Steve Hall is Professor Emeritus of Criminology at Teeside University (UK). He writes on criminology, sociology, political economy and leftist politics. Among many other publications, is the author of The Rise of the Right (2017) and The Death of the Left (2022), which has a really interesting description: “The left is dead. Its ailments cannot be cured. The only way to resurrect what was once valuable in leftist politics is to declare the left dead and begin from the beginning again.”

You can find Steve on Twitter/X at @ProfHall1955.

For donations, membership inquiries, and educational courses visit us at: http://www.ClassUnity.org

Abraham taught German and European history at Princeton University from 1977 to 1985. After transitioning to law, he clerked for Judge Leonard Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1989 to 1990 and then worked as an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City.

In 1991, he joined the faculty at the University of Miami School of Law, becoming a full Professor in 1996 and later Professor Emeritus. He has taught courses in Labor and Employment Law, Property Law, Immigration Law, and Jurisprudence and Political Theory. He has also lectured internationally at institutions such as the University of Tübingen, Deakin University, the Jena Center for 20th Century History, and the University of Ulster.

Prof. L. Randall Wray joined Class Unity to talk about Modern Monetary Theory, heterodox economics, and the future of economic studies.

Prof. Wray is a professor of Economics at Bard College and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute. Previously, he was a professor at the University of Missouri–Kansas City in Kansas City.

In this episode we are discussing his book, Macroeconomics; Author(s): William Mitchell, L. Randall Wray, Martin Watts; Red Globe Press, Macmillan International; February 2019; https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/Macroeconomics/?K=9781137610669.

For donations, membership inquiries, or educational courses, check out our website here: https://classunity.org

We are joined by William I. Robinson for a conversation on the global implications of the recent US attack on Venezuela. The discussion will place this and other acts of US aggression within the broader crisis of world capitalism, the breakdown of the post-WWII international world order, and the emergence of a global police state.

Prof. Robinson’s area of study is in macro and comparative sociology, globalization and transnationalism, political economy, political sociology, development and social change, immigration, Latin America and the Third World, class and capitalism. He attempts to link his academic work to struggles in the United States and around the world for social justice. Among the undergraduate classes he teaches are: Globalization and Resistance, Sociology of Globalization, Global Inequalities, Development and Social Change in Latin America, and Twentieth-Century Revolutions in Theory and Practice. His publications and professional activities are discussed on his web page:
http://robinson.faculty.soc.ucsb.edu/

Link to the article from the discussion:
https://nacla.org/global-meaning-us-attack-venezuela/

For donations, membership inquiries and educational courses please visit: http://www.ClassUnity.org

Welcome to another Class Unity speaker event. Today we will be joined by authors Vijay Prashad and Michael Hudson to discuss hyper-imperialism, imperialism, and the state of global politics.

Michael Hudson is a professor of economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, and the author of many books and papers on political economy, the history of economics, economic history, finance, and imperialism.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian author, journalist, political commentator, and Marxist. He is the executive-director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, editor of LeftWord Books, Chief Correspondent at Globetrotter, and a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.

For donations, educational courses and membership inquiries, please visit us at ClassUnity.org

Members of class unity discuss recent events in domestic and geopolitics: Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, Denmark, Bulgaria, NATO, ICE, the Fed, Powell, Trump

Welcome to Episode 20 of Class Unity: Transmissions. For this episode, Nick is joined by Class Unity member Dave for a wide-ranging conversation with Philip Cunliffe on the question of the national interest. Cunliffe is Associate Professor of International Relations at University College London, author of The National Interest: Politics After Globalization, and co-founder and contributing editor of Aufhebunga Bunga.

The discussion centers on Cunliffe’s argument that the “national interest”—long treated with suspicion on both the left and the libertarian right—has returned not as a coherent doctrine, but as a symptom of the collapse of globalization and liberal internationalism. Cunliffe defends a sovereigntist, rather than nationalist, conception of politics, insisting that the national interest should be understood as a democratic process of contestation defined by citizens rather than insulated elites. Nick and Dave press Cunliffe on whether appeals to global problems and global governance have allowed ruling classes to evade democratic accountability, and whether it is possible to retain global awareness while re-anchoring politics at the level of the nation state.

The episode also digs into the book’s historical and theoretical core. Cunliffe discusses classical realism, liberal internationalism, and the Cold War transformation of the national interest into a technocratic and national security–state project. Nick and Dave challenge Cunliffe on whether realism genuinely reflected mass politics or instead replaced aristocratic judgment with expert management, and whether liberal internationalism restrained power or dissolved political responsibility by moralizing foreign policy. Throughout, the conversation returns to a central tension: how to avoid reifying the national interest while still treating it as a necessary framework for democratic struggle.

Recorded on December 15, 2025, the episode also serves as a kind of end-of-year reflection on contemporary politics. From Israel and Gaza to the advent of a second Trump administration, MAGA fragmentation, and competing claims over what counts as “America First,” the discussion explores whether renewed appeals to the national interest can meaningfully hold elites accountable—or whether they risk being captured once again by narrow sectional interests and the national security state. Cunliffe reflects on the limits of optimism, arguing that while democratic contestation offers no guarantees of good outcomes, abandoning the national interest altogether leaves politics empty, moralized, and unaccountable.

For donations, membership inquiries, and educational courses please visit ClassUnity.org

In today’s episode, we’re joined by Professor Ingo Schmidt for a wide-ranging discussion on economic theory and left politics. Dr. Schmidt is a Professor of Labour Studies at Athabasca University in British Columbia, Canada. His PhD research focused on trade unions and Keynesianism, and his work has placed him at the center of critical debates in political economy. Originally from Germany, Schmidt is a blacklisted economist there and has long been active in peace and international solidarity movements.

He has authored or edited several books and collections including:
Market populism, its right-wing offspring and left alternatives. (Policy Press, 2021)
Reading Capital Today: Marx After 150 Years (Pluto, 2017)
The Three Worlds of Social Democracy: A Global View (Pluto, 2015)

For donations, educational courses and membership inquiries visit: http://www.ClassUnity.org