The Dig

Inflation is once again at the center of political debate. Dan interviews Tim Barker to put monetary policy in its historical and class war context. Reading: Preferred Shares by Tim Barker phenomenalworld.org/analysis/wage-share email digradiopod@gmail.com for PDFs of the following two articles: The Vietnam War and the Political Economy of Full Employment by Dean Baker, Robert Pollin and Elizabeth...

How China rejected neoliberal orthodoxy and became the new workshop of the world. Dan interviews economist Isabella Weber on her book How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Who governs? Upon closer inspection, the composition of the ruling class has undergone huge changes that are driving this political moment. Dan interviews Doug Henwood, the author of “Take Me to Your Leader,” an extensive analysis of the changing composition of the ruling class published in Jacobin : jacobinmag.com/2021/04/take-me-to-your-leader-the-rot-of-the-american-ruling-class Sup...

The history of the United States is in no small part the history of US intervention in Latin America. Historian Greg Grandin on his classic book Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Making of an Imperial Republic. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Watch our new Dig video shorts on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=LcZb3A986p0

The Dig is taking a break to play catch up this week and posting a favorite interview from our archives: Nick Estes on his book Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance. First posted on June 29 2019. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Journalist Kate Aronoff discusses climate policy and politics and her book Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet—And How We Fight Back. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

How ecosocialists formed a powerful coalition with unions to fight for labor law reform and why we need a powerful labor movement to win a Green New Deal. An interview with four members of DSA’s Green New Deal Campaign Committee: Ashik Siddique, Gustavo Gordillo, Sydney Ghazarian, and Thea Riofrancos. This is a collaborative episode with Bloc Party, a podcast from Justice Democrats. Get invo...

Dan speaks with Noura Erakat and Tareq Baconi: an in-depth interview on Israeli apartheid and dispossession, the history and future of the Palestinian struggle, Israeli politics, media false equivalences, and shifting US public opinion toward Palestine. DONATE NOW to the Palestinian people: We Are Not Numbers wearenotnumbers.org/home/donate Multiple organizations: muftah.org/organizations-working-...

Two voices from Gaza. The first of two episodes on Palestine this week with teacher and BDS activist Aya Alghazzawi and journalist Issam Adwan, project manager for We Are Not Numbers. DONATE NOW to the Palestinian people: We Are Not Numbers wearenotnumbers.org/home/donate Multiple organizations: muftah.org/organizations-working-in-palestine-that-need-your-support/#.YKQaGZNKhpT

Dan interviews historian Robin D.G. Kelley on his classic book Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression . Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

What is so-called cancel culture? Why has it suddenly emerged as arguably the issue in right-wing politics? How does today’s cancel culture discourse differ from the anti-PC discourse that first emerged in the early 1990s? How do we distinguish between liberal opponents of PC like Jonathan Chain and right-wing ones like Donald Trump? And then, finally, is there still a there there? Some problems w...

Dan interviews Laleh Khalili on Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula . The Suez Canal, the colonial roots of contemporary maritime trade, Aden dock worker radicals, why Dubai is not exceptional, the impacts of steam engines and containerization—and so much more. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

US empire in the Philippines, Filipino migration, labor organizing in the fields, and the nativist campaign for Asian exclusion. Dan interviews Rick Baldoz on his remarkable book The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and Migration in Filipino America, 1898-1946. Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Three thinkers and organizers on the much debated question of ultra-leftism post-Bernie 2020. Two texts that informed our discussion: The Liberal to Ultra-Left Pipeline: Breaking the Cycle by Brian W. Liberalism, ultraleftism or mass action , a speech delivered by Socialist Workers Party leader Peter Camejo. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan interviews Charisse Burden-Stelly on racial capitalism, the history of the US Black left, and the US government’s Red Scare attacks on Black radicals. Read Burden-Stelly’s work Modern U.S. Racial Capitalism: Some Theoretical Insights Black Cold War Liberalism as an Agency Reduction Formation during the Late 1940s and the Early 1950s Constructing Deportable Subjectivity: Antiforeign...

Dan interviews the hosts of Time to Say Goodbye podcast on Asian American politics and identity. Check out Time to Say Goodbye wherever you get podcasts. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig

How the 60s counterculture went on to make the techno-utopian ideology that suffuses our techno-dystopian reality. Dan interviews Fred Turner on his classic From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism . Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Astra Taylor interviews Achal Prabhala on emerging global vaccine apartheid: from the neoliberal turn handing the pharmaceutical industry global patents to today’s government-funded vaccines put under private pharma control. Groups fighting global vaccine apartheid Public Citizen: citizen.org/topic/safe-affordable-drugs-devices/global-access-to-medicines MSF: msfaccess.org Prep4All: prep4all...

Why we need the PRO Act with Jimmy Williams, General Vice President of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. Sign up to join DSA’s PRO Act phonebank actionnetwork.org/forms/proactphonebank Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig Book Club and discuss The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy with Paolo Gerbaudo thedigradio.com/dig-book-cl...

Dan interviews Jacobin ‘s Alex Press and organizer Jonah Furman on the state of the labor movement. Sign up to join DSA’s Pro Act phonebank actionnetwork.org/forms/proactphonebank Read Alex Press’s interview with political scientist Michael Goldfield on the Amazon organizing drive in Bessemer jacobinmag.com/2021/02/amazon-unionize-alabama-operation-dixie-organizing-south Subscrib...

We’re taking a week off to play catch up and posting an early Dig episode from the archives that people keep returning to time and again: Barbara and Karen Fields on their book Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (episode 75 from December 13, 2017). Peruse The Dig’s vast archives at thedigradio.com and we’ll be back with a new ep next week. Support this podcast at...

Dan interviews Sarah Jaffe on her book Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion To Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone . Support this podcast on Patreon.com/TheDig Join The Dig Book Club and discuss The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy with Paolo Gerbaudo thedigradio.com/dig-book-club

Dan interviews Sam Adler-Bell and Matt Sitman on the history and post-Trump trajectory of conservative intelligentsia. Listen to Know Your Enemy , their really great podcast on the American Right, wherever you get your podcasts. Sign up on Patreon for bonus episodes: patreon.com/knowyourenemy Recommended reading and listening: “What’s left of liberalism? Why the left and right both seem to a...

Dan interviews Jeanne Morefield on her book Empires Without Imperialism: Anglo-American Decline and the Politics of Deflection and how the disavowed wars have come home on the American Right. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join the Dig Book Club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Check out our vast archives at thedigradio.com

Dan interviews sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo on his book The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy . How does the promise of direct digital democracy obscure how leaders are made more powerful and less accountable? Examples from Italy (Five Star Movement) and Spain (Podemos). How does the failure to incorporate people into rooted forms of political organization undermine the left...