Episode 34 - Resisting Empire From Within w/ Torkil Lauesen
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In this episode, I’m joined by Marxist theorist and anti-imperialist revolutionary Torkil Lauesen, author of numerous books including The Principal Contradiction (Kersplebedeb, 2020) and Unequal Exchange: Past, Present, and Future (Iskra Books, 2025), to discuss the challenges and contradictions of anti-imperialist resistance in the imperial core. We explore key concepts such as the labor aristocracy and unequal exchange and their relationship to the prospects of resistance within imperialist countries, and discuss how revolutionaries located in the heart of empire can overcome these challenges to weaken empire from within.
About the show:
Return to Bandung is hosted by Pranay Somayajula, an Indian-American writer, researcher, and organizer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work explores themes of diaspora, (inter)nationalism, anticolonial politics, and the many lives and afterlives of empire. You can learn more about Pranay and read his writing on his website, as well as on his Substack blog, culture shock.
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Sources and helpful links:
Torkil Lauesen — Unequal Exchange: Past, Present and Future (Iskra Books, 2025)
Vladimir Lenin — Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917)
Hodee W. Edwards — Labor Aristocracy, Mass Base of Social Democracy (1978)
Arghiri Emmanuel — Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade (Monthly Review Press, 1972)
Jason Hickel, Morena Hanbury Lemos, and Felix Barbour — Unequal exchange of labour in the world economy (Nature Communications, 2024)
Jason Hickel — The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets (W.W. Norton, 2018)
Katharina Buchholz — How Many Hours Of Work Pay For An iPhone 17? (Forbes, September 2025)
Torkil Lauesen — The Global Perspective: Reflections on Imperialism and Resistance (Kersplebedeb, 2018)
Torkil Lauesen — Anti-imperialist comeback: an interview with Torkil Lauesen (Left Wing Books, July 2018)
Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen — The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism (Verso Books, 2021)
Social links:
Return to Bandung:
Twitter: twitter.com/returntobandung
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Pranay Somayajula:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/p_somayajula
Website: https://www.pranaysomayajula.com/
Substack: https://www.culture-shock.xyz/