Ross Wolfe Contra Domenico Losurdo Varn Vlog podcast

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Ross Wolfe Contra Domenico Losurdo

3d ago 1:56:42

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What if the renewed fascination with Domenico Losurdo says more about our appetite for stability than about Marxism’s future? We sit down with Ross Wolfe to unpack how a Verso‑to‑Monthly Review pipeline, a revived faith in China’s statecraft, and the polemical stretching of “Western Marxism” built a Dengist common sense on the contemporary left. The story runs through publishing politics, bad categories, and a philosophical move that recodes the twentieth century’s defeats as proof that the state must be forever.
We press on the scholarship: where Losurdo distorts Perry Anderson, ignores Russell Jacoby’s tighter frame, and sidelines entire currents like British Marxism, the Situationists, and Johnson–Forest. We reopen the Italian debates—Operaismo, Tronti, Althusser—and ask whether Sartre’s and workerist priorities were really blind to anti‑colonial struggle or simply refused to romanticize models that never fit advanced capitalism. From there, we tackle the hinge: Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Does it license a permanent state, or did Marx and Lenin get it right that the state’s existence tracks class antagonism and should wither as class society is abolished?
The conversation widens to strategy. We examine the labor‑aristocracy thesis, the quiet third‑worldism that relieves organizers of responsibility at home, and the way China’s present contradictions—major trade with Israel, BRICS diplomacy, GDP slowdown, regional rivalries—undercut claims that socialism can be national. If history “could only go this way,” what is left to change? We make the case for rebuilding class independence and international coordination in the core and periphery alike, not lowering horizons to match yesterday’s outcomes.
Subscribe, share, and leave a review to keep these long‑form dives alive. Then tell us: should the left reclaim the withering of the state—or retire it?

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Chapters

1. Setting The Stakes: Losurdo’s Appeal (00:00:00)

2. From Liberalism To Stalin: Translation And Reception (00:04:27)

3. Verso, Monthly Review, And A Shift Toward Dengism (00:09:37)

4. Why Dengism Rose And How China’s Image Changed (00:15:27)

5. Rockhill, Red Sails, And The CIA Thesis (00:22:47)

6. What “Western Marxism” Even Means (00:30:17)

7. Omissions, Misreadings, And Sloppy Citations (00:39:17)

8. Eurocommunism, Operaismo, And Sartre Revisited (00:46:47)

9. The Hegel Problem: State, Law, And Withering Away (00:56:17)

10. Neo‑Stalinism, Socialism In One Country, And Defeat (01:05:17)

11. Labor Aristocracy, Third‑Worldism, And Strategy (01:14:17)

12. China, Israel, Trade, And Present Contradictions (01:25:17)

13. GDP, BRICS, Tariffs, And Global Rivalries (01:34:47)

14. What Real Internationalism Requires (01:45:47)

15. Closing And Where To Find Ross Wolfe (01:54:47)

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