/547/ What Are the Politics of Stagnation? ft. Dylan Riley

On the gig economy, big tech, and ideology. Sociologist Will Charles talks to Alex about a form of social organisation that has stopped trying to justify itself. How should the gig economy work and how does it actually work? Is any worker in this economy a 'true believer'? Why isn't digital sophistication a proof of economic efficiency? What's the relationship between secular stagnation, value capture, and rentierism? Do workers hold to a latent moral economy that could provide the basis for revolt? Full episode for subscribers only. Sign up: patreon.com/bungacast Readings: Muskism and the Myth of Productive Revolution, Will Charles Post-Legitimate Society, Will Charles & Ryan Gunderson Muskism Is the Specter Stalking Our Present, Alex Hochuli, Jacobin Relevant episodes: /538/ Muskism ft. Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff  /522/ At the Bottom of the Tar Pit ft. Benjamin Studebaker /540/ Welcome to the Apolar and Post-Multilateral World ft. Tom Chodor /546/ Reading Club: Are We All Post-Liberal Now? ft. Geoff Shullenberger /547/ What Are the Politics of Stagnation? ft. Dylan Riley

On political capitalism and divided workers. Sociology professor at UC Berkeley, Dylan Riley, talks to Alex and Lee about economic stagnation, the state propping up capitalism, and class politics. What is "political capitalism"? And is it true that plunder and predation matter more now than exploitation? Why hasn't the ruling class purged the system through mass bankruptcies and unemployment? How does Chinese state capitalism fit into the story of stagnation and excess capacity? What is the difference between economic interests and class interests? How is the working class divided today? Is there a way out of the impasse? What possibility is there of a pro-growth politics? –> For more like this, subscribe: patreon.com/bungacast <– Links: Relevant Episodes /312/ Consolation-Prize Marxism & the Bunga-Bunga State ft. Dylan Riley /515/ State Capitalism Is Now ft. Ilias Alami Riley & Brenner Seven Theses on American Politics, New Left Review, 2022  The Long Downturn and Its Political Results, New Left Review, 2025 Some Key Responses Reflections on Political Capitalism, Lola Seaton, New Left Review, 2023 Notes on ‘Political Capitalism’, John Ganz Seven Theses on Brenner and Riley's "Political Capitalism", Tim Barker Robert Brenner’s Unprofitable Theory of Global Stagnation, Seth Ackerman, Jacobin From Politics to Theory and Back, Benjamin Fong, Damage  Notable pieces in Sidecar by Dylan Lenin in America First Principles Contra Arendt

On postliberalism, MacIntyre and Gray. How was the 1950s "end of ideology" (Bell, Lipset) different from the Fukuyaman 1990s "end of history"? Is John Gray correct in his characterisation of Alasdair MacIntyre as a prelapsarian? Does hyperliberal individualism lead to a search for meaning, and thus to communitarianism?  Is the competition between liberalism and post-liberalism now our political spectrum?  Is contemporary liberalism now reducible to professionalisation of the state and civil society? If liberalism has failed – a basic point of this podcast from the start – has post-liberalism now also failed? For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Links: The End of History and the End of the End of History, Alasdair MacIntyre How to Save British Liberalism, John Gray, New Statesman What ever happened to post-liberalism, Nicolas D Villarreal, Substack /533/ Reading Club: Illiberalism?  

On Hungary's elections. Hungarian political analyst and editor of Partizan, Szilard Pap, talks to Alex about the end of 16 years of Fidesz in government. What is the scale of Fidesz’s wipeout? Who is Péter Magyar, and is he actually to the right of Orban? What was Orban’s rule built on, and what parts of it have been rejected? Does Orban mark a shift from national-populism to radical conservatism? From anti-politics to hyperpolitics? What is the impact on global radical right? Was there a global Orbanism, and is it over? How will this impact European “unity” and will Orban's defeat lead to escalation in Ukraine? For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Links: The Mittel Man, Ivan Krastev, Equator Viktor Orbán’s Hungarian Model Has Collapsed, David Broder, Jacobin

On the brave new world we have entered. Historian Arash Azizi is back on the pod, talking to Alex H and Lee Jones about the ongoing war. We try to draw out some firm consequences, beyond the immediate situtation. Why did Trump go to war? Is this Netanyahu's war? And will he continue it regardless of the US? Will the Islamic Republic become more conservative now?  What has the war revealed about asymmetric warfare? About US vulnerability? What is the state of the Hormuz weapon now? For more like this, join us at patreon.com/bungacast Links: Arash Azizi: Reasons to be Hopeful in Iran, Arash Azizi, The Atlantic /24/ #IranProtest ft. Arash Azizi /150/ Shadow Commander ft. Arash Azizi /444/ Opportunism & Revenge in the Middle East ft. Karl Sharro & Arash Azizi Analyses: How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, NY Times Netanyahu’s Iran War Is Also the War of Global Neocon Elites, Nimrod Flaschenberg, Jacobin Trump's War, Daniel Luban Dissent Magazine The world energy shock is coming, Isabella Weber and Gregor Semieniuk, New Statesman One battle after another: Netanyahu’s new security doctrine, FT  /532/ Is This a Paleocon Foreign Policy? ft. JF Drolet Atlas Shrugged: Decoding Trump's National Security Strategy, Lee Jones, American Affairs

On abolishing queer theory. Ran Heilbrunn talks to Lee Jones and Alex Hochuli about his chapter, "Abolish Queer Theory!" in the edited collection Inversion: Gay Life after the Homosexual. What is queer theory and why should it be abolished? What is the meaning behind the shift in terms: invert, to homosexual, to gay, to queer? How does queer theory politicise sex and why is this bad? Do our libidos care about social inclusion? Can they? Is identity okay but identity politics bad? For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Links: Inversion: Gay Life after the Homosexual, Aman Namaman and Pierre d’Alancaisez (eds.), Verdurin, 2025  

We deal with your questions, comments and criticisms from the past month. Key issues: The difference between radical conservatism and the far right Racism in class society in decomposition Tech bro übermenschen (or just Uber men) Who is doing the work of justifying this order? And Ursula, the villainous Cecaelian sea witch, about whom songs must be sung For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Links: To Keep and Bear Arms, Garry Wills, The New York Review David Graeber vs. Peter Thiel: Where Did the Future Go? /495/ Heritage America vs the World? ft. James Pogue  

On Amazon, labour & logistics, and trains. Benjamin Fong, of ASU's Center for Work and Democracy, as well as an editor at Damage and co-author of the substack On The Seams, talks to Alex and George about organising workers in locations of corporate vulnerability. We also preview the forthcoming print issue of Damage, Trains, by discussing modernity and its avatars, and development and de-development in Brazil. Why target Amazon above all else? What are the "seams" and why are they important? Can labour still "go after the big targets"? Do these still exist given the dispersion of production and distribution? How much public appetite is there for blockages at pain points? Links: On the Seams, Substack The Labor Movement Must Go All In on Organizing Amazon, Benjamin Y Fong, Jacobin Organizing Logistics Chokepoints: Hitting Them Where It Hurts, Benjamin Y Fong, New Labor Forum The Apotheosis of Point of Sale Data, Benjamin Y Fong, Phenomenal World

On "non-hegemony" and world disorder. Tom Chodor, IR & politics scholar at Monash University, joins us to talk about a world that still retains the formal shells of multilateral institutions but whose contents have been hollowed out. What is "multilateralism"? Why is it an important concept to capture the US-led order that is now falling apart? If multilateralism was always in crisis, what is new today? Is the emerging (dis)order multipolar or apolar? What's the difference? Is multilateralism the historic exception that we wrongly take to be the norm? Why is there no going back to the post-1945 – or post-1991 – order? What are the prospects for a new hegemonic order? Isn’t prolonged chaos and decay more likely?  The full episode is for subscribers. Join at patreon.com/bungacast Links: Non-Hegemony, Tom Chodor, Jack Taggart and Ilias Alami, Phenomenal World /377/ The Locked-Up Country ft. Shahar Hameiri & Tom Chodor /357/ Lucky, Meaty Nations ft. Shahar Hameiri & Tom Chodor  

On the slowing rate of technological progress. Alex, George and contributing editor (and science writer) Leigh Phillips discuss David Graeber's 2012 essay, Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit. This builds on two of this year's themes: state capitalism (how planning and growth – or their absence – intersect with technology) and the pre-political (how technology shapes •⁠  ⁠Were we right to expect jetpacks? And are we looking in the right place for technological advances today? •⁠  ⁠⁠Has technical progress actually slowed in the way Graeber says?  •⁠  ⁠⁠Are the explanations he gives for slowdown correct? •⁠  ⁠⁠What political tasks does this reality impose on us? •⁠  ⁠⁠What is the role of geopolitics and war in the rate of technological development? Links: Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit, David Graeber, The Baffler Science Is Getting Less Bang for Its Buck, Patrick Collison & Michael Nielsen, The Atlantic /59/ Übermenschen of Capital Pt. 3 ft. Leigh Phillips & Michal Rozworski Progress is in the balance between innovation and implementation, Phil Bell, LSE Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (On Robert C. Allen) Engels’s Second Theory: Technology, Warfare and the Growth of the State