Bungacast

Latest Episodes:

/198/ Universal India ft. Achin Vanaik Jun 18, 2021

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On secularism, nationalism and identity politics.

India is held up as a model developing country: liberal, democratic, multicultural. Renowned Indian writer and activist Achin Vanaik joins us to examine how India has turned away from universalism and secularism.

How did Gandhi, Nehru and the Congress as a whole lay the seeds for today's Hindu chauvinism? What are the consequences of defining secularism as merely 'tolerance'? And how has caste come to function a bit like identity politics in relation to the state?

Readings:

Nationalist Dangers, Secular Failings, Achin Vanaik, Aakar Books
The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism, Achin Vanaik, Verso Books
The Rise of Hindu Nationalism and the Failures of the Indian Left, Interview with Achin Vanaik, Jacobin

RE-RELEASE: /100/ What Was the End of History? ft. Many Guests Jun 15, 2021

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In the lead-up to our 200th episode later this month, we're exceptionally re-releasing our 100th episode special this week.

On the 30 years since 1989.

For our 100th episode, we invited our favourite guests to reflect on the question: “What one event, personal or political, most captures for you the past thirty years, since 1989?”

Are we still living in the death throes of the 20th century, or is something new emerging?

Guests:

(00:07:42) - Maren Thom
(00:14:14) - David Broder
(00:21:33) - Ashley Frawley
(00:26:11) - Catherine Liu
(00:33:05) - Angela Nagle
(00:40:49) - Benjamin Fogel
(00:46:25) - Alex Gourevitch
(00:51:31) - BungaCast hosts
(00:59:22) - David Adler
(01:04:05) - Amber A’Lee Frost
(01:08:48) - James Heartfield
(01:16:17) - Anton Jaeger
(01:23:24) - Leigh Phillips
(01:30:25) - Lee Jones
(01:36:03) - Karl Sharro

Excerpt: /197/ Reading Club: The Breakaway Jun 10, 2021

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We discuss the third and final in the series of Perry Anderson essays on the EU in the London Review of Books, "The Breakaway", and wonder if the EU can - despite its crises - just carry on indefinitely.

Reading Clubs are for monthly subscribers $10+. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

Excerpt: /196/ Cosmopolitan Dystopia Jun 08, 2021

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On atrocity and sovereignty.
This episode is for subscribers only. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast The disasters of Iraq, Libya, Syria and beyond are there for all to see. Why hasn't an emphasis on Human Rights led to fewer atrocities? How has Western intervention made the world a less safe place?
We discuss Philip's book Cosmopolitan Dystopia: International Intervention and the Failure of the West and discover that no one really defends sovereignty today. What's behind the concept of 'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P)? And should we understand it as a form of "liberal imperialism"?

/195/ No Shock China ft. Isabella Weber Jun 01, 2021

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On China, economic reform, and the future.

While Russia famously succumbed to destructive neoliberal "shock therapy", China managed to avoid it. How and why? Isabella Weber, author of How China Escaped Shock Therapy, tells us about China's opting for gradual reform instead.

What did reform mean for understandings of socialism? Do communists make the best capitalists? And is the pursuit of growth and development at any cost China's own version of the End of History?

Excerpt: /194/ Anti-Politics & Non-Movements May 25, 2021

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On global insurrection and identity politics.

This episode is for subscribers only. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

We discuss an essay by the ultra-left collective 'Endnotes' that deals with the same political questions as we do, but comes up with different answers. Are the fragmented and ephemeral movements that have taken to the streets in France, Chile and the US, for example, the future of politics? Anti-political rejections of the establishment seem radical, but can they overcome their own negativity? And are identity politics the necessary form that re-politicisation has taken? Readings: Essay discussed

Onward Barbarians, Endnotes

Background

The Bleak Left, Tim Barker, n+1
Endnotes no.5: A melancholic goodbye…, Angry Workers of the World
On communisation and its theorists, Friends of the Classless Society

/193/ The New 20 Years' Crisis May 18, 2021

Show notes

On liberal idealism and imperial overreach.

Why did the winners of the Cold War turn 'revisionist', undermining their own order? How has utopianism come to dominate the discipline of IR, such that we have lost the means to critique power?

We discuss Philip's recent book, The New Twenty Years’ Crisis 1999-2019: A Critique of International Relations, which is both a revisiting of EH Carr's international relations classic The Twenty Years' Crisis as well as an account of the contemporary crisis of the liberal international order.
Reading:

The New Twenty Years’ Crisis 1999-2019: A Critique of International Relations, Philip Cunliffe, McGill-Queen's UP

Excerpt: /192/ Three Articles: Pandemic (Dis)Satisfactions May 11, 2021

Show notes

On consequences of the pandemic + important local election results in Spain & UK. We start off by discussing the telling results of some recent local and regional elections: in the UK, Labour continues its drift to becoming a middle-class party; while in Spain, Madrid goes to the right. Podemos flops, while voters seem to endorse an anti-lockdown stance. Then we get to our three articles on the consequences of the pandemic: is live-streaming complicit with power? Are liberals now anti-science? Will inflation return? Three Articles:

Stayed home, live streamed, got the T-shirt, Lev Parker, The Conservative Woman
The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown, Emma Green, The Atlantic
Broad commodities price boom amplifies ‘supercycle’ talk, Neil Hume et al, FT

Excerpt: /191/ Reading Club: Ever Closer Union? May 10, 2021

Show notes

We discuss the second of Perry Anderson's three LRB essays on the making and unmaking of the EU: "Ever Closer Union?"

Our monthly Reading Club is for patrons $10+. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast

/190/ Top 5 Fetishes ft. Elena Louisa Lange May 04, 2021

Show notes

On class reductionism, commodity fetishism, and value theory.

To discuss Covid, the state as 'PMC leviathan', and the politics of value theory, we’re joined by philosopher Elena Louisa Lange, who also explains why class reductionism is not a theoretical position or a mere mistake, but a social reality. We also address the value of 'going back to school', take on the new Leftist 'holy trinity' of class-race-gender, and hear from Elena why we need to theorise the world before we change it.

Readings:

The Middle-Class Leviathan: Corona, the “Fascism” Blackmail, and the Defeat of the Working Class, Elena Louisa Lange and Joshua Pickett-Depaolis, Crisis and Critique, 2020
Marxism and the Crisis of Development in Prewar Japan, Germaine A. Hoston, Princeton, 1987
Lawyer’s Fees, Beetroot, and Music, Elena’s Substack
Value Without Fetish, Elena Louisa Lange, Brill 2021
Marxist Class Theory for a Skeptical World, Raju J. Das, Haymarket, 2018

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