Today we hear a little-told story, the story of how idealistic socialists around the world, starting around 1890, took over city governments. Prof. Sheldon Stromquist is the author of the book Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers' Fight for Municipal Socialism (Verso), which looks at how leftists in places from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a small mining town in the Australian outback tried to implement socialist ideals in their cities and towns. In Sweden, in Britain, in Austria's "Red Vienna," these often colorful figures fought for public housing, public utilities, the 8-hour day, clean water, public schools, and much more.
Today, Prof. Stromquist argues, we take for granted many things that the socialists of the late 19th and early 20th century had to fight to attain. In this conversation, Stromquist introduces us to some of the neglected stories of these men and women, who were inspired by the Paris Commune to try radical political experiments the local level. They can, he argues, offer important lessons to those of us today who want to continue their work. We talk about not only what they accomplish, but what they failed to accomplish—and why.
"I argue that the promise of a truly 'public city' that would meet the needs of its citizens in collective and humane ways—the legacy in many ways of the Paris Commune, Red Vienna, and countless other municipal socialist experiments—has remained a dream worthy of realization." — Shelton Stromquist
Dreaming of a World Without Wells Fargo (w/ Terri Friedline)
How "Influencing" Became an Industry (w/ Emily Hund)
Why Americans Don't See Or Talk About Their Wars (w/ Norman Solomon)
What "Economic Freedom" Would Look Like (w/ Mark Paul)
Can The Love of Menswear Be Justified? (w/ Sam Miller McDonald)
On Musical Plagiarism: The Case of Ed Sheeran vs. Marvin Gaye
Why Does The Law Fail Women So Badly? (w/ Julie Suk)
Are "Family Values" The Problem? (w/ Sophie Lewis)
Why Our Healthcare System Needs to Do More than Just "Fairly" Distribute Scarce Resources (w/ Lily Sánchez)
Understanding Reactionary Political Philosophy (w/ Matt McManus)
Why the Labor Movement Needs to be Creative and Disruptive (w/ Jono Shaffer)
Can Our Times Even Be Satirized? (w/ Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson)
How The "Big Myth" That Markets Will Solve Everything Was Foisted on the World
How to Win Every Argument (w/ Mehdi Hasan)
Lessons for Today's Movements from the Radical "Young Lords" (w/ Johanna Fernández)
How Right-Wing Propaganda Gives People "Brain Worms" (w/ Adam Glenn)
Banishing the "Bootstraps" Mythology from American Life (w/ Alissa Quart)
How Come "Everyone Is Beautiful But Nobody is Horny"? (w/ R.S. Benedict)
How the U.S. "War on Terror" Spread Islamophobia Around the World (w/ Khaled Beydoun)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Jim & Bill (It‘s Another Day)
HauntingLive
Dr. Paul’s Worldviews
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Tucker Carlson Show