Bungacast

History’s back, baby! 

Thu 28 May, Verdurin, London

Tickets: https://verdur.in/store/historys-back-baby-admission/

 

It is obvious today that the “end of history”, postulated by Francis Fukuyama in 1992, is over. Liberal democracy as the final form of human organisation? Pah! The arc of history tending towards justice? Pah! 

Will the end of twentieth-century modernity be the start of something new? The building blocks of the past – political parties, ideologies, and institutions – are decaying around us, and nothing new emerges to take their place. 

Yet history now has new protagonists: states, corporations, and oligarchs, often acting in synthesis. What if history’s back but not as we wanted it? The stakes are high: the sunset of the US hegemony is in sight and even Fukuyama now agrees on the impending primacy of the “Chinese model”. Yet even such geopolitical shifts aren’t leading to the creation of a new hegemony – disorder is the order of the day. 

Five years on from the publication of The End of the End of History, its authors and hosts of Bungacast reflect on a world in a state of accelerated decay, with responses from guests Lee Jones and Nina Power.

They say that “nothing ever happens”. Pah! Something ever happens.

On angry young women.

Ashley Frawley, sociologist and senior editor at Compact, joins Alex and George to delve more deeply into young people's political polarisation on gender lines.

Why is there a lack of mutual understanding or goodwill between young men and women when we have never been more equal?

Why do differing political views on anything from Israel/Palestine to Donald Trump cause such interpersonal rancour?

Young women are centrally concerned with pain, trauma, and empathy – and see men as lacking. What's behind this?

How is the conservative explanation (bad lefty ideas) just as faulty as the lefty one (patriarchy)?

What will the political consequences be of gender polarisation?

For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast

Links:

Revealed: the new radicalism among young women, Scarlett Maguire, New Statesman

Meet the Angry Young Women, Emily Lawford, New Statesman

Why young women are so angry, Pippa Bailey, New Statesman

Don’t panic about “Angry Young Women”, Jack Davey, The Critic Magazine

Why do young women hate men?, New Statesman, YouTube

/394/ Girls, Left / Boys, Right ft. Nina Power (see for additional links)

Girls and Boys are becoming very different, Alex Hochuli, Substack

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?

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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?