Jacobin Radio

The new Netflix documentary WHAT'S NEXT: THE FUTURE WITH BILL GATES (2024) positions the Microsoft founder as "one of the good billionaires." But what are the limits to his brand of philanthropy? And how neutral and objective are these documentaries on the big streaming platforms? Luke welcomes Tim Schwab (author of The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire ) to discu...

The rise of the labor movement in the US constitutes one of the brightest spots on the political horizon. Auto workers were joined by academic workers, actors, writers, hotel workers, UPS teamsters won without striking, and union drives have hit Amazon, Starbucks, universities and other sectors. Are these union drives and strikes opening a new period, igniting a newly energized working class? Live...

Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years War on Palestine , talks about Israeli settler-colonialism and its imperial patrons. Aurélie Daher looks at Hezbollah and the challenges it faces after the assassination of its leader. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online...

Featuring Jake Werner on how the US and China entered into a New Cold War and why the whole world urgently needs an alternative international order that fosters great power cooperation.   Read Jake’s report A Program for Progressive China Policy quincyinst.org/research/a-program-for-progressive-china-policy/#executive-summary Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Our History is the F...

Forrest Hylton, author of a recent piece for the London Review of Books blog, talks about wildfires in Brazil and the political impotence of Lula’s administration. Edwin Ackerman discusses politics in Mexico as AMLO hands over power to Claudia Sheinbaum, having engineered a controversial overhaul of the judiciary. Read Edwin's article, "AMLO’s War on Neoliberal Corruption," originally published in...

Yoav Peled , Professor Emeritus of Tel Aviv University, is able to speak to us again for the first time since 2023. He helps chart the evolution of Israeli politics since the October 7 attack by Hamas, which was quickly followed by Israel's devastating war on Gaza, showing total disregard for the lives of Palestinians. That war is now extending to the North as Israel unleashes terror in Lebanon. A...

Over the last week, Israel has launched a full-scale attack on Lebanon as an extension of its campaign against Gaza. So far the air strikes have killed well over five hundred people. The attack on Lebanon has made the subject of this week’s podcast all the more relevant to the current situation. Mahdi Amel was a member of the Lebanese communist movement and one of the most important political thin...

Featuring Aslı Bâli and Aziz Rana on the history of left-wing internationalism from the Third Worldist currents that powered decolonization and struggles against neocolonialism through today’s renewed politics in solidarity with the Palestinian national liberation movement. Recorded in New York at Jewish Currents Live.  Support The Dig now at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Center of the World at UCPr...

Niobe Way, author of Rebels with a Cause , talks about the emotional and social lives of boys and what they’re telling us about society. Branko Milanovic, author of Visions of Inequality , reviews what economists have said about the topic over the centuries. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the g...

Bernie Sanders delivered the keynote speech at Progressive Central 2024, a conference held at the Chicago Teachers Union building just ahead of the Democratic National Convention. The two-day event posed progressive solutions to the crises undermining contemporary society and politics — many things missing from the convention itself. The session, introduced by Alan Minsky of Progressive Democrats...

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the second of what has become a three-part epilogue to Thawra (Revolution), The Dig's series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. This episode takes us from the disastrous Oslo Accords through the 2000 Camp David Summit and the eruption of the Second Palestinian Intifada. Then the 9/11 attacks, the War on Terror, the US destruction of Iraq, the Arab Sprin...

Is it ethical for a journalist to also act as a spy for a foreign government? Luke Lebrun of PressProgress joins us to consider the far-fetched claims of one of Canada's worst journalists, Adam Zivo. PLUS: In this very special episode, we catch up on some news items of Canadian interest, including the declining polling for Justin Trudeau's liberals, and the rising number of far-right Canadian infl...

Neil Sehgal, co-author of a study about the relationship between slaveholder ancestry and net worth among members of Congress, discusses his research. Emily Jashinsky gives a conservative’s view of the election. And Melissa Lyon, co-author of a recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper , talks about the effects of US teachers' strikes. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the w...

At the beginning of June this year, Emmanuel Macron called a snap election for the French National Assembly. The move came after the far-right party of Marine Le Pen, the National Rally, topped the poll in France’s European election. The party was widely expected to repeat that performance in the national election and form a government for the first time. But a left-wing alliance, the New Popular...

Featuring Amna Akbar, Gabe Winant, and Thea Riofrancos on the American political conjuncture: the centrality of Palestine, the contradictions of left electoralism, renewed liberal militarism, the return of Obama-ism, the state of the labor and climate movements—and more. Recorded live at Socialism 2024 in Chicago.  Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Unbuild Walls at haymarketbooks.org...

Robert Pausch of Die Zeit talks about the far right’s strong showing in German regional elections. Rob Larson , author of Mastering the Universe , looks at the obscene wealth of the superrich. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.c...

What if a movie about a corporate merger became the most popular movie of the year? Friends, you don't have to imagine it. We discuss DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (2024) and ponder the question that Vulture asked: "Is Shawn Levy the Future of Populist Filmmaking?" Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

Featuring Abdel Razzaq Takriti, this is the first of a two-part epilogue to Thawra (Revolution), our series on Arab radicalism in the 20th century. Today’s installment covers the Iranian Islamic Revolution’s huge impact across the Arab East alongside Saudi and Egyptian efforts to foster religious conservative movements in an effort to supplant and suppress the secular nationalist left. Plus the Ir...

Naomi Hossain  explains the uprising in Bangladesh that deposed PM Shekih Hasina. Then  Sandipto Dasgupta , author of  Legalizing the Revolution ,  examines the transformation of India from colony to nation through the drafting of its constitution.

Journalist  Marc Cooper  and historian  Robert Brenner , two long-time socialists, join Suzi to talk about the state of the election after a convention that lifted Democrats' spirits and Kamala Harris's chances to defeat Trump. The convention was historic in several ways: it was pro-union and the speakers were younger and more openly progressive on issues that matter. It a...

A Democratic National Convention takes place against a backdrop of protests against American imperial atrocities overseas... that's right, we're travelling back in time to 1968 with Haskell Wexler's MEDIUM COOL (1969). PLUS: So, have you heard about the DNC? Join us on Patreon for an extra episode every week - www.patreon.com/michaelandus "This National Post Columnist Says He Spied for a Foreign I...

Jake Werner  of the Quincy Institute makes his case for what a progressive China policy could look like . Then  Gabriel Hetland reviews the record of Colombian president Gustavo Petro, a leftist trying to govern a deeply conservative country. Behind the News , hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global....

Featuring Sunaura Taylor on her book Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation . What does it mean to rethink socialism and Marxism through the frameworks of disability liberation and animal liberation? How do we relate to human difference and also to non-human animals? Where does the struggle against industrial agriculture fit into the fight against capitalism? Sunaura is interviewed by...

During the 2012 election cycle, Pauly Shore went to Washington to take the temperature on American and Her Problems. His resulting comedy special, PAULY SHORE'S PAULY-TICS (2012), accidentally foreshadows some of the bad vibes of the years to come. PLUS: We chart one Oscar blogger's evolution from #StillWithHer to MAGA. Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hos...

Russian dissident activists and scholars Ilya Budraitskis and Grusha Gilayeva last spoke to us after the Marxist critic Boris Kagarlitsky lost his appeal and was sent to a penal colony on a trumped-up charge of “justifying terrorism.” A few days later, Alexei Navalny died. Suzi talks to Ilya and Grusha to get their views about the complex multi-prisoner swap that happened at the start of this mont...