Podcast
The Dig
The Dig is Daniel Denvir’s Jacobin podcast on politics, history, and economics everywhere. Please support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedig
- Politics chart
- #141
- Episodes
- 557
- Releases
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 2 hr 13 min
- On air since
- 2015
- Latest episode
- 4 days ago
Episodes
557 episodes, newest first
-
2 hr 21 min
Human Liberation, Planetary Salvation w/ Alyssa Battistoni
Show notes
Featuring Alyssa Battistoni on Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature. This episode is the second of a two-part interview: Battistoni’s account of capitalist class and market rule; what’s hidden behind the mystification of the externality; existentialism and Marxism; why human freedom is the precondition for saving the planet rather than the cause of its destruction; how a theorization of nature clarifies our analysis of care work and reproductive labor—and much more.
Give Dan a birthday present and support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig
Find Unsafe and How to Close a Camp at Haymarketbooks.org
-
Free Gifts w/ Alyssa Battistoni
Show notes
Featuring Alyssa Battistoni on Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature. Fossil-fueled capitalism has pushed our planet into a profound set of crises. How Marxists should make sense of this all, however, is unclear. Battistoni offers a Marxist theory of nature that’s simultaneously a brilliant reworking of Marxist theory more generally. The first episode in a two-part interview.
Support The Dig at http://patreon.com/TheDig
Find recent releases The Anti-Defamation League – A Critical Reader and Decolonizing Money at http://plutobooks.com
-
58 min
Who Moves America w/ Yael Bridge, Jeremy Flood, and Erick Stoll
Show notes
Featuring Yael Bridge, Jeremy Flood, and Erick Stoll on Who Moves America, a powerful documentary about the massive 2023 Teamsters strike against UPS that ultimately did not happen.
Find or request a screening of Who Moves America at http://whomovesamerica.com
Support The Dig at http://patreon.com/TheDig
Check out The Nation‘s Books & the Arts section at http://thenation.com/books-and-the-arts
Find How to Close a Camp at http://Haymarketbooks.org
-
Confronting Labor’s Crisis w/ Chris Brooks
Show notes
Featuring Chris Brooks on labor’s crisis and the strategic, militant class struggle that can turn it all around. Brooks, former chief of staff to UAW President Shawn Fain, urges organizers to be flexible in their methodology, explains the federal monitor’s anti-left lawfare against the UAW over Gaza—and why labor must build for 2028.
Support The Dig at http://patreon.com/TheDig
Read more:
“Is Labor at the Point of No Return?” by Chris Brooks in New Labor Forum http://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/01/15/is-labor-at-the-point-of-no-return
“Is Labor at the Point of No Return?” by Chris Brooks in New Labor Forum http://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/01/15/is-labor-at-the-point-of-no-return
“Shawn Fain’s UAW Is Facing Strong Headwinds” by Nelson Lichtenstein in New Labor Forum http://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2026/05/15/shawn-fains-uaw-is-facing-strong-headwinds
“The War on the UAW” by Ella Fanger in The Nation http://thenation.com/article/economy/uaw-elections-monitor-gaza
Find Bad Energy and Songs My Mother Taught Me at http://haymarketbooks.org
-
2 hr 46 min
Muskism w/ Ben Tarnoff & Quinn Slobodian
Show notes
Featuring Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian on their book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. What the world’s bizarre richest man reveals about our financially fabulist, hard tech, far-right political-economic era.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Find Against Tech Oligarchy at http://Haymarketbooks.org
Learn more about Hate Speech at http://UCPress.edu
-
2 hr 27 min
Winning Providence w/ Ben Shanahan
Show notes
Featuring Ben Shanahan, the architect of socialist David Morales’ victorious campaign to be the Democratic nominee for mayor of Providence, Rhode Island. The Providence left ran a slate of left-wing candidates that not only elected Morales but also swept every single contested city council seat on a platform of capping the rent and building social housing.
Read Dennis Hogan’s essays on the Providence win in n+1 and Dissent:
http://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-hi-neighbor-mayor/
http://dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/david-morales-providence-municipal-socialism/
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Listen to Death in Westminster on any podcast platform.
Get 20% off an annual print subscription to The Break—Down at http://break-down.org/dig/
-
1 hr 48 min
Mailbag!
Show notes
Featuring Daniel Denvir and Ben Mabie answering questions posed by you, our listeners.
Submit a question for our next mailbag: http://speakpipe.com/ListenerMailbag
Support The Dig at http://patreon.com/TheDig
Read the piece Ben mentioned “From the Camp to the Picket: Reflections from the UC Strike for Palestine” http://longhaulmag.com/uc-strike-for-palestine
Learn more about The Shadow Court and Disability Revolution at http://UCPress.edu
-
2 hr 9 min
Insuring Catastrophe w/ David Wallace-Wells, Madison Condon, Moira Birss
Show notes
Featuring David Wallace-Wells, Madison Condon, and Moira Birss on how insurance companies profit off climate catastrophe—and, in doing so, ensure that people and the planet suffer the consequences. Guest hosted by Astra Taylor.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Read “National Disaster Insurance for All: Single-Payer Disaster Insurance and Community Resilience Investments for Safer and More Affordable Housing” https://climateandcommunity.org/research/national-disaster-insurance-for-all-single-payer-disaster-insurance-and-community-resilience-investments-for-safer-and-more-affordable-housing/
Sign up! Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World reading group https://www.equator.org/events/late-victorian-holocausts
Buy When We Are Kin and The Veiled Prophet at Haymarketbooks.org
-
2 hr 8 min
Destruction of the Jewish Bund w/ Molly Crabapple
Show notes
Featuring Molly Crabapple on her book Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. The second in a two-part interview.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Buy Decolonizing Money at http://Plutobooks.com
Buy Femmephilia at http://haymarketbooks.org
-
2 hr 25 min
Making the Jewish Bund w/ Molly Crabapple
Show notes
Featuring Molly Crabapple on her book Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. The first episode of a two-part interview.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Buy Unions of Our Own and Femmephilia at http://Haymarketbooks.org
-
2 hr 16 min
Nusantara Ep. 8 – Reform Stalls, Oligarchy Triumphs
Show notes
The eighth and final episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This last installment picks up with the 2014 election of Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, to the presidency. That promise was soon betrayed, laying the groundwork for the rise of Prabowo Subianto, a scion of Suharto who represents nearly everything repugnant about the New Order regime. And yet Prabowo’s rule remains beset by contradiction and controversy—and the Indonesia’s political future remains uncertain. Featuring Rianne Subijanto, Made Supriatma, Iqra Anugrah, and Farabi Fakih.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Check out IndoPROGRESS promotion of Nusantara in Bahasa Indonesia http://instagram.com/reel/DafhG9-qdPW/
Watch Pig Feast: Colonialism in Our Time http://youtube.com/watch?v=A-pPemC8m_M
Buy The Extended Universe at http://Haymarketbooks.org
Find Money In The Mountains at http://Plutobooks.com
-
Nusantara Ep. 7 – Suharto’s Fall
Show notes
The seventh episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This penultimate installment analyses the 1998 fall of Suharto and his New Order dictatorship. Basic political freedoms were established but the transition to democracy never included a transition away from oligarchy. And it happened in the absence of a mass organized left—a left that had been destroyed through the mass anti-communist killings of 1965 and 66. We also trace the arc of three conflicts on Indonesia’s colonial periphery that have decisively shaped its recent history: West Papua, East Timor, and Aceh. Featuring Rianne Subijanto, Made Supriatma, and Iqra Anugrah.
Please chip in: Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Buy Song For Hard-Hit People at http://Haymarketbooks.org
Find Money In The Mountains at http://Plutobooks.com
-
2 hr 42 min
Nusantara Ep. 6 – Mass Killing, New Order
Show notes
The sixth episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This installment details Suharto’s right-wing military coup and the horrific political crime that accompanied it: the US-backed mass murder of Indonesian communists. The military’s mass slaughter inaugurated Suharto’s oligarchic, authoritarian, and corrupt New Order regime—a regime that would endure for three decades and continues to shape Indonesia to this day. Featuring Rianne Subijanto, Made Supriatma, and Farabi Fakih.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Subscribe to Dissent Magazine at http://dissentmag.org/subscribe
Get 50% off From the Clinics to the Streets, or any first book purchase from plutobooks.com with code ‘DIG50’
-
2 hr 9 min
Nusantara Ep. 5 – Armed Conflicts, Guided Democracy
Show notes
The fifth episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This installment traces the armed conflicts—civil wars and then confrontations with the Dutch and British—that propelled Indonesia into Sukarno’s authoritarian Guided Democracy system and cascading economic crisis. Both the military and the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) became increasingly powerful forces on the eve of 1965–when the armed forces would slaughter the communists and inaugurate Suharto’s New Order. Featuring Rianne Subijanto, Made Supriatma, and Farabi Fakih.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Register for the Socialism Conference by June 19th for the early bird rate! http://Socialismconference.org
Get 50% off Backlash: The Global Rise of the Radical Right , or any first book purchase from http://plutobooks.com with code ‘DIG50’
-
1 hr 32 min
Primary Struggle w/ Troy Jackson, Francesca Hong, and other insurgent candidates
Show notes
Featuring Maine candidate for governor Troy Jackson, Wisconsin candidate for governor Francesca Hong, New York State Senate candidate Aber Kawas, and victorious Tempe, Arizona City Council candidate Bobby Nichols. The third episode in a series of short interviews with left-wing and socialist candidates at every level of US politics.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Our huge new Thawra study guide and resource website http://thawraproject.com/
Dan and Thea’s Berlin event: “Trump 2.0 and the Rebirth of the American Left.” June 12, 6pm at Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) in room EB 202 of the Erweiterungsbau (Straße des 17. Juni 145, 10623 Berlin). Part of the Take Back the Future conference hosted by Socialist Democratic Student League, the campus affiliate of Die Linke. Followed by drinks with Dig listeners and friends of the pod.
Register for the Socialism Conference by June 19th for the early bird rate! http://Socialismconference.org
Find Unpaid at http://Versobooks.com
-
2 hr
Nusantara Ep. 4 – Indonesian Republic, Third World Revolution
Show notes
The fourth episode in a series on the history of Indonesia: a hinge in the world system where colonialism and revolution have decisively shaped the trajectory of global history. This installment picks up with the Indonesian Revolution securing sovereignty from the Dutch in 1949. The Communist of Party of Indonesia, or PKI, revived after its repression to once again become a mass force in politics and society. All while Sukarno put Indonesia at the vanguard of global Third World revolution, hosting the legendary Bandung Afro–Asian Conference. Featuring Rianne Subijanto, Made Supriatma, and Farabi Fakih.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Dan’s Berlin event: “Trump 2.0 and the Rebirth of the American Left.” June 12, 6pm at Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) in room EB 202 of the Erweiterungsbau (Straße des 17. Juni 145, 10623 Berlin). Part of the Take Back the Future conference hosted by Socialist Democratic Student League, the campus affiliate of Die Linke. Followed by drinks with Dig listeners and friends of the pod. For drink details come to the talk or keep an eye on The Dig’s Instagram @thedigradio.
Our huge new Thawra study guide and resource website http://thawraproject.com/
Find Unpaid at http://Versobooks.com
Get 50% off From the Clinics to the Streets, or any first book purchase from http://plutobooks.com with code ‘DIG50’
-
1 hr 24 min
Dan Denvir’s Theory of Power and Organization
Show notes
This one is different: an episode cross-posted from the new podcast Fighting Fascism, where Dig host Daniel Denvir gets behind the guest mic to discuss his political work beyond the pod. Speaking at length for the first time about his own organizing project in Rhode Island, he elaborates his theory of class and political power building.
Check out Fighting Fascism and subscribe at http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fighting-fascism-podcast/id1888647397
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Our huge new Thawra study guide and resource website http://thawraproject.com
RSVP to the May 26 Dig party in LA! http://eventbrite.com/e/a-party-in-la-for-the-dig-friends-tickets-1987008568116
-
1 hr 43 min
Primary Struggle w/ Claire Valdez and other insurgent candidates
Show notes
Featuring New York U.S. House candidate Claire Valdez, Colorado U.S. House candidate Melat Kiros, Michigan U.S. House candidate William Lawrence, Massachusetts state Senate candidate Erika Uyterhoeven, New York State Assembly candidate Conrad Blackburn, and Washington D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George. The second episode in a series of short interviews with left-wing and socialist candidates at every level of US politics.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Our huge new Thawra study guide and resource website http://thawraproject.com
RSVP to the May 20 Dig party in Seattle! http://eventbrite.com/e/the-dig-x-house-our-neighbors-party-tickets-1986843010930
RSVP to the May 26 Dig party in LA! http://eventbrite.com/e/a-party-in-la-for-the-dig-friends-tickets-1987008568116
Buy Revolutions of Our Times at http://Haymarketbooks.org
Find Queering Economics at http://UCPress.edu
-
2 hr 2 min
Primary Struggle w/ Abdul El-Sayed and other insurgent candidates
Show notes
Featuring Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Tennessee US House candidate Justin Pearson, New York US House candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, Oregon state House candidate Tammy Carpenter, Providence mayoral candidate David Morales, and DC City Council candidate Aparna Raj. The first episode in a series featuring short interviews with left-wing and socialist candidates at every level of US politics.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Our huge new Thawra study guide and resource website http://thawraproject.com
Dan debates Hasan on Brian Lehrer http://wnyc.org/story/should-democrats-appear-with-hasan-piker/
Hasan’s analysis of the debate http://youtube.com/watch?v=fgkcuHZtsiM&t=1557sRSVP to the May 20 Dig party in Seattle! http://eventbrite.com/e/the-dig-x-house-our-neighbors-party-tickets-1986843010930
RSVP to the May 26 Dig party in LA! http://eventbrite.com/e/a-party-in-la-for-the-dig-friends-tickets-1987008568116
Buy How to End Family Policing at http://haymarketbooks.org/
Get 50% off How to Sell a Genocide, or any first book purchase from http://plutobooks.com/ with code ‘DIG50’
-
2 hr 16 min
Organizing Zohran’s NYC w/ Alina Shen and Fahd Ahmed
Show notes
Featuring Alina Shen and Fahd Ahmed on organizing working-class Asian New Yorkers into Zohran Mamdani’s campaign and then building power under a democratic socialist mayor. A discussion with two of New York’s most talented community leaders on building mass bases and struggling through the contradictions of wielding state power—including with regard to the NYPD.
Support The Dig at http://Patreon.com/TheDig
Our huge new Thawra study guide and resource website http://thawraproject.com
RSVP to the May 20 Dig party in Seattle! http://eventbrite.com/e/the-dig-x-house-our-neighbors-party-tickets-1986843010930
RSVP to the May 26 Dig party in LA! http://eventbrite.com/e/a-party-in-la-for-the-dig-friends-tickets-1987008568116
Find Control Science: How Management Made the Modern World at http://Versobooks.com
Get 50% off How to Sell a Genocide, or any first book purchase from http://plutobooks.com with code ‘DIG50’
Politics lists
More Politics shows picked out from the charts
More from Jacobin
All Jacobin podcastsMore in Politics
Placed highest on Apple Podcasts' Politics chart right now