Jacobin Radio

Caitlin Petre, media sociologist at Rutgers University, has just published All the News That’s Fit to Click , a critical look at how performance analytics are transforming the work of profit-driven journalism. She exposes how newsroom metrics that measure and gauge reader engagement with digital news content represent a new form of intensified commercial pressure. Journalists are driven to optimiz...

Zohran Mamdani, New York State Assembly Member for District 36, discusses why he and New York cab drivers are undertaking a hunger strike, and how the city’s inaction around the taxi medallion crisis has forced working-class cab drivers into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Plus, Matt Bruenig joins to discuss the never-ending string of design flaws in the Democrats’ childcare proposals. W...

Doug speaks to Samuel Moyn , co-author of this article , on the reactionary history of the Supreme Court and how to democratize it. Plus: Deepak Bhargava, one of the editors of Immigration Matters , on immigration policy, historical, current, and future. Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global...

We travel to postwar Vienna to visit THE THIRD MAN (1949) and discuss how this classic film's style perfectly articulates a bleak and despairing state of being. PLUS: thoughts on the dark 'n' gritty new Buzz Lightyear origin movie, AND we finally answer whether politics is upstream or downstream from culture. Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will...

This week, we speak with Mark McGurl, professor of literature at Stanford and the author of Everything and Less: The Novel in the Age of Amazon . You can listen to Primer by searching for Jacobin Radio on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the show, subscribe at patreon.com/primerpodcast . To keep up with us elsewhere, follow @primerpod on Twitter.

A Striketober-relevant episode from The Dig archives. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig and receive our weekly newsletter by email

Slavoj Žižek discusses World War I and the other forces that shaped the Russian Revolution, how we should understand the Red Terror, the Russian Civil War, and the legacy of Felix Dzerzhinsky. Plus, Žižek reviews Squid Game and Denis Villeneuve's Dune remake. The Jacobin Show offers socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the pros...

Doug speaks with Mona Fawaz  on the dire economic and political crises in Lebanon. Plus:  Mark Dery , author of  this article , on conspiracy theories, with special emphasis on  Mark Crispin Miller . 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 here: https://ww...

Journalist Andrew Cockburn, author of the new book The Spoils of War , explains why the United States’ astronomical Pentagon budget hasn’t led to better national defense and what’s driving the growth of the military industrial complex today. Weekends with Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila features free-flowing and humorous commentary on current events and political strategy. This is the podcast version...

Vanessa Chishti joins Long Reads for a discussion about Kashmir's past and present. Vanessa is professor of history at the O.P. Jindal Global University in Delhi, India. Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by Features Editor Daniel Finn. Read Vanessa's essay "Kashmir: The L...

We're back! This week, we speak with Phil Jones, author of  Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism , a new book from Verso Books. Jones is also a researcher for the think tank Autonomy. You can listen to Primer by searching for Jacobin Radio on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the show, subscribe at  patreon.com/primerp...

Grace speaks  to Holly Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Buffalo about her new book Ending Fossil Fules: Why Net Zero Is Not Enough. They discuss the meaning of net zero, the different trajectories we might use to get there, and how these different paths might ease or exacerbate other ecological, social and political challenges the world fac...

Paul Heideman debunks the myth that the Republicans are now a working-class party and explores how the structural weakness of the American party system and conflicting business interests drove the Republicans' rightward turn. The Jacobin Show offers socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the prospects of rebuilding a left labor m...

What are the politics of sex? Incels, porn, sexual racism, the feminist sex wars, and more. Philosopher Amia Srinivasan on her new essay collection The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century. Want our very good weekly newsletter emailed to you? Support us at Patreon.com/TheDig Interested in the book advertised on this week's Dig? thenewpress.com/books/empire-of-rubber

At long last, we are finally tackling something related to The Sopranos. We discuss the many things wrong (and some things right) with the big-screen prequel THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK (2021); the spirit of American decline that The Sopranos captures at its best; and what the recent surge in prequels and reboots tells us about this world we live in. Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinem...

Coming off of their triumphant debate victories against Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk respectively, we're (re)joined by Ana Kasparian and friend of the show Ben Burgis to discuss how and why the left can debate right-wing ideologues. Weekends with Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila features free-flowing and humorous commentary on current events and political strategy. This is the podcast version of the s...

Suzi talked to  Crystal Hopkins , President of  IATSE Local 871 , just hours before a tentative agreement was reached late Saturday afternoon — ahead of the October 18 strike deadline. The contract still has to be ratified by union members and that remains a question mark. Crystal Hopkins describes the conditions and demands that are at the center of the negotiations: long work...

A very short ep on a great new documentary about the history and present of American socialism: The Big Scary S-Word. It’s by Yael Bridge, and it's the perfect film to show to your skeptical uncle or to someone new to (or curious about) socialist politics.  You can watch The Big Scary S-Word on iTunes, Apple TV or a number of other sites by visiting: www.socialismmovie.com/screenings

This week, Grace speaks to Phil Jones, researcher at Autonomy and author of Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism . They discuss whether what we refer to as automation actually relies on the proliferation of poorly paid microwork around the world, who does this work under what conditions, and how workers can start to organise to resist their exploitation at the hands of...

Legendary socialist scholar Tariq Ali on the long history of Afghanistan: the 19th and early 20th-century wars against the British Empire; the communist coup, Soviet invasion, and US-backed mujahideen war; the rise of the Taliban; and the 2001 US-led NATO invasion through the recent US defeat and withdrawal. Plus, a lot about Pakistan.  Pre-order Ali's forthcoming book The Forty-Year War in A...

Matt Bruenig discusses Joe Manchin's remarks about the US becoming an "entitlement society" and explains why so-called entitlement societies like the Nordic states somehow still seem to function. Weekends with Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila features free-flowing and humorous commentary on current events and political strategy. This is the podcast version of the show from October 8, 2021. Verso book...

Doug speaks with  Nancy MacLean , author of  this paper , on how Milton Friedman’s war on public education fit nicely with Southern massive resistance to desegregation. Plus:  Klaus Jacob , a geophysicist, on how we can live with rising seas and heavier rains. Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from th...

We have discussed many bad films on this podcast, but now we finally turn our attention to The Worst Movie Ever Made™. We analyze how Ed Wood's PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1957) turns the movie industry's flotsam and detritus into a Hollywood dreamscape. PLUS: The Sopranos, Necromania, and Justin Trudeau's recent vacation. Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hos...

Sean Larson, historian of the German Revolution and the Weimar Republic, joins Long Reads for a discussion about party politics and worker struggles during Germany's inter-war period. Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by Features Editor Daniel Finn. You can find Sean's wo...

Doug speaks with Patrick Wyman, author of  this article  (and this earlier  Substack version ) on provincial elites. Plus:  Duc Hien Nguyen  on queerness, social reproduction, and capitalism. 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 here: https://www.l...