Jacobin Radio

Advanced capitalist countries have recently rediscovered the role of industrial policy to build out key economic sectors like semiconductors and AI. But what happens if business is the one calling all the shots?

On this latest episode of Confronting Capitalism, we’re sharing Vivek Chibber’s keynote address from the 2026 IFAR Consortium Conference, hosted by the Indonesian International Islamic University. He discusses how developing countries used industrial policy in the past, why the US and Europe are now turning to greater state intervention, and how one could build a new social-democratic alliance between the state and labor.

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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.

Jodi Dean, who has a new Substack on the issue, surveys how AI has been terrible. Anatol Lieven, author of a new article for New Left Review’s Sidecar blog, looks at the bloody stalemate that is the Russia–Ukraine war.

Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.

Featuring Molly Crabapple on her book Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. The second in a two-part interview.

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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.

From the very start of the Gaza genocide, Western media outlets were happy to repeat the most outlandish claims from Israeli government officials. One of the most notorious examples was the allegation that dozens of Israeli babies were beheaded on October 7, 2023, a story amplified by CNN and promoted by the former US president, Joe Biden, who claimed to have seen “pictures of terrorists beheading children.” Of course, Biden was lying — it never happened.

This failure to ask any serious questions before reporting the most inflammatory claims set the tone for media coverage of Gaza, right up to the present day.

Adam Johnson joins Long Reads to discuss a pattern of journalistic malpractice by some of the world’s most prestigious newspapers and broadcasters. Adam is a media critic and the author of a new book about Gaza and the US media, How to Sell A Genocide. It chronicles how influential media outlets, instead of reporting on the crimes Israel was committing in Gaza, helped the Biden administration whitewash them.

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

“Men in hard hats were once the heart of America’s working class. Now it is women in scrubs,” says historian Gabriel Winant, author of The Next Shift, who joins Suzi to explain how deindustrialization made health care the country’s largest employer, but the jobs are lower paid, understaffed, and more precarious.

That’s playing out now at UVM Medical Center, where Vermont's own regulator found the nonprofit hospital was over-earning. Its response? Cut union jobs while nineteen top executives split $3 million in bonuses. Three union leaders — Melissa LaVallee, Teagan Cook, and Emma Galvin — from AFT Vermont, a branch of the American Federation of Teachers, describe the fight from inside for safe staffing and common-good demands. Their contract expires midnight on August 13th. The stakes are national.

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