brian bean, "Their End Is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism, and Abolition" (Haymarket, 2025)

Nov 4, 2025

In this engaging discussion, brian bean, a Chicago-based socialist organizer and author, dives deep into the origins and functions of policing within capitalism. They argue that ending policing is essential for building a more just society. Brian explores the intertwined history of race, colonialism, and class oppression that shapes modern policing. They advocate for a global abolitionist movement, while addressing myths about crime and safety. This thought-provoking conversation places personal stories at the forefront, imagining a world where communities thrive without police.

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INSIGHT

Police As Capital's Chief Tool

Police are the main tool by which a tiny wealthy class reproduces capitalist order and violence.
Ending policing is essential to begin building a democratic, safer, and more equal society.

ADVICE

Connect Reforms To Revolutionary Goals

Link immediate demands and reforms to the larger goal of abolition and revolution in movement-building.
Use every partial struggle to educate and mobilize people toward systemic change.

INSIGHT

Policing's Global, Experimental Origins

Modern policing emerged from global experiments in class and colonial control, not a single origin story.
Ruling classes blended slave patrols, colonial forces, and city watches into a public patrol and crowd-control institution.

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Where do cops come from and what do they do? How did “modern policing” as we know it today come to be? What about the capitalist state necessitates policing? In this clear and comprehensive account of why and how the police—the linchpin of capitalism—function and exist, organizer and author brian bean presents a clear case for the abolition of policing and capitalism.

Their End Is Our Beginning traces the roots and development of policing in global capitalism through colonial rule, racist enslavement, and class oppression, along the way arguing how police power can be challenged and, ultimately, abolished. bean draws from extensive interviews with activists from Mexico to Ireland to Egypt, all of whom share compelling and knowledgeable perspectives on what it takes to—even if temporarily—take down the cops and build a thriving community-organized society, free from the police. The lessons they offer bring nuance to the meaning of “solidarity” and clarity to what “abolition” and “revolution” look like in practice.

Featuring illustrations by Chicago-based artist Charlie Aleck, Their End Is Our Beginning is an incendiary book that offers a socialist analysis of policing and the capitalist state, a vital discussion of the contours of abolition at large, and the revolutionary logic needed for liberation.

Guest: brian bean is a Chicago-based socialist organizer, writer, and agitator originally from North Carolina. They are one of the founding editors of Rampant magazine. Their work has been published in Truthout, Jacobin, Tempest, Spectre, Red Flag, New Politics, Socialist Worker, International Viewpoint, and more. In addition to Their End Is Our Beginning, brian coedited and contributed to the book Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, also published by Haymarket Books.

Host: Michael Stauch (he/him) is an associate professor of history at the University of Toledo and the author of Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2025.

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