An Interview with Peter Linebaugh on the Commons, Crime, and the Meanings of Industry and Idleness
Release Date: 02/25/2022
Non-compete Agreements and Corporate Subsidies with Pat Garofalo
Unproductive Labor
This episode I’m pleased to be speaking with Pat Garofalo. Pat is the director of state and local policy at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of ‘The Billionaire Boondoggle: How Our Politicians Let Corporations and Bigwigs Steal Our Money and Jobs.” He also writes the Boondoggle substack. We’ll be talking about a grab bag of topics including noncompete agreements and corporate subsidies. Contact US Twitter: @PublicSeminar, @lmergner, @pete_sinnott Email: [email protected] Credits Producer: Daniel Fermín Music: Composed and performed by Samuel...
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The Problems and Possibilities of Graeber’s BS Jobs with Matteo Tiratelli
Unproductive Labor
In this episode, I talk to Matteo Tiratelli about bullshit jobs. Tiratelli recently published an article in the journal Catalyst exploring the problems and insights of David Graeber’s well known theory Tiratelli is a lecturer at UCL's Social Research Institute where he teaches historical and political sociology. His previous research has focussed on the ideological transformation of European socialism, the history of rioting in Britain, and the political economy of crime. He is currently starting a project examining the evolution of the British prison system over the twentieth...
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Essential Workers and Labor Activism During the Pandemic: An Interview with Jamie McCallum
Unproductive Labor
This episode, I talk to sociologist Jamie McCallum about his new book, Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice. We talk about working conditions and unemployment during the pandemic, labor activism, and glimpses of working class unity. McCallum is a professor of sociology at Middlebury College. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Mother Jones, Dissent, and Jacobin, and his last book Worked Over looked at the quantity and quality of time we spend on and off the clock. You can get in touch with him through his website: . Contact US...
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We’ll Always Need to Work: An Interview with Alex Gourevitch
Unproductive Labor
In this episode, my erstwhile cohost, Luke Mergner, and I talk to Alex Gourevitch who published a piece last year in Catalyst that levied a critique of anti-work discourse and universal basic income. We talk to Alex about what the anti-work and post-work crowd get wrong in their thinking about work and the future. Alex is an associate professor of political science at Brown University. He is currently writing a book on the political ethics of strikes and a book on shared labor socialism. He has written for Jacobin, Dissent, and other publications.
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Inflation, the Labor Market, and Inequality: Two Interviews
Unproductive Labor
This week a double episode, first a discussion about inflation and the labor market with Brian Callaci, chief economist at the Open Market Institute. Then an interview with political scientist David Lay Williamas about the inequality today and its place in the history of western political thought. Brian Callaci is the Chief Economist at the Open Markets Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank focused on antimonopoly policy. He co-authored an article in Dissent in July titled David Lay WIlliams is Professor of Political Science at DePaul University and author of a forthcoming book on...
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Violence and Class Solidarity
Unproductive Labor
This episode, Pete interviews Chad Pearson about his new book, (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). They talk about the use of violence to discipline workers, labor battles in the long nineteenth century, the need to study the way business owners organized nationally to fight unionization, and more. Chad Pearson is a labor historian primarily interested in ruling class organizations and violence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He has authored two books: Capital's Terrorists and Reform or Repression: Organizing America's Anti-Union Movement (University...
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What Austerity Has done to Care Work and Care Workers: An Interview with Emma Dowling
Unproductive Labor
In this episode I talk to Emma Dowling about her book, In the book, Dowling connects the recent history of privatization, austerity, and financialization to the decline in the availability and quality of care. Her book asks us to think about what care is for recipients and care workers, paid and unpaid, and how the influence of social impact investors and other forms of private finance distort and twist the fundamental human need and social function for the sake of extracting profits. Emma Dowling is a sociologist and political scientist and teaches at the University...
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Why We Need Unions: A Conversation with Eve Livingston
Unproductive Labor
This episode I talk to Eve Livingston, author of . We discuss the need to organize unions to meet the challenges of work today and the need to build connections between unions and community organizations outside the workplace. Eve Livingston is a Scotland-based freelance journalist specializing in social affairs, inequalities and industrial relations. She has worked for The Guardian, The Independent, VICE and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism among many others and has appeared on TV and radio including BBC Woman's Hour and ITV News. In 2018 she was one of Young Women Scotland's 30...
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The Great Resignation, a Delayed Reaction
Unproductive Labor
This week my erstwhile cohost and collaborator, Luke, and I have a free-flowing conversation about the Great Resignation. This was a hot topic last fall as 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November 2021 and 4.3 Million in August of 2021. That’s according to . We discuss how varying factors drove this phenomenon in different sectors of the economy, or at least the common narratives that have been deployed to explain this for white and blue collar workers. We also discuss the impact of and the connection or lack of connection to other trends such as drives to unionize in the service,...
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An Interview with Peter Linebaugh on the Commons, Crime, and the Meanings of Industry and Idleness
Unproductive Labor
In this episode, I’m joined by Peter Linebaugh, a historian whose thinking and writing about the commons spans the entirety of a quite distinguished career. His books include The London Hanged, The Magna Carta Manifesto, Stop Thief, Red Round Globe Hot Burning, and, with Marcus Rediker, The Many Headed Hydra. His writing combines a rigorous historical understanding grounded in the archives with a deep concern for and critique of the present, a difficult balancing act to pull off. We talk about the commons in history and today, the meaning of industry and idleness, crime and the police,...
info_outlineWe talk about the commons in history and today, the meaning of industry and idleness, crime and the police, and Linebaugh’s approach to the discipline of history.
Contact US
Twitter: @PublicSeminar, @lmergner, @pete_sinnott
Email: [email protected]
Credits
Producer: Daniel Fermín
Music: Composed and performed by Samuel Haines.
Artwork: Daniel Fermín
What We Talked About
The commons and commoning
Christopher Hill
David Graeber and David Wengrow
Adam Smith
Policing