Class

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...

Socialism 2022 Conference, Chicago Recording was taken from the “How Do We Get a New Constitution” session, of which “part 1” was released in the previous episode of Class Panelists: Amna Akbar, Aziz Rana The Left’s path to power is blocked by one of the oldest and least democratic founding documents in the world. Will it take a revolution to rewrite our Constitution? The recent Constituent Assemb...

Socialism 2022 Conference, Chicago “How Do We Get a New Constitution” Panelists: Aziz Rana The Left’s path to power is blocked by one of the oldest and least democratic founding documents in the world. Will it take a revolution to rewrite our Constitution? The recent Constituent Assembly in Chile may show a way forward. Aziz Rana is a professor of law at Cornell University.  He is the author of Th...

This episode features a panel discussion from the Socialism 2022 Conference in Chicago, moderated by Daphna Thier and discussing the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. Panelists include Tristan Bock-Hughes, Olivia Prager, and Gabriel Winant. Tristan is an organizer with the Illinois Nurses Association and formerly one of two staff with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. Through E...

Ahead of the 2023 DSA National Convention, please join us for a debate and discussion between National Political Committee members on the future of DSA. We'll dig into important political questions facing our organization and what the terrain looks like for us and for the left broadly. This call will also include an orientation on the format and structure of the Convention and Pre-Convention....

This episode features a panel discussion from the Socialism 2022 Conference in Chicago, moderated by Daphna Thier and discussing the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. Panelists include Elce Redmond, Tristan Bock-Hughes, Gabriel Winant, Teagan Harris, and Olivia Prager. Elce Redmond is a muckraker who has been both a community and union organizer for the past 36 years. For the last two year...

This is the second episode in a two-part series on the state of the labor movement in 2022 and what we expect in 2023, and why we as socialists care so much about the labor movement.  Daphna Thier, a DSA member and longtime bartender based in Brooklyn, recently stepped down as the chair of DSA National Political Education Committee (NPEC) and is now the Labor Education Coordinator at EWOC. You can...

In this episode Daphna Thier and Ryan Cowles ask a couple fellow labor organizers about the state of the labor movement, and why socialists care so much about labor. Daphna Thier is a DSA member and longtime bartender based in Brooklyn. She recently stepped down as the chair of DSA National Political Education Committee (NPEC), and is now the Labor Education Coordinator at EWOC. You can also find...

The Republican Party is the biggest threat to our liberal democracy, and we cannot depend on the liberals to defend our liberal democracy. How then should we as democratic socialists spearhead the fight for democracy and worker power? Socialism 2022 Conference, Chicago “The Crisis of American Politics: Socialists and Liberal Democracy”, part 2. Moderator: Griffin Mahon Panelists: Sanjiv Gupta, Pau...

The Republican Party is the biggest threat to our liberal democracy, and we cannot depend on the liberals to defend our liberal democracy. How then should we as democratic socialists spearhead the fight for democracy and worker power? Socialism 2022 Conference, Chicago “The Crisis of American Politics: Socialists and Liberal Democracy”, part 1. Moderator: Griffin Mahon Panelists: Sanjiv Gupta, Pau...

Bodily autonomy has been severely restricted by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. How can socialists organize to protect abortion rights where they exist, provide and expand access where they don’t, and win a permanent nationwide right to free and legal abortion? Socialism 2022 Conference, Chicago "Socialists in Defense of Abortion Rights" Panelists: Aileen Garza and Suz Warshell Moderator...

Featuring University of Massachusetts Amherst Sociologist Sanjiv Gupta and University of Massachusetts Amherst Economist David Kotz.  This episode is a part of a 4-part series on “What is Capitalism?” This series is accompanying the DSA National Political Education Committee’s curriculum packet, which can find our curriculum at https://education.dsausa.org/resources/ . This chapter, from a book pu...