Working Class History

Part 1 of a double episode about the 2001 uprising in Argentina, which toppled the government, and saw the spread of neighbourhood assemblies and factories taken over by workers. In conversation with Tomas Rothaus, a participant in the uprising and author of Argentina, a Tale of Two Utopias: Anarchism, Soccer, Neoliberalism.

Our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes without ads, bonus episodes, two exclusive podcast series – Fireside Chats and Radical Reads – as well as free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory
Listen to part 2 early and without ads by joining us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/e116-argentina-2-149907446
Listen to our bonus episode about Argentine football culture, exclusively on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/e115-1-football-149318192
Listen to our bonus episode on Argentine politics and the anti-globalisation movement, exclusively on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/e116-1-argentina-151087148
More info
Get Tomas’ book: Argentina, a Tale of Two Utopias: Anarchism, Soccer, NeoliberalismAlso check out Tomas’ other book, Another War Is Possible: Militant Anarchist Experiences in the Antiglobalization Era

Check out more books about football and politics in our online store
More info, such as further reading, a video documentary, sources and (soon) a full transcript for the main episodes, are available on the webpage for this episode: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e115-116-argentina-uprising-2001/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands.
Episode graphic: protester in front of the Buenos Aires Obelisk, 20 December 2001. Public domain/Wikimedia Commons.
Our theme tune is Bella Ciao, thanks for permission to use it from Dischi del Sole. You can purchase it here or stream it here.
Edited by Jesse French

Fireside Chat podcast available exclusively for our Patreon supporters where we make fun of Trump’s absurd text to the Norwegian Prime Minister, and what it means for the rest of the world that the US President is a half-witted narcissist.
Our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes, ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory
When Trump’s letter to the Norwegian PM came out, we all thought it was extremely funny. And, at WCH, we thought we’d try to produce some newsy/current affairs style content for a change.
As you can see, we failed. The news cycle proved too fast for us, and we’ve basically just made another history episode (albeit about more recent history than usual!).Regardless, we’ve decided to release it anyway. So tune in to listen as Matt and John make fun of everything from Trump’s punctuation and grammar, to his anti-colonial Marxist reasoning for the US takeover of Greenland. Plus, what it means to have a fascist leader in such an obvious state of cognitive decline.
Listen to the full episode here:
E117: Fireside Chat – Trump’s letter to Norway – Available exclusively for our supporters on Patreon
Acknowledgements
Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands.
Edited by Jesse French
Our theme tune is Montaigne’s version of the classic labour movement anthem, ‘Bread and Roses’, performed by Montaigne and Nick Harriott, and mixed by Wave Racer. Download the song here, with all proceeds going to Medical Aid for Palestinians. More from Montaigne: website, Instagram, YouTube.
You can listen to all of our Patreon-exclusive podcast episodes by joining us on Patreon at patreon.com/workingclasshistory

Teaser extract of our latest Fireside Chat podcast available exclusively for our Patreon supporters in which we sit down for a bit of a chat about the year past, for WCH and the world, and plans we have for the year ahead.
We discuss a year of the podcast, sick leave, full kit wankers, the rise of the far right and social democratic responses to it in the US, UK and elsewhere, and more. We also let listeners know about projects in the works for 2026.
Listen to the complete episode here by joining our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/146576665
Our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes, ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, free and discounted merchandise and other content. Join us or find out more at patreon.com/workingclasshistory
Acknowledgements
Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands.
Edited by Jesse French
Our theme tune is Montaigne’s version of the classic labour movement anthem, ‘Bread and Roses’, performed by Montaigne and Nick Harriott, and mixed by Wave Racer. Download the song here, with all proceeds going to Medical Aid for Palestinians. More from Montaigne: website, Instagram, YouTube.

This is a teaser preview of one of our Radical Reads episodes, made exclusively for our supporters on patreon. You can listen to the full 67-minute episode without ads and support our work at https://www.patreon.com/posts/e113-radical-of-143322722

In this episode, we discuss Beverly Silver's pioneering work, Forces of Labour: Workers' Movements and Globalisation Since 1870, a book which was hugely influential on many of us at Working Class History. The book is epic in its breadth (looking at labour unrest around the world and across a long period of time), but also firmly committed to viewing class struggle from the bottom up.

But most important about the book is how deeply materialist and methodical it is in how it outlines the concrete conditions that gave space for working-class struggle, and how those struggles forced capital to think of new strategies in order to deal with it. Moreover, in doing so, her book also helps us to think and to strategise about working-class organising today.

Listen to the full episode here:
E113: Radical Reads – Forces of Labour
More information
Buy Forces of Labour from an independent bookshop (or read it online here)
Check out our collection of books about labour movement history in our online shop
See the webpage for this episode at https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e113-radical-reads-forces-of-labour/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands.
Episode graphic consists of two photos: textile strikers in Paterson, in the US, 1913, courtesy National Parks Gallery, and textile strikers in Egypt, 2007, courtesy Hossam el-Hamalawy https://www.flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy
Edited by Jesse French
Our theme tune is Montaigne’s version of the classic labour movement anthem, ‘Bread and Roses’, performed by Montaigne and Nick Harriott, and mixed by Wave Racer. Download the song here, with all proceeds going to Medical Aid for Palestinians. More from Montaigne: website, Instagram, YouTube

An update for you on the Working Class History podcast and its future. 
In short, we began releasing much more frequent podcast episodes 18 months ago, in an effort to get more supporters on Patreon. While we were able to grow our support, it has not been sufficient to cover our increased costs, and we have now run out of episodes. So we will be taking an end of season break, to work on new episodes to release in the New Year.
Patreon is how listeners like you make our work possible, and enables us to cover the cost of making the podcast. Some series we work on take several years, hundreds of hours of work, and cost thousands of dollars, not to mention all of our other costs. Learn more and join us at https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory
The price of our exclusive content on Patreon hasn't gone up since 2020, whereas inflation has gone up by 25% and costs have gone up even more.
So in the New Year we are going to have to increase the cost of our Patreon benefits to new members. However, if you join us on Patreon before then, you will be able to permanently lock in the 2020 price of $5 per month (or even cheaper if you subscribe annually). So please join us today to access great benefits like early access to all episodes without ads, and access to our exclusive bonus episodes every month. 
In 2026, the cost of a subscription to new members will increase to $6 per month, so don't delay, join us today to support the dissemination of people's history, at this time of attacks on the genuine teaching of factual history around the world.
Learn more and sign up at https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory