Jacobin Radio

We’re taking a quick break halfway into our four-part series of interviews on Latin America because this week is a big week for the American Left: Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, is holding its first national convention since the organization has undergone a massive explosion in size. R.L. Stephens and Ella Mahony, running on competing slates for leadership in the organization, explain w...

On Jacobin Radio, UCLA historian and coeditor of Catalyst Robert Brenner joins Suzi to discuss the state of the US economy, mainstream politics, and neoliberalism. How are today's political earthquakes connected to the economy, and what can we expect from changes in US economic policy? What do the proclaimed health of the unemployment rate and stock market mean for working people?

A decline in oil prices gutted the revenue stream that Venezuela depended on to bankroll its social spending. The government led by Chavez’s successor Nicolás Maduro is increasingly turning to repression in response to constant, and often violent, protests from the opposition. NYU historian and NACLA Executive Editor Alejandro Velasco explains what's happening in Venezuela and why, as well as how...

Doug interviews two guests. First, James Forman, Jr., author of Locking Up Our Own, analyzes the relationship between race and mass incarceration. Then, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, in a reprise of her interview with Doug in June 2016, talks about a political response to incarceration and racist police violence.

Doug interviews two guests. First, Robert Pollin, a professor at U Mass-Amherst, addresses the economics of how single payer can work in CA. Then, Michael McCarthy, author of Dismantling Solidarity, tells us the story of how we got our current private pension system, with workers' savings appropriated by Wall Street

Doug interviews two guests. First, Kate Gordon, a Senior Adviser at the Paulsen Institute, talks about China, Climate, and the Paris climate accord. Then, Nancy Maclean, author of the recent book Democracy in Chains, talks about the Right's stealth war and democracy, paying special attention to the role of James Buchanan.

Dan’s guest today is Thea Riofrancos, a political scientist at Providence College. They discuss Ecuador’s 2017 elections, in which the left won a narrow victory despite the crisis hitting the Pink Tide of left governments throughout the region. Former President Rafael Correa accomplished much for the country’s poor majority. Unfortunately, he did so thanks to a commodity boom that has since gone b...

Doug interviews two guests. First, Tim Shorrock on the two Koreas: while South Korea has a recently-elected leader, the North continues testing missiles while the US continues threatening engagement. Then, Margaret Corvid updates us on British politics in the week following the recent surprise election.

Doug interviews two guests. First, investigative journalist Alex Kotch talks about the Koch academic network. Then, Alfredo Saad Filho, a professor of political economy at the SOAS, University of London, updates us the political and economic situation in Brazil. This episode was recorded the day before Lula was found guilty on corruption and money-laundering charges, and Filho sent an update for t...

Dan talks with Dara Lind, the immigration reporter at Vox. They discuss how Trump has made Obama's massive deportation machine into a terrifying spectacle in a bid to to scare undocumented immigrants from the country.

In the latest episode Suzi will cover election results across the globe. First, Tom Ferguson, Professor Emeritus at U Mass Boston, will discuss the Democratic Party’s recent election defeats, the party's ties to finance, and their rejection of the Sanders political line within their own base. Then, Sebastian Budgen will join from Paris for an analysis of the recent Parliamentary elections that gav...

Workers have for years faced a neoliberal onslaught administered by a bipartisan establishment of technocratic elites who have ensured the redistribution of wealth into the hands of the rich. This is an elite that has abetted the decimation of labor unions and whose primary disagreement are over how severely those expelled from the labor market should be allowed to suffer. Dan's guest today is jou...

Naomi Klein takes on President Donald Trump’s brand, and offers some thoughts as to how to tarnish it, in her new book “No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump's Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need.”

Mass incarceration controls poor people and populations that have been excluded from the labor market. Politically, tough-on-crime rhetoric has for decades been a tool for politicians to appeal to white voters’ racism. But what’s less discussed is the complicated history of criminal justice politics within black communities and amongst black politicians. Yale Law professor James Forman talks about...

Joining Suzi are Maria Svart, National Director of the Democratic Socialists of America, and Becky Bond, co-founder of the Knock on Every Door campaign and former advisor on the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign. They will review the recent People's Summit conference as well as take a deep look at the Democratic Party. Specifically, they'll explore how the party can and should be engaged as well as the...

Bernie would have won. And in the UK, he sort of did last week. The Labour Party, under left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn (full name: Jeremy Bernard Corbyn) came far from behind and stripped Prime Minister Theresa May of her majority in parliament — after the punditocracy had confidently predicted that radicals had doomed Labour to electoral oblivion. Dan speaks to Richard Seymour, the author most re...

In These Times editor Miles Kampf-Lassin cracks open a cold one with the boys in the Stockton to Malone studio/supply closet. Micah, Miles, and RL discuss their experiences walking with striking workers at the AT&T picket lines on Chicago's south side last month. RL closes out the episode by making fun of Slavoj Žižek. He was then struck by a car in a mysterious hit and run ten minutes after t...

Doug interviews two guests. First, Yasha Levine, author of the forthcoming Surveillance Valley, discusses Russia, the NSA, and the Intercept election hacking leak. Then, Angela Nagle, author of Kill All Normies, chronicles the alt-right's rise.

Dan interviews journalist David Dayen on President Trump's financial policy. Despite espousing white populist rhetoric on the campaign trail, Donald Trump has stacked his administration with Big Finance elites. Dodd-Frank is on the chopping block and Wall Street is set to deepen its predatory financial practices. Thanks to our advertisers at The Nation! Get a deal on magazine subscription at thena...

Suzi interviews two guests about the surging Jeremy Corbyn and the fate of leftwing class politics in the coming UK elections. Journalist and author Paul Mason joins the conversation from London. Blogger and analyst Kevin Ovenden is based in Athens.

Doug interviews two guests. First, James Whitman on the U.S. origins of Nazi race law. Second, Alex Gourevitch discusses strikes and their challenge to bourgeois law.

Donald Trump pledged to build a big, beautiful wall on the border with Mexico. For liberals, the wall now shares a toxic association with Trump. But until recently, militarizing the border with Mexico was accepted as a core piece of the commonsense, bipartisan establishment immigration and drug policy agenda. Dan talks about border policy with Peter Andreas, a professor at Brown University and the...

The drug war is winding down around the country and heating up under Trump at the same time. Rick Lines of Harm Reduction International lays out the humane and evidence-based alternative to the war on drugs.

Hope is more than a mood or feeling — it's the basis for all political action, argues Ronald Aronson in an interview with Suzi Weissman. Bernie Sanders's campaign inspired collective action to make the world more equal; the Trump campaign and presidency are its mirror opposite. Aronson's book We: Reviving Social Hope is out now.

Jacobin's latest issue, "By Taking Power," asks: What has the Pink Tide accomplished? What is its future? When the Pink Tide emerged in Latin America, the U.S. Left was done with governing. The Pink Tide was a confident call back to the old-time religion, a return to not ceding state power to the Right, but wielding it to improve lives in the here and now. Jacobin editor and publisher Bhaskar Sunk...