Bungacast

/312/ Consolation-Prize Marxism & the Bunga-Bunga State ft. Dylan Riley

2023-01-10

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 patre...