Episodes

Christian Parenti talks with Class Unity about the “compatible left”, so-called Wokeness, contemporary politics, and institutions like the CIA. Parenti is the author of “Radical Hamilton” (2020) and “Tropic of Chaos” (2011). You can find his article here: https://catalyst-journal.com/2024/06/… You can find Class Unity here: https://classunity.org Please consider making a donation or joining today!

Michael Heinrich talks to Class Unity about Marx’s Capital, Politics, and the contemporary Left.

Welcome to Transmissions Episode 14! In this episode, Jamal, Heph, and Daniel discuss the recent political victory of George Galloway, the Workers Party, and Joti Brar on “Class Unity”, and the prospects for class politics at present. On the Class Unity podcast channel you can find Transmissions, our podcast for topical discussions and interviews, and PoliEdPod, the podcast featuring great content from our Political Education Committee. If you are interested in this discussion, consider joini...

Welcome to Episode 8 or CU’s PoliEdPod series! In this episode, Catherine Liu joins us for a discussion of recent debates about the relation between Republican and Democratic parties and labor. For background, listeners may want to check out the articles which initiated this debate, by Sorab Amari and Dustin Guastella, along with a contribution by Liu herself: Sohrab Ahmari, “How the GOP Can Mend Fences With Unions,” https://www.compactmag.com/article/how-the-gop-can-mend-fences-with-unions/ D...

One of the worlds leading Marxist economists talks to us about the recent problems of inflation, class politics, and the global economy. Check out Lapavitsas’s latest collaborative efforts here: “The State of Capitalism: Economy, Society, and Hegemony,” with the EReNSEP Writing Collective (2023): https://www.versobooks.com/products/2727-the-state-of-capitalism “The Cost of Living Crisis: (and how to get out of it),” with James Meadway and Doug Nicholls (2023): https://www.versobooks.com/produc...

Hello friends! Welcome to another episode of Class Unity ‘Transmissions’! Our guest for this episode is none other than James A. Smith, co-host with David Slavick of The Popular Show. Smith is also the author of Other People’s Politics: Populism to Corbynism (Zer0 Books, 2019) and coauthor with Mareile Pfannebecker of Work Want Work: Labour and Desire at the end of Capitalism (Bloomsbury, 2020). Smith is a defender of the idea that the 2016-2020 “Bernie moment” was a real opportunity to advanc...

Welcome to Episode 12 ‘Transmissions,’ a Class Unity podcast. In this lighthearted episode we discuss the question of Leftoid Busywork. We open with an except from The Phantom Tollbooth (1970), an animated adaptation of the novel by the same name, by Norton Juster. In the clip, the young protagonist Milo meets a character named the Terrible Trivium. Milo is on a mission but he needs to make some allies along the way. The Trivium seems aware of this, and offers to help. But first, he needs hand ...

Welcome to Episode 11 of Class Unity Transmissions! In this episode, we are joined by Efraim Carlebach to discuss the 10-year anniversary of the publication of Mark Fisher’s seminal essay, Exiting the Vampire Castle. Published on November 24, 2013, Fisher’s essay is remembered today as a powerful shot across the bows of what was known at the time as the “call out” left. In particular, the essay was a response to a recent controversy stemming from the appearance of “working class” comedian Russe...

If Marxism is a theory of history grounded in economics, how should Americans understand our own history from a Marxist perspective? What can the critique of political economy tell us about the major events of American life from the Revolution to the World Wars to today? What are the class dynamics animating the most crucial event of American military history, the Civil War? In preparation for our Fall 2023 Capital Reading Group, members of CU’s PoliEd Committee got together for a one-day discu...

Hello friends! In this episode of Transmissions, we discuss the recent events unfolding in the Israel-Palestine conflict. In typical Class Unity spirit, we try to focus on the question of what it might mean to approach this conflict from a class first perspective. A central theme of the episode is the question of how the left seems to have split around the issue of Zionism. As we note, there does seem to be an “anti-anti-zionist” strain at large in the left around this issue. Proponents of thi...

Welcome to episode 5, of PoliEdPod. In this episode, we present our interview with author Prof. Brett Christophers, on his book Our Lives in their Portfolios; Why Asset Managers Own the World (Verso 2023). Our conversation covers the contemporary asset market, the rentier economy, and the changing nature of ruling class control over nearly all aspects of life in the 21st century, from basic infrastructure to real estate. We had a great conversation with Brett, and encourage everyone to give it ...

Hello friends! Welcome to this special episode of Class Unity: Transmissions. In this episode, we present you a discussion addressing two topics. First, the recent “statement from the DSA union,” complaining about how staffers are going to be laid off because of a lack of money (i.e., membership dues), whilst couching as a labor issue (“critical union jobs” must not be cut “in order to pay for non-union leadership salaries”!). Second, we discuss a recent interaction between Briahna Joy Gray a...

This episode features an interview with the writer Adam Theron-Lee Rensch on his book No Home For You Here: A Memoir on Class and Culture. The memoir tells the story of Rensch’s life growing up in a working class family in rural Ohio. Rensch combines social and political commentary along with vivid depictions of the struggles that face his community and loved ones. From leaving to attend a private college with few working class people, to going back home only to face several friends and family d...

The Class Unity Political Education Committee is proud to present a discussion exploring how Marxist theory understands modern history. To grasp the rise of fascism in 20th century Europe, we discuss and analyze Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s 1973 text, Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism. According to theorists like Sohn-Rethel and Michal Kalecki, the Nazi policy of rearmament leading to the Second World War saved bankrupt industrialists from the Great Depression. We follow the roots of the ‘pe...

Welcome to Episode 7 of Class Unity “Transmissions.” In this episode we are joined by Doug Lain, Commissioning Editor at Sublation Media. Lain is a real veteran of the left podcast scene. From his old philosophy podcast “Diet Soap,” which ran from 2009 through 2014, to his work as host of the Zero Books podcast, Zero Squared, Lain’s impact as a formative voice on the contemporary socialist left cannot be understated. In this show we cover a wide range of topics, including Lain’s recent ban from...

“Those who own the country ought to govern it.” (John Jay) “…if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. […] our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. […] [it] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. […] The Senate ought to represent the opulent Minority…” (James Madison) “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without j...

Hello comrades! Welcome to our sixth episode of Class Unity Transmissions. In this episode, we open with a quick check-in with our comrade Jamal, from CU Chicago, who has been studying the recent strikes in France. Then we move to our interview recorded earlier this year with Armand M, one of the authors of our article from last September, “Gay Particularity, Reconsidered.” In the interview, we discuss some main points from Armand’s piece. We look at how, in the late 80s and 90s, activist orga...

Greetings, listeners! Welcome to another episode of Class Unity Transmissions. In this episode I am joined by Class Unity members Heph, Sarah R, Julie S, Daniel B, and Jamal. We have two big and closely interrelated topics on the table in this episode. First up is the December 1, 2022, vote by Congress to impose the “TA” (Tentative Agreement) on US rail workers, essentially prohibiting their right to strike. Following this, we move to the difficult question of whether Class Unity should remain w...

In this very special episode of Class Unity Transmissions, we bring you the last interview ever recorded with Danny Fetonte. Danny was a well-known labor organizer in Texas, with over 30 years of experience. He worked at Bethlehem Steel for 4 years, and spent a decade working in a variety of other industrial jobs. He later became a professional organizer, for the Communications Workers of America (CWA), becoming a member of the union’s national staff in 1986. Moving to Texas, he became an import...

Welcome to Class Unity’s Political Education Podcast. This is a new series which we are running on the stream in parallel to other Class Unity programing that you might already be familiar with, such as our “Transmissions” podcast. The goal of our new series is to present material from our Political Education Committee’s ongoing education activity. The Committee organizes events, study groups, and courses to promote popular education on topics such as political economy, Marxian theory, capitalis...

On May Day, we had the great pleasure of interviewing Alex Shah, Co-Founder and Staff Writer with the Toronto-based Class Collective magazine. Class Collective describes itself as “an annual literary magazine that illuminates the class struggle(s) hidden in the shadows of our culture.” We start the conversation by inviting Shah to reflect on Class Collective’s own recent interview with Class Unity, called “On the Left’s Middle Class Problem.” What exactly is the left’s middle class problem and ...

Bunga party time! Welcome to Episode 2, of Class Unity Transmissions! Our guest for this episode is George Hoare, co-host of the Bungacast (neé Aufebunga Bunga) podcast, and co-author along with Alex Hochuli and Philip Cunliffe, of The End of the End of History (Zero Books, 2021). In this episode, we begin with a discussion of Francis Fukuyama’s concept of the end of history, and how many intellectuals misread it as a ‘triumphalist’ celebration of American victory in the Cold War. The better ar...

Hello comrades! Welcome to our first ever episode of Transmissions, the official podcast of the Class Unity caucus of the Democratic Socialists of America. In this episode, we bring you first of all an interview segment on DSA’s Childcare for All campaign, with CU member Sarah R. Sarah was heavily involved in the Childcare for All resolution, which passed at the DSA Summer 2021 National Convention. In the second half of the show, we have a panel session on Hal Draper’s 1973 essay, Anatomy of ...