Auxiliary Statements

The boys make a return to Allende’s Chile this week with the conclusion of their sketch of its all too brief flirtation with cybernetic planning. Jack and Dan look at what exactly it was that cybernetician Stafford Beer proposed as a model for real-time decentralised economic management in Chile. They explore the highs, the lows, and some lessons that can be drawn from Project Cybersyn. Reading, Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Alliende’s Chile (2014), by Eden Medina.

Well look who stopped by! Today Dan and Jack are joined by Marxist Podfather Tom O'Brien from the From Alpha to Omega Podcast. Tom talks some sense into the boys and gives us all sorts of scalding hot takes about Trump, Biden and the crumbling empire that is the United States of America. They lads then talk a little Revolutionary Strategy, cybernetics and Aaron Bastani's wet, wet mouth. You can find the FULL, UNEDITED LIVESTREAM of this interview over on the Auxiliary Statements YouTube channel. Wow! Check out Tom's patreon here - https://www.patreon.com/FromAlpha2Omega And check out the Emancipation Network here - http://emancipation.network/

This week Jack and Dan try to get to grips with the hip new theory on the block; Cybernetics! Our story starts in 1970s Chile. The boys learn all about how an eccentric British cybernetician named Stafford Beer came to be in the employ of the Socialist administration of president Salvador Allende. What does this management consultant have to teach a bunch of democratic socialists and how might business management theory come to inform our glorious communist future? VSM Guide - https://www.esrad.org.uk/resources/vsmg_3/screen.php?page=1qguide Reading, Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile (2014), By Eden Medina.

Recorded before the events in DC so you won't have to sit through any current event hot takes! That's the Auxiliary Statements promise, baby. What's it been, six episodes since we talked about our boy Ralph?? This week Dan and Jack climb back aboard the Mili-train to talk a little bit more about the state. Is there a difference between bourgeois republicanism and fascism? Yeah for sure. Are they both bad? Oh yeah most definitely. Reading: Marxism and Politics by Ralph Miliband (1977), Chapter IV, The Defence of the Old Order II: Section 2,3,4&5.

Today's the day folks! Jack and Dan make their best effort to explain why the podcast has the title it does; what is an auxiliary statement? The boys dive deep into some philosophy of science and do their upmost to stay vaguely afloat as they wrestle with the ultimate question, what is scientific investigation and how is it done (and more importantly, not done)? Theory is nothing without practice! Pretty rich coming from a theory podcast I hear you exclaim. Reading: The 'Corroboration' of Theories by Hilary Putnam.

Wow Auxiliary Statements in your feed on a TUESDAY?! For the first episode of our mid-week mini-episode series (known henceforth as Adjunct Statements), Jack takes a dive into the greatest book ever written...State and Rev-, uh, I mean The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien. Why the hell is this in my commie podcast feed you ask? Not sure, but Jack does his best to explain what use this big ol' book could be to socialists, nerds and freaks today. Reading: "The Ainulindalë" from The Silmarillion (1977), by JRR Tolkien. Cover Art: Melkor Weaves Opposing Music by Ted Nasmith.

Well would you look at that. Dan and Jack have made it to 10 episodes. We couldn't be more proud of our boys, could we folks? This week they take a look back at everything they've read so far in an attempt to draw parallels and maybe a conclusion or two. But after 10 lovely episodes, only one thing is for sure - Louis Althusser was and remains to this day, an anarchist icon. Happy holidays from the Auxiliary Statements family. Hope you're all staying safe. If you're like us, today is just another cold day in December that has no pagan overtones to speak of. Perhaps it should be that way every year? Reading: WE TOOK THE WEEK OFF, BABY

On this week's show Jack and Dan continue their expedition to America's testcase state in all things deplorable and dastardly; California! Come listen to how a motley band of hippies, armed with sci-fi novels and utopian dreams, came to define the dystopian reality of the nascent computer age. Our hosts learn how things went so disastrously wrong and are forced to consider just how attached they they are to their “wetware”. Reading: The Californian Ideology by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron (1995)

God damn I miss Ronald Reagan. That's the mood as the lads take a look at the rise of The New Right - the political movement that decided to once and for all end the legacy of the New Deal and replace it with something much stupider. In this episode, Dan and Jack will examine all the freaks, opportunists, chuds, racists, homophobes, war-hawks, fundamentalists and worst of all CALIFORNIANS that brought about Ronald Reagan's presidency. So strap in, buckos, because this one's a history lesson. Reading: "The New Right's Road to Power," from Prisoners of the American Dream by Mike Davis (1987).

This week Jack and Dan are led down the garden path into the wonderful world of IDEOLOGY. With Althusser as a guide the boys try to grapple with the pervasive nature of the old foe capitalism and continue to seek an answer to the vexing question, “Why no revolution?”. Never before has ignorance been used as such an effective tool of criticism. Reading: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses by Louis Althusser (1970)