Bungacast

Taking a short break – back in late August.

On politics and football.

Alex is joined by Karl Sharro, Juan David Rojas, Tim Abrahams, and Euan Marshall to pick over the stories of this World Cup.

If the World Cup is a branding exercise for the hosts, what exactly is the USA selling here? And Mexico? Canada?

Are conspiracy theories good, actually?

Is Argentina evil? Should you support the global South against the colonisers?

Are evangelicals responsible for Brazilian failure?

Do you need central planning to become good at football?

When 23% of players at the WC are foreign born, how can globalisation be ending?

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Links:

Football won’t rescue the nation, Alex Hochuli, Africa Is a Country

Note to Leftists, Do Not Squander The World Cup!, Juan Rojas, Substack

Blood ties and opportunity: Why more World Cup players than ever are not representing their birth nations, BBC

On 'imperialist realism'.

Daniel Bessner, historian, is back on to discuss the relation between US foreign policy and ideology. He talks to Alex and Lee about his forthcoming book and other writings.

Why has acceptance of imperialism accompanied declining support for empire?

What is the US's sense of mission and how does this coexist with cynicism?

Is US politics stuck between liberal guilt and conservative suprematism?

Does nothing ever actually change? Is the US even a democracy?

What would an effective anti-imperialist politics look like?

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Links:

Power without Ideology, Daniel Bessner, The Ideas Letter

Imperialist Realism: Politics and Culture at the End of the American Century, Daniel Bessner, Zer0 Books

/464/ Decline Under The Donald ft. Daniel Bessner

On Roland Barthes' Mythologies.

(This is an unlocked episode from our Reading Club. Subscribe for more like this.)

Alex, George, and contributing editor Catherine Liu delve into Barthes' 1957 classic to understand the form of ideology critique it proposes – and particularly as it relates to left and right.

If the bourgeoisie generates myth, is revolution a cathartic act that gets us beyond myth?

Is the direct producer also unable to speak myth, or is this a romanticisation?

What are predominant left-wing myths today? Is "left vs right" a myth of sorts?

Is the critic of myths condemned to live a "theoretical sociality"? Should people just be allowed to enjoy things?

On writing the history of capitalism.

Political theorist Corey Robin talks to Alex H and Alex G about what is wrong with Sven Beckert's monumental new Capitalism: A Global History.

Have historians returned to writing about big themes and grand narratives?

Why does Beckert date capitalism's emergence to 12th century Arabia?

Is capitalism essentially about free markets and free trade – or about the state, coercion, violence?

If capitalism has no beginning and no end, then does that mean we're still at the end of History?

Links:

The Long Revolution, Corey Robin (review of Sven Beckert), The Nation

/481/ Everything is Plausible: Oligarchy – or Worse ft. Corey Robin