Political

Owen Hatherley, Juliet Jacques, and Alberto Toscano join PTO to talk about Adam Curtis's new BBC series Can't Get You Out of My Head. We chatted about Curtis' politics, the changes in his documentary style since the early 1990s, and why he avoids talking about neoliberalism.

HyperCurtisisation w/ Owen Hatherley, Juliet Jacques, and Alberto Toscano

Robbie Shilliam joins PTO to talk about his article, 'Enoch Powell: Britain’s First Neoliberal Politician' which appeared in the New Political Economy Journal. We spoke about how Enoch Powell, far from being a political throwback was in fact a key figure in the emergence of neoliberalism and Thatcherism, and how his politics presaged the Brexit project. We also chatted about how Powell, in contrast to many conservatives became hostile to nostalgia for the British Empire and how he believed that an independent Britain, neither ruling an empire, nor becoming part of the embryonic European Union would find its proper place in the world.

Enoch Powell: Britain's first neoliberal politician w/ Robbie Shilliam

From the tyranny of exercise to the crisis of policing, via the sexualization of childhood (and everything else), Mark Greif’s Against Everything is an essential guide to the vicissitudes of everyday life under twenty-first-century capitalism and a vital scrutiny of the contradictions arising between our desires and the excuses we make. 

In a wide-ranging conversation for the latest Verso podcast in collaboration with the London Review Bookshop, Mark Greif and Brian Dillon discuss modes of critique and cultural forms, and the role of the intellectual in stripping away the veil of everyday life.

Against Everything: On Dishonest Times by Mark Greif is available now: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2256-against-everything

Mark Greif is a founder and editor of n+1 magazine. 

Brian Dillon is a writer and critic.  He is UK editor of Cabinet magazine, and teaches critical writing at the Royal College of Art.

Against Everything: Mark Greif and Brian Dillon in conversation

Tom Mills joins me to discuss the problems of the UK media, the Labour Party leadership's proposals for media reform, and the media class's aversion to workplace democracy.

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#22 Tom Mills on reforming the UK media

Gavin Mueller joins PTO to talk about his new book, 'Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job'. In the first part of our conversation we talk about the history of the Luddites, why their reputation for conservative technophobia is undeserved and how their struggles to resist the imposition of new deskilling technologies are relevant to the contemporary workplace. We also talked about the problems of leftwing techno-utopianism.

#109 Why the Luddites were right (part 1) w/ Gavin Mueller

Gavin Mueller joins PTO for part two of our conversation on his new book, 'Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites were Right About Why You Hate Your Job'. We talked about Taylorism and the deskilling of workers, how automation was used by American military planners during the Vietnam war in order to maintain control of the increasingly mutinous US Army, and finally we talked about why - in spite of how the increasing deployment of deskilling technologies made working conditions worse and more dangerous - many union leaders in both the United States and Europe supported the imposition of these new technologies.

#111 Why the Luddites were right (part 2) w/ Gavin Mueller

A podcast on radical politics, critical theory, and history. Hosted by Alex Doherty.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/poltheoryother

Contact: politicstheoryother@gmail.com

#111 Why the Luddites were right (part 2) w/ Gavin Mueller

Politics Theory Other