Confronting Capitalism: This Century’s Biggest Labor Battle

Jacobin Radio

Jacobin

Politics, History, News

4.7 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our modern economy is now dominated by massive mega-companies like Amazon and Walmart, with operations spanning many different sectors and employment types. With the US labor movement at historically low levels of unionization, bold strategies are necessary to protect the working class.

On this episode of Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek speak with ASU professor Benjamin Fong about the challenges and opportunities that organizing Amazon presents to the labor movement.

Ben has recently published an essay collection, co-edited with Paul Prescod, on civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. You can find a link to the book and its description here: https://www.damagemag.com/p/rustins-challenge

Join Confronting Capitalism for a live recording in Brooklyn on April 6! Find more details and RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jacobin-who-speaks-for-the-working-class-majority-tickets-1984301239423

TICKETS: $10 solidarity rate. $20 standard entry. Seats are first come, first served.

The latest issue of Catalyst is out and you can subscribe for just $20 using the code CONFRONTINGCAPITALISM: https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=CONFRONTINGCAPITALISM

Have a question for us? Write to us by email: confronting.capitalism@jacobin.com

Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, and published by Jacobin. Music by Zonkey.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Confronting Capitalism.
0:19.2	I'm Melissa Nashek, and I'm here, as always, with Vivek Chipper, a professor of sociology at NYU and the editor of Catalyst, a journal of theory and strategy.
0:29.2	How's it going, V?
0:30.4	It's going really well, Melissa.
0:31.9	We are sitting here in the midst of a collapsing empire, and we get to watch it in slow motion.
0:37.4	It's just the dog on fire meme.
0:39.5	Like everything is fine. Okay, well, quick reminder before we start our discussion, we have our
0:45.0	live show coming up on April 6th. We'll be in Brooklyn along with special guest Crystal Ball and
0:50.8	Matt Karp to discuss the left's relationship with the Democratic Party.
0:54.8	If you're interested in coming, there will be a link in the show description where you can buy tickets.
1:00.2	Today, V and I are really excited to be joined by Benjamin Fong.
1:04.9	Ben is the associate director of the Center for Work and Democracy at Arizona State University,
1:09.9	and he keeps a substack on labor and logistics
1:12.6	at on the seams.substack.com. So in today's episode, we're going to spend a lot of time talking
1:19.3	about the research that Ben has done on the logistics industry and especially on Amazon. But before
1:26.1	we get into that discussion, I just wanted to mention
1:28.9	that Ben is also the co-editor of a new book, Rustin's Challenge. Ben, can you tell us a bit about the book?
1:35.4	Yeah, thanks so much for having me. So Byard Rustin was a civil rights organizer and socialist strategist.
1:40.9	He was in the peace movement for many years, worked for peace organizations for two
1:45.1	decades, in fact. And then he went on to become the executive director of the A. Philip Randolph
1:49.5	Institute and to become very influential in the labor world. I would say that maybe more than
1:54.7	even a decade ago, Rustin's more of a known figure. There was a Netflix biopic about him not so long
	...

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