Podcast Archives - The Dig

Featuring Alyssa Battistoni on Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature . This episode is the second of a two-part interview: Battistoni’s account of capitalist class and market rule; what’s hidden behind the mystification of the externality; existentialism and Marxism; why human freedom is the precondition for saving the planet rather than the cause of its destruction; how a theorization...

Featuring Alyssa Battistoni on Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature . Fossil-fueled capitalism has pushed our planet into a profound set of crises. How Marxists should make sense of this all, however, is unclear. Battistoni offers a Marxist theory of nature that’s simultaneously a brilliant reworking of Marxist theory more generally. The first episode in a two-part interview. Support...

Featuring Yael Bridge, Jeremy Flood, and Erick Stoll on Who Moves America , a powerful documentary about the massive 2023 Teamsters strike against UPS that ultimately did not happen.  Find or request a screening of Who Moves America at whomovesamerica.com  Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out The Nation ‘s Books & the Arts section at thenation.com/books-and-the-arts Find How t...

Featuring Chris Brooks on labor’s crisis and the strategic, militant class struggle that can turn it all around. Brooks, former chief of staff to UAW President Shawn Fain, urges organizers to be flexible in their methodology, explains the federal monitor’s anti-left lawfare against the UAW over Gaza—and why labor must build for 2028. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Read more: “Is Labor at th...

Featuring Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian on their book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed . What the world’s bizarre richest man reveals about our financially fabulist, hard tech, far-right political-economic era. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Find Against Tech Oligarchy at Haymarketbooks.org   Learn more about Hate Speech at UCPress.edu  

Featuring Ben Shanahan, the architect of socialist David Morales’ victorious campaign to be the Democratic nominee for mayor of Providence, Rhode Island. The Providence left ran a slate of left-wing candidates that not only elected Morales but also swept every single contested city council seat on a platform of capping the rent and building social housing. Read Dennis Hogan’s essays on the P...

Featuring Daniel Denvir and Ben Mabie answering questions posed by you, our listeners. Submit a question for our next mailbag: speakpipe.com/ListenerMailbag Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Read the piece Ben mentioned “From the Camp to the Picket: Reflections from the UC Strike for Palestine” longhaulmag.com/uc-strike-for-palestine Learn more about The Shadow Court and Disability Revolution...

Featuring David Wallace-Wells, Madison Condon, and Moira Birss on how insurance companies profit off climate catastrophe—and, in doing so, ensure that people and the planet suffer the consequences. Guest hosted by Astra Taylor. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Read “National Disaster Insurance for All: Single-Payer Disaster Insurance and Community Resilience Investments for Safer and More Aff...

Featuring Molly Crabapple on her book Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund . The second in a two-part interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Decolonizing Money at Plutobooks.com   Buy Femmephilia at Haymarketbooks.org

Featuring Molly Crabapple on her book Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund . The first episode of a two-part interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Unions of Our Own and Femmephilia at Haymarketbooks.org    

The eighth and final episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This last installment picks up with the 2014 election of Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, to the presidency. That promise was soon betrayed, laying the groundwork for the rise of Prabowo Subianto, a scion of Suharto who r...

The seventh episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This penultimate installment analyses the 1998 fall of Suharto and his New Order dictatorship. Basic political freedoms were established but the transition to democracy never included a transition away from oligarchy. And...

The sixth episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This installment details Suharto’s right-wing military coup and the horrific political crime that accompanied it: the US-backed mass murder of Indonesian communists. The military’s mass slaughter inaugurated Suharto’s oliga...

The fifth episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This installment traces the armed conflicts—civil wars and then confrontations with the Dutch and British—that propelled Indonesia into Sukarno’s authoritarian Guided Democracy system and cascading economic crisis. Both the...

Featuring Maine candidate for governor Troy Jackson, Wisconsin candidate for governor Francesca Hong, New York State Senate candidate Aber Kawas, and victorious Tempe, Arizona City Council candidate Bobby Nichols. The third episode in a series of short interviews with left-wing and socialist candidates at every level of US politics. Support The Dig at  Patreon.com/TheDig Our huge new Thawra study...

The fourth episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This installment picks up with the Indonesian Revolution securing sovereignty from the Dutch in 1949. The Communist of Party of Indonesia, or PKI, revived after its repression to once again become a mass force in politics...

This one is different: an episode cross-posted from the new podcast Fighting Fascism , where Dig host Daniel Denvir gets behind the guest mic to discuss his political work beyond the pod. Speaking at length for the first time about his own organizing project in Rhode Island, he elaborates his theory of class and political power building. Check out Fighting Fascism and subscribe at podcasts.apple.c...

Featuring New York U.S. House candidate Claire Valdez, Colorado U.S. House candidate Melat Kiros, Michigan U.S. House candidate William Lawrence, Massachusetts state Senate candidate Erika Uyterhoeven, New York State Assembly candidate Conrad Blackburn, and Washington D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George. The second episode in a series of short interviews with left-wing and socialist candid...

Featuring Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Tennessee US House candidate Justin Pearson, New York US House candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, Oregon state House candidate Tammy Carpenter, Providence mayoral candidate David Morales, and DC City Council candidate Aparna Raj. The first episode in a series featuring short interviews with left-wing and socialist candidates at every level...

Featuring Alina Shen and Fahd Ahmed on organizing working-class Asian New Yorkers into Zohran Mamdani’s campaign and then building power under a democratic socialist mayor. A discussion with two of New York’s most talented community leaders on building mass bases and struggling through the contradictions of wielding state power—including with regard to the NYPD. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheD...

Featuring Paul Heideman on how the Republican Party became so spectacularly unhinged. How the disorganization of the party and the disorganization of the US capitalist class have combined to intensify the accelerating insanity of US politics. Guest hosted by Micah Uetricht. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Our huge new Thawra study guide and resource website thawraproject.com RSVP to the May...

The third episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This installment picks up with the 1942 Japanese conquest of the Dutch East Indies and takes us through the Revolution, which Indonesian nationalist leaders launched against the Dutch in 1945 after Japan’s surrender to the...

The second episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This installment traces the first four decades of the 20th century and the Awakening Period that shaped the foundation of modern Indonesian politics, including its three main currents: communism, nationalism, and Islam. Fe...

Featuring Aslı Bâli, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, and Nicholas Mulder on the economic warfare unfolding with the US-Israeli war on Iran—and beyond. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Find Ethnic Studies at the Crossroads at UCPress.edu Buy Cold War on Five Continents at Haymarketbooks.org

Nusantara is a new Dig series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This episode traces a long period of European plunder and domination that began with the Portuguese and then continued, for centuries, under the Dutch—a story stretching from the murderous mercantilism of the Dutch East Ind...