Jacobin Radio

While European labor movements established foundations for their welfare states in the late 19th century, it was not until the New Deal that the US began instituting policies like unemployment insurance and old-age pensions. But although working-class struggle was also key to this success, several unique factors in American history proved an impediment to more egalitarian policies.

In this episode of Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek continue their deep dive into the history of social democracy. Together, they look at the impacts of craft unionism, mass immigration, racial tensions, and employer violence in explaining American exceptionalism.

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Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. Music by Zonkey.

Over the past several weeks, Iran has experienced its most serious wave of protests since the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022. What began as an economic protest quickly turned political, with chants calling for an end to the Islamic Republic — and the most brutal response of repression in the history of the Islamic Republic, with killings, mass arrests, executions, and an internet blackout.

UCLA historical sociologist Kevan Harris reconstructs the spark that ignited the protests — a technocratic reform perceived as an unjust tax, adding to economic and political grievances that exploded into a broader uprising. Iranian scholar and political activist Yassamine Mather examines the brutal repression that followed and the dangerous media distortions surrounding the uprising as exile groups promote monarchist fantasies and openly flirt with US and Israeli intervention.  Mather says Iranian protesters overwhelmingly reject both the Islamic Republic and the shah’s dictatorship — and foreign intervention threatens to crush the very movement it claims to support.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

This is a special, extra episode of Long Reads.

It’s now two weeks since the US attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. Donald Trump and Marco Rubio made explicit threats to countries like Colombia and Cuba in the aftermath, washed down with the usual fantasies about drug trafficking.

Tony Wood joins Long Reads to discuss the attack on Venezuela and what it means for the Latin American left. How have left-wing governments and parties been reacting, and what are the long-term implications going to be?

Tony is a professor of Latin American history at the University of Colorado Boulder and a regular contributor to publications such as New Left Review, the London Review of Books, and Jacobin: https://jacobin.com/author/tony-wood

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies with music by Knxwledge.

Featuring Aslı Bâli and Greg Grandin on the MAGA model of US imperialism.

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The Dig goes deep into politics everywhere, from labor struggles and political economy to imperialism and immigration. Hosted by Daniel Denvir.

This week’s episode of Long Reads is the second part of a two-part interview about the history of Western Sahara. Our last episode covered events leading up to Morocco’s invasion of the country. This episode examines the fifty years of occupation and the recent push by the Trump administration to legitimize Moroccan rule.

Our guest Jacob Mundy is a professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University. He’s the co-author of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution.

Read his piece for Jacobin, “For 50 Years, Morocco Has Denied Western Sahara Freedom”: https://jacobin.com/2025/11/morocco-western-sahara-freedom-colonialism

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies with music by Knxwledge.