Politics Theory Other

Britain is officially in its deepest recession since records began following the unprecedented economic shutdown in response to the Covid19 pandemic. In the past six months, the UK has shed close to three quarters of a million jobs - a grim foretaste of what could be the kind of mass unemployment not seen in the UK since the 1980s. PTO spoke to James Meadway about why Britain's recession is more s...

Haim Bresheeth-Zabner joins me to talk about his new book, 'An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Force Made a Nation'. We discussed how the the Zionist project in Palestine depended upon the erasure of the culture of the Pre-WWII Jewish diaspora, why it is that Israeli military operations command near unanimous support within Israel, and how Israel's economy has become massively dependent...

In late March PTO spoke to Adam Tooze whilst he was in New York as the Covid19 crisis was escalating. In today's episode we return to some of the issues we discussed back then, including the pandemic's role in the rise of China, the increasing entwinement of government and private corporations in the United States and Europe and the return of austerity politics.

What will come after the capitalocene - and is that even the right term to describe our geological era? Rosie Warren joins me to talk about 'The Tragedy of the Worker: Towards the Proletarocene' - an essay coauthored by Rosie that considers the entwined processes of climate change and the proletarianisation of the world's population. We talked about the debate over whether to describe our geologic...

On Sunday Alexander Lukashenko, ruler of Belarus since 1994 claimed a landslide victory in the country's presidential election with an implausible 80% of the vote. Large protests broke out in the wake of the announcement of the result. I spoke to Nelly Bekus about Lukashenko's rise to power, how Belarus differs from other post-Soviet states in its relationship to the Soviet era, and how Covid19 an...

On Monday the Nobel laureate, and co-architect of the Northern Ireland peace process John Hume passed away at the age of 83. A giant of the political scene in Northern Ireland he was most well known for his role in the Good Friday Agreement that brought the so-called Troubles to a close and for his commitment to nonviolent support for a gradualist route to a united Ireland. I spoke to Daniel Finn,...

Tobita Chow and Jake Werner join me to talk about the roots of the increasingly antagonistic relationship between China and the United States, the reasons for bipartisan consensus on China's increasing technological prowess, and the specific character of anti-Chinese racism in the United States. We also talked about how the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 signalled China's deepen...

Rachel Shabi joins me to talk about her recent article in the New York Review of Books - 'The Pro-Privatization Shock Therapy of the UK’s Covid Response'. We talked about why the UK Government's response to the coronavirus pandemic was so heavily dependent on outsourcing to private corporations, and whether the UK's very heavy Covid19-related death toll will eventually erode public support for the...

In the latest episode of #RedHacks - a series of conversations on journalism in the neoliberal world - Joana Ramiro talks to filmmaker and writer Ana Naomi de Sousa about being a non-white journalist in an industry stymied by privilege.

Astra Taylor and Troy Vettese join me to talk about their recent article in the Guardian in which they argue that the principal driver of zoonotic diseases is the factory farming of animals and that the covid19 pandemic shows that we need to transition away from a meat-centred global food system. We also talked about an article Troy co-wrote in Jacobin, entitled The Climate Crisis and COVID-19 Are...

On the 30th of June the city of Leicester, in the East Midlands of the UK was put back into lockdown following a spike in Covid-19 cases. The new outbreak of the virus put the spotlight on the garment district of the city - where the new outbreak may have emerged - much of which is characterised by extremely exploitative labour practices in small factories serving giant online retailers such as Bo...

Andreas Malm joins me to talk about his new book, 'Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century'. We talked about why in the case of Covid19 most of the rich countries of the north were able to make the kinds of decisive interventions that seem to elude them when it comes to climate change. And we also talked about the experience of the Bolsheviks during the Russia...

Award-winning author, broadcaster and academic Gary Younge joins me to talk about his experience of reporting on racism in the United States for the Guardian, the current Black Lives Matter movement in the US and abroad, and why comparisons between BLM and the civil rights movement are misplaced. To get access to this episode become a $5 PTO supporter on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryo...

On Monday evening soldiers of the Indian Army and the Chinese People's Liberation Army clashed on their disputed border in the Ladakh area of Kashmir in the Himalayas. Reportedly fighting with rocks and iron bars, no shots were fired but the Indian Army reported twenty deaths on its side and also claimed casualties on the Chinese side. I spoke to Arif Rafiq about what we know about the clashes bet...

Vivian Gornick joins me to talk about her classic book, 'The Romance of American Communism'. We spoke about her experience of growing up amongst communists and socialists in the Bronx in the 1930s, how she sought to counter simplistic depictions of the lives of American communists and how - in spite of its authoritarianism - the American Communist Party enabled ordinary men and women to feel conne...

Nikhil Pal Singh joins me to discuss the massive protests against police violence in the United States that emerged in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. We talked about why the protests are so large and so diverse and the movement's demands for the abolition or defunding of the police.

Adam Hanieh joins me to talk about the challenges Covid-19 and the debt crisis pose to countries in the global south, how western economic and military intervention has undermined state capacity needed to combat the pandemic, and finally we discussed Adam's argument that the crisis may paradoxically be in certain respects beneficial for the oil majors and the richest oil producing countries - in s...

Troy Vetesse joins me to discuss the sixth mass extinction event and how Karl Marx's concepts of real and formal subsumption are relevant to the ecological crisis. We also spoke about how the Covid19 pandemic illuminates Troy's argument. Our conversation was prompted by Troy's essay, 'A Marxist Theory of Extinction' from issue 7 of the journal Salvage.

Holly Buck joins me to discuss her new book, After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration. We talked about why we may have little choice but to undertake geoengineering to avert the worst of the climate crisis. We also discussed the question of whether climate change is innately difficult for human beings to comprehend, and whether avoiding the worst effects of climate change wil...

In the latest episode of #RedHacks Joana Ramiro talks to Novara Media co-founder Aaron Bastani about the importance of independent grassroots media.

Philip Mirowski, joins me to discuss why the Covid-19 pandemic is more opportunity than threat to neoliberals and whether - as in the wake of the financial crisis - neoliberal doctrines will survive, and even thrive in the wake of the coronavirus-induced global economic crisis. We also discussed how Philip defines neoliberalism and why the worst political and economic consequences of the Covid-19...

Narges Bajoghli and Arron Merat join me to discuss the coronavirus crisis in Iran, what the Covid-19 pandemic means for the stability of the Iranian regime, how US sanctions have compounded the suffering of ordinary Iranians, and what relations between China and Iran might look like after the end of the lockdown.

#RedHacks returns with Joana Ramiro in conversation with Suzanne Wrack. They spoke about Suzanne's experience of entering journalism via architecture, football as a socialist sport and turning her passion into a career. You can listen to other episodes of #RedHacks here: https://soundcloud.com/poltheoryother/sets/redhacks

Adam Tooze joins me to discuss what covid-19 means for the world economy, how the Trump administration has missed the boat on containing mass contagion in the United States, and why the row in the Eurozone over so-called coronabonds reveals an existential threat to the survival of the European Union.

Will Davies joins me to discuss whether or not the coronavirus crisis heralds the break with neoliberal capitalism that many expected in the wake of the financial crisis, why the Anglo-American response to the covid-19 pandemic seems to differ from the response seen in mainland Europe and East Asia, and we also talked about how the media has covered the government's approach to the crisis. You can...