Bungacast

On the collective subject at the end of the End of History. Panagiotis Sotiris, Historical Materialism editorial board member and assistant professor at the University of the Aegean, talks to Alex and Lee about class and the "national-popular". Is the way to recover popular sovereignty to "return" to the nation? Is there a contradiction between this and declaring oneself to be "in favour of open frontiers for migrants and refugees"? What is the meaning of citizenship in this case? What's the difference between Gramsci's conceptions of people-nation and nation-rhetoric? Does the radical right's "civilisational nationalism" offer the left an opportunity to reclaim a popular notion of nationhood? Links: Rethinking the “We” of Emancipation, Panagiotis Sotiris, Communis /471/ Reforming the Deformed ft. Nathan Sperber & George Hoare  

On US derangement on screen. The OG Bunga boys get togther for the annual end-of-year film episode. We discuss Ari Aster's Eddington, as well as a bit of Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another and Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia: the three films that together marked 2025, and which deal with paranoia, conspiracy, disinformation and unmoored political activity. Is this hyperpolitics on screen? Do these films serve any critical purpose? Is Eddington a faithful depiction of the society of immediacy or is it guilty of immediacy itself? Are we all fkin r*****ed? For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Links: /520/ Conspiracy Culture & Paranoid Styles ft. Catherine Liu Hell in Ari Aster, Tara Heffernan & Felix McNamara, Corporate Total Art /458/ The Society of Pure Vibe ft. Anna Kornbluh (on 'immediacy') America’s Unraveling on Screen, Monica Marks, New Lines Magazine

On homoploutia and national market liberalism. Branko Milanovic, Research Professor at City University of New York, talks to Phil and Alex about his most recent book, The Great Global Transformation: National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World. What unites the political trajectories of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump? How is global inequality, growth and political conflict evolving in the aftermath of globalisation? How are hierarchies of global income shifting as the world rebalances towards East Asia? What kind of political theories can we use to model the emergence of this new multipolar world – Adam Smith, Lenin, Luxembourg or John Rawls? And what is Homoploutia?  Links: The Great Global Transformation: National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World, Branko Milanovic Global Inequality 3.0 and More, Branko's substack An Economist’s Case for Open Borders, Branko Milanovic, Dissent Magazine The ‘homoploutic’ elephant, with Branko Milanović, FT  

On overmedicalisation and the crisis of authority. Amber Trotter, practicing psychologist and an editor at Damage magazine, and George Hoare tell Alex about their co-written article in the print issue of Damage on "the pre-political". What is driving the explosion in mental health diagnoses? Why are people seeking diagnosis? How is it the product of the subjective and the purely scientific? Does capitalism make us ill? Is blaming 'capitalism' abstractly part of the problem? What is the crisis of authority? Whose authority? Can we solve pre-political problems with politics? And political problems with pre-political approaches? Damage, Issue 5: The Pre-Political  

On post-woke strategies. Ryan Z is back on, talking to Alex and George about the US Democrats' attempt to respond to Trump/MAGA. In association with Damage magazine. Can the Democrats escape the shadow of woke? Is Big Woke dying? Everywhere? Who are the groups and think-tanks pushing for a reorientation, and what are they proposing? Will the Dems adapt to Trump’s challenge or pretend nothing is happening?  We then take listener questions and comments on transport infrastructure, left-wing gatekeeping, and the crisis in education everywhere, high and low. For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast Links: Can the Democrats Escape the Shadow of Woke?, Ryan Zickgraf, Damage Inside the Democratic identity crisis, Ryan Zickgraf, UnHerd