[BEST OF 2025] On Technofeudalism: Rent Seeking in Late Stage Monopoly Capitalism

In this episode, we're joined by professor Joel Wainwright (co-author of Climate Leviathan) to discuss his newest book, The End: Marx, Darwin, and the Natural History of the Climate Crisis. Together, Breht and Joel explore the intellectual impact Charles Darwin had on Karl Marx, and why it matters for the ecological crisis of our time. Wainwright argues that Marx's study of Darwin helped him develop a distinctly Marxian concept of natural history, reshaping how he understood history, nature, and capitalism itself. Reading Capital through this lens, they unpack how Marx's critique becomes an ecological critique: capitalism as a social formation that reorganizes the human–Earth relation, producing crisis, "surplus" populations, and new forms of domination - and have some fun disagreements along the way. They close by asking what this natural-historical Marx can contribute to building an eco-socialist alternative beyond capitalist growth and climate catastrophe. Check out Breht and Alyson's previous episode on Climate Leviathan HERE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get bonus episodes on Patreon Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow RLR on IG HERE Learn more about Rev Left HERE

Matthew Vernon Whalan joins the show to discuss Bullock: Chronicles of Deprivation and Despair in an American Prison, an interview-driven, investigative journalistic, and collectively narrated portrait of life inside Bullock Correctional Facility in Alabama. Through the words of incarcerated people themselves, we explore the everyday realities that rarely make it into public view: mental health crisis and predation, sewage and infrastructure collapse, cruel and unusual punishment, sleep deprivation, violence, drugs and overdose, and the informal social orders that take shape when official protection fails. This book is truly an act of witness -- and a demand that we look directly at what incarceration actually does to human beings. Once examined, we can see the U.S. prison system as a disturbing microcosm of the pathologies infecting and eating away at the broader American society.  Support Matthew and his work directly on Venmo @Matthew-Whalan-1 Get 15% off any book at Left Wing Books HERE Check out our previous episode with Project Hope t0 Abolish the Death Penalty HERE   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get bonus episodes on Patreon Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow RLR on IG HERE Learn more about Rev Left HERE

In this episode, Breht interviews Adnan Husain -- Professor of Medieval history and Chair of the Religious Studies department at Queens college -- about the deep historical roots of today's Middle East. The conversation traces the arc from ancient Persia to the Islamic era, explores how Iran became a center of Shi'a Islam, and examines the long rivalry between Persian and Ottoman power. Along the way, they unpack the Sunni-Shia split, the political role of Turkey in the region, the ways Western narratives about Islam were forged through the Crusades and carried forward into the modern world, Zionist Expansionism, and the ongoing illegal war of aggression waged by the U.S. and Israel against Iran, and indeed, the whole region. Check out Adnan's previous appearences on Rev Left HERE Subscribe to Adnan's YouTube channel HERE Watch Adnan's 2 Part episode on Yemen HERE Listen to Guerrilla History podcast HERE --------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get bonus episodes on Patreon Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow RLR on IG HERE Learn more about Rev Left HERE

Torkil Lauesen joins us to discuss his book Unequal Exchange: Past, Present, and Future and the hidden mechanics of modern imperialism. Lauesen returns to the tradition of Arghiri Emmanuel to argue that while the world market tends to equalize prices, wages remain radically unequal across borders -- driving a structural transfer of value from low-wage production zones to high-wage consumer economies. We walk through Lauesen's reconstruction of unequal exchange through Marx's value theory, the leading approaches to measuring global value transfer, and what contemporary estimates imply about the scale of the drain. From there, we explore the political consequences inside the Global North: why reformism and social democracy have often been stabilized by imperial arrangements, what that means for internationalism, and why the "imperial mode of living" is increasingly unstable. Finally, we turn to the shifting world order -- especially Lauesen's argument that a new mode of production may be emerging, best exemplified by China -- and what that implies for the future of capitalism, multipolarity, and socialist transition. We also discuss the ongoing war/conflict involving Iran and what it reveals about crisis, hegemony, and the changing methods of imperial power. Check out our other episodes with Torkil HERE outro Music: 'Antithesnails' by spinitch and Chaz Matador --------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get bonus episodes on Patreon Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow RLR on IG HERE Learn more about Rev Left HERE

(recorded on 3/1/26) - Breht went on Workers' Lit as a guest! "The American ruling class is at war. Physically, they are at war with Iran, pummeling the country with unrelenting airstrikes, slaughtering civilians, and doing their best to make yet another nation unlivable. But they are fighting another war: a psychological war against every one of us. They are building a world of declining literacy, misinformation, confusion, and fear. Combine those two wars and you get an apathetic American populace even as its own country murders untold innocents Breht O'Shea of RevLeft joins Aysha, Jen, and Jacob to discuss these dual wars and how we can fight back." Check out more from Workers' Lit here: https://www.workerslit.com/ Make a donation to Socialist Night School via Venmo @OmahaNightSchool

On this YT livestream (3/1/26) Alyson and Breht discuss the illegal war of aggression launched by the US and Israel against Iran. Throughout the discussion they take live questions from the chat.   Subscribe to your YouTube Channel HERE   ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/

Alyson and Breht discuss a range of current events, including Cuba, the Epstein Files, Iran and much more.  Make a donation to Socialist Night School via Venmo @OmahaNightSchool Outro Song: "to each their dot" by Haley Heynderickx & Max Garcia Conover ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/

In this episode, we're joined by author and poet Too Black to unpack his essay "Nonviolence is violence, too: Somebody's gotta die," and to challenge the comforting myths that often surround "nonviolent" struggle. We dig into what he means by the claim that nonviolence is never actually bloodless, why he prefers the term "sacrificial violence," and how nonviolent movements frequently gain leverage precisely because an opponent supplies the repression that shocks the public, shifts legitimacy, and forces concessions. Along the way, we talk through the research Too Black draws on including Erica Chenoweth's work on lethal repression, and we explore his core metaphors and case examples, from confronting power like "poking a bear over honey" to the method-independent brutality of settler colonialism in Palestine. At the heart of our conversation is a deep dialectic between Martin Luther King Jr. and Frantz Fanon, and how both frameworks, in different ways, move through violence as an unavoidable terrain of liberation. For King, suffering becomes the redemptive path, a willingness to absorb brutality to expose evil and transform the political and spiritual situation. For Fanon, revolutionary violence itself is the redemptive force, the route through which the colonized reclaim dignity, agency, and self-respect. We close by asking what this reframing means for organizers today: if rights require enforcement and "dramatizing evil" often demands real sacrifice, how should movements talk about nonviolence honestly and strategically in the world as it actually is? Subscribe to Black Myths Podcast ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/ Outro Beat Prod. by flip da hood

Syria is entering a new and terrifying phase. In this episode Breht is joined by a panel of scholars and activists (Angie Bittar, Adam, Joma, Nur and Jalyssa) to take a clear-eyed look at what's unfolded over the last year and how it fits into the longer arc of the Syrian civil war, including the rapid collapse of the Assad-era order and the emergence of a new regime centered around HTS and Ahmad al-Sharaa (Jolani). Together, they break down the latest waves of mass violence and displacement across the coast, Suwayda, Aleppo, and Rojava, and ask what these events reveal about the new Syria. From there, they turn to the Kurdish question. They discuss the SDF, the long history of US imperial instrumentalization of Kurdish forces, the recurring pattern of abandonment, and the growing pressure now facing Rojava amid shifting regional and international priorities. They also examine ongoing kidnappings and sect-based killings, the breakdown of accountability, and what the allegations surrounding Syrian security institutions tell us about the direction of the new order. Finally, they zoom out to the information war. They map the propaganda narratives being pushed in Western and Zionist media, and offer practical "tells" for separating genuine reporting from information operations. Then, they close by asking what Syria teaches us about the current political moment: imperial strategy, proxy warfare, sectarian fragmentation, and what real solidarity demands. Access a full list of all the sources used for this episode HERE Donate to Jalyssa on Cash App: $JalyssaDugrot Or donate at: BuyMeACoffee/Jalyssa Check out Joma's great podcast: JDPOD Previous Episodes on Syria and Rojava:  "The Situation in Syria" Episode w/ Angie last year "On Syria: Civil War and US Imperialism" with Rania Khalek from 2018  "The Kurds and Revolutionary Rojava" with Dr. Redcrow from 2017 Interview with Murray Bookchin's Daughter on his Life and Legacy ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio https://revleftradio.com/    

Breht discusses recent events in Minneapolis... ------------------------------------ Outro Song: Song for Alicia by Haley Heynderickx and Max Garcia Conover