In 2011, while working as a City trader, Gary Stevenson joined the ranks of the ultra-rich with a single bonus cheque. Not long after, he was named one of Citibank’s highest-performing traders worldwide. Stevenson made millions for his employer by betting on one thing: that inequality would worsen and living standards would fall. It made him rich, but miserable. Stevenson left his job to campaign on inequality. In this interview with Aaron Bastani, he tells the story of his ascent to the peak of the financial world and reveals the plan to destroy the middle class.

Novara Audio: Radio For A Different Politics

Downstream: The Plan is to Make you Permanently Poorer w/ Gary Stevenson

In part two of our three-part interview on Jeremy's new book - co-written with Alex Williams - Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back) we discuss what Jeremy and Alex call 'actually existing neoliberalism' - the distinct form of the ideology fostered by the hegemony of finance and Big Tech through the 1980s, 90s and 2000s. We also discussed how neoliberal ideology was propagated, as much through material practices as through the mass media, and we touched on the transformative effects of neoliberal ideology on music culture.

Politics Theory Other

Hegemony Now (part two) - w/ Jeremy Gilbert

Welcome to Pro Revolution Soccer, a football podcast that doesn't leave politics at the turnstile. In the first episode of a five-part series, Keir Milburn and Tom Williams confront the most corrupt, rapacious and deadly World Cup in sporting history. 

Repulsed by football's hyper-capitalism but compromised by their desire to watch Wales v England, Keir and Tom bring together political and tactical analysis in an episode of two halves. 

They're joined this week by Novara Media's Ash Sarkar and writer and tactician Alex Stewart, formerly of Tifo Football, to talk sporting boycotts, World Cup players-to-watch and the missing England song.

Catch a new episode of PRS every Friday until the end of the World Cup. 

Music by Matt Huxley. Produced by Chal Ravens. Design by Pietro Garrone. Name by Tim Burrow.

Pro Revolution Soccer Ep 1: Should We Boycott the Qatar World Cup?

We don't get enough of it. We take drugs all day to fend it off. We'll do it when we're dead. And it's our last line of defence against 24/7 capitalism.

Sleep, the main course in life's feast! The ACFM crew rouse themselves from slumber to wokeness in this month's Trip, exploring the political and cultural aspects of shut-eye. How has a biological necessity been manipulated by everything from mechanical clocks, electric lighting, screen addiction and the insatiable needs of capitalism?

Nadia Idle lives up to her name and argues we should all be spending more time in bed, Keir Milburn worries about an insomniac culture obsessed with productivity, and – despite his sideline as a party organiser and DJ - Jeremy Gilbert rails against the culture of all-night dancing. Plus, music from Faithless, The Fall and The Beatles.

An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify.

Music: The Beatles - I'm Only Sleeping / Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night / John Coltrane - Russian Lullaby / Alex De Grassi - Luther's Lullaby / Faithless - Insomnia / The Beatles - I'm So Tired / Flowered Up - Weekender / The Fall - Rowche Rumble

Books & articles: E. P. Thompson - Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism / Paul Lafargue – The Right to Be Lazy / Jonathan Crary - 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 29: Sleep

As Wales crash out of the World Cup after defeat against England, Keir Milburn and Tom Williams question their dedication to international football. After all, how can you support a national team if you don't believe in borders?

On the third episode of Pro Revolution Soccer, Keir and Tom are joined by writer and broadcaster David Goldblatt, author of acclaimed football history tome The Ball Is Round, to discuss football as a national culture. Is cheering for England inherently jingoistic? Or can football be the bedrock of a popular progressive identity – one that no longer feels the need to mention the war when England play Germany? David explores the political potential of the current squad and reflects on the varied responses to Qatar '22 around the world.

Pro Revolution Soccer is out every Friday until the World Cup final.

Produced by Chal Ravens. Music by Matt Huxley. Design by Pietro Garrone.

Pro Revolution Soccer Ep 3: Should You Support Your National Team?

Richard Seymour discusses Britain's fraying public infrastructure and the wave of strikes that are taking place, including the first ever nationwide strike by NHS nurses. We chatted about the extent to which the public perceive the UK as being in a state of increasing decline, the state of the trade unions, and how current industrial action compares with the so-called winter of discontent of 1978-79. Finally, we talked about how the Conservative government, and the Labour opposition, are responding to a revivified labour movement.

Interregnum - Britain unravelling

The work that keeps us clean, fed, clothed and ready to go to work each day is known as social reproduction. Without this unwaged labour, capitalism would collapse. Yet the daily drudgery of cooking, cleaning and raising children is underpinned by our most sincere expressions of love and care. Writer and organiser Alva Gotby refers to this chimerical condition as "emotional reproduction": the essential labour of creating a haven in a heartless world.

Gotby joins Eleanor Penny on Novara FM to explain why emotions are a political issue, looking at the reality of social reproduction and the evolving impact of Wages For Housework, the 1970s feminist movement. Why are we still slightly horrified by identifying care as a form of work? Is performing gender itself a type of work? Can love ever be totally free from labour? And why is all of this still the responsibility of women?

They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life is available now from Verso.

Novara FM: Havens in a Heartless World w/ Alva Gotby

In the midst of Britain’s biggest wave of industrial action in years, the gang turn their attention to the long and bloodied history of strikes. Who do we find on the picket line? Nadia, Keir and Jeremy explore a lineage that stretches back hundreds of years, from matchgirls to miners, from 1840s century Chartists to 2020s university lecturers, and from smoggy cities to leafy suburbs.

Along the way they ask whether 18th century sailors were the original tech workers, why Britain’s only general strike was a failure, and if civilisation itself might have started with a sex strike. Plus, the gang discuss their favourite pro-union hits from Paul Robeson, Judy Collins, The Flying Pickets and more.

Want more? Get the ACFM newsletter: novara.media/ACFMnewsletter
Find our complete Spotify playlist – just search ACFM.

Music: Strawbs - 'Part of the Union' / Florence Reece - 'Which Side Are You On?' / Judy Collins - 'Bread and Roses' / Bev Grant - 'We Were There' / The Flying Pickets - 'Only You' / Paul Robeson - 'Joe Hill'

Books and pamphlets: William Benbow - Grand National Holiday, and Congress of the Productive Classes / E. P. Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class

Films: Pride / Made in Dagenham

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 31: Strikes

Adam Tooze returns to PTO to discuss the key causal factors that allowed fascism to emerge in the early twentieth century and whether conditions that would enable fascism on the interwar model exist today. We also talked about whether describing the Bolsanaros, the Le Pens and the Orbans of this world as fascist may be analytically wrong but tactically effective, and about how close the Latin American dictatorships of the 1970s and 80s are to the fascist model.

Links:

Adam's chartbook post:

https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-166-19222022-the-centenary

Eurotrash podcast episode:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/ep-6-sex-fascism-73970252

Adam on The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy:

https://soundcloud.com/poltheoryother/adam-tooze-on-nazi-ideology-and-the-german-war-economy

Adam on Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy:

https://soundcloud.com/poltheoryother/adam-tooze-on-shutdown-how-covid-shook-the-worlds-economy

Part one and two of Adam on Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World:

https://soundcloud.com/poltheoryother/20-adam-tooze-on-crashed-how-a-decade-of-financial-crises-changed-the-world

https://soundcloud.com/poltheoryother/23-adam-tooze-on-crashed-how-a-decade-of-financial-crises-changed-the-world-part-2

Fascist echoes w/ Adam Tooze

Several years ago, Jon Moses realised that the stunning nature he could see from his house in rural Herefordshire was inaccessible to him. From the nearby riverbanks to the local oak woodlands, the countryside revealed itself to be a private fortress.

Now, as an organiser of the Right To Roam campaign, he's leading the call for free and fair access to land and water throughout England, via political advocacy and planned trespasses on private estates.

Jon tells Eleanor Penny about the traumatic history that separated commoners from the land, the dangers of a rural monoculture, and why the left needs to get comfortable with ideas about place and belonging.

Novara FM: Revenge of the Commoners w/ Jon Moses

We have on Tom Fowler (twitter.com/tombfowler) to talk about the Spy Cops Inquiry in the UK, and about the scandal from the Met Police infiltrating themselves into the lives of activists in order to ruin them -- and his own experience with a famous undercover.

Check out: spycops.info

powerbase.info/index.php/UndercoverResearch_Portal

Downstream: The Plan is to Make you Permanently Poorer w/ Gary Stevenson

Novara Media

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