WHAT IS POLITICS?
Episodes
Why the “Left” is full of Cancel Goblins, Stalinist Gooners, D.E.Idiots and Post-Modern Tallywankers
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As inequality gets worse and worse, hostility for elites is at all time highs, and huge majorities of voters want higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy to...
17 – Socialism for Conservatives, Free Markets for Socialists and the Tyranny of Property Rights
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today, free markets are championed as the foundation of capitalism, while socialists argue that free markets cause growing inequality and exploitation...
16.1 – A Realistic Solution to the Forever Housing Crisis (make it happen!)
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we outline: How to build enough affordable housing for everyone using an existing housing model that’s proven to work. How to pay ...
12.3 The Great Land Theft (secret history of Israel / Palestine pt. 3)
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this chapter of Secret History of Israel/Palestine, we look at a crucial, but neglected episode of history, whereby the small urban elite in Ottoma...
12.2 The Secret History of Israel/Palestine pt.2: Fellahin and Bedouin in the Ottoman Empire
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Who were the people of Palestine and what were their lives about in the late 19th century, before the first Zionists began arriving from Europe in the...
Dumbundance: can the “Abundance Agenda” fix the eternal housing crisis?
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the book Abundance, left liberal authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson identify unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape as an important factor in why ...
How Inequality of Wealth and Power are like Obesity and Diabetes
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why are human beings so greedy and why are our societies so hierarchical, if our ancestors were so fiercely egalitarian? What is “human nature”...
Hello, Fellow Jews! How Lies About Oslo led to the Destruction of Gaza
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My message to Jewish supporters of the war in Gaza. (TIMESTAMPS BELOW)   TO SUPPORT MY EXISTENCE: PAYPAL ONE TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS: PATREON...
Why Elites Ruined the Meaning of the Left Right Political Spectrum (and we need it back!)
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Market Exit, like many others before him, tells us that the left-right political spectrum is obsolete and does more harm than good. That’s because h...
“Nationalism vs. Globalism”: Why is the Populist Right on the Rise?
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why are nationalist / populist / far right candidates and parties getting elected all around the world?  Why isn’t the populist left enjoyi...
12.1 – The Secret History of Israel / Palestine, Part I: the Jews of Europe and the rise of Zionism
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This series focuses on those aspects of the origins of the Israel/Palestine conflict that partisans on both sides mutually ignore. This episode examin...
Q&A on the ABCs of Israel/Palestine
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is a Q&A where I respond to questions and critiques about episode 12: The ABC’s of Israel/Palestine (https://youtu.be/OLr_VCqnId0) and also...
Brainstorm: Israel/Palestine – Who Started It?
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What was supposed to be an informal QnA about the “Israel/Palestine ABCs” episode, turned into a What is Politics “live” brainstorm session à...
12: From “Never Again” to “There are No Uninvolved Civilians”: The ABC’s of the Israel/Palestine Conflict
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Elites use identity, particularly national identity, as a way of advancing their own interests, often against the interests of the populations that th...
9.2 – Equity, Equality and Lizard People: when right wing politics masquerade as left wing politics
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When ideas and movements that threaten to overturn established hierarchies of power are absorbed into elite institutions like Ivy League universities ...
9.2 – Equity, Equality and Lizard People (TRANSCRIPT)
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
BIBLIOGRAPHY Hello fellow kids, and welcome back to What is Politics! Today I want to do a little old school OG what is politics and talk about how po...
11.1 Why the Russian Revolution Failed: When Rich Kids do all the Socialism
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The leaders of the Russian Revolutions of February and October 1917 sought to establish socialism: a deeply democratic economic and political system w...
11.1 Why The Russian Revolution Failed (TRANSCRIPT)
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
BIBLIOGRAPHY Hello fellow kids! And welcome back to What is Politics! RECAP Last time we took a look at a frequently asked question – “why a...
11. Why are Communist countries all one-party dictatorships?
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why has every communist country so far been a one party dictatorship?   Is it something inherent to Socialism or Marxism?   Is human nature ...
10.4 What Causes Seasonal Social and Political Structures? The Dawn of Everything Chapter 3:
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we cover the rest of chapter 3 of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything. In this chapter, the authors claim ...
10.3 The Ingredients of Hierarchy: Graeber & Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything Chapter 3, ”Unfreezing the Ice Age”
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We cover the first part of chapter 3 of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything: ”Unfreezing the Ice Age”, and we investig...
10.2 The Dawn of Everything: How Graeber & Wengrow’s book sets us up to fail like Occupy Wall Street
19 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we cover chapter 1 of David Graeber & David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything, entitled Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood; ...
10.1 Graeber & Wengrow’s “The Dawn of Everything”: What is an “Egalitarian” Society?
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we read and critique the conclusion of Chapter 2 of Dawn of Everything, “Wicked Liberty: The Indigenous Critique and the Myth of the...
10. David Graeber & David Wengrow’s The “Dawn of Everything”: The Wisdom of Kandiaronk
04 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A critical reading of “The Wisdom of Kandiaronk, The Indigenous Critique, the Myth of Progress and the Birth of the Left” from David Graeb...
Interview: Fight Like an Animal / Arnold Schroeder
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Interview with Arnold Schroeder of Fight Like an Animal, a wonderful and endessly fascinating show that looks through 20 years of experience of hardco...
9.1. Cancel Culture is Corporate Management Culture
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The terms “cancel culture” and “political correctness” are used to delegitimize ideas like gender equality and racial equality...
9. The Real Cancel Culture is At-Will Employment
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The foundation of “cancel culture” and “political correctness” is the wage labour employment contract. ARTICLES QUOTED: Corey Robin, Chris Ber...
8. Idealism vs. Materlialism – How History is Made: Haudenosaunee Women / the Suffragettes / the Double V Campaign / The English Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 / The Anarchist Revolution in Spain 1936-39
19 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Human beings have free will, but our actions are constrained by material realities.  Understanding how material and practical conditions shape hu...
7.1. Material Conditions: Why You Can’t Eliminate Sexism Just by Eliminating Sexism
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What would happen if you could end sexism overnight by giving everyone a magic pink pill? Why we need to target material and practical conditions if w...
7. The Origin of Social Hierarchy and Male Dominance: why David Graeber and Jordan Peterson are Wrong
26 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why are hierarchy and male dominance so prevalent in human societies?  According to anthropologists David Graeber & David Wengrow, it’s bec...
6. Political Anthropology: When Communism Works
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Everywhere we look, past and present we see hierarchical societies where some people have more wealth, more power, and more rights than others.  ...
5. How Do We Know What Left and Right Mean? Who’s who on the left and right: 1789-1917
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is for everyone who keeps writing to me to insist that one or the other wrong, incoherent, popular definitions of Left and Right is actua...
Understanding the News: How Tax Cuts Fuel Police Brutality
09 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Politicians’ dependence on police as a revenue stream, prosecutors’ dependence on police for convictions, and falling tax cuts on the wealthy comb...
4. How Political Definitions Shape Reality
31 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Definitions of political terms affect what we see and don’t see in the world around us, and turn us into effective or ineffective communicators ...
3. The Left-Right Political Spectrum is About Class Conflict
28 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Most journalists and Doctor-Professor academics don’t really know what the left-right political spectrum is about, but you will after listening to t...
2. What is Politics and Why Should I Care? (video)
15 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How can people who don’t have official decision-making power exert their influence over those who do?  A quick overview of some basic polit...
1. Worbs: when political terms have no meaning
06 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Politics is unique among practical fields in that almost all of the main political terms are worbs: words that everyone (including academics and journ...