Can classic organizing methods be effective in gig economy workplaces? Paul C. Gray examines how methods like organizing conversations, social mapping, social charting, leader identification, and the identification of strategic chokepoints were applied by food couriers in Toronto to the peculiar circumstances of their platform-based work environment. (Encore presentation.) Labour/Le Travail Gig Workers United (Photo on main page by Kai Pilger.) The post Organizing in the Gig Economy appeared first on KPFA.

At a time when media ownership was held in a few hands, rightwing press barons combined celebrity coverage with xenophobic and nationalist politics, lauding authoritarian leaders and playing down the threat of fascism. In the lead up to World War Two, the likes of William Randolph Hearst and Robert McCormack in the U.S., and Lords Rothermere and Beverbrook in the UK, flirted with fascism and promoted imperialism. Historian Kathryn Olmsted argues that they paved the way for far-right mass media today.(Encore presentation.) Resources: Kathryn S. Olmsted, The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler Yale University Press, 2022 The post The Roots of the Far Right Press appeared first on KPFA.

In many immigration holding facilities, detainees can choose to work for wages. But is the language of choice in this context misleading? Katie Bales deploys the concept of unfree labor to explain what’s going on within what she calls the immigration industrial complex. She emphasizes the historical and geopolitical factors that compel many detainees to agree to work for often miniscule wages. (Encore presentation.) Boris et al., eds., Global Labor Migration: New Directions University of Illinois Press, 2022 (Photo on main page by DIAC Images.) The post “Unfree” Labor in Immigration Detention appeared first on KPFA.

Mike Davis was an exceptional thinker and writer: a deeply committed socialist who dazzlingly illuminated the unfolding ecological and social contradictions of late capitalism. Whether writing about his native Southern California, or contemplating the fate of billions in the world’s mega-slums, Davis gave us new ways of seeing — always with a post-capitalist world in his sights. Geographer Richard Walker discusses the many contributions of his fellow urbanist and radical. (Encore presentation.) The post Remembering Mike Davis appeared first on KPFA.

How did the influential scholar Cedric Robinson understand black radicalism and global capitalism? Yousuf Al-Bulushi has written about what he sees as several constituent elements of the Robinsonian black radical tradition, including an appreciation of culture (which pushes back against Marxism’s materialism) and a critique of state-based models of self-determination. Al-Bulushi also considers Robinson’s engagement with world-systems analysis. Yousuf Al-Bulushi, “Thinking Racial Capitalism and Black Radicalism from Africa: An Intellectual Geography of Cedric Robinson’s World-System” Geoforum (pdf) (Image on main page by Doc Searls.) The post Cedric Robinson’s World appeared first on KPFA.

Gene-guided healthcare has taken U.S. medicine by storm, promising precision, targeted treatments to myriad illnesses. It has also proved very profitable. James Tabery traces how genetic medicine vied within the federal government with another approach to healthcare — one emphasizing the social and environmental determinants of health, such as whether you live in a polluted neighborhood — and triumphed over it. He argues that private industry has benefited, while public health has suffered. Resources: James Tabery, Tyranny of the Gene: Personalized Medicine and Its Threat to Public Health Knopf, 2023 Photo credit: Dave Titensor The post The Price of Gene-Based Medicine appeared first on KPFA.

The full-length interview with the British philosopher and educator Peter Cave, focusing on four thinkers profiled in his new book: Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Arendt. Peter Cave, How to Think Like a Philosopher: Scholars, Dreamers and Sages Who Can Teach Us How to Live Blooomsbury, 2023 The post High-impact Philosophy appeared first on KPFA.

Ours is an era of breathless talk about innovation, technical change, and disruption –- all for the presumed greater good. But what if the focus on relentless innovation has obscured the more important work of maintenance and care? Historian Lee Vinsel discusses the trajectory of technical innovation and its valorization, as well as the devaluing of maintaining what already exists. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Lee Vinsel and Andrew L. Russell, The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most Currency, 2020 The Maintainers The post Hyping Innovation, Neglecting Maintenance appeared first on KPFA.

Historian Priya Satia discusses the complicity of historians in British imperialism and challenges the linear narrative of history. She explores the work and impact of E.P. Thompson, addresses the importance of memorialization and reparations, and delves into the history of British colonialism in Punjab.

They shut down the Las Vegas strip, when the casinos were operated by the mafia, and waged a grassroots fight against racism and poverty. The struggle of African American poor mothers for welfare rights in Nevada is a story with lessons for our times of punitive austerity. Historian Annelise Orlick has documented one of the forgotten but key social struggles of the 1960s and 70s. Resources: Annelise Orleck, Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty Beacon Press, 2023 The post Organizing Against Poverty appeared first on KPFA.