Novara Media

Donald Trump has been ripping up the rule book on global trade, implementing huge tariffs and sending markets into a frenzy. But is there any method in his apparent madness? Legendary Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek regales Aaron with his thoughts on US trade policy – not to mention Franz Kafka, fully automated luxury communism and whether he’s a “GILF”. Žižek’s new book, Zero Point, is out now on Bloomsbury.

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Ash and Moya answer a mystery question and wonder if our quest for a life of convenience was a mistake. Plus: advice for a listener dating a much, much older man. PSA: We’re going live at EartH in London on 21st May! Stay tuned for tickets next week.

Music by Matt Huxley.

When you think about neoliberal states, maybe you think of the UK, or Russia in the 90s, or Chile. You probably don’t think about Iran.

And yet, argues Bahar Noorizadeh, the Islamic Republic has been, since before the 1979 revolution, a neoliberal state – and an imperial one as well.

It has suppressed the Kurdish and Baloch nations inside its own borders.

How can we show solidarity with feminist and national struggles inside Iran and resist the warmongering of the Trump regime at the same time?

Bahar spoke to Eleanor Penny about how to resist the appropriation of the feminist movement by the West, the question political Islam, and how feminist struggles are linking up from Palestine to Balochistan and Kurdistan.

There are few, true, public intellectuals anymore. But Ta-Nehisi Coates – author of ‘Between The World And Me’ and recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant – is unquestionably foremost amongst them. His new book, The Message, is a sweeping exploration of how stories shape our politics – from the parameters of black struggle to Israel’s imposition of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. He and Ash Sarkar talk about Shakespeare, class politics, and the shared experiences of Black Americans and Palestinians.

Forensic Architecture is a research agency that investigates state violence and environmental destruction.

It reconstructs events that states worldwide wants obscured, from Israel to the UK and from the Mediterranean to Ukraine.

In doing so, they have invented a whole new discipline of investigation.

On Novara FM, FA’s Assistant Director of Research, Samaneh Moafi, tells Eleanor Penny about their new report A Cartography of Genocide on the ongoing Gaza Genocide.

In 2024 the Conservative party suffered their worst defeat in two centuries. But while Labour struggles in office, the Tories are going nowhere fast. Meanwhile Britain shambles on without an economic model, or a wider vision for the future. How long can national decline continue? And when will things come to a head?

Aaron Bastani speaks to author, and Mail on Sunday columnist, Peter Hitchens. They discuss – from different perspectives – a country in crisis, the legacy of Thatcherism, and the elite obsession with Britain remaining ‘important’. If only they gave up such illusions, Hitchens argues, then they could focus on the country’s happiness and prosperity.

The gang present a milestone 50th Trip all about acid: a drug, a genre, a political concept, a mental tool and a thought corrosive. Looking back on six years of the podcast, Nadia, Keir and Jem decide if ‘acid’ is still a useful way of thinking about left-wing politics.

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We’ve entered a new climate reality. The pace of the energy transition has picked up – and so have the impacts of climate change.

But has there ever actually been an energy transition? Or do we just use more and more and more of everything?

As climate change accelerates, feedback loops in the climate system will start to speed it up even further.

All this is to say: we’re approaching the point when geoengineering will start to seem awfully tempting.

Richard Hames spoke to Laurie Laybourn, executive director of the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative, about what we do when that temptation arises.

Investigative journalist Matt Kennard joins Aaron Bastani to discuss Britain’s complicity in the genocide of Palestinians, following a series revelations published in Declassified UK.

In an extensive conversation about the shifting sands of global security, the author of The Racket also discusses the elimination of USAID, America’s U-turn on Russia, and the rearmament of Europe.

Downstream IRL: Israeli historian Ilan Pappé will join Aaron Bastani for a LIVE conversation at EartH in East London on 22 April. Tickets are available now on Dice.

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After capitalism comes communism, according to Marxist doctrine. But in the meantime, what should we call our increasingly unequal system? Political theorist Jodi Dean posits ‘neofeudalism’ as the best way to describe our growing society of serfs and servants in her new book, Capital’s Grave.

She talks to Eleanor Penny about a vision of class struggle led by the ‘servant vanguard’.

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