Show Notes
Are service workers part of the "productive" part of the working class? And what does that mean? How about public sector employees--if they're not productive workers, does that mean that their interests don't align with productive workers and socialists shouldn't support the welfare state after all? Ben Burgis talks about what the Trotskyist leader and Marxist economist Ernest Mandel gets right and wrong in his introduction to Capital Vol. 2. Read Ben's essay: benburgis.substack.com/p/are-...
More from Give Them An Argument
Ben Burgis talks about his new book (co-written with Bhaskar Sunkara and Mike Beggs), "The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World," which comes out TOMORROW (Tuesday, September 29th). The book is available for pre-order (or, starting tomorrow, plain old "order") from all the usual book places (Amazon, etc.) but if you want to preorder it from worker-owned bookseller Red Emmas, here's that link: https://redemmas.org/titles/52310-the-blueprint-how-socialism-can-work-in-the-real-w...
In this episode, we play a presentation Ben Burgis gave at UC-Irvine on how to make sense of "elites" in Marxist class analysis (basically, are "the PMC" really a separate class, or part of the working class, or what), and then apply the point to thinking about some very bad recent criticisms of the DSA. Read Ben's Jacobin article "DSA’s Critics Are Missing the Point About the Working Class": https://jacobin.com/2026/07/class-politics-dsa-media-criticism Read the transcript of the UC...
In this crossover with THIS IS REVOLUTION podcast, Ben Burgis and Jason Myles chat with Deep State Kuba about socialist foreign policy and in particular how a post-capitalist society of the kind described in Ben's new book (co-written w/Bhaskar Sunkara and Mike Beggs) could interact with, and survive its interactions with, the surrounding capitalist world. Pre-order the book from worker-owned bookseller Red Emmas: https://redemmas.org/titles/52310-the-blueprint-how-socialism-can-work-in-the...
Florian Maiwald and Matt McManus join Ben Burgis to discuss Florian's essays in Matt's new book, "What is Liberal Socialism?" (and the larger themes of the collection). Order Matt's book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/826323/what-is-liberal-socialism-by-matt-mcmanus/ Pre-order Florian's new book: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/zer0-books/our-books/outsourced-emancipation And while you're pre-ordering books, preorder Ben's new book (co-written w/Bhaskar Sunkara ...
Last Thursday, Ben Burgis gave the first lecture of the new year at the Ethics Center at Western Michigan University, to talk about the themes of his new book (co-written with Bhaskar Sunkara and Mike Beggs), "The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World." (Lecture starts around the 5:30 mark.) Register to attend the launch event in September 29th in Los Angeles: https://moondough.i234.me/tools/tickets/buy.html?event=9H7UE84J Pre-order the book from worker-owned bookseller Red E...