On the achievement of democracy and the 'impartial' state.
We speak to sociologist Dylan Riley about his new book Microverses, a series of aphorisms on social theory and politics.
The rational-legal state seems to be under threat by politicians who have no sense of the division between public and private – patrimonialists like Donald Trump, or Silvio Berlusconi. What are we to make of this attack on the notion of office?
Anti-corruption politics is often the response, but what happens when the left positions itself as the defender of the 'impartial' bourgeois state – rather than its overthrower? And was democratic capitalism the achievement of a militant working class – or a concession made after the working class had already been disciplined by fascism and war?
The second half of the interview, and our After-Party, is available at patreon.com/bungacast
Readings:
/438/ You Are Being Enlisted into the Culture War ft. Andrew Hartman
/437/ Climate Change Is Not an Information Problem ft. Holly Buck (sample)
/436/ Slovakia's Four World Directions ft. Dominik Zelinsky
UNLOCKED: /419/ Who Owns Power ft. Fred Stafford
/435/ Reading Club: Stalin's General – Winning WWII (sample)
/434/ Bodiless Bodies ft. Matthew Thompson & Jonny Gordon-Farleigh (sample)
/433/ Aufhebonus Bonus – August 2024 (sample)
/432/ Median Left Thought and its Monsters ft. Ben Burgis (sample)
/431/ The Myth of Monolithic China ft. Lee Jones & Shahar Hameiri
/430/ Welcome to the Tourist Age ft. Marco d'Eramo
/429/ Reading Club: Treason of the Intellectuals (sample)
/428/ The First Poaster (Vice) President? ft. Ryan Zickgraf
/427/ Why Do We Make Our Emotions Match the Market? ft. Eva Illouz
/426/ Expropriate the Canon ft. Catherine Liu (sample)
/425/ Reading Club: Russia's Imitation Democracy (sample)
/424/ Aufhebonus Bonus - July 2024 (sample)
/423/ Who Wants the 'Worst Job' in France? ft. Charles Devellennes
/422/ Meat the New Prime Minister: UK Election Rundown
/421/ Who Are the Wrong Ukrainians? ft. Volodymyr Ishchenko
/420/ Fertility Freefall & Gender Strife in South Korea ft. Hyeyoung Woo (sample)
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