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Back again with the biggest quandaries afflicting the modern progressive movement as political canon events unfold at breakneck speed!

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more jaded by the perpetual shock and awe chain reaction of geopolitics. We’ve decided to create a little bit of distance from the dizzying mainstream media cycle to consider the wider tensions that are at play, especially for a Left-wing political project. Who better to get in this discussion than Marxist economist Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism.

Grace is one of the most salient commentators in the British Left movement, after being a key spokesperson during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader. Having left Labour in 2024, Grace has gone on to endorse her friend Zack Polanski and join the Green Party. But her leftism stands in contrast to some of the Greens most important economic positions, such as its cornerstone project to rejoin the European Union.

In this episode, we dive into the great challenges that face modern socialists, including the fear that accelarationism could facilitate a lurch to the hard right, rather than any hope of progressive revolution. We also cast our minds back to the historical conditions that have formed the present: namely capital’s triumph over collective bargaining power (RIP Unions), which was prefigured by Marxist economist Kalecki, a critic of the much revered social democrat economist John Maynard Keynes.

We also touch upon one of our favourite topics on this podcast, the deeply polarised working classes in post-imperial nations. Grace laments the lack of a ‘class for itself’, a working class who understands their “real” collective interests. The question, of course, is what are those objective interests - are any of them cultural, what makes them ‘true’, and how do we ascertain them?

As always, please don’t forget to drop us a follow on @wtf_is.left and please consider supporting the show on Substack!

Chapters

00:00 Intro

03:17 The End of Corbynism

07:47 Should the Greens Want To Rejoin The EU?

14:17 Can You Trust The State?

20:20 Democratic Capitalism vs Democratic Socialism

25:50 How Keynes Led to Thatcher

32:30 Imperialism and Labour Aristocracy

39:40 Progressives and Protectionism

45:10 Can Greens Succeed Where Corbyn Failed?

56:04 How Liberalism Defeated Communities

1:02:10 Manosphere and Neoliberalism

1:06:30 Need for Cultural Revolution

1:10:20 Influence of David Graeber

1:14:23 Is Socialism in its Infancy?

1:18:30 Moving From Labour To The Greens