E219 - The History of America’s Entrepreneurial Work Ethic w/ Erik Baker

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our content! Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, rise ‘n grind, and find your calling as we welcome historian Erik Baker to the program to talk about his book Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America. The group explores the Protestant work ethic and Jeffersonian yeoman farmer, influential figures like Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor, the seeds of entrepreneurialism in Harvard Business School, how it came to be seen as an American value during the Cold War, “entrepreneurial modernity,” postwar liberalism’s failure to provide meaningful work for the professional-managerial class, self-help writers, and much more. Be sure to check out Issue Fifteen of The Drift, where Erik is a senior editor.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for the full episode. Danny and Derek welcome back to the show E. Tammy Kim, contributing writer at The New Yorker, to talk about current Korean politics as well as some domestic issues. They get into the transitional moment of America’s relationship with East Asia, the changeover from President Yoon to Lee in South Korea, the effect of Trump’s xenophobia on the American-Korean relationship, the gender dynamics of political culture in Korea, and how Trump’s tariffs have affected that nation. They then turn to the US and the mass layoffs of the federal workforce, the effect of the “Big Beautiful Bill” on Medicaid and Medicare, the Democrats’ unwillingness to seize the moment, and what it would actually take to galvanize people and enact structural change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Remember that today is the last day to order our limited edition “Robo Washington Crossing the Delaware” poster! Paid subscribers get a 50% discount! AP’s retirement account is entirely tied to copper, so we’re not sure how long we have to do this. In this week’s news: Yemen’s Houthi/Ansar Allah fighters have resumed attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, sinking two (1:47); in Israel-Palestine news, Benjamin Netanyahu (on a visit to the White House) rules out a Palestinian state (4:50), ceasefire talks resume (7:56), and Israel has revealed a plan to “relocate” Gaza’s population (12:34); the IDF resumes attacks on Lebanon despite a ceasefire (15:54); the ICC issues warrants for the leaders of the Taliban (18:28); Trump revisits a “burden sharing” debate with South Korea (19:59); Trump invites a group of leaders from African countries to the White House (22:54); widespread protests in Kenya leave many dead (27:03); Trump reverses course on withholding military aid to Ukraine (29:01); the UK and France discuss a “coordinated nuclear deterrent” (32:41); the US and Colombia recall envoys in an intensifying diplomatic row (35:10); Trump sets a new date for reciprocal tariffs (37:35), threatens additional tariffs on BRICS countries (39:49), and threatens a 50% tariff on Brazil for putting Jair Bolsonaro on trial (42:04); and the US traffics 8 people to South Sudan (44:55).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now⁠ to skip the ads. ⁠Get your limited edition "Robo Washington" poster now⁠. Subscribers get a 50% discount! Economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Mark Weisbrot joins the show to talk about economic sanctions and how they affect people’s lives. They discuss the effect of sanctions on migration flows, how the PR about them targeting governments and not civilians is false, how the international financial system and dollar hegemony allow the US to sanction so freely, whether sanctions on other countries actually benefit ordinary Americans, whether tariffs can be considered a form of sanctions, and more. Check out CEPR’s work for much more material on sanctions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe today to skip the ads and for access to all of our special episodes. Derek speaks with Sina Azodi, assistant professor of Middle East Politics at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, to reflect on where things stand after the recent Iran-Israel war. They talk about the tactics used by both sides, the European, Russian, and Chinese responses, the IAEA, the future of Iran’s nuclear program, the possibility of the US and Iran resuming negotiations, and the lasting effects on the relationship between Iran and its regional neighbors. Read more of Sina’s work over at Foreign Policy. Don't forget to order our limited edition "Robo Washington Crossing the Delaware" poster! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for the full episode. Get your limited edition "Robo Washington" poster now. Subscribers get a 50% discount! Danny and Derek speak with writer and director Daniel Waters about the films Demolition Man and Batman Returns, both screenplays of his. They discuss the state of screenwriting now vs. when Daniel first arrived in Hollywood, the two films’ criticism of the security state, Demolition Man’s commentary on the stultifying effect of “political correctness” of that era, the duality of Stallone and Snipes’ characters, the challenge for a writer centering an institution they’re critical of, the horror of a utopia, the film’s ambivalence toward violence, Batman Returns coming at the beginning of IP-driven Hollywood, Max Schrek as Mitt Romney, and the reassessment of Daniel’s work in the last couple of decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more content. Order our limited edition ⁠"Robo Washington Crossing the Delaware" ⁠poster now. Paid subscribers get a 50% discount! Our news roundups are sometimes big, but never beautiful. This week: the PKK to begin its disarmament in Turkey (1:17); Iran suspends its cooperation with the IAEA (4:30), but remains open to negotiations with the US (6:53); the debate continues on how far the war set back Iran’s nuclear program (9:18); in Gaza, a new ceasefire push (12:24) while journalists investigate the massacres at “humanitarian aid” sites (16:15); Russia recognizes the Talbian-led government in Afghanistan (20:20); the Constitutional Court of Thailand suspends PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra (21:57); Malaysia bans US plastic waste (23:55); Trump ramps up US airstrikes in Somalia (26:07); the DRC and Rwanda sign a peace deal (28:48); Russia makes advances in Ukraine (33:31) plus the US freezes military aid (35:46); the UN says the security situation in Haiti is worsening (37:51); and the US and China make another trade deal (39:29).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for the full episode and access to all news specials. Derek welcomes back to the show Jason Stearns, associate professor at Simon Fraser University and author of The War That Doesn't Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo, to talk about the state of play between the Rwandan-backed M23 armed group and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as well as the ceasefire between the DRC and Rwanda. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more content! Get our "Welcome to the Crusades" miniseries! Derek welcomes back to the show Dalia Hatuqa, a journalist specializing in Israeli/Palestinian affairs and regional Middle East issues, to talk about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. They recap what has been happening to Palestinians in Gaza while the world was distracted by Israel’s war with Iran, discuss the lost generations of Gazan children, the massacres at “aid distribution centers,” increased home demolitions and settler violence in the West Bank, the current relationships of the Palestinian Authority and Jordanian government with Israel, the regional dynamics after the recent war with Iran, and what Netanyahu’s next move might be. Read Dalia’s piece from March in The Guardian, “For Palestinians, this was never a ceasefire.”       Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for the full episode. Don’t forget to purchase our “Welcome to the Crusades” series before the price increases next week. Subscribers get a 25% discount! Richard Beck, senior writer at n+1 and author of Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life, joins the program to talk about the rise of interest in studying the far right since 2016. They discuss liberal critics’ focus on the fascistic style of the current right, how the recent “rise” of the right is more of a political dealignment occurring in both parties, whether Trump has an ideology and the role of ideas in the Trump administration, the pitfalls of trying to cohere such an incoherent figure, the effect of long election cycles on liberal commentators, and whether Trump is just a symptom of a political rupture that can’t be reduced to a single figure.     Read Richard’s piece in n+1, “Fret, Hedge, React: On reading the right.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices