Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti Paolo Gerbaudo  Thomas Fazi  Pier Pa...

Silvio Berlusconi is no more. In mourning of our evil patron saint's passing, we're unlocking this previously paywalled episode in which we discuss a cinematic depiction of the big man. Keep an eye out for more on Berlusca coming out from us in the next days! ——— We discuss Paolo Sorrentino's "Loro" (2018), a dreamlike cinematic depiction of Silvio Berlusconi. Does the film succeed in capturing Si...

On power, values and class.   [ Patreon Exclusive ]   British professor Matt Goodwin joins us to talk about his recent new book Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics published earlier this year with Penguin. Matt has argued that a new elite has come to dominate public life, leading institutions and the cultural industries in Britain and across the wider Western world, and that they ar...

On work stoppages and work-doings. Ben Hickman, published poet and senior lecturer in English at the University of Kent , joins us to discuss his project on different understandings of work, or rather, The Work.  What is The Work and why is it so pernicious? Ben wrote a piece for Compact regarding how the American poet and radical professor Audre Lorde transformed the way we think about work. We t...

On Martin Hägglund's This Life. We continue on the theme of freedom by discussing Martin Hägglund's case for 'democratic socialism'. In this episode, we leave the book itself to one side and attempt to "put the concepts to work".  We survey the many intelligent responses the book has generated and discuss what their strengths and weaknesses are.   Is 'secular faith' just a therapeutic ethos to do...

On family abolition. [ Patreon Exclusive ] Amber A'Lee Frost joins us to talk through recent radical proposals to do away with the family as an institution. Author Sophie Lewis claims that "ever since the capitalist victory over the long Sixties, the shout for abolition of the family has been buried beneath a strange kind of shame”, but that now it’s back. Why? What problems does family abolition...

On utopia and individualism. Renowned intellectual historian and critic Russell Jacoby joins us to talk about his lifetime of left critique. We discuss his early criticisms of psychology in light of the advance of therapy culture over the past 50 years, before moving on to the question of utopianism. Will the breakdown of the neoliberal era lead to new utopian thinking? Does enthusiasm for a unive...

On Turkey's elections. Alp Kayserilioglu joins us to talk about a crucial election. Erdogan’s rule is seriously threatened for the first time, with high inflation biting into living standards.  Who are the main candidates and do what they propose? Where does AKP draw its support from, and what has sustained its legitimacy? We discuss the supposed supposed culture war between conservative Islamic v...

On who owns the power. Matt Huber joins us to discuss his article, "Socialist Politics and the Electricity Grid", and how organised labour is central to a politics of plenty. What is the grid and who owns it? What are the limitations of a "100% renewables" approach?  On the politics of energy, the left is divided in a similar way to the ruling class. How do we move from a strategy of 'blocking' (p...

On Nigeria's 'end of the end of history'. Sa'eed Husaini from The Nigerian Scam podcast joins us to reflect on all things Nigeria: oil, debt, corruption and February's election. What was all that hype about the 'outsider' who wasn't much of an outsider? Has the country's populist moment passed? More Nigerians are falling into poverty due to low economic growth, while the state is due to spend 96%...

On Martin Hägglund's This Life. [ Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive ] We continue on the theme of freedom by discussing Martin Hägglund's case for 'democratic socialism'. Would we actually work under socialism, or do we need the threat of starvation or the promise of profit to motivate us? And what, if anything, is to structure all that free time we would gain? Why is Hägglund's critique of religion...

On history-ending technology.   [ Patreon Exclusive ]   The economist Tyler Cowen recently suggested that radical technological change today marks a turning point in history. Is he right, and how would we evaluate such a claim?   Should we be sceptical about these big claims, especially given all the Silicon Valley-driven hype around AI? Or is 'radical agnosticism' the right stance?   And what abo...

On the US cultural climate. Renowned/notorious writer Norman Finkelstein joins us to discuss the themes of his latest and last book, I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It! What unites the leading intellectual proponents of wokeness today, people like Ibram X Kendi or Kimberlé Crenshaw? How do they differ from anti-racist and liberationist heroes of the past? What continuities are there between to...

On your questions & criticisms. [ Patreon Exclusive ] Is the Left dead? Did the turn to culture really kill it? Or is the nostalgia for the post-war Left the real problem? We also debate what the function of imperialism in Africa is; the 'pro-worker' conservatives in the US; surveillance of app workers; what economic growth is for; and whether to f**k models. 

On Inhuman Power. [Unlocked episode from Bungacast 'Reading Club', originally released 6 December 2022]  Contemporary capitalism is possessed by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) question – one of the few areas today in which capitalists still seem to have ambition. Why is this so, and is there something about AI that gets to the nub of what capitalism is, as a mode of production? Is capitalism wit...

On cracked-up capitalism. Historian of ideas Quinn Slobodian joins us again, this time to discuss his latest book, Crack-up Capitalism – the vision of a global capitalism with its constituent nation-states perforated by ‘zones’ shorn of any national oversight or democratic accountability. We talk through these archetypal zones encompassing deregulation, investment and sweatshop labour, ranging fro...

On Martin Hägglund's This Life. We continue on the theme of freedom. In this episode, we look at what Martin Hägglund describes as 'spiritual freedom', which can ultimately be seen as a question of what we do with our time. Across the two chapters in question, Hägglund ties together his philosophical vision rooted in the notion of mortality and temporal life, with a social critique that draws on H...

On depicting dystopia. Acclaimed cartoonists, writers and artists Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson join us for something a little different: to talk about their new comic book, Justice Warriors. Set in a grotesquely unequal world, a police procedural (of sorts) encounters an astrology-based social movement seeking justice. We talk about how dystopian fiction often serves to manufacture consent and about...

On geopolitical competition over Africa. [ Patreon Exclusive ] In light of the 'new Cold War', we look at what the US, Europe, Russia and China's respective "pitches" are to African countries – what are they selling? And we examine the factors that contribute to Africa's place in geopolitics today: Chinese hunger for raw materials, the global war on terror, the green energy transition, drug and pe...

On the crisis of crisis.   Bulgarian critical theorist Albena Azmanova joins us to discuss her widely-discussed 2020 book, Capitalism on Edge . We talk critical theory, the paradox of emancipation, her criticisms of Thomas Piketty and why we should be thinking in terms of precarity capitalism, not neoliberalism.   Albena also discusses her concept of the ‘crisis of the crisis of capitalism’ - how...

On the left's understanding of freedom. We continue our talk with Steve Hall and Simon Winlow, social scientists in the northeast of England, about their new book, The Death of the Left: Why We Must Begin From the Beginning Again . This is followed by the After Party, where we debate the extent to which Thatcher 'sold' freedom and what the left's understanding of liberty is. To gain access to epis...

On what comes after neo-liberalism.   [ Patreon Exclusive ]   After 40 years of neo-liberalism, governments are inching their way to some new settlement, under the pressure of repeated crises, as well as populist upsurges. In this episode we try to take a political, not academic, approach to the question. This is not about categorising and labelling, but about understanding what the stakes are in...

On Martin Hägglund's This Life. [ Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive ] We begin the 2023 Reading Club with the theme of FREEDOM. In this episode, we examine Martin Hägglund's arguments for secular faith presented in the first half of his book. Is Hagglund right in arguing that much of religious belief, especially in relation to morality, is actually motivated by secular faith? Hägglund's enemy is not...