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Podcast

Elite Capture w/ Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò & Robin D.G. Kelley

Join Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò and Robin D.G. Kelley for a conversation about the politics of solidarity in the fight against racial capitalism. “I was waiting for this book without realizing I was waiting for this book.”—Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Change Everything: Racial Capitalism and the Case for Abolition “Olúfémi O. Táíwò is a thinker on fire. He not only calls out empire for shrouding its bloodied hands in the cloth of magical thinking but calls on all of us to do the same. Elite capture, after all, is about turning oppression and its cure into a (neo)liberal commodity exchange where identities become capitalism’s latest currency rather than the grounds for revolutionary transformation. The lesson is clear: only when we think for ourselves and act with each other, together in deep, dynamic, and difficult solidarity, can we begin to remake the world.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination Through a substantive engagement with the global Black radical tradition and a critical understanding of racial capitalism, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò identifies the process by which a radical concept can be stripped of its political substance and liberatory potential by becoming the victim of elite capture—deployed by political, social, and economic elites in the service of their own interests. Táíwò’s crucial intervention both elucidates this complex process and helps us move beyond a binary of “class” vs. “race.” By rejecting elitist identity politics in favor of a constructive politics of radical solidarity, he advances the possibility of organizing across our differences in the urgent struggle for a better world. --------------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He is the author of Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) and Reconsidering Reparations. His work exploring the intersections of climate justice and colonialism has been featured in The New Yorker, The Nation, Boston Review, Dissent, The Appeal, Slate, Al Jazeera, The New Republic, Aeon, and Foreign Policy. Robin D.G. Kelley is Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA and the author of many books, including Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, and Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books and Dissent Magazine. Get the book: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1867-elite-capture Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/BpLX8T6phOQ Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

More Episodes

Mar 11, 2026

Abolish ICE, Abolish the Border

Join Harsha Walia, Silky Shah, and Beatrice Adler-Bolton of Death Panel for an urgent discussion on the brutal enforcement of immigration policing in Minneapolis and beyond, and why resistance calls for the abolition of much more than ICE.

With at least 6 people dying in immigration detention in January 2026 alone, and following the executions of Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, and Keith Porter Jr. at the hands of ICE agents, the call to abolish ICE can be heard across the US. In this conversation, co-hosted by Haymarket Books and Death Panel, thinkers and organisers Walia, Shah, and Adler-Bolton will discuss the realities of immigration enforcement, detention, and deportation; the history of ICE and the US border regime; and the many ways people can - and do - resist.

Remember that you can download three crucial e-books on migrant justice for free from Haymarket here, including Shah’s Unbuild Walls and Walia’s Border & Rule: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/525-free-ebooks-abolish-ice-abolish-the-border

Speakers:

Silky Shah is the executive director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the U.S. She is also the author of the recently published book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition (Haymarket Books, 2024). She has worked as an organizer on issues related to immigration detention, the prison-industrial complex, and racial and migrant justice for over 20 years.

Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Border and Rule (Haymarket Books, 2021) and Undoing Border Imperialism (AK, 2013). Trained in the law, she is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women’s Memorial March Committee.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton is an author, disability and mad justice agitator, and theorist of debility, care, class struggle, and the state. She is the cohost of the Death Panel Podcast about the political economy of health, and the coauthor of the books Health Communism (Verso 2022) and All Care for All People (forthcoming from Haymarket). She is based in South Minneapolis and has struggled and organized against occupation by ICE and CBP with comrades and neighbors since "Operation Metro Surge" descended on the Twin Cities in early December 2025.

This event is organized by Haymarket Books and Death Panel.

Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/d9YJqx1zY2c

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

Mar 12, 2026

Venezuela in Crisis: US Imperialism, Maduro, and the Neoliberal Turn

Join four left Venezuelan voices for an urgent discussion of the neocolonial US intervention and kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro on January 3 and its aftermath. The event will examine the evolution of the Bolivarian process and its neoliberal turn under Maduro, along with the weakening of the social forces within Venezuela capable of resisting imperialist invasion. As the situation changes rapidly, speakers will also assess the post-invasion configuration under Delcy Rodríguez, the collaboration with U.S. imperial power, oil concessions, and the consolidation of a “Madurismo without Maduro.”

The discussion will challenge both pro-invasion narratives and apologetics for the Venezuelan state, advancing a left, anti-imperialist critique rooted in sovereignty, democracy, and working-class self-determination.

Speakers:

Simón Rodríguez is a Venezuelan socialist writer and journalist. He was a student organizer and later became professor at the Universidad de los Andes. When he was a member of the national leadership of the Socialism and Freedom Party, he ran as a candidate for the National Assembly in 2015. He is a founding member of Laclase.info and Venezuelanvoices.org and has published articles in Humania del Sur, NACLA Report on the Americas, The New Arab, and Rebelión and on dozens of electronic outlets, and his articles have been translated into six languages. He has given talks and lectures in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. He is coauthor with Miguel Sorans of the book Why Did Chavismo Fail? A Left-Opposition Balance Sheet (CeHUS, 2018).

Emiliano Terán is a sociologist from the Central University of Venezuela and has a master’s degree in ecological economics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a PhD candidate in environmental science and technology at the same institution. He is also an associate researcher at the Center for Development Studies in Venezuela and a member of the Observatory of Political Ecology of Venezuela

Gonzalo Gómez was a leader of the Socialist Workers Party from the 1970s to the 1990s. He was a key figure in the regroupment of Trotskyism in Venezuela and was a critical supporter of Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution. He participated in the Popular Revolutionary Assembly against the 2002 coup. Gómez also was a cofounder of the alternative media site Aporrea. He was one of the founders of Marea Socialista, a current that joined the PSUV, of which he was a founding delegate and part of the regional leadership in Caracas. In 2014, Marea was excluded from the PSUV and then broke with the Maduro government. Gómez participated for several years with the Citizen’s Platform for the Defense of the Constitution with several former Chávez ministers. Gómez has continued to organize with Marea Socialista as an independent organization and section of the International Socialist League.

Yoletty Bracho is a Venezuelan political science researcher currently teaching at the University of Avignon in south of France who studies authoritarian governance and popular mobilization in Venezuela.

Moderator:

Anderson Bean is a sociology professor at North Carolina A&T State University, as well as a North Carolina–based activist and editor. He is a contributor and editor of the book Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist Perspectives, out this month from Haymarket Books, and the author of Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis (Lexington Books)

Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/cOe2ZWX7f8M

Get the book: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2604-venezuela-in-crisis

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

Apr 1, 2026

One Day Longer, One Day Stronger: How Minnesota's Labor Movement is Resisting ICE

“When a seed is ready to sprout, and when the conditions are right, nothing can stop it.” –Ricardo Levins Morales

In the last few months, Minnesota has not only made headlines, but history. The resistance to ICE atrocities has been fueled by working class collective action and care. There is much to learn about how the crisis is evolving, from January 23rd’s historic work stoppage to the continued daily, on-the-ground mutual aid and rapid response networks keeping people fed, housed, and safe from authoritarian aggressors. Hear from union leaders and rank-and-filers who have been active on the frontlines and behind the scenes about what we are capable of when we come together, and what must be done to keep growing worker power.

Speakers:

Paul Kirk-Davidoff - Twin Cities Labor Report

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou - Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation

Feben Ghilagaber - UNITE-HERE 17

This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books and Workday Magazine.

Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/riV6B7D4diA

Check out WorkDay Magazine: https://workdaymagazine.org

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

Apr 7, 2026

Stop the War Now!: Against the US and Israel's Wars on Iran and Lebanon

The devastating US-Israeli war on Iran and Israel's war on Lebanon show no signs of ending soon. What is behind the attacks and how can we organize to oppose them without supporting the Iranian theocracy? Join Tempest Magazine and Haymarket Books for this important discussion.

Speakers:

Manijeh Moradian is assistant professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States (Duke University Press, 2022), tells the story of Iranian students who organized against US support for the Shah of Iran in the 60s and 70s. She has been an anti-war activist for many years, serving on the United for Peace and Justice organizing committee for the February 15, 2003 global protest against the US invasion of Iraq. She is a founding member of the Raha Iranian Feminist Collective and a member of Feminists for Jina, a global network which formed in fall 2022 to support the women, life, freedom uprising in Iran.

Ida Nikou is a sociologist working on international political economy, labor regimes, and financialization, with a focus on Iran and the Middle East. She received her PhD at SUNY Stony Brook and is currently based in Germany. Her research examines how sanctions, neoliberal restructuring, and financialization transform class relations, labor precarity, and patterns of worker resistance in Iran. She has written on sanctions and labor struggles in Iran for venues including MERIP, Jadaliyya, and the Global Labour Journal, and is currently developing new work on sanctions, accumulation, and state restructuring in Iran.

Rima Majed is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies Department at the American University of Beirut (AUB). She is the co-editor of The Lebanon Uprising of 2019: Voices from the Revolution. Her work has appeared in several journals, books and media platforms including American Political Science Review, Social Forces, British Journal of Sociology, Global Dialogue, OpenDemocracy, CNN, and Al Jazeera English.

This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books and Tempest.

Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/l58tVX8d7tI

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org