Jacobin Radio Folgen

In this episode, Suzi talks to Jacobin contributing editor Sebastian Budgen about the gilet jaunes protests rocking France, named for the yellow traffic vests the protestors wear. The movement was ignited by President Emmanuel Macron’s so called climate measures — hiking gas taxes and reducing the speed limit, but quickly included other basic economic demands about low wages and the increasing impossibility of making ends meet, while the wealthy were getting tax breaks. Sebastian Budgen looks at the movement’s origins, politics, support, and potential. Then Sarah Mason joins Suzi to describe her experience as a Lyft driver doing precarious work in the gig economy. She explains, in her article in the Guardian, how workers are motivated, essentially in game mode, to do insane amounts of driving, and how the insertion of the algorithm into the traditional class struggle has changed the way workers can fight.

Robert Pollin, lead author of this paper, on how to pay for Medicare for All — covering everyone and saving money. Then, Anton Jäger on the problems with the anti-/post-work position.

There has been no greater exemplar of zombie neoliberalism in power than French President Emanuel Macron's imperial technocracy. Now, with the rise of the Yellow Vest (Gilets jaunes) movement, there no clearer evidence that zombie neoliberalism is bound to fail. This crisis cannot be solved with the centrist policies and politics that caused it in the first place. But where will the movement head, and who will benefit politically?And what does this reveal about neoliberal approaches to the climate crisis? Dan's guests are Danièle Obono, a French member of parliament with the left-wing party la France Insoumise, or France Unbowed, and ROAR magazine editor Jerome Roos.Read Jerome's article in ROAR: roarmag.org/essays/gilets-jaunes-blown-old-political-categories/Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at patreon.com/TheDig