Bungacast

Benjamin Fong, editor at Damage and researcher on labor and logistics, maps how workers can pressure corporate chokepoints. He discusses why Amazon matters, what the “seams” of distribution are, and where leverage exists in modern, networked logistics. The conversation also touches on trains as a symbol of development and contested infrastructure.

Tom Chodor, IR scholar at Monash University known for work on non-hegemony, maps a world where multilateral institutions are hollowed out. He discusses how post-1945 multilateralism was exceptional. He explains the shift since 2008 toward apolarity, polyalignment, and state capitalism clashing with market institutions. The conversation focuses on declining US leadership and the prospects of non-hegemonic order.

Leigh Phillips, science writer and editor specializing in technology and geology, joins to interrogate why the future looked different. They debate Graeber’s claim of slowed technical progress. Short takes cover transport plateaus, the role of states and war, whether software and biotech count as real progress, and what this means for political choices.

Quinn Slobodian, a historian of political economy, and Ben Tarnoff, a tech writer on digital culture, discuss their book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. They probe Musk as a structural figure: fortress futurism, financial fabulism, and state symbiosis. Conversations cover Musk’s industrial trajectory, social media and AI turn, vertical integration, performative markets, political legitimation, and the fragility of his project.

We deal with your questions, comments and criticisms from the past month or so. Key issues this month are: What are the wrongs of the postmodern right – aand left? Will the civilisational paradigm become hegemonic? Is Trump's foreign policy techno-populist? Whether, and how, to protest anti-immigration policing To defend or to smash the professions? For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

On anti-racism, communism, and philosophy. Alex Gourevitch talks to political philosopher Paul Gomberg about his original and deep Marxist arguments for what makes racism wrong, why racism cannot be eradicated without overcoming capitalism, and the limits of many contemporary anti-racist arguments. What does it mean to "alienate" race? What is the harm in racism? How does it harm everyone, not just its obvious victims? Why does Gomberg argue that can racism cannot be overcome in capitalist society? Has official racism been replaced by official anti-racism in the neoliberal era? What does it mean to understand anti-racism as communism? How did Gomberg's communist militancy impact his philosophy? For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Links: Anti-Racism as Communism, Paul Gomberg, Bloomsbury How to Make Opportunity Equal: Race and Contributive Justice, Paul Gomberg, Blackwell

On postmodern conservatives. Matt McManus talks to Alex and George about a Right increasingly shaped by the parameters of postmodern culture – and his Damage article on this. Who are the key thinkers of postmodern conservatism? Does truth matter anymore? Is "flooding the zone" an act of post-truth politics? Does all that is solid melt into advertising – and is it Charlie Kirk's fault? Is postmodern conservatism an adequate response the dissolution of the traditional “sources of the self”? For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Links: Conservativism as Postmodernism, Matt McManus, Damage Why only Socialism can redeem Conservatism, Maurice Glassman, Together For The Common Good  

On Trump and Rubio, Venezuela and Cuba. Writer Juan David Rojas talks to Alex and Lee about the abduction of Maduro, what next for Venezuela, and Trump's "hemispheric" foreign policy. What is the Trump administration's policy toward Latin America? Is the attack on Venezuela a war for oil? Or a war vs 'narcoterrorism'? What are the internal divisions in Venezuela, and could it fall into civil war? What are the armed groups in the country? Who's calling the shots in Washington: neocons or paleocons? Is the US open-border policy for Cubans going to cause a rift within the Trump admin? For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Links: How Maduro Sealed His Own Fate, Juan David Rojas, Compact Atlas Shrugged: Decoding Trump’s National Security Strategy, Lee Jones, American Affairs From Rogue State to Failed State?: The Perils of Intervention in Venezuela, Juan David Rojas, American Affairs Trump’s Venezuela Actions Are About More Than Oil, Matt Huber, Jacobin  

On "thin ideologies" in a postmodern age. The Reading Club kicks off with an exploration of illiberalism, a "new ideological universe" that exists in "a permanent situational relation to liberalism." For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast/membership What are examples of this backlash against liberalism? How is illiberalism different from populism, conservatism, or the far right? What is a thin versus a thick ideology? Are we condemned to a 21st century of only thin ideologies? Is 'illiberalism' a useful term to describe what is going on in politics today? Is liberalism versus illiberalism just a terminal culture war? Links: Illiberalism: a conceptual introduction, Marlene Laruelle, East European Politics (2022) /114/ Reading Club: The Light That Failed | Patreon

On Trump & radical right ideology. Jean-François Drolet, a leading researcher into the 'World of the Right', talks to Alex and Lee about Donald Trump's coveting of Greenland, and puts the move into its ideological context. What is the paleoconservative worldview, how is it different from the neoconservative one, and which is more influential in the Trump regime? How does paleoconservatism translate into actual foreign policy? What's in Trump's new National Security Strategy? Are we back to a 19th century-style 'spheres of influence' arrangement? Does the radical right's foreign policy lead back to a populist kind of isolationism – or to a 'civilisational nationalism'? Will Trump solidify the transatlantic alliance, or generate a rift? Links: /461/ Welcome to the World of the Right ft. Michael C. Williams World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and World Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024). International Relations and the Geopolitics of the European New Right, European Journal of International Relations, JF Drolet From Critique to Reaction: The New Right, Critical Theory and International Relations, Journal of International Political Theory, JF Drolet & Michael C. Williams Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy: Goodbye, Liberal International Order; Hello, Radical Right, Lee Jones, American Affairs (forthcoming