Politics Theory Other

With the UK Office of National Statistics reporting that covid-19 related deaths in the UK have exceeded 100,000, PTO spoke to Richard Seymour about why the UK government's covid response has been so disastrous. We also talked about why the UK vaccination has not been characterised by the vacillation and delay that has been associated with so much else of the British government's reaction to the pandemic. And finally we talked about impact of the covid crisis on the prospects for the breaking up of the union and the likelihood of Scottish independence. To listen to this episode of PTO Extra! please consider becoming a £5 supporter on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryother

Ravinder Kaur joins PTO to talk about her new book, 'Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist Designs in Twenty-First-Century India'. We spoke about how in both India, and around the world ethnonationalism in alliance with domestic and international capital seeks to rebrand entire nations as attractive investment opportunities. We talked about who and what is left out of the airbrushed picture of the branded nation, why it is that nationalism and capitalist globalisation are not antithetical as was commonly supposed in the 1990s, and we also talked about how India's democratic history and self-portrayal as open and convivial is used to favourably contrast India with China, even in the era of Hindu nationalism.

Andreas Malm joins PTO to talk about his new book, 'How To Blow Up a Pipeline'. We chatted about why the climate movement is so fiercely committed to nonviolence, how that hinders climate activism, and how the advocates of nonviolence edit the history of popular struggles and liberations movements in order to downplay the importance of the more militant wings of those struggles.

Alison Phipps joins PTO to talk about her new book, 'Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism'. We chatted about the MeToo movement and what it reveals about the mainstream of feminist politics, how violence against women is necessary to the project of capitalist globalisation and how the image of the imperilled white woman has been central to the project of empire both formal and informal.

Jeremy Gilbert joins PTO to discuss why the Corbyn and Sanders projects ultimately foundered. We talked about the significance of personality and strategy versus deeper historical tendencies, and why the Corbyn leadership seemed to prefer a critique of austerity to a broader attack on the neoliberal era. Our discussion was prompted by Jeremy's article in Open Democracy, 'We lost because we weren’t big enough'.

In the final episode of the second season of #RedHacks Joana Ramiro speaks to Laurie Macfarlane about the necessity of an economic journalism that challenges the status quo.

Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter join PTO to talk about whether Joe Biden's election victory represents a comprehensive repudiation of Trumpism, what we can expect from the Republican Party after Trump, and we also chatted about the significance of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Marcela Mora y Araujo and Jonathan Wilson join PTO to talk about the late Diego Maradona and the outpouring of grief that greeted his death in Argentina and around the world. We also talked about the darker side of Maradona, his mistreatment of the women in his life in particular and the tangled question of whether one can separate the art from the artist.

Brett Christophers joins PTO to talk about his new book, Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It? We chatted about the extraordinary dominance of monopolistic rent-seeking in the UK economy, why the concept of rentierisation is more useful and accurate than the notion of financialisation when talking about the trajectory of the UK and world economies, and we also talked about how and why entrepreneurialism and competitiveness are values that are taken up far more by ordinary people in the labour market than by UK business. You can listen to the extended version of the episode by becoming a £3 supporter on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44326998

Sophie Lewis joins PTO to talk about her article in The Nation, 'Covid-19 Is Straining the Concept of the Family. Let’s Break It'. We chatted about how the Covid19 pandemic has underscored how dependent the nuclear family is upon the labour of others, and why the family is being called into question by mainstream political commentators. We also talked whether the call for family abolitionism is strategically the right call to be making, and whether instead the left ought to demand the extension of the beneficial aspects - of at least some families - to everyone. Become a £3 PTO supporter to access the extended version: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102-what-covid-w-44040794