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

Adam Smith claimed that "the propensity to truck, barter and exchange... is common to all men", but anthropologists know that this isn't the case. In fact, humans tend towards the opposite. So why do we feel compelled to give away our wealth?

Nadia, Jem and Keir unwrap the cultural and economic pressures on doing pressies in a loosely festive edition of ACFM. Talking about Santa's workshop, energy price controls and the lavish tradition of potlatch, they bring in the works of Marcel Mauss and David Graeber plus music from The Velvet Underground and Lee 'Scratch' Perry.

An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify – just search ACFM. 
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Books: Emmanuel Levinas – Totality and Infinity / E.P. Thompson – The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century / Bronislaw Malinowski – Argonauts of the Western Pacific / Georges Bataille – The Accursed Share / David Graeber – On Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit / Marcel Mauss – The Gift / Jacques Derrida – The Gift of Death

Music: The Velvet Underground – The Gift / Lee 'Scratch' Perry – Merry Christmas (Happy New Year) / El Vez – Feliz Navidad / El Vez – Feliz Navi-Nada / Fox The Fox - Precious little Diamond (Shep Pettibone Remix) / Patti Smith – Free Money / Double Exposure – My Love Is Free / The Dickies – Silent Night

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

ACFM Podcast

ACFM Trip 30 - Gifts

Ghosts have already got their own festival: Halloween. So why do they spook us at Christmas too? Do they represent forces of goodness and charity, or some nameless demonic evil? And what gifts have they brought?

Jeremy Gilbert shields his eyes from the ghostly apparitions of Jacques Derrida, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and M.R. James as he explores the connections between festive cheer and spectral fear in this Microdose, which accompanies the recent Trip episode on Gifts.

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

Books & articles: M.R. James - Collected Ghost Stories / Jacques Derrida - Specters of Marx / Plato - Phaedrus / Francis Fukuyama - The End of History and the Last Man / Mark Fisher - Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures / Raymond Williams - Border Country / Jeffrey Sconce - Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television / Steven Connor - 'Angels in the architecture: the economy of the supernatural' / David Toop - Haunted Weather: Music, Silence and Memory / Derek Johnston - Haunted Seasons: Television Ghost Stories for Christmas and Horror for Halloween / Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol

Music: Pierre Schaeffer - 'Etude aux chemins de fer' / Brian Eno and David Byrne - 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' / Lee Perry (The Upsetters) - 'Black Board Jungle' / Burial - 'Archangel' / Rufige Kru - 'Ghosts of My Life' / The Sabres of Paradise - 'Haunted Dancehall'

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

ACFM Microdose: A Ghost Story For Christmas

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.

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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

Novara Audio: Radio For A Different Politics

ACFM Trip 31: Strikes

The ACFM groupmind went into overdrive on last week's Trip, a wide-ranging conversation about the long and violent history of strikes. This time, Nadia, Jem and Keir take a closer look at cultural representations of worker organisation – that is to say, they sat themselves down with a huge stack of old movies and an extra-large bucket of opinions.

From blacklisted Hollywood dramas to bawdy British comedies, the gang survey nearly 100 years of strikes on screen – courtesy of directors like Danny DeVito, Sergei Eisenstein, Barbara Kopple and Boots Riley – and consider the changing public attitudes to labour and capital.

This episode contains some spoilers, so if you're not sure what happens to Billy Elliott in the end, proceed with caution...

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Films: Strike / The Man in a White Suit / Salt of the Earth / I’m Alright Jack / The Working Class Goes To Heaven / Carry On At Your Convenience / The Rank and File / Tout Va Bien / Norma Rae / Matewan / Riff Raff / Hoffa / Billy Elliott / Made In Dagenham / The Full Monty / Pride / Sorry To Bother You

ACFM Microdose: Strikes on Screen

What was the Enlightenment? A time of wigs, books and noble thoughts? Or was it a little more swashbuckling than that, and perhaps wearing an eye patch? 

The final book by David Graeber is concerned with pirates and their lives: nasty, brutish and short, for sure – but also free and strikingly egalitarian. In Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia, the late anarchist and anthropologist argues that democracy was born less with a flick of the quill than with a lot of brutish captains being made to walk the plank.

To discuss Graeber's pirates and the radical history of the high seas, Eleanor Penny is joined by Marcus Rediker, distinguished professor of Atlantic history at the University of Pittsburgh. His books include Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age and The Slave Ship: A Human History.

Novara FM: Liberty, Democracy, Piracy w/ Marcus Rediker

The media is awash with allegations of censorship. The works of Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming have been combed through to rid them of offensive tropes and language. Who is this seemingly gratuitous raft of cultural editing in service of? A lot of the media will have you believe that it’s the ‘snowflake’. The younger person offended by everything that doesn’t tightly adhere to their identity politics inflected view of the world. Is this archetype useful in discussing matters of sensitivity and freedom of expression? Has the left over-corrected in it’s drive for a kinder world? To discuss ‘snowflakes’, cancelling Shakespeare and girl boss Liz Truss, Ash is joined by Dalia Gebrial and Aaron Bastani.

Downstream: The Truth About Snowflakes w/ Ash Sarkar, Aaron Bastani and Dalia Gebrial

From the epic of Gilgamesh to the archetypes of Carl Jung, the mysterious power of myth is at hand in this Trip. Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn explore the alternate realities created by psychoanalysts and professional wrestlers, and discuss how theorists of myth have fed into both left and right-wing ideologies. 

How did the fantasy of Brexit become a reality? Is Genesis as mythical as Oedipus? And what stories underpin the emerging theory of Gilbertism? The gang bring their weird left analysis to ideas from Barthes, De Beauvoir and Peterson, with music from Okkervil River, Bob Dylan, This Mortal Coil and Sun Ra.

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Books: The Epic of Gilgamesh / George Eliot - Middlemarch / Sigmund Freud - Totem and Taboo / Carl Jung - Man and His Symbols; The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious / Claude Levi Strauss - The Structural Study of Myth / Shakespeare - Hamlet / George Lakoff - Metaphors We Live By / Roland Barthes - Mythologies / Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex / Ernesto Laclau - New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time / Joseph Campbell - The Hero with A Thousand Faces / Georges Sorel - Reflections on Violence / Leo Strauss - The City and Man / Yves Citton – Mythocratie: Storytelling et Imaginaire de Gauche / Greil Marcus - Lipstick Traces / Greil Marcus - Mystery Train / Mark Fisher - Capitalist Realism / Jordan Peterson - Maps of Meaning

Films: You May Be Pretty, But I Am Beautiful: The Adrian Street Story / Generation Zero

Music: Okkervil River - 'We Need A Myth' / Cocteau Twins - 'Persephone' / This Mortal Coil - 'Song to the Siren' / Sun Ra and his Solar Myth Arkestra - 'Realm of Lightning' / The Doors - 'Hyacinth House' / Brian Eno - 'Apollo' / Bob Dylan - 'Isis' / Siouxsie and the Banshees - 'Mirage' / Lloyd Price - 'Stagger Lee'

ACFM Trip 32: Myth

Mehdi Hasan is one of the most prominent political journalists in the US. He talks to Aaron Bastani about the challenges facing the world today: authoritarianism, the role of media in shaping public opinion, and the need for a more equitable society. His new book, "Win Every Argument" is out now.

Downstream: We Are on a Path Towards Authoritarianism w/ Mehdi Hasan

In 1990, the Berlin Wall came down and the experiment of communist East Germany came to an end. Yet for a time it was a successful project, raising living standards against massive odds and providing stability for the first time in half a century. So is it time to reassess Europe’s most wealthy, and advanced communist country, the DDR? Aaron Bastani speaks to author and historian Katja Hoyer, author of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990.

Downstream: The Country Where Communism Almost Worked w/ Katja Hoyer

As the longest day arrives in the northern hemisphere, Jeremy, Nadia and Keir ponder our obsession with the great outdoors. How did parks become political? Why do we seek out the strenuous discomforts of hiking, camping and cold water? And what does Jem have against music festivals?

They look back on a century of changing attitudes to the outdoors, from radical Edwardian cyclists and the woo-woo ways of the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift to the modern obsession with lidos and wild swimming. Plus, pastoral music from Peter Gabriel, Arthur Russell and Bow Wow Wow.

Books: Robert Blatchford - Merrie England / Richard King - The Lark Ascending

Music: Shonen Knife – ‘Cycling Is Fun’ / Ewan McColl – ‘The Manchester Rambler’ / Peter Gabriel – ‘Solsbury Hill’ / Kate Bush – ‘Running Up That Hill’ / Vaughan Williams – ‘The Lark Ascending’ / Muckers – ‘Out Of County’ / Bow Wow Wow – ‘Wild In The Country’ / Blur – ‘Parklife’ / The Small Faces – ‘Itchycoo Park’ / Pink Floyd – ‘Grantchester Meadows’ / Arthur Russell – ‘Let’s Go Swimming’ / Mark Stewart & Maffia – ‘Jerusalem’

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

Novara FM: Liberty, Democracy, Piracy w/ Marcus Rediker

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