Edmund and Benjamin discuss the changing understanding of currency, from the gold standard to Bretton Woods and even quantitative easing. They also spend some time debunking myths about Roman money in the 4th century...

Concepts of Currency

In Edmund's farewell episode, we discuss the September Group, including G.A. Cohen, Jon Elster, and Philippe Van Parijs. We discuss theories of history, the influence of Darwinian evolution on Marx, the differences between analytic and continental political theory, and the possibility of bridging that divide. Edmund and Benjamin will do one last Patron Q&A episode, and then Political Theory 101 will continue with a new student co-host.

G.A. Cohen and the September Group

Alex and Benjamin discuss Slavoj Žižek's concept of ideology, his version of materialism, and the role ritual plays in his thought.

Žižek and the Politics of Ideology

Alex and Benjamin discuss John Maynard Keynes through a political theory lens. They hone in on Keynes' strategy for saving capitalism, his impact on interwar Marxism, his use of J.A. Hobson's theory of imperialism, and more.

John Maynard Keynes as a Political Theorist

Alex and Benjamin kick off a series on French political thought in the second half of the 20th century with an episode on ideology and power.

Althusser & Foucault, Ideology & Power

Alex and Benjamin explore the agonistic political thought of Deleuze and Guattari, focusing especially on their ideas about territory, change, and flow.

Deleuze & Guattari

Alex and Benjamin talk about the explosion of monasteries in late antiquity. As it turns out, withdrawing from politics can be yet another way of trying to do politics.

Monks in the City

Alex and Benjamin discuss Huntington's early emphasis on centralization and institutions, his turn toward civilizational thinking, and the position of religion - and particularly Catholicism - in his account.

Samuel Huntington

Alex and Benjamin discuss the work of Michael Pettis, putting him in conversation with older theorists of imperialism like J.A. Hobson and Vladimir Lenin.

Michael Pettis as a Political Theorist

John Milton isn't just the author of Paradise Lost! Raeffe Gibson makes a guest appearance to discuss his role in the English Civil War.

John Milton as a Political Theorist (w/Raeffe Gibson)

Chris Cutrone joins Benjamin for a discussion of political parties, focusing on the role pluralism plays in Chris' thinking about party structure.

Cutrone and the Party (w/Chris Cutrone)

Elizabeth Dearden-Williams, a former student of mine from Cambridge who is currently pursuing a masters, comes on to discuss the work of the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz.

Clausewitz (w/Elizabeth Dearden-Williams)

Daniel joins Benjamin to discuss Plato's Philebus. We traverse the dialectic of limit and unlimit and discuss the difference between memory and recollection, connecting all of this to Plato's political thought.

The Politics of Plato's Philebus

We discuss the work of John Morley, a British viscount heavily involved in the government of Ireland and India during the late 19th and early 20th century. Morley was a liberal, but he was often in situations in which his liberalism was pushed to its limit. We discuss how he thought about liberty as a young man, and how he worked to put his beliefs into practice in difficult circumstances.

John Morley & the Politics of Compromise

We discuss how Plato used dialectical thinking to deal with objections to the theory of the forms. Then we discuss how this kind of thinking enriches our ability to make use of all sorts of political concepts and abstractions.

The Politics of Plato's Parmenides

Michael Downs joins Benjamin to discuss the political thought of Nick Land, its relationship to the work of Deleuze and Guattari, and the degree to which it has influenced the contemporary left and right.

Nick Land & the Politics of Acceleration (w/Michael Downs)

A whole episode of Political Theory 101 devoted to Thomas Hobbes' Behemoth. We discuss Hobbes' historical narrative and his theory of education, both of which receive little attention in Leviathan.

Hobbes' Behemoth

We discuss Vico's theory of nature, his unorthodox mix of stereotypically ancient and modern approaches, and how his "new science" seems to be going so far.

Vico and the Concept of the Natural

Benjamin Studebaker and Edmund Wilson welcome you to a new series about the history of political thought and some of the people who have contributed to it.

Welcome to Political Theory 101

Benjamin and Edmund discuss why both Hobbes and Plato think the state is necessary, comparing and contrasting the two along the way.

Hobbes, Plato, and the Rise of the State

Benjamin and Edmund discuss the ancient zero-sum conception of liberty, attempts by later political theorists to universalise it, and some of the ways understandings of liberty have changed to accommodate that.

Draws most heavily on Aristotle's "Politics" and Constant's "The Liberty of the Ancients Compared With That of the Moderns" and "Adolphe".

Aristotle, Constant, and the Distribution of Time

Edmund and Benjamin discuss the role of charismatic leaders in politics in the Roman Empire, interwar Germany, and more recently.

Caesar, Weber, and the Power of Charisma

Raeffe Gibson joins Benjamin and Edmund to discuss the idea that states need to be unified around common values.

Augustine, Schmitt, and Political Theology (w/Raeffe Gibson)

Edmund and Benjamin discuss the many different origin stories of inequality, drawing on Catharine MacKinnon and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Edmund on power:
https://edmundjwilson.com/2019/11/01/on-power-tech-the-state-and-class/

Benjamin on Yang:
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2019/08/14/andrew-yang-is-playing-hide-and-seek-with-the-left-press/

MacKinnon, Rousseau, and the Origins of Inequality

Edmund and Benjamin return from the winter vac to talk about what happens when markets are depoliticised.

Rawls, Hayek, and Liberalism's Relationship with the Market

Edmund and Benjamin discuss the four schools of international relations theory--realism, liberalism, Marxism, and constructivism. They consider the influence of materialism and idealism on the schools, along with the role of domestic politics and international institutions. Featuring Benjamin's John Mearsheimer impression.

https://www.patreon.com/politicaltheory101

Mearsheimer, Wendt, and International Relations Theory

In our follow-up to our previous episode on "crisis", Edmund and Benjamin talk about how legitimacy works. They start with the disagreement between Bernard Williams and John Rawls over whether legitimacy is an "internal" or "external" concept. Then they use Benjamin's PhD thesis to delve into the different kinds of legitimation stories states tell.

Williams, Rawls, and Legitimation Stories

Edmund and Benjamin discuss Marx's theory of history, positioning Marx in relation to his German predecessors and to some of the Marxists that follow him. The Greeks make an appearance, too.

Marx and Materialism

Edmund and Benjamin discuss what happens when political theorists make struggling their primary objective, comparing Nietzsche and Arendt to the theorists who prioritise unity, order, or truth.

Nietzsche, Arendt, and Aesthetic Struggle

Edmund and Benjamin put Marx's theory of alienation into conversation with Durkheim's theory of anomie, examining how we can't live with social roles or without them. This leads to a discussion of how social roles are reified, via Lukacs.

Durkheim and Lukacs on Alienation, Anomie, and Reification

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