Politics Theory Other

Richard Seymour on why Lula's margin of victory was so narrow in Brazil's presidential election and how it is that Jair Bolsonaro maintained such substantial support, despite Brazil's poor economic performance and his disastrous handling of the covid-19 pandemic. We also talked about what to expect from Lula's third term in office, both domestically and regarding Brazil's foreign policy.

Narges Bajoghli returns to PTO to talk about the ongoing protests in Iran, which erupted in mid-September following the killing of the twenty-two year old Mahsa Amini, by officers of the so-called guidance patrol. We talked about why Amini's death has sparked such wide scale opposition to the Iranian regime, and the class composition and geographical spread of the protests. We also talked about how the regime is seeking to portray the protest movement as being instigated by foreign powers, and finally we talked about how the left should respond to those who seek to weaponise the cause of women's rights in Iran to justify Islamophobic politics or to advance geopolitical objectives.

Richard Seymour discusses the resignation of Liz Truss and the ongoing civil war within the Conservative party. We also talked about why Richard characterises the conservatives as a "middle class protest party", and finally we discussed whether or not Labour's impressive poll leads are vindication of the strategy of labour leader Keir Starmer.

In part two of our three-part interview on Jeremy's new book - co-written with Alex Williams - Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back) we discuss what Jeremy and Alex call 'actually existing neoliberalism' - the distinct form of the ideology fostered by the hegemony of finance and Big Tech through the 1980s, 90s and 2000s. We also discussed how neoliberal ideology was propagated, as much through material practices as through the mass media, and we touched on the transformative effects of neoliberal ideology on music culture.

Last month historian David Broder joined the show to talk about Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy's election victory. Today David has kindly returned to answer some of the excellent questions sent in by listeners. Before putting those questions to David, I began by asking him to comment on developments in Italy since the election and I asked him for his thoughts on how the expected coalition of Meloni's Fratelli D'Italia, the Lega led by Matteo Salvini, and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia seems to be shaping up.

Jeremy Gilbert returns to PTO to talk about his new book - co-authored with Alex Williams - Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back). In part one of our three part conversation we talked about Antonio Gramsci's notion of Hegemony and how, in the view of Jeremy and Alex, we live in an era in which an alliance between big tech and finance structures the global economy and whose values suffuse the cultural field. We talked about why tech and finance play the leading role in the global economy, in a way that does not characterise the energy sector or other extractive industries. We also discussed why - in contrast to tech and finance - neither the New Left of the 1960s, nor the New Right associated with the Reagan and Thatcher administrations got the world they wanted by the century's end, even if they achieved certain partial victories. We also talk about why Jeremy and Alex argue that the left should appeal to people on the basis of shared collective interests, rather than on the basis of moral values.

In today's episode Richard Seymour responds to the UK government's partial u-turn on its disastrous mini-budget, and discusses why Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have demonstrated such political ineptitude since Truss came to power.

Historian of Italian politics David Broder returns to PTO to discuss the victory of Giorgia Meloni, who is set to lead the most right-wing government since World War II. We talked about the history of the Brothers of Italy and their neofascist roots, and why the far left achieved such a poor result in the election.

Earlier this month, the people of Chile voted to reject the new draft constitution that promised to be the most progressive constitution of any country on the planet, and which was the fruit of the popular uprisings in the country that in December also swept the left wing approved dignity coalition into government. Earlier this year I spoke with Camila Vergara, who argued that for all the potential benefits of the new constitution, it also risked canalising popular ferment in the country in ways that were more acceptable to the chiles economic and political elite, and she also expressed serious reservations about Gabriel Boric's new government, which even before the electoral victory had tacked to the centre in order to win business confidence and support within Chile's divided congress. In today's conversation we talked about why Chileans voted to reject the draft constitution, the failure of the government to popularise understanding of what the new document actually contained, and we also discussed the scale and effectiveness of the right's campaign of misinformation.

Richard Seymour on Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss. We talked about how she might govern, her likely response to the cost of living crisis, and how she is far from the obsessive ideologue she's portrayed as in some quarters. We also talked about the devastating floods in Pakistan, and about the death and legacy of the late Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.