WHAT IS POLITICS?
This podcast explores the confusing and often contradictory nature of political concepts like left, right, democracy, capitalism, and socialism. It aims to clarify these terms and help listeners understand what they truly want from politics. The series critiques media and Cold War propaganda to provide a clearer framework for political thought.
Episodes
10.5d – The Real Dawn of Everything pt. 4: the origins of modern life and prospects for the future
Why did social liberalism become widespread again, after thousands of years of socially conservative tribes, monarchies and empires? How did democratic states re-emerge after thousands of years of the state being primarily a tool to help ruling classes steal grain... Continue Reading →
10.5c – The Real Dawn of Everything: from democratic chieftains to despotic monarchs
This segment outlines the role that bargaining power plays in: 1. how social classes and economic hierarchy emerged around the world in cultures that initially had tribes made up of equal families 2. how authoritarian kings and emperors emerged, where... Continue Reading →
10.5b – The real Dawn of Everything: from socially liberal bands to conservative patriarchal tribes
How did human societies go from socially liberal, gender equal band societies to male dominated, gerontocratic, socially conservative tribal societies? Why did some societies maintain gender equality despite adopting gerontocracy and tribalism? Part 2 of a 4 part series tracking... Continue Reading →
10.5a – The Real Dawn of Everything: why our early ancestors were egalitarian and socially liberal
Can we stop our civilization from collapsing into more and more inequality and less and less democracy? Are our only choices to be ruled by an owner class of infantile, out of touch zillionaire lunatics, or else an intellectual class... Continue Reading →
9.4 – Noam Chomsky: what does the evidence actually say about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?
Why was Noam Chomsky – scourge of the american elite – BFFs with Jeffrey Epstein, the personification of the worst aspects of that elite? Why was Chomsky giving Epstein advice on how to deal with attacks against him in... Continue Reading →
9.5 – Why the “Left” is full of Cancel Goblins, Stalinist Gooners, D.E.Idiots and Post-Modern Tallywankers
As inequality gets worse and worse, hostility for elites is at all time highs, and huge majorities of voters want higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy to pay for social programs, all the conditions are perfect for the left to be... Continue Reading →
17 – Socialism for Conservatives, Free Markets for Socialists and the Tyranny of Property Rights
Today, free markets are championed as the foundation of capitalism, while socialists argue that free markets cause growing inequality and exploitation of the working classes, and thus need to be constrained by the state, or else abolished entirely. But in... Continue Reading →
16.1 – A Realistic Solution to the Forever Housing Crisis (make it happen!)
In this episode we outline: How to build enough affordable housing for everyone using an existing housing model that’s proven to work. How to pay for it. How to convert existing market rate housing into affordable housing. How we can... Continue Reading →
12.3 The Great Land Theft (secret history of Israel / Palestine pt. 3)
In this chapter of Secret History of Israel/Palestine, we look how the small urban elite stole much of region’s land from it’s rightful peasant owners, turning them from an independent tribal peasantry, into a class of impoverished, indebted tenants on... Continue Reading →
12.2 Fellahin and Bedouin in the Ottoman Empire (secret history of Israel / Palestine pt. 2)
Who were the people of Palestine and what were their lives about in the late 19th century, before the first Zionists began arriving from Europe in the 1880s? This episode focuses on the fellahin – the peasants of Palestine... Continue Reading →
16 – Dumbundance: can the “Abundance Agenda” fix the eternal housing crisis?
In the book Abundance, left liberal authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson identify unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape as an important factor in why there is a shortage of housing across the USA. Very quickly, billionaires and powerful donors have... Continue Reading →
15 – How Inequality of Wealth and Power are like Obesity and Diabetes
Why are human beings so greedy and why are our societies so hierarchical, if our ancestors were so fiercely egalitarian? What is “human nature” in this regard? A new theory about inequality of wealth and power in human societies.... Continue Reading →
Hello, Fellow Jews! How Lies About Oslo led to the Destruction of Gaza
My message to Jewish supporters of the war in Gaza. (TIMESTAMPS BELOW)   TO SUPPORT MY EXISTENCE: PAYPAL ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: PATREON PER EPISODE DONATIONS: KO-FI ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: TRANSCRIPT BIBLIOGRAPHY / WORKS CITED VIDEO... Continue Reading →
14 – Why Elites Ruined the Meaning of the Left Right Political Spectrum (and we need it back!)
Market Exit, like many others before him, tells us that the left-right political spectrum is obsolete and does more harm than good. That’s because he doesn’t know what they mean. This video explains: 1. What the political left and right... Continue Reading →
13 – “Nationalism vs. Globalism”: Why is the Populist Right on the Rise?
Why are nationalist / populist / far right candidates and parties getting elected all around the world?  Why isn’t the populist left enjoying the same success? Why does inequality keep getting worse nomatter who gets elected? PAYPAL ONE TIME OR... Continue Reading →
12.1 – The Jews of Europe and the rise of Zionism (secret history of Israel / Palestine, Part I)
This series focuses on those aspects of the origins of the Israel/Palestine conflict that partisans on both sides mutually ignore. This episode examines jewish life in Europe and the conditions leading to the rise of Zionism until the first wave... Continue Reading →
Q&A on the ABCs of Israel/Palestine
This is a Q&A where I respond to questions and critiques about episode 12: The ABC’s of Israel/Palestine (https://youtu.be/OLr_VCqnId0) and also go off on a whole bunch of related tangents. TIMESTAMPS BELOW! BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102834580 (no paywall) I purposefully don’t monetize... Continue Reading →
Brainstorm: Israel/Palestine – Who Started It?
What was supposed to be an informal QnA about the “Israel/Palestine ABCs” episode, turned into a What is Politics “live” brainstorm session à la Matt Christman “grillstream,” where I discuss my arguments and readings on who and what started the... Continue Reading →
12: From “Never Again” to “There are No Uninvolved Civilians”: The ABC’s of the Israel/Palestine Conflict
Elites use identity, particularly national identity, as a way of advancing their own interests, often against the interests of the populations that they pretend to represent. But before we can understand this, we need an ABC of the conflict, to... Continue Reading →
9.2 – Equity, Equality and Lizard People: When Social Control Masquerades as Social Justice
When ideas and movements that threaten to overturn established hierarchies of power are absorbed into elite institutions like Ivy League universities and for-profit corporations, they get transformed into ideas that support the status quo, while remaining cloaked in the language... Continue Reading →
11.1 Why the Russian Revolution Failed: When Rich Kids do all the Socialism
The leaders of the Russian Revolutions of February and October 1917 sought to establish socialism: a deeply democratic economic and political system where the employee/employer relationship is abolished, and where workers control their workplaces, the means of production and the... Continue Reading →
11. Why are Communist countries all one-party dictatorships?
Why has every communist country so far been a one party dictatorship?   Is it something inherent to Socialism or Marxism?   Is human nature incompatible with political equality?   Has “true” communism never been tried yet?  If so, then... Continue Reading →
10.4 What Causes Seasonal Social and Political Structures? The Dawn of Everything Chapter 3:
In this episode we cover the rest of chapter 3 of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything. In this chapter, the authors claim that the seasonal social structures of the traditional Nambikwara, Lakota and Kwakiutl were... Continue Reading →
10.3 The Ingredients of Hierarchy: Graeber & Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything Chapter 3, ”Unfreezing the Ice Age”
We cover the first part of chapter 3 of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything: ”Unfreezing the Ice Age”, and we investigate the authors’ claims that human inequality has no origins based on archeology from upper... Continue Reading →
10.2 The Dawn of Everything: How Graeber & Wengrow’s book sets us up to fail like Occupy Wall Street
In this episode we cover chapter 1 of David Graeber & David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything, entitled Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood; or Why This isn’t a Book About the Origins of Inequality. In doing so, we look at... Continue Reading →
10.1 Graeber & Wengrow’s “The Dawn of Everything”: What is an “Egalitarian” Society?
In this episode we read and critique the conclusion of Chapter 2 of Dawn of Everything, “Wicked Liberty: The Indigenous Critique and the Myth of the Noble Savage”, which was previously released in French in 2019 as La Sagesse de... Continue Reading →
10. David Graeber & David Wengrow’s The “Dawn of Everything”: The Wisdom of Kandiaronk
A critical reading of “The Wisdom of Kandiaronk, The Indigenous Critique, the Myth of Progress and the Birth of the Left” from David Graeber & David Wengrow’s upcoming book The Dawn of Everything. In this chapter Graeber & Wengrow argue... Continue Reading →
Interview: Fight Like an Animal / Arnold Schroeder
Interview with Arnold Schroeder of Fight Like an Animal, a wonderful and endessly fascinating show that looks through 20 years of experience of hardcore climate activism, at why left political movements are so weak and ineffective and how to change... Continue Reading →
9.1. Cancel Culture is Corporate Management Culture
The terms “cancel culture” and “political correctness” are used to delegitimize ideas like gender equality and racial equality by conflating them with toxic dominance behaviour practiced by up-and-coming elites who disguise their power plays in egalitarian social justice language. In... Continue Reading →
9. The Real Cancel Culture is At-Will Employment
The foundation of “cancel culture” and “political correctness” is the wage labour employment contract. ARTICLES QUOTED: Corey Robin, Chris Bertram and Alex Gourevitch 2012 – Life at Work, Crooked Timber Amanda Hess 2013 – How Sexy Should A Worker Be?... Continue Reading →
8. Idealism vs. Materlialism – How History is Made: Haudenosaunee Women / the Suffragettes / the Double V Campaign / The English Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 / The Anarchist Revolution in Spain 1936-39
Human beings have free will, but our actions are constrained by material realities.  Understanding how material and practical conditions shape human behaviour can make all the difference between success and catastrophic failure when it comes to the whole spectrum of... Continue Reading →
7.1. Material Conditions: Why You Can’t Eliminate Sexism Just by Eliminating Sexism
What would happen if you could end sexism overnight by giving everyone a magic pink pill? Why we need to target material and practical conditions if we want to eliminate cultural hierarchies. A thought experiment about political strategy which lays... Continue Reading →
7. The Origin of Social Hierarchy and Male Dominance: why David Graeber and Jordan Peterson are Wrong
Why are hierarchy and male dominance so prevalent in human societies?  According to anthropologists David Graeber & David Wengrow, it’s because people were “self-consciously experimenting with different social possibilities,” and then we somehow got stuck this way.  Meanwhile according to... Continue Reading →
6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works
Everywhere we look, past and present we see hierarchical societies where some people have more wealth, more power, and more rights than others.  Was this always the state of the human world?  Is hierarchy in our nature?  Are egalitarian societies... Continue Reading →
5. How Do We Know What Left and Right Mean? Who’s who on the left and right: 1789-1917
This episode is for everyone who keeps writing to me to insist that one or the other wrong, incoherent, popular definitions of Left and Right is actually the correct one. How do we know the left and right refer... Continue Reading →
Understanding the News: How Tax Cuts Fuel Police Brutality
Politicians’ dependence on police as a revenue stream, prosecutors’ dependence on police for convictions, and falling tax cuts on the wealthy combine to give police incredible power. This is a key reason why they’re rarely punished, even for the most... Continue Reading →
4. How Political Definitions Shape Reality
Definitions of political terms affect what we see and don’t see in the world around us, and turn us into effective or ineffective communicators and political actors. The definition of government that journalists and academics use makes us blind to... Continue Reading →
3. The Left-Right Political Spectrum is About Class Conflict
Most journalists and Doctor-Professor academics don’t really know what the left-right political spectrum is about, but you will after listening to this episode! FULL TRANSCRIPT tweeter: @WorbsIntoWords help! http://www.patreon.com/whatispolitics video version: https://youtu.be/P3cmjNrXWms https://archive.org/download/03leftrightandyou/03%20-%20LEFT-RIGHT%20AND%20YOU.mp3
2. What is Politics and Why Should I Care? (video)
How can people who don’t have official decision-making power exert their influence over those who do?  A quick overview of some basic political concepts: POLITICS PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE POLITICS POLITIES GOVERNMENT DEMOCRACY AUTOCRACY CONSENSUS POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS ECONOMICS CAPITALISM IDEOLOGY CLASS THE... Continue Reading →
1. Worbs: when political terms have no meaning
Politics is unique among practical fields in that almost all of the main political terms are worbs: words that everyone (including academics and journalists) uses without really knowing what they mean. This rots our brains. It makes us easy to... Continue Reading →
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