Left Anchor
Philosophy, politics, and the left.
Episodes
Mar 5, 2022
Mar 5, 2022
59 min
Today we pose the question: how the heck did famed Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben turn into an anti-vaccine conspiracy nutcase? We've got Adam Kotsko, a leading Agamben scholar and translator of many of his works, on to discuss to what extent his goofball pandemic views emerge from his actual serious work. Enjoy!
Check out Adam's Slate article on the topic here, as well as his books Neoliberalism's Demons and Agamben's Philosophical Trajectory.
Feb 24, 2022
Feb 24, 2022
37 min
This is the first half of our episode with journalist David Klion on the background of the Ukraine crisis. Check out the full episode here!
Feb 22, 2022
Feb 22, 2022
8 min
In this excerpt Phil talks about the weirdness of the norms of chivalry. Subscribe here to hear the whole thing!
Also don't miss his book How to Be Normal.
Feb 13, 2022
Feb 13, 2022
1hr 10 min
Today we've got economics professor Rob Larson back on the pod (see his previous episode here) to talk about the bizarre state of the economy. The labor market is red hot, inflation is higher than in almost 40 years, and there are calls from the capitalist class to strangle the boom. We discuss whether Jerome Powell is going to pull a Paul Volcker on the labor market and what might be done to ease price pressure. Then we discuss Facebook's hilarious "metaverse" faceplant in the context of Rob's great recent book Bit Tyrants. Enjoy!
Feb 9, 2022
Feb 9, 2022
23 min
You can find the first part of the discussion with Jeff Spross here, or subscribe to hear the rest here, or check out Ryan's book here!
Jan 30, 2022
Jan 30, 2022
1hr 22 min
With the news of Justice Stephen Breyer retiring (and Ryan on vacation for the next week), we thought it would be a good opportunity to post this 2019 interview of Brian Fallon about his organization Demand Justice.
Fallon is a longtime Democratic Party operative who nevertheless has become a pretty heated critic of the liberal legal establishment and an ardent advocate of Supreme Court reform. The current troubles the Biden administration is having with the courts proves much of what he said to be sadly prescient, alas.
Jan 23, 2022
Jan 23, 2022
54 min
Ryan's book is finally out on January 25!! Called How Are You Going to Pay for That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics, it's a book about political economy, how to break free of the mental stranglehold of neoliberalism, and how to fix up this jalopy country. (And then we've got a special guest at the end as well.)
Ryan's doing a book launch event with David Dayen that you can check out here, and you can pre-order the book if you like here.
Jan 15, 2022
Jan 15, 2022
25 min
Subscribe now to hear the whole episode!
Or you can pre-order Ryan's book here, or check out the launch event on January 25 here.
Jan 8, 2022
Jan 8, 2022
1hr 15 min
Today we are taking a look back at the January 6 putsch -- the total failure to prosecute any of the top organizers, above all Trump, how that has emboldened them to further extremism, how a segment of the left is weirdly naive about all this, and more. God help us all.
Check out Osita Nwanevu's article here and Corey Robin's article here.
Dec 31, 2021
Welcome aboard!
This podcast is by journalist Ryan Cooper and academic Alexi the Greek. We talk politics, philosophy, history, current events, and whatever else catches our fancy.