Episodes

Walter Benn Michaels talks about the present political moment with Class Unity. You can find one of our favorite essays by him here: https://nonsite.org/the-political-economy-of-anti-racism/ And you can find his most recent book with Adolph Reed Jr. here: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/no-politics-but-class-politics/9781912475575 Consider joining or making a donation today: https://classunity.org

Joel Kotkin is a writer on urban affairs and a fellow in urban studies at Chapman University in Orange, California. He is a regular contributor to The Daily Beast and the conservative magazine The Spectator, as well as the author of several books. In 2020, he published The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class, which is the topic we’ll be discussing with him today. Reading list for the event: https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-new-green-feudalism/ https://quillette....

Costas Lapavitsas Joined Class Unity for a discussion about the 2007-9 Global Financial Crisis. We recently reviewed his works, which you can find here in our study group here: https://classunity.org/2024/04/25/the-2008-financial-crisis/ You can find him and his work here: https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/costas-lapavitsas And you can find us here: https://classunity.org Like, subscribe, join, and make a donation for class unity today! Statement of Principles

Prof. L. Randall Wray joined Class Unity to talk about the 2007-9 GFC and politics. Prof. Wray is a professor of Economics at Bard College and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute. Previously, he was a professor at the University of Missouri–Kansas City in Kansas City. You can find Prof. Wray’s papers on the Crisis: https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_681.pdf https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_661.pdf https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_587.pdf You can find recent works and d...

Welcome to another Class Unity event. We are joined today by Kshama Sawant. Kshama is a socialist politician and economist who served on the Seattle City Council from 2014 to 2024. She is now running as an independent for the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington’s 9th congressional district in the 2026 election. She was a member of Socialist Alternative (and was their only elected official) until January 2023, when she announced she would not seek re-election to the Seattle City Council ...

Vijay Prashad talks with Class Unity about the politics and economics of imperialism as well as issues with the contemporary left. He is the author of many books, including: (2011) Marx’s Capital: An Introductory Reader. Contributed by Vijay Prashad, Venkatesh Athreya, Prasenjit Bose, Prabhat Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh, T. Jayaraman, R. Ramakumar. LeftWord. (2015) Letters to Palestine. Verso Books. (2017) Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt: Writers Respond to Climate Change. New Delhi: LeftWo...

In this episode, we’re joined by writer and political analyst Alex Hochuli to discuss his recent essay in American Affairs, “Technofeudalism Versus Total Capitalism.” The conversation explores the rising popularity of the “technofeudalist” thesis — associated with thinkers like Yanis Varoufakis, Cédric Durand, and Jodi Dean — and the claim that capitalism is undergoing a structural mutation into a new mode marked by digital rent extraction, platform dominance, and fragmented sovereignty. We ask...

Members of Class Unity discuss the crises of capitalism, the political economy of war, and the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza with Professor Wolfgang Streeck. Wolfgang Streeck is Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. In addition to being director of that institute before his retirement, he was Professor of Sociology at the University of Cologne, and before that Professor of Sociology and Industrial Relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is one of...

Michael Hudson is a professor of economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, and the author of many books and papers on political economy, the history of economics, economic history, finance, and imperialism. Dirk Bezemer is a Dutch economist who is a professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen. His work addresses the financial sector, credit creation, credit cycles, monetary policy, and...

Adolph Reed Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and is currently serving as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College. He is also an organizer with the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute’s Medicare for All – South Carolina initiative. Reed is widely known for his writings on race, class, and American politics; his two most recent books are “The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives” and, with Walter Benn Michaels, “No Politics Bu...

Members of Class Unity discuss the return of military Keynesianism, the work of the Polish Marxian economist Michał Kalecki, and the current crisis of international politics with Professor Jan Toporowski. Jan Toporowski is Visiting Professor of Economics in the department of International Development at King’s College London. He recently retired from the position of Professor of Economics and Finance at SOAS University of London. His research is concentrated on monetary theory and policy, finan...

In our latest speaker series, Class Unity discusses class, capitalism and higher education with Mitch Hernandez and Adam Rensch. Mitch Hernandez is a doctoral candidate in the cultural studies and comparative literature department of the University of Minnesota. His general interests include the history of neoliberalism and the development of subjectivity in its regimes. His dissertation focuses on the university as a site of clandestine social reproduction. Adam Rensch received his PhD in Eng...

Class Unity members discuss the realignment, Trump’s betrayal of his anti-establishment base, geopolitical developments, and the NYC mayoral election. For membership inquiries, political education courses, and speaker events please visit: http://www.classunity.org find us on YouTube @Class_Unity

Class Unity speaks with Warren Mosler, a leading voice and theorist of Modern Monetary Theory. He spent much of his career in the business world as entrepreneur and investor, founding and operating a successful hedge fund. Later he became an author on economics and along with others founded a new school of economic thought that we now know as Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. “Soft Currency Economics” https://moslereconomics.com/mandatory-readings/soft-currency-economics/ “The Seven Deadly Innocent...

Professors Radhika Desai and Paul Gottfried discuss Marxism, “Woke” ideology”, and whether Marxism is “woke”. Professor Desai teaches political economy and political science at the University of Manitoba. You can find her here: https://radhikadesai.com https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/author/radhika-desai/ https://x.com/raddesai?lang=en In her recent book, “Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy” (2022), she makes the following statement on the topics of class and left politics ...

Mattie is a social and political historian of the United States and southern Africa in the twentieth century. She is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University’s Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. She earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2023 and is an incoming assistant professor at VMI. Mattcwebb.com Twitter/X: @mattcwebb

Robert C. Hockett, Professor of law at Cornell law school, joins Class Unity for part 2 of the discussion on money: how it works and how it relates to banking, capital, and investment. He makes the case for a new set of reforms designed to socialize investment. His research lies in the fields of organizational financial, and monetary law, and economics. In this episode we discuss his papers: Modern, Pre-Modern, Or Post-Modern Money? A Brief Guide For The Perplexed. https://www.forbes.com/sites...

Robert C. Hockett, Professor of law at Cornell law school, joins Class Unity to discuss money: how it works and how it relates to banking, capital, and investment. He makes the case for a new set of reforms designed to socialize investment. His research lies in the fields of organizational financial, and monetary law, and economics. In this episode we discuss his papers: Modern, Pre-Modern, Or Post-Modern Money? A Brief Guide For The Perplexed. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rhockett/2020/10/26/...

In this episode, Jamal, Heph, Daniel, and Martin speak with Ben Thomason on USAID, the Middle East, the new Trump administration, tariffs and more. Ben Arthur Thomason is an expert on twentieth and twenty-first century US empire and international relations and completed his PhD in American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University in 2024. Ben can be followed on Twitter/X @benthomason95

FTC Manning Talks to Class Unity about Rent, Land, Class, and Politics. Support Class Unity by making a donation today: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?h… You can find the essay we discussed at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/… You can find their work at: https://independent.academia.edu… https://academicworks.cuny.edu/c… You can find us at: https://classunity.org Join us, subscribe, and donate today!

Class Unity members cover the reaction of the Democratic Party to Kamala Harris’ loss and discuss what we can expect in Donald Trump’s next presidency.

Class Unity members discuss the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, the state of the U.S. politics and the economy, and how they relate to global geopolitical developments.

Radhika Desai talks with Class Unity about geopolitical economy, imperialism, realism, the state of the left, and and dollar hegemony. She is the author of “Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire” (2013) and “Capitalism, Coronavirus and War” (2022). You can find Class Unity here: https://classunity.org Please consider making a donation or joining today!

In this episode, Jamal, Heph and Daniel speak to Ben Thomason, an expert on American culture and politics, on so-called “democracy promotion,” and the way in which the US uses media and civil society to manipulate other countries in furtherance of corporate interests. Here is some of Thomason’s recent work: 2022 article, “Save the Children, Launch the Bombs: Propaganda Agents Behind The White Helmets (2016) Documentary and Media Imperialism in the Syrian Civil War” – https://www.theprojectorjo...