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