12:00 PM Pacific Time: Mondays - Wednesdays
Acclaimed program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on a variety of matters—political, economic, social, and cultural—important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. Against the Grain is produced and hosted by Sasha Lilley.
Every society has a technological dimension. So what does, or should, a socialist technology look like? What ends would such a technology serve, and who would decide which products or devices get deployed, and for what purposes? Victor Wallis sketches the contours of what he calls an authentically socialist technology. (Encore presentation.) Victor Wallis, Red-Green … Continued
America has long been the country of endless promise, of open vistas, and a sense of providence about its place in the wider world. That optimism has always cloaked the brutality of imperial expansion and limitless growth. And now that centrist ideal of boundless expansion, according to historian Greg Grandin, may be coming to an … Continued
Class divides and racial dynamics are explored in Nina Revoyr’s new novel “A Student of History.” In it, a biracial graduate student with a blue-collar background gains access to a very different world, that of the superrich descendants of the founders of Los Angeles. Many of them, he discovers, exert tremendous power and influence behind … Continued
The birthrate in the U.S. has hit a historical low, with fewer babies being born than that necessary to replace the existing population. Organizer Jenny Brown argues that that’s because the social support for women and families is so meager, that women have stopped having children or have reduced the number of kids they’re having. … Continued
During the Pink Tide, left-leaning governments proliferated across much of Latin America. What was actually accomplished in the Pink Tide era? Elisabeth Jay Friedman’s new book supplies part of the answer, by examining the extent to which Pink Tide governments advanced a gender and sexual justice agenda. Elisabeth Jay Friedman, ed., Seeking Rights from the … Continued
Socialist Yugoslavia was born out of resistance to fascist occupation during WW2 and ended in dismemberment and civil war. Today, Yugoslavia’s demise is much better remembered than what came before it. Yet socialist Yugoslavia forged a different path from that of the Soviet Union, which broke with it, and experimented with a form of workers’ … Continued
Secrecy is a fundamental aspect of the U.S. security state. According to Joseph Masco, the logics and dynamics of official secrecy do more than prevent the release of information; they also have profound effects on U.S. society. What Masco calls the security/threat matrix can be traced back to the effort to withhold information about the … Continued
What are the origins of modern conservatism? The failed Goldwater campaign? Or the Cold War era discontent of midwestern small capitalists? Historian Kathryn Olmstead argues that it should be located even earlier, in the intense and massive labor unrest that took place in the fields of California in the 1930s. The response by growers and … Continued
In March 1871, socialists, anarchists, workers, and others took control of the second most populous city in Europe. Before it was brutally suppressed two months later, the Paris Commune constituted a worker-controlled, radically democratic alternative to the capitalist status quo. David B. Downing discusses the Commune’s beginnings, its accomplishments, and its legacy. Socialism and Democracy … Continued
Dockworkers the world over have a long tradition of both power and militancy, able to block the flow of cargo and jam up the workings of capitalism. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the San Francisco Bay Area has been one of the most radical of American unions. Historian Peter Cole discusses the fascinating … Continued
