On Brazil's elections and the military.
A month away from the first round showdown between former president Lula and current president Jair Bolsonaro, lawyer, podcaster and communist Alcysio Canette joins us to look at the features that have shaped the past years.
How did Bolsonaro's response to the Covid pandemic – denialism, essentially – tarnish his image? What role is ...
2022-09-05 18:36:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Just a short announcement about what's coming up, while we're off on summer holidays
2022-08-30 06:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
[Patreon Exclusive]
Part two on Syria, Ukraine...and privilege.
We continue our chat with Stefan, who was an international volunteer in Rojava. How much actual difference can foreigners make? What does the future look like in Ukraine - and in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad has outlasted all the Western leaders who tried to oust him?
And we talk about Stefan's research on p...
2022-08-16 13:54:08 +0000 UTC View Post
On Rojava and Ukraine.
We talk to Stefan Bertram-Lee, former volunteer fighter for the the YPG in Rojava, about whom a Hollywood movie is being made. We ask him about the type of person who volunteers, and how this compares to those who have gone to Ukraine. How does this stop you "being a teenage nihilist"? And who would win in a fight: ISIS, Azov or the YPG?
Reading:
[Patreon Exclusive]
With European liberals waving Ukraine flags, how might the war and escalating geopolitical tensions between major power be prompting a return to nationalism and patriotism? Is it just a means for elites to extract sacrifices from the people? And how 'real' are nations anyway?
Articles:
On our financialised world.
We talk to Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou about his new book, Speculative Communities. How has speculation become the very practice around which modern societies coalesce? And how does speculation actually give voice to the wani...
2022-08-02 17:18:50 +0000 UTC View Post
[Patreon Exclusive]
On 40 years of neoliberalism.
The continuation of our interview with Fritz Bartel plus the After Party. We discuss 1973-1979 as the beginning of the End of History and ask, now that we're on the other side, how to return to a politics where promises are made. Where does legitimacy rest today? And how do we evaluate a Soviet reformer's claim that "democracy is dis...
2022-07-26 06:05:59 +0000 UTC View Post
On the end of the Cold War and the rise of neoliberalism.
Fritz Bartel talks to us about his new book in which the 1970s crisis and its aftermath takes centre-stage. How did the response to this global crisis differ in Western democratic capitalism versus Eastern state socialism? And why did this determine which side won the Cold War? How did the twin factors of global finance and energy ...
2022-07-26 06:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostJust a reminder that our next Reading Club recording will be this week, on Thursday.
We'll be discussing 'How Marx invented the symptom' by Slavoj Zizek, the first chapter from The Sublime Object of Ideology. It was also republished in slightly abridged form in the Mapping Ideology collection (pdf attached).
Do send in your questions and comments for us to d...
[Patreon Exclusive]
On reviews of our book, The End of the End of History
A year since the book came out, and two years since we finished writing it, we take a look at published reviews the book has received and respond to them.
Questions addressed include: have we overstated our case? Do we ignore the importance of the 1970s in favour of the 1990s? Might war matter m...
2022-07-19 06:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
[Patreon Exclusive]
On your questions & criticisms.
We discuss the link between Covid and war in Ukraine and return to the question of who exactly is the ruling class. Plus: inflation, what actually happened in the 1990s, contemporary art, and the politics of abortion.
2022-07-12 06:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
On abortion.
After the US Supreme Court ruling, where does this leave women in the US? Political theorist Alex Gourevitch joins us to discuss Roe v Wade, and how the fact it rooted abortion in a right to privacy was problematic.
How can we ground the right to abortion in an argument for freedom in general? And is the US really faced with a rising tide of reaction, as liberals claim...
Just to let you all know that the recording of the June RC has been delayed till 5 July, so you have until then to send in your questions regarding Andreas Malm's Climate, Corona, Chronic Emergency and Adam Tooze's review.
2022-06-28 13:05:56 +0000 UTC View Post
[Patreon Exclusive]
On the post-Soviet landscape.
In the part two of this episode, we ask whether Gorbachev had any chance of reforming and preserving the USSR, and what the defining features are of the post-Cold War Russian state. Is the entropy of the late Soviet state a portent of the entropy of Western late capitalist states?
Then the boys discuss Richard’s responses in ...
2022-06-28 06:02:59 +0000 UTC View Post
On the endgame to war in Ukraine.
Eminent Russian expert, Putin and Gorbachev biographer and ex-Sovietologist, Prof Richard Sakwa, joins us in advance of his imminent retirement from the University of Kent. We talk about the geopolitics of NATO expansion and the dynamics of the Ukraine war reaching back to 2014. How high is the risk of nuclear war now, and how might the Ukraine war play o...
2022-06-28 06:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
[Patreon Exclusive]
On the whatever decade.
People are turning back to reinterpret the 1990s. Clearly, they were peak End of History years. But does that mean that no politics actually happened? If it's the period of the cultural turn, does that mean we should seek to understand that decade culturally?
And what are the political consequences of how we interpret the 19...
2022-06-21 06:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostThe last RC of the Emergency Politics section will be recorded next Wednesday 29 June.
We'll be discussing Andreas Malm's Climate, Corona, Chronic Emergency and Adam Tooze's review, " 2022-06-20 17:39:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Edited video of Munich book launch & discussion. Chaired by Bernhard Pirkl.
2022-06-10 13:58:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Edited video of Berlin book launch & discussion. Chaired by Isabella
2022-06-10 13:52:52 +0000 UTC View Post
If the End of History was characterised by post-politics, and the 'populist decade' of the 2010s dominated by anti-politics, then how should we understand more recent phenomena? Are the following of a qualitatively different nature to anti-politics, namely: the intensification of culture wars, growing polarisation that does not always align neatly with class, of increasingly hysterical and pers...
2022-06-10 10:59:40 +0000 UTC View Post
The crumbling of the liberal, technocratic order over the past decade has led to a variety of hysterical reactions from the establishment. Faced with new challenges to their authority, they have reacted by calling their opponents "fascist", blaming misinformation or adopting conspiracy theories of their own. How are we to understand these reactions and the apparent conflict between neoliberal t...
2022-06-10 10:46:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Tonight (8 June) at 7pm, Alex Hochuli will be talking about 'Ruling Class Hysteria' in Berlin. He'll be joined by David Broder (Jacobin) and Isabella Zamboni (Spike Magazine).
Venue: Spike Magazine, Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 45
Livestream: https://youtu.be/pKa_k2s-nJY
[Live events in Germany: Berlin / Munich]
On emergency politics today.
We talk to 2022-06-07 06:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
On crumbling state authority.
Benjamin Fogel is back on the podcast to talk us through how South Africa has gone from the hopes of post-apartheid to the Durban riots of 2021. How have corruption, criminal networks, Indian oligarchs, and parasitic political forces combined to shatter any sense of a national project? We also discuss the role of xenophobia and particularist and racial ...
2022-05-31 11:11:56 +0000 UTC View Post
[Patreon Exclusive]
On the economic drivers and political choices of inflation.
In the absence of workers demanding higher wages, where is inflation coming from? Is there more to it than pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and the Ukraine war? How responsible is Biden's spending package? And how can generations who have never known serious inflation respond?
Three ...
2022-05-24 06:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Alex will be speaking at two live events in Germany, in honour of the publication of the German edition of our book, "Das Ende des Endes der Geschichte". Other speakers to be announced shortly.
Hope to see you there!
2022-05-23 15:49:46 +0000 UTC View Post
[Patreon Exclusive]
On your comments & criticisms.
We tackle ideological realignments over the use of history; conspiracy theorising; a game-show called The Last True Marxist; whether we've had any progress over the last 50 years; and much more.
2022-05-19 19:18:40 +0000 UTC View Post
This week's episode is late. Sorry. It'll be with you by Thursday. Send hate mail if you wish (this week's episode is us discussing your hate mail.)
2022-05-17 18:53:13 +0000 UTC View Post
[Patreon Exclusive]
On History and futurelessness.
We continue our discussion with Matthew Karp about his essay, "History As End: 1619, 1776, and the politics of the past", and ask whether anyone has a "golden age" anymore. What is the properly progressive at...
2022-05-10 06:03:00 +0000 UTC View Post
On liberals' embrace of the past and history wars.
We talk to Matthew Karp about his essay, "History As End: 1619, 1776, and the politics of the past". It seems as if there's an ideological inversion going on, where liberals see history in terms of original sin and...
2022-05-10 06:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post