The Regrettable Century

This week we delve into what is sort of a pre-history of the American Socialist movement. Though the populist movement undeniably kept its Jeffersonian character, it was the first (arguably only) significant challenge to the dominance of the two major capitalist parties in the US. Much of the energy and the spirit of American populism flowed into and colored the burgeoning American workers' movement. From Populism to Socialism and Backhttps://jacobin.com/2019/08/populism-socialism-daniel-de-leon-eugene-debs American Populism, 1876-1896https://digital.lib.niu.edu/illinois/gildedage/populism Populist Party Platform July 4, 1892https://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1876-1900/populist-party-platform-july-4-1892.php Cantrell, Gregg, and D. Scott Barton. “Texas Populists and the Failure of Biracial Politics.” The Journal of Southern History 55, no. 4 (1989): 659–92. https://doi.org/10.2307/2209044.Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

The boys and Varn Vlog are back again, talking about "Decadence Theory" and how it differs from "crisis theory" and "breakdown theory." We discuss Samir Amin's Third-Worldist (and not very Marxist) take on decadence theory.Revolution or Decadence- Samir Aminhttps://monthlyreview.org/2018/05/01/revolution-or-decadence/Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

The gang tackles Chapter 4 of Bauer's analysis of the concept of the nation...Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

This week we entered the archives and poured through the codices and scrolls containing the wisdom of past episodes to give you this curated trash can of Ideology. We highlighted some themes from the past six years of podcasting that we thought were worth underscoring and how our ideas may have changed...Our Underlying Philosophy of Dialectical PessimismS1/Ep5: Pessimism of the Intellect, Pessimism of the WillS1/Ep26: The Proper Amount of Bumming People Out  S4/Ep7: Death of The LeftS5/Ep21: Pessimism is an Optimism: Revisiting PessimismMaking Sense of Our PastS1/Ep27: Children of the Counterrevolution S3/Ep12: The Enlightenment is Dead, Long Live the EnlightenmentS3/Ep22: The Unfulfilled Potential of the Republic S4/Ep3: The Tragedy of American Socialism  Rethinking What It Means To “Be” RevolutionaryS1/Ep18: The Right to the CityS2/Ep8: We Would Prefer Not ToS5/Ep15: The Legacy of William MorrisS6/Ep15: The Antifascism of FoolsA Willingness to Abandon Our Older TrajectoryS4/Ep20: Labor Theory of ApocalypseS6/Ep5: One Plus One Is ThreeS6/Ep16: The Boys Figure Out Which Marxist Tendency is Correct S6/Ep19: To Front or Not to FrontThe Major Obstacles/Challenges We FaceS3/Ep5: Happiness Industry SocialismS3/Ep17: Everything Is Recuperated S5/Ep9: You're Not Making Liberals Socialist...S5/Ep19: The Dialectic of DegrowthOur Deep Skepticism/Hostility Toward Techno-SolutionsS1/Ep31: The Future Has Been Canceled S2/Ep2: Partially Automated Regular CommunismS2/Ep5: Socialism Without Sacrifice... S4/Ep4: No Ethical Technical Innovation Under CapitalismLooking AheadS4/Ep11: Marxism in Dialogue With ChristianityS5/Ep12: The Dialectic of Apotheosis  S5/Ep16: Bathing in the Warm Stream S6/Ep22: Real Grouchy Old Man HoursRegrettable Reading List:The Red Jacobins: Thermidor & The Russian Revolution in 1921Party As Articulator The Tragedy of the WorkerRevolution: An Intellectual HistoryLeft Wing MelancholiaExcremental Happiness: From Neurotic Hedonism to Dialectical PessimismLiquid ModernityThe True and Only Heaven: Progress & Its CriticsThe Twittering MachineHegel & The Hermetic TraditionA Primer on Utopian Philosophy: Marxism & Utopian StruggleSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

This is an old episode of our friend Andrew's podcast that was recorded a few years ago. The podcast is now defunct, but we thought y'all deserved to hear it. In this episode Jason and Andrew watched and discussed Guy Debord's 1974 film version of The Society of the Spectacle.Enjoy and Happy New Year.Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

We are joined again by our official France correspondent, Matthew. Matthew is a veteran of American Trot sectarian organizing and the labor movement who lives in France and is more intimately involved in the happenings than we are. We discuss the failure of the popular front, the ham-fisted triumph of Macron, and the death throes of the French political system. Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

Soldiering on and finishing Chapter 3 of Bauer's excellent Marxist analysis of the nation.Read along with us:https://libcom.org/article/question-nationalities-and-social-democracy-otto-bauerSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

This week, we read and discussed Eley and Blackbourn's indispensable discussion of the Sonderweg, or special path, of German history. It is often said that Germany's path to the Holocaust begins with the failure of the bourgeois revolution to take hold. This book posits a top-down Bonapartist "revolution" led by Otto von Bismarck which thoroughly bourgeoisified German society from the top to the bottom.Blackbourn, David, and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford, 1984; Oxford Academic, 3 Oct. 2011)Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

Kicking off Year VII, Chris and Ben are joined by Daniel Saunders to discuss Herbert McCabe's Class Struggle and Christian Love. The intention was also to cover pieces by Dennis Turner and Terry Eagleton but time got away from them, so Daniel will have to return again...Herbert McCabe: The Class Struggle and Christian Love https://www.christiansocialism.com/2020/05/14/herbert-mccabe-class-struggle-capitalism-marxism-christianity/More of Daniel:Ideology, Fetishism, Apophaticism: Marxist Criticism & Christianityhttps://www.buzzsprout.com/220523/episodes/14978167-ideology-fetishism-apophaticism-marxist-criticism-and-christianity-with-daniel-saundersIdeology, Fetishism, Apophaticism: Marxist Criticism and Christianity:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nbfr.12642And Here:https://daniel-saunders.com/Mentioned Materials:The Slant Manifesto https://archive.org/details/SlantManifestoCatholicsAndTheLeftThe New Blackfriars Journalhttps://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/study/new-blackfriars-journal/Science Impregnated With History: Marxism and Reason (With Chris Manno)https://www.buzzsprout.com/220523/episodes/4672121-science-impregnated-with-history-marxism-and-reason-with-chris-manno.mp3?download=trueSend us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show

The long-awaited part two of our year six in review episode. We kick it off with a little geopolitical discussion but get around to discussing our personal lives and the podcast. Send us a message (sorry we can't respond on here). Support the show