Jacobin Show: Why Blue Cities Keep Failing the Homeless w/ Clayton Aldern
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2022
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jen Pan speaks with Ben Burgis about why the left should continue focusing on concrete organizing and policy and not the culture wars. She also speaks with Clay Aldern, co-author of the new book Homelessness is a Housing Problem, about how to solve the housing crisis in the US. Also on the show: a look at how private universities are making a killing while paying no taxes.
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The Jacobin Show offers socialist perspectives on class and capitalism in the twenty-first century, the failures of liberalism, and the prospects of rebuilding a left labor movement in the US. This is the podcast version of the show from May 4, 2022.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Music |
| 0:29.0 | Hello, welcome back to the Jacobin Show. I'm Jen Pan. As always, we have a great show for you. Before I start though, |
| 0:37.0 | I want to quickly mention that Jacobin's Mayday promotion is still going on. You can get a dollar digital subscription to the magazine or a $10 print subscription. |
| 0:47.0 | It is a really good deal. It's Jacobin's best promotion of the year. So, you know, if you were thinking about getting a sub for yourself or for a friend or family, |
| 0:57.0 | definitely take advantage of that. We're going to link the promotion in the description box below and that'll give you the deal. |
| 1:05.0 | So, for today's show, I am very excited to be talking to Clayton Aldern. He has just written a new book called Homelessness is a housing problem. |
| 1:16.0 | And I'm going to be talking to him about basically what the structural and root causes of homelessness are. |
| 1:24.0 | There's obviously a lot of myth and a lot of misinformation that circulates around this problem. This has become a huge issue in a number of cities across the US, |
| 1:34.0 | specifically coastal democratic cities. We're going to talk a little bit about why that is, why it seems like it's so hard to solve this problem. |
| 1:43.0 | For my own part, I will be making some comments about Harvard's new announcement that they will be dedicating $100 million to addressing their past ties to slavery. |
| 1:55.0 | I'm going to be looking at what that means in light of their massive wealth. And I am going to be arguing that this is basically a PR opportunity for them and there are larger problems with how they spend their money. |
| 2:09.0 | Before all of that, though, I am very excited to be talking to our friend Ben Burgess. You know him, of course, from the YouTube show. Give them an argument. He is also a calmness for Jacobin. |
| 2:21.0 | I wanted to have Ben on to talk a little bit about the ongoing culture wars, which of course is always at the top of everyone's mind. So, let's get to Ben. |
| 2:31.0 | All right. Well, I am now joined by friend of the channel, Ben Burgess. You know him from his show. Give them an argument. Ben is also a prolific writer and author. So I have lost track of what your most recent book is, Ben. |
| 2:44.0 | I think it's the Christopher Hitchens. It is. |
| 2:47.0 | It is. What's the title? |
| 2:49.0 | Christopher Hitchens. What do you got right? How he went wrong and why he still matters. |
| 2:53.0 | There you go. On that note, Ben, I wanted to have you on to talk about the culture wars. Now specifically, I think that both you and I are pretty anti-culture war. |
| 3:05.0 | We are class war, not culture war. But I've noticed that on the left or at least among progressives, there has been kind of this sentiment bubbling up recently that actually we should be fighting the culture wars, or there are times in which it makes sense for the left to engage in and fight the culture wars. |
| 3:22.0 | You know, I've seen, you know, a couple different tweets to this effect. I know that Jim Melbuey has a new article or a recent article in the New York Times where he very explicitly says Democrats should be fighting the culture wars. |
| 3:33.0 | I think Jonathan Chate over at New York Magazine has written about it too. So I've got some thoughts on this, but I wanted to open it up to you first as the guest of honor. |
| 3:42.0 | When and how should the left fight the culture wars if we should at all? |
... |
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