Ben Burgis

What Marx's Comments on Aristotle and John Stuart Mill Reveal About His Critique of Political Economy Marx was obviously very far from being a market socialist. But, that doesn't mean he equated markets and capitalism.

Going up a few hours late (mostly couldn't get a seat, much less WiFi, on various trains in between London and Abergavenny today), but this week's Philosophy for the People essay is up!

Zohran Is Taking Bernie’s Movement Into the Future Zohran Mamdani’s historic mayoral victory marks a new chapter for democratic socialism in America. Like Bernie Sanders before him, he’s shown that relentless focus on a unifying message of economic ju...

Link:

I'm in @jacobinmag.bsky.social today with a look at the ways in which Zohran is uniquely Bernie's heir--both in that he's a *product* of the post-Bernie left in a way none of the other nationally prominent "Berniecrats" were and in his adoption of Bernie's left-populist communication playbook.

Heading to Historical Materialism to present on G.A Cohen

Coming up in eight days at Bar Freda in Queens!

Take the GOP’s Nazi Group Chats Seriously Ironic fascism is a disturbing symptom of the Trumpist right’s mounting ethnonationalism and authoritarianism.

My latest for @jacobinmag.bsky.social:

The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World - Kindle edition by Sunkara, Bhaskar, Burgis, Ben, Beggs, Mike. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World.

I suspect the actual release date is going to be a few months later than the one they've got on here right now, but still pretty cool--there's a pre-order page up for The Blueprint:

Realized I never said "unquote" after reciting a famous poem in 10th grade. Sorry if you thought everything I've said since is Shakespeare

Coming up in exactly two weeks!

YouTube video by Give Them An Argument w/Ben Burgis Trump: We Lost Vietnam and Iraq Because of Woke

Going live in about 10 minutes:

No Kings protests can’t overlook workers On Saturday, 2700 “No Kings” rallies were held across the United States. Early estimates put the total attendance at around seven million people. This massive turnout speaks to widespread popular diss...

The "No Kings" protests were great.

But the other half of the message needs to be "No Oligarchs."

My latest for @unherd.com:

No Kings, No Oligarchs.

Start there.

Election Night live show/celebration in Queens!

Tickets:

www.barfreda.com#/events/156966

YouTube video by Give Them An Argument w/Ben Burgis The Labor Theory of Value and Marx's Theory of Exploitation

Going live at 11:30 AM East Coast/8:30 West Coast to talk a little labor theory of value and exploitation:

YouTube video by Give Them An Argument w/Ben Burgis Krystal Ball vs. Saagar Enjeti: Is it “Neo-Confederate” to Refuse to Cooperate with ICE?

Going live in about half an hour (at 11:30 AM East Coast/8:30 AM West Coast) to take a look at an interesting impromptu mini-debate on a recent episode of Breaking Points:

YouTube video by Give Them An Argument w/Ben Burgis Curtis Yarvin Says We Can't Handle the Truth

In a little over half an hour (at 11:30 AM East Coast/8:30 AM West Coast), I'm going to go live for a little breakdown of Curtis Yarvin's very odd essay "You Can't Handle the Truth."

If You Want to Critique Analytic Philosophy, It Helps to Know Something About It A note on Neil Vallelly's essay "Analytic Philosophy Is a Dead End for the Left."

This week's Philosophy for the People essay:

Opinion | The 9/11-era roots of Trump’s war on ‘antifa’ The seeds of what Trump is doing were planted and nurtured by presidents of both parties during the “war on terror.”

Link:

I'm in @msnbc.com today, writing about the particular chickens currently coming home to roost:

Trump: The US Lost Vietnam and Afghanistan Due to Woke Donald Trump thinks the US was constrained by “political correctness” in Vietnam and Afghanistan. But those wars were characterized by thorough dehumanization and staggering destruction. What type of ...

My latest for @jacobinmag.bsky.social:

YouTube video by Give Them An Argument w/Ben Burgis Robert Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain Argument Against Redistribution

Going live in a little over 10 minutes (at 11:30 AM EST/8:30 PST):

YouTube video by Give Them An Argument w/Ben Burgis Debunking Pro-Israel Talking Points on Gaza

Going live in a few minutes (at 11:30 AM East Coast/8:30 AM West Coast)!

My Preferred Solution to the Liar Paradox I wrote my dissertation on the Liar Paradox and the philosophy of logic. In broad outlines, here's the approach I advocated there.

This week's Philosophy for the People essay:

YouTube video by Give Them An Argument w/Ben Burgis Democrats are Screwing Up the Shutdown

Going live in about 10 minutes (11:30 AM East Coast/8:30 West Coast):

"There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come."

A few more pictures from the Partido de Trabjo conference + the written version of my intro for @profwolff.bsky.social. The 2nd pic is the most meaningful to me--I got to meet one of my heroes (Ofer Cassif, who was almost expelled from the Knesset for speaking out against the genocide).

A bit of the opening of the conference yesterday.

The beginnings of DSA meetings are never as good as this!

So, this was pretty cool:

Yesterday I got to introduce @profwolff.bsky.social at a conference of socialist, communist and labor parties from all around Latin America (and several outside of it) hosted in Mexico City by the Partido del Trabajo:

Kamala Harris Thinks Trump Is a “Communist.” That’s Insane. Centrist Democrats like Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom seem to think the best way to disparage Donald Trump is to highlight his departures from free-market orthodoxy. Good luck with that.

My latest for @jacobinmag.bsky.social covers Kamala Harris coming out of whatever hole she crawled into after catastrophically fumbling the 2024 election & babbling some gibberish about Donald Trump being a "communist" (+ how that gibberish manages to precisely reverse the message that could work).