Radio Free Humanity: The Marxist-Humanist Podcast

Brendan and Andrew critically review, and provide an alternative to, the soft-on-fascist-insurrection discourse of Jacobin writers Branko Marcetic, David Sirota, and Ben Burgis, which sympathizes with the insurrectionists, foregrounds their “anti-government” sentiment and alleged economic distress while concealing the racist “great replacement” thinking that motivates them, and––of course!––shifts...

RFH Ep. 59 Ecological Crisis by MHI

RFH Ep. 58 Triple Threat by MHI

The co-hosts welcome Ron E. Turing and MHI’s Anne Jaclard to discuss the trials in Kenosha, Charlottesville, and Brunswick, Georgia. A participant in the Kenosha protests, Turing is the author of “Rittenhouse Verdict: Vigilante Violence against BLM Goes Unpunished.” They discuss Rittenhouse’s claim of “self-defense” and the right wing’s perversion of that concept, the presiding judge’s bias, wheth...

RFH Ep. 56 Jacobin's Autopsy by MHI

Brendan and Andrew interview alt-right-watcher Davis Matthias-Foster about his article, “The Threat from the Far Right, Post-Trump.” Matthias-Foster explains why Marxist-Humanist Initiative’s position on Trumpism and the far right attracted him. He brings us up to date on the politics and fortunes of leading alt-right figures––such as Richard Spencer, Mike Enoch (Mike Peinovich), and Nick Fuentes–...

Brendan and Andrew discuss Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1946-47 article, “The Nature of the Russian Economy,” and why the issues remain relevant to the fight for socialism today. Questions addressed in the discussion include: How can a society with a planned economy, and without private ownership of means of production, be capitalist? In what sense was the Russian economy “planned”? Did Russia really escap...

Brendan interviews Andrew about his recent article,“Henryk Grossmann’s Breakdown Model: On the Real Cause of the Fictitious Breakdown Tendency.” Andrew argues that Grossmann’s model and associated theory continue to be influential among fatalists. The co-hosts discuss the political dangers of a fatalist outlook. Much of the interview focuses on flaws in the breakdown model that Andrew says are fat...

Brendan and Andrew interview two young Mexican economists, Alan Deytha and Sebastián Hernández, about their discovery and promotion of the temporal single-system interpretation of Marx’s value theory (TSSI), and about their own research. Although (or because?) the TSSI eliminates the appearance of internal inconsistency in Marx’s original theory, it was not easy to discover this interpretation, as...

The co-hosts discuss Andrew’s paper, Marx’s Reproduction Schemes as an Unbalanced-Growth Model, which challenges decades of commentary on the schemes of reproduction in volume 2 of Marx’s Capital. According to the conventional wisdom, the schemes are equilibrium models, in which production of means of production and production of consumption goods grow at the same rate––either because that was Mar...

Episode 50: Marxism vs. Resurgent Tankieism (interview with László Molnárfi, in Ireland) by MHI

Brendan and Andrew interview Avishai Green, author of Speaking Bullshit to Power: Populism and the Rhetoric of Bullshit and doctoral student in political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Employing the concept of bullshit (speech that lacks concern with truth) that Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit made famous, and referring frequently to statements by Donald Trump and his underlings, Gre...

The co-hosts welcome Keith Kahn-Harris, author of Denial: The Unspeakable Truth. They discuss what the various kinds of denialism have in common, strategies to fight denialism, and confronting the “post-denialist” environment into which Kahn-Harris thinks we’re moving. Much of the discussion focuses on his claims that denialism is a bad-faith strategy that people resort to when their true desires...

The co-hosts welcome back Ravi Bali to discuss his recently-published essay, “On Conducting Arguments in an Honest, Revolutionary Manner.” Ravi explains why he thinks truth-seeking should be an important goal for revolutionaries, and why revolutionaries should debate differences among us, instead of assuming that it’s sufficient to agree about “the fundamentals.” He and the co-hosts also discuss p...

The co-hosts welcome back popular leftist podcast host Ben Burgis. Andrew continues to “give him an argument” about his endorsement of G. A. Cohen’s “plain argument” about capitalist exploitation. Ben responds. They also evaluate Marx’s theory of exploitation in its original form. A key point of contention is whether Andrew is merely objecting to Cohen’s premise that workers are the only people wh...

Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily ref...

The co-hosts take a new look at V. I. Lenin’s 1917 work, The State and Revolution. They discuss the significance of its return to Marx and Engels’ view that the state machine needs to be broken (“smashed”)––it isn’t a neutral mechanism that can simply be taken over––and how this differed from orthodox post-Marx Marxism. They also discuss the work’s relevance to today’s struggle for Black lives and...

Brendan and Andrew welcome Gabriel Donnelly, author of “Minneapolis After the Third Precinct,” and Anne Jaclard and Aaron Williams, main authors of Marxist-Humanist Initiative’s (MHI’s) editorial, “On the Conviction of George Floyd’s Murderer.” They discuss the implications of the verdict in Minneapolis––was it justice, a victory for Black Lives Matter, a breakthrough in the struggle for police ac...

Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily ref...

In this episode, Brendan and Andrew discuss Raya Dunayevskaya’s pamphlet––Nationalism, Communism, Marxist-Humanism, and the Afro-Asian Revolutions. Writing in 1959, she put forward a way for the newly-independent nations of the global south to free themselves from being dominated by all major capitalist powers, state-capitalist as well as private capitalist. The co-hosts explore the relevance of t...

Joining the co-hosts are Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, a London physician active in the fight against COVID; John Gillott, a British sociologist of science and author of Bioscience, Governance and Politics; and Ravi Bali of Marxist-Humanist Initiative. They discuss governmental efforts to contain the pandemic, the backlash against these efforts—often justified by invocations of “freedom”––in the United...

Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily ref...

The co-hosts continue their interview with David Norman Smith (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/episode-36-trumps-base-interview-with-david-norman-smith-part-1), a sociologist at the University of Kansas, about his research into the characteristics of Trump supporters and why they support Trump. Smith discusses questions about authoritarian attitudes that he contributed to a major voter s...

Anne Jaclard of Marxist-Humanist Initiative and the co-hosts defend Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s video (https://www.instagram.com/p/CKxlyx4g-Yb/?hl=en) on the Trumpites’ fascistic Capitol Insurrection, and AOC’s refusal to collaborate with Ted Cruz, against Glenn Greenwald’s sexist, red-brown attack on her (starting at 11:17 here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tpgGvUUro). Much of the discussion...

The co-hosts interview David Norman Smith, a sociologist at the University of Kansas, about his research into the characteristics of Trump supporters and why they support Trump. Smith discusses questions about authoritarian attitudes that he contributed to a major voter survey, links between prejudice and desire for authoritarian leadership, and how Trump supporters’ attitudes compare to those of...