KPFA - Against the Grain

Caring for the elderly and disabled is some of the most exacting and important work in any society. And in our society, such work is very poorly paid. Journalist Richard Schweid lays out how home care work came to be one of the most profitable industries in the U.S., despite the minimum wages received by workers. He discusses the brewing crisis of care work and its consequences for an aging population. Resources: Richard Schweid, The Caring Class: Home Health Aides in Crisis Cornell University Press, 2021 The post The Plight of Home Health Care Workers appeared first on KPFA.

Railing against capitalism is one thing; coming up with an equitable alternative is another. For many years Michael Albert has been formulating and refining his vision of a just and participatory economy. That vision includes, among other things, establishing what he calls balanced job complexes and basing income on the duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor. Michael Albert, No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World ZerO Books, 2021 Revolution Z: Life after Capitalism ZNet The post A Participatory Economy appeared first on KPFA.

Why does the United States intervene militarily around the world? Supporters might claim that the U.S. acts in the interests of national security. For critics, a likely answer would be that the country wants to exercise influence and domination over others. Journalist Andrew Cockburn, however, argues that a great number of military decisions are based on financial benefit and profiteering, including for rival bureaucracies within the military. (Full length.) photo: Michael Afonso via Unsplash The post The Spoils of War appeared first on KPFA.

Is there such a thing as society? Was the mid-twentieth century an antisocial moment in U.S. history? Theodore Martin describes what happened to the idea of society in the wake of the New Deal and World War II, and argues that sociopolitical changes fueled the emergence of a new kind of antisocial novel, examples of which include Richard Wright’s “The Outsider,” Patricia Highsmith’s “Strangers on a Train,” and Jim Thompson’s “The Getaway.” Kennan Ferguson, ed., The Big No University of Minnesota Press, 2022 Theodore Martin, Contemporary Drift: Genre, Historicism, and the Problem of the Present Columbia University Press, 2017 The post Society, Antisociality, and Postwar America appeared first on KPFA.

Prisons, jails, immigrant detention centers. We know them as places of unfreedom, but we don’t often think about them as places of work. Yet compulsory labor is a key part of incarceration in this country. Sociologist Erin Hatton discusses the state of coerced work in prisons, the lack of worker protections, and how work has been used as a way of dampening prisoner activism. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Erin Hatton (ed.), Labor and Punishment: Work In and Out of Prison UC Press, 2021 photo: Hasan Almasi via Unsplash The post Work In and Out of Prison appeared first on KPFA.

Who were the Jacobins? What did they believe in, what did they accomplish during the French Revolution, and how should they be judged? Micah Alpaugh discusses the Jacobin clubs’ social and political stances, the policies they enacted, and the Jacobins’ turn toward terror. Micah Alpaugh, ed., The French Revolution: A History in Documents Bloomsbury, 2021 Micah Alpaugh, Friends of Freedom: The Rise of Social Movements in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions Cambridge University Press, 2021 The post The Jacobins appeared first on KPFA.

The experience of trans people has burst into the mainstream in the last decade, although the struggles of gender variant people are nothing new. Jack Halberstam talks about the politics of categorization, generational differences, radical vs. single-issue politics, and anti-trans feminism. (Encore presentation). Resources: Jack Halberstam, Trans* A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability UC Press, 2018 photo: Pixabay The post The Politics of Gender Variability appeared first on KPFA.

In its early days, the internet appeared to hold the promise of a new form of communication not driven by the profit motive. Yet the sordid state of the internet today was not inevitable, according to scholar Jessa Lingel. Instead, she argues, a process took place — similar to the gentrification of our cities — in which those with wealth and power displaced myriad sites and communities of experimentation and dissent. She also discusses the still untapped potential of dark fibre optic cables right below our feet. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Jessa Lingel, The Gentrification of the Internet: How to Reclaim Our Digital Freedom UC Press, 2021 photo: Pixabay The post Making the Internet Unequal appeared first on KPFA.

How does political ideology work in Cuba? What is ideology anyway? Katherine Gordy argues that socialist ideology in Cuba, far from constituting a static, abstract canon of beliefs, is practiced and produced by people at all levels of Cuban society. She also comments on Fidel Castro’s espousal of Marxism and on the role of nineteenth-century intellectuals in Cuban revolutionary history. Katherine Gordy, Living Ideology in Cuba: Socialism in Principle and Practice University of Michigan Press, 2015 Katherine Gordy, “Strategies of Imperialism and Opposition in Cuba: Reflections on the Purity of Anti-Imperialism” Viewpoint Magazine (Image on main page by Emmanuel Huybrechts.) The post Cuban Socialist Ideology appeared first on KPFA.

Great powers rise and fall. But when their power wanes, as Britain’s did in the early 20th century and the U.S. is arguably waning now, who shoulders the costs of their decline? Is it elites or those on the bottom? Sociologist Richard Lachmann, who died in September, discusses what the past can tell us about the future of empires and hegemons. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Richard Lachmann, First-Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers Verso, 2020 photo: Pixabay The post The Decline of Great Powers appeared first on KPFA.