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RevolutionZ

RevolutionZ
Author: Michael Albert
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© 2025 RevolutionZ
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RevolutionZ: Life After Capitalism highlights social vision and strategy. You can join our community and help us grow and diversify via our Patreon Site Page
361 Episodes
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Episode 115 of RevolutionZ continues what we started last episode by addressing additional criticisms of economic vision offered by various anarchists. Support the show
Episode 353 of RevolutionZ examines two seemingly unrelated but equally disruptive forces: the marginalization of participatory economics and the existential threat of artificial intelligence. But first, a visit to Genoa's dockworkers threatening to shut down Israel shipments, America's sex trafficking being addressed incompletely, and activist self censoring doing Trump's work for him. On the headline topics, for over five decades, a persistent but small bunch have advocated for participato...
Episode 352 of RevolutionZ continues with chapters two and three of The Wind Cries Freedom. Alexandra Voline tells about going from despair to determination, from her parent's activism to her own revolutionary conviction. Born to 1960s radicals, politics was "background noise" until Trump's election added passion to knowledge. Alexandra describes how giving a speech against war-making at a defense plant taught her a painful but enduring lesson. Her self-righteous rage alienated the very worke...
Episode 248 of RevolutionZ asks, what if the real danger of advanced AI isn't robots taking over the world, but humans willingly but unintentionally surrendering our humanity? What if AI need not go rogue for its collateral damage to fundamentally hurt humanity? What if our most likely dystopian future isn't machines battling us to death, but machines doing exactly what we ask—better than we ever could? AI is spreading through society at an unprecedented rate, with exponentially growing func...
Episode 347 of RevolutionZ asks why so many stay essentially silent when our world is burning? Adam Aron, climate activist and psychology professor at UC San Diego identifies barriers that keep most people from taking action despite acknowledging the twin crises of climate collapse and rising authoritarianism. We then discuss what to do about the disturbing situation. Aron draws from his years of research and activism to identify what's holding us back: an atomized society that erodes our se...
Ep 346 of RevolutionZ takes on a stew of topics. What's up with Epstein. Fascism's arrival. Clickbait's Impact. Anti Collective Individualism. Gallaudet''s Struggle. Social Media. Good Trouble, and Now What? What's the connection among these? Lies, undermined trust, narrow horizons of calculation, fear, confusion, a surprisingly relevant movie, impoverished communications, a set back, and mostly some ideas about effective resistance. We know to go forward requires resistance to consis...
Ep 345 of RevolutionZ begins with a brief apology for an error last episode. some self-reflection about RevolutionZ's duration of 345 consecutive episodes, some moving guest comments on Gaza plus my own comments on emerging Trumpian fascism. It then again addresses the question do activists need fresh conceptual frameworks that transcend traditional Marxism? The episode revisits the critique of the Marxist tradition's adequacy for contemporary struggles/ We again and perhaps more succinctly ...
Episode 344 of RevolutionZ begins with some reflections on Zohran Mamdani's inspiring electoral win. How? By his campaign mobilizing an astonishing 50,000 volunteers. How? By he and his campaign feeling real and honest, and by offering real and meaningful vision. By electoral politics and grassroots activism becoming a mutual aid tag team rather than competing opponents. The episode then moves from Gaza's gut wrenching fascistic horrors to our own American "Twilight Zone" reality that s...
Episode 342 of RevolutionZ reconsiders how to evaluate success in our struggles against Trumpian fascism. When someone asks how a protest went, what are we really measuring? Our feelings? Media coverage? Participation numbers? Or something more substantive? Being vague about what matters is our movement measurement problem. This episode proposes four essential metrics that truly matter: Did our actions inspire continued involvement? Did we raise consciousness among those who witnessed our e...
Episode 341 of RevolutionZ quotes: "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living" and with that claim from Marx asks whether today's movements should enrich the Marxist tradition as a viable and worthy heritage that only needs some modest contemporary refinements, or transcend it entirely as concepts and banners of dead generations that constrain our creativity. Why this topic now? As political tensions mount and movements for fundamental change g...
Episode 340 of RevolutionZ addresses the mass deportations that are tearing through communities across America, and and discusses the resistance is growing. In this revealing conversation. Jeff Crosby—a factory worker at General Electric, former union president, and longtime labor activist says "We need leaders more than legislators right now." ICE targets students, family members, neighbors, and workers with no criminal records. But why do some support this? Crosby describes how econom...
Episode 339 of RevolutionZ has as its Guest Lucy Hicks from the General Strike US project to share her insights on building a decentralized movement aimed at mobilizing millions Americans for a general strike to "transform our economic and political systems." We discuss the challenges and strategies involved in creating nationwide labor and social solidarity during increasingly mind numbingly disturbing political times. General Strike US formed in 2022. It is currently focused on political ed...
Ep 337 of RevolutionZ displays connections between Netanyahu's vicious brutality and Trump's cruel authoritarianism. It examines the psychological mechanisms that enable or oppose both by discussing the need to maintain humanity while confronting inhumanity. "Can we hate the acts yet somehow recognize that those involved are people like us?" From snipers targeting children in Gaza to the creeping normalization of fascist cruelty in America, we witness power that "corrupts, coerces, incarcerat...
Episode 336 of RevolutionZ takes up issues of education as it is, as it should be, and how to go from the former to the latter. Trump, Vance, and their allies know that truth and critical thinking threaten their power. That's why they're launching unprecedented attacks on education—they want compliant, uncritical citizens who will accept authoritarianism without question. Current education? Among other aults, our schools track students into predetermined social roles: roughly 2% owners, 20% ...
Episode 335 of RevolutionZ notes that when millions took to the streets after Trump's first election victory, a crucial question arose: "What can people do next?" and how can they connect with it? The new All of Us Directory (at allofusdirectory.org) creates easy means for everyday people and seasoned activists like to connect with grassroots organizations where they can exercise their collective power. Longtime community activist Cynthia Peters shares with RevolutionZ the vision behind this...
Episode 334 of RevolutionZ assess three reactions to Trumpism, their causes, their effects, and their lessons for activism. The episode gets personal and in-depth to make a case that collective resistance that envisions positive change rather than mere survival can transform these "worst of times" into the "best of times," and to indicate some features it might involve. The three reactions to Trumpism the episode considers are first passive accommodation like some students and faculty o...
Episode 333 of RevolutionZ addresses the question is there anything worth seeking beyond existing economics and in particular modes of allocation? It goes into some depth revealing the horrible intrinsic ills of markets and central planning. For example, it discusses how markets and central planning both yield top-down decision-making and a corporate division of labor and a coordinator class above workers. It shows how central planning is and induces further authoritarianism and how markets r...
Episode 332 of RevolutionZ has Hunter Dunn of Southern Cal 50501 as guest to share insight from his experiences with organizing the massive Southern Cal Unites protest in downtown LA, as part of the nationwide April 5th demonstrations against the Trump Administration. Hunter is a Senior at Pepperdine University and our conversation went beyond reporting April 5th tactics, scale, and mechanics to discuss the many factors shaping youth political engagement. Dunn explained how Gen Z members are ...
Episode 331 of RevolutionZ has as guest long-time labor organizer Stephen Lerner to provide strategic clarity and emotive urgency about our current situation. Lerner describes a coordinated assault by "billionaires, the fossil fuel industry, and Silicon Valley" to "dominate every aspect of the country." Make public institutions "broke on purpose, "deliberately underfund vital services, and finally privatize them. Lerner argues that in addition to protesting government buildings we need to t...
Episode 330 of RevolutionZ confronts the growing threat of fascism by examining what constitutes genuine resistance versus complicity or apathy. The episode says we face three choices: bow and scrape to fascism, ignore what's happening, or stand and fight. University presidents and private law firms that collaborate with authoritarian demands represent profiles in cowardice. They bow and scrape. Anyone looking around and saying oh no, but who then does nothing more, ignores reality. But...
the book sounds so interesting. I'm looking forward to it :) Any heads up when it will be released?