Jacobin Radio

No book better captures what it's like to be a socialist who has jumped headlong into the fight for a better world than Vivian Gornick's The Romance of American Communism. Thankfully, Verso has reissued it after the book was out of print for decades. Micah Uetricht talks to Alyssa Battistoni, Sean Estelle, and Meagan Day about it. You can buy Romance from Verso here: https://www.versobooks.<wbr />com/books/3110-the-romance-of-<wbr />american-communism Read Alyssa's review here: https://www.<wbr />dissentmagazine.org/article/<wbr />bad-romance Buy Bigger than Bernie for just $12.95 here: https://jacobinmag.com/<wbr />store/product/69

Dan interviews Aaron Benanav, who argues that the problem isn't that robots are stealing our jobs but rather that capitalist growth is finding its limits and making jobs worse.Read "Automation and the Future of Work" in New Left Review. Parts one and two.Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig.

We cover chapters three and four—"Satan's Strongholds" and "The Free-Born Englishman." With guest John Bohstedt (author of The Politics of Provisions: Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England, 1550-1850) we discuss the history and logic of riots in early modern England: why did riots occur so frequently? What did they mean? And how did they relate to the widely held ideas about English liberties, which both contributed to and inhibited the development of popular radicalism? Secondary Readings: John Bohstedt, Riots and Community Politics in England and Wales, 1790–1810. John Bohstedt, The Politics of Provisions: Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England, 1550–1850. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh, John G. Rule, E.P. Thompson, and Cal Winslow, Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution. George Rudé, The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730–1848. Charles Tilly, "Collective Violence in European Perspective." E.P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century.” E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origins of the Black Act.

There are too many bad takes out there about the end of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Thankfully, Hadas Thier and Paul Heideman wrote one that is good: "Bernie's Campaign Strategy Wasn't the Problem." Read it here: https://jacobinmag.com/<wbr />2020/04/bernie-sanders-<wbr />campaign-strategy-democratic-<wbr />party-biden-trump Find Hadas's book here: https://www.<wbr />haymarketbooks.org/books/1481-<wbr />a-people-s-guide-to-capitalism And Paul's book here: https://www.<wbr />haymarketbooks.org/books/946-<wbr />class-struggle-and-the-color-<wbr />line And you can still get Micah Uetricht and Meagan Day's 'Bigger Than Bernie' for only $12.95 from Jacobin: https://jacobinmag.<wbr />com/store/product/69

Vijay Prashad on China (and Sinophobia), Kerala, and the crucial importance of social organization. Then, Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht, authors of Bigger than Bernie, on Bernie Sanders, socialism, electoralism, and where it all goes from here.

Dan interviews Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht, the authors of Bigger Than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism, to assess the campaign and the way forward.Please support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

Suzi talks with her brother Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University’s Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine about the science and politics of coronavirus, and with Sheheryar Kaoosji, director of the Warehouse Workers Resource Center, about the dangerous working conditions at Amazon fulfillment centers and the threat they pose to the company’s workers and to public health. Irv explains why coronavirus is so devastating, how our immune system has responded to it, and why the disease is more dangerous for those who are older. He also discusses the fragility of our public health infrastructure, what safe practices are needed to protect the population now, and the barriers to scientific research posed today by the political and religious right. Sheheryar reports on the walkouts taking place by Amazon workers in the Inland Empire, and elsewhere around the country over the lack of safety equipment and practices in their workplaces.

Yanis Varoufakis talks about life under COVID-19, the economic crisis, vultures stripping Greece, and democratizing the European Union (includes bonus audio clip of Jim Cramer recalling his Trotskyist past).

Dan interviews the makers of a new podcast series telling the history of the Iraq War.Blowback is available only on Stitcher Premium—and for a month you can listen for free. Go to stitcherpremium.com and sign up with the code BLOWBACK.Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig

We cover chapters one and two — "Members Unlimited" and "Christian Apollyon" — on this week's episode. Rachel Foxley, a professor of history at the University of Reading and author of The Levellers: Radical Political Thought in the English Revolution, joins us to talk about the English Revolution. Secondary Reading: Rachel Foxley, The Levellers (Manchester University Press, 2013). Christopher Hill, The Experience of Defeat(Verso, 2017). Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra(Verso, 2014). CB Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford University Press, 2011). Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Beacon Press, 1993). Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism(Cambridge University Press, 1995).