Bungacast

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

On the operating system of the 21st century.

Historian Quinn Slobodian and tech writer Ben Tarnoff talk to Alex Hochuli and Alex Gourevitch about their new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, and why we should ask "what is Musk a symptom of?"

If Fordism characterised the mid-20th century, are our times those of Muskism?

What are the touchstones of Muskism that the authors identify: fortress futurism, financial fabulism, state symbiosis?

Who is the real Musk, that of vehicles, energy, infrastructure, or that of the post-industrial stuff of social media, finance, AI?

What does Muskism promise people? How does it legitimise itself – if at all?

Is the state actually dependent on Musk, or is Musk dependent on the state?

How much of Musk's right-wing turn is necessary to Muskism, and how much is contingent? Is the racial component central?

Links:

Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff, Harper Collins

/57/ Übermenschen of Capital Pt. 1 ft. Alex Gourevitch

We deal with your questions, comments and criticisms from the past month or so. Key issues this month are:

What are the wrongs of the postmodern right – aand left?

Will the civilisational paradigm become hegemonic?

Is Trump's foreign policy techno-populist?

Whether, and how, to protest anti-immigration policing

To defend or to smash the professions?

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