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In this episode, we introduce our new series on “Marxism and Religion.” At political, social, and spiritual levels, the series explores this complicated relationship for a transitioning age. We start with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is a political and spiritual beacon for many of us and a democratic socialist by another name. Our discussion explores how MLK Jr. continues to shine light on the righteous path to liberation.  leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social References: Martin Luther King, Jr., “Pilgrimage to Non-Violence”:  https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-articles/pilgrimage-to-nonviolence.php Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”:  https://nul.org/news/letter-birmingham-jail Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church Martin Luther King, Jr., “All Labor Has Dignity”: https://truthout.org/articles/martin-luther-king-jr-all-labor-has-dignity/ Martin Luther King, Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?”: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/where-do-we-go-here Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the work of historian Hayden White. His provocative claim is that the practice is inescapably the practice of narrative forms to give sense and significance to events of the past. It is this form that often supplements, or even outright makes, historical arguments. Is history a tragedy, a comedy, a satire, or a romance? Why did Marx describe history as tragedy and then farce? What could entitle him to that? The historian always prefigures their history with these choices. We get into whether history has a meaning on its own, what it contributes to politics, and whether there are literary styles more commensurate to Marxist history than others.   leftofphilosophy.com References: Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore:  Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973). Hayden White, The Content of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk about Marx’s critique of the Gotha Program, but you knew that from the title. We discuss Marxian critiques of redistributive left politics, why dogmatic Marxists are wrong about this, and much more. We connect it to the present and disagree. It’s very good. Listen. References: Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk about Elias Canetti’s 1960 book Crowds and Power. Equal parts political theory, poetic sociology, and speculative anthropology, this staggering work explores human social life through an increasingly elaborate series of reflections on the nature of crowds. The result is a fascinating typology of different kinds of crowds in which human beings cast off their individuality for the sake of equality and directed collective action: there are baiting crowds, feast crowds, prohibition crowds… Does a lynch mob follow a logic analogous to that of the viewing public in a world of mass media, a gathering of dancers attuned to the rhythms of the others, or those brought before the host of the invisible dead? What does it mean for the general strike that we fear the touch of others, until it’s the thing we desire most? It’s pretty wild stuff, and we find plenty of insights to pull out and play with. This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophy References: Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, trans. Carol Stewart (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984). Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk with James Chamberlain about his new book, Living Through Capitalism, in which he argues that capitalism is hostile to biological life processes and our ability to know them well enough to lead flourishing lives. Capitalism mutilates all life, and not just human life, in its harnessing of life for its own ends. Only in communities that resist this “strange teleology” that capitalism imposes on life can we truly be free.  leftofphilosophy.com References: James Chamberlain, Living Through Capitalism: Resisting Devastation Through Communities of Life (Edinburgh University Press, 2025).  Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we take on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Although he is now more well known as an economist because of his later book The Wealth of Nations, Smith shows himself to be a philosopher in his own right in Moral Sentiments. Smith, contrary to popular characterizations, wanted to show that our conduct is not solely motivated by egoism or selfishness, but that we are also motivated by the fortunes of others. For Smith it is only through sympathy that society can achieve stability and harmony. What follows is a comprehensive examination of how we develop virtue, expound rules for justice, and cultivate emotional maturity through our sympathy for others. This episode is all of you who feel society has become more emotionally dysfunctional, lost its sense of shame, and want to understand why it is so frustrating when our so-called ‘friends’ refuse to hate what we hate. Join the pod as we learn about propriety and justice! leftofphilosophy.com References: Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, intro Amartya Sen (New York: Penguin, 2009). Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk about Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s audacious and influential text Intellectual and Manual Labor. A fellow traveler of the Frankfurt School, Sohn-Rethel argued that the social activity of commodity exchange involves a set of real abstractions that actually precede and give rise to the structure of human consciousness and its capacity for mental abstraction. This really puts Kant in his place: the supposedly pure reason of the transcendental subject is historically conditioned by the fact that at some point people started trading stuff with each other. It also means that after the communist revolution succeeds we’ll have a totally new set of a priori categories with which to synthesize experience. That’s worth looking forward to! leftofphilosophy.com References: Alfred Sohn-Rethel, Intellectual and Manual Labor: A Critique of Epistemology, trans. Martin Sohn-Rethel (Chicago: Haymarket, 2021). Jacob McNulty, “Frankfurt School Critical Theory as Transcendental Philosophy: Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s Synthesis of Kant and Marx,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 60:3 (2022): 475-501. Mladen Dolar, “‘Who baptized Marx, Hegel or Kant?’ On Alfred Sohn-Rethel and Beyond,” Problemi International 5 (2022): 109-133. Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode we discuss the essays of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton compiled as the Federalist Papers. We talk about the philosophical justifications of the recently signed US Constitution, focusing especially on the tension between, on one hand, their passionate defense of republicanism against tyranny and despotism, and on the other, their hostility toward democratic forces. We place the problem of the durability of the republic at the core of their thought, and while noting the successes of their constitutional arrangement, ask about the costs of these successes. leftofphilosophy.com Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the literary and cultural theories of Raymond Williams. Famous for classic works of literary analysis like The City and the Country and concepts like ‘structures of feeling’, we join Williams in analyzing how our emotions, impulses, and tone in poetry and novels evolve in relation to economic development. Many structures of feeling today are built on exploitation, but maybe that’s not the end of the story.  This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophy References: Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford University Press, 1977).  Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (Penguin Random House Vintage Classics, 2016).  Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we welcome Nicholas Vrousalis onto the show to discuss his recent book Exploitation as Domination: What Makes Capitalism Unjust. The basic thesis of the book is that capitalist exploitation should be understood as a problem of domination, and thus freedom, rather than a problem of fairness or vulnerability. For Vrousalis where there is exploitation there is domination, but there can be domination without exploitation. Throughout our conversation Nicholas takes us through his defense of normativity in Marxist theory, how normativity relates to social theory more broadly, and what makes domination under capitalist social relations structural rather than interpersonal. We conclude with an outline of what an emancipated economy would look like. leftofphilosophy.com References: Nicholas Vrousalis, Exploitation as Domination: What Makes Capitalism Unjust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023). Get a free copy of the book here: https://academic.oup.com/book/44885?login=true  Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

Our live show at the Epiphany Center for the Arts is right around the corner! Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 8. It’s a one-night only event, so don’t miss it! Get your tickets here: https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4 Also on August 7 here in Chicago: Pelle Dragsted will be discussing his book Nordic Socialism with William Banks and Matt McManus at Pilsen Community Books at 6pm! Details can be found here: https://pilsencommunitybooks.com/events/46798 See you soon! leftofphilosophy.com Music: “Deny” by dreem

In this episode we discuss Axel Honneth’s Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life. As one of the most prominent representatives of the so-called ‘3rd generation’ of Frankfurt School critical theory, we ask whether Honneth’s notions of ‘normative reconstruction’ and ‘social freedom’ build constructively upon the legacies of critical theory or depart from them in a more liberal direction. Lillian reminds us that he has good answers to some of our more acerbic criticisms of his work, but we ultimately wonder about what critical theory has lost in its most recent iteration—one that, we think it’s clear, is far less antagonistic to capitalist society than its predecessors. GET YOUR TICKETS FOR THE LIVE SHOW HERE: https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4 leftofphilosophy.com References: Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life, trans. Joseph Ganahl (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).  Music: "Sorriso" by Monument Music | https://youtu.be/YR4AD4Qim3w?si=UNthWq28mZf9Wbcv “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu |https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire. First published in 2000, this seminal post-Marxist text analyzed changes to power, sovereignty, and class structure in the age of globalization. Twenty-five years ago, it was the Left who was anti-globalization. Today, it’s the Right. So, we might ask, are we still in the Age of Empire? GET YOUR TICKETS FOR THE LIVE SHOW HERE: https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4 leftofphilosophy.com References: Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Harvard University Press, 2000).  Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss Alasdair MacIntyre’s landmark book After Virtue. MacIntyre, an ex-Marxist and committed anti-liberal, offers a defense of the Aristotelian tradition and its search for the truly common good against the dominant tendency of liberal societies to reduce morality to individual preferences. Modern society, MacIntyre believes, is one where we live fragmented lives, unable to narrate a coherent story of the relationship between morality and politics. Our invocations of morality ring increasingly hollow as we cannot even imagine what it would mean to convince others of what is good. We explore how the loss of morality coincides with all of us becoming moralists, why it seems we have to choose between Nietzsche and Aristotle, the costs of teaching morality like a choose-your-own-adventure buffet, and whether MacIntyre offers a compelling solution to our nihilistic times. The least we can say is that living without virtue is a real bummer! GET YOUR TICKETS FOR THE LIVE SHOW HERE: https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4 This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon: patreon.com/leftofphilosophy References: Alasadair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd Edition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). Émile Perreau-Saussine, Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography. trans. Nathan J. Pinkski (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022). Michael Lazarus, Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2025).  Music: “Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com “My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

Hi everyone! We are thrilled to announce that we will be performing live on August 7 at the Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago. This is a one-time only event and tickets are limited! Get yours here: https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4 Among other things, we’re planning to talk about the Communist Manifesto. The event will be filmed and released as a special episode. We’re really excited about this – it’s going to be a fantastic time, and we hope to see you there! Thanks for all your support. leftofphilosophy.com Music:  “Bubble” by Sun Cuts | https://get.slip.stream/3wxjrv/