Skip to main content

A Young Publisher Bhaskar Sunkara Takes Marx Into the Mainstream


When Bhaskar Sunkara was growing up in Westchester County, he likes to say, he dreamed of being a professional basketball player.       

But the height gods, among others, didn’t smile in his favor. So in 2009, during a medical leave from his sophomore year at George Washington University, Mr. Sunkara turned to Plan B: creating a magazine dedicated to bringing jargon-free neo-Marxist thinking to the masses.

If that hardly seems less of a long shot at fame, let alone fortune, he’s the first to agree.
       
“I had no right to start a print publication when I was 21,” he said in an interview in a cafe near his apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. “Looking back, I see it as a moment of creative ignorance. You have to have enough intelligence to execute something like this but be stupid enough to think it could be successful.”
 
The resulting magazine, Jacobin, whose ninth issue just landed, has certainly been an improbable hit, buoyed by the radical stirrings of the Occupy movement and a bitingly satirical but serious-minded style. Since its debut in September 2010 it has attracted nearly 2,000 print and digital subscribers, some 250,000 Web hits a month, regular name-checks from prominent bloggers, and book deals from two New York publishers.
 
It has also earned Mr. Sunkara, now a ripe 23, extravagant praise from members of a (slightly) older guard who see his success as heartening sign that the socialist “brand” — to use a word he throws around with un-self-conscious ease — hasn’t been totally killed off by Tea Party invective.
 
“Bhaskar’s a really remarkable — I want to say kid, but that sounds condescending,” said the MSNBC host Chris Hayes, who gave Jacobin a shout-out in Rolling Stone last June before inviting Mr. Sunkara onto his show. (Mr. Sunkara skipped part of his college graduation to appear.) “He’s got the combination of boastful assurance and competence of a very good young rapper.”
       
And the praise doesn’t come only from the left-hand side of the spectrum. The National Review blogger Reihan Salam, who has linked to numerous Jacobin articles, called Mr. Sunkara “an almost hilariously savvy character who knows how to deploy mockery and flattery to great effect.”
The magazine’s injection of a “vital left-of-left-of-center” viewpoint into the conversation, he added, “has been very fun to watch.”
 
In writing Mr. Sunkara can come on like a one-man insult-comedy squad, whether the target is regular whipping boys like the Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein (“a young liberal with a lust for properly punctuated policy memos”) or the capitalist vampire squid itself.
 
But in person he’s more straightforwardly earnest and quick to emphasize that the magazine he founded in his dorm room has evolved into a collective endeavor. Jacobin’s success, he said, springs from the highly cohesive politics of the four co-editors he has recruited and their shared commitment to advancing a critique of liberalism that is free of obscurantist academic theory or “cheap hooks.”
 
Not that Mr. Sunkara, who is also the magazine’s publisher, dismisses the value of pop-culture come-ons (the new issue includes a radical analysis of the Onion’s online reality-television satire “Sex House”) or good visuals. The sleek design by Remeike Forbes, an M.F.A. student from the Rhode Island School of Design who e-mailed Mr. Sunkara out of the blue in 2011 offering to design a Jacobin T-shirt, has been essential to getting people to take the magazine seriously, he said.
 
And when Seth Ackerman, a graduate student at Cornell University, turned in a scathing analysis of the Constitution’s inherent conservatism for the second issue, Mr. Sunkara knew it needed something to really pop.
 
“Seth had a title with nine words and a semicolon,” he recalled. “I crossed it out and wrote ‘Burn the Constitution.’ ”
 
That article, along with “Zombie Marx,” a critique of chapter-and-verse Marxist economics by Mike Beggs, a young lecturer in political economy at the University of Sydney who Mr. Sunkara met (like Mr. Ackerman) through the e-mail list of Doug Henwood’s Left Business Observer, got some pickup on blogs. But it was a packed Jacobin-organized panel on the Occupy movement, held in a downtown Manhattan bookstore three weeks after the protests began in Zuccotti Park in September 2011, that really put the magazine on the map, drawing attention from Politico and Glenn Beck.
 
“The purpose was to force people to actually talk about ideology, about which ideas Occupy would stand for, about whether there should be any ideology at all,” Mr. Ackerman said, adding that many people he sees mentioning Jacobin on social media come from “Occupy-ish” circles.
 
Meanwhile the magazine was also attracting attention from more established figures on the left, who saw it as raising fundamental questions that had been off the table since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
 
Corey Robin, an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College who became a contributing editor last winter, pointed in particular to articles by Mr. Ackerman and Peter Frase, another early Jacobin recruit, debating the possibility of a post-capitalist economy involving, among other things, drastically reduced working hours.
 
“So many people are not working or already getting wages subsidized by the state — maybe there’s something already at play that we haven’t paid enough attention to,” Mr. Robin said.
 
Mr. Sunkara, the son of middle-class Indian immigrants (Krishna District , AP) who was voted “most likely to succeed” in high school, traces his politics less to experience than to reading. In seventh grade a stray reference in an introduction to “Animal Farm” sent him to Trotsky’s own writings. By his freshman year of college he was editing a blog for Democratic Socialists of America and writing for Dissent.
 
His multitasking work ethic hardly shows signs of flagging. In addition to his position as a staff writer for the progressive monthly In These Times his 2013 projects include an essay collection for Metropolitan Books (edited with Sarah Leonard of Dissent), to appear in September; a series of Jacobin-branded books published by Verso; a $7,500 fund-raising drive; and, if he gets around to it, a podcast called “This American Strife” — ideally followed, he likes to say, by a lawsuit from Ira Glass.
 
Mr. Sunkara also plans to keep writing for Vice magazine, where he has compared outrage over rich professional athletes to outrage over “overpaid” public-sector employees, all of whom he sees as just trying to negotiate their fair share.
       
That time, Mr. Sunkara’s editor wrote the headline, the Vice-like “Jeremy Lin Is Not Greedy, You’re Just Stupid.” But when it comes to Jacobin’s goal of smuggling radical analysis out of the intellectual ghetto and into the mainstream Mr. Sunkara’s motto seems to be: by any means necessary.

It helps, he said, “that liberals think we are relatively sane.”
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

List of Kamma Candidates contesting for AP Aseembly from TDP

TDP  1) Vizag East: Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu 2) Mandapeta : Vegulla Jogeswara Rao 3) RajaNagaram: Pendurthi Ramesh 4) Rajahmundry Rural: Gorantla Buchaiah Chowdary 5) Nidadavol: Burugupalli SeshaRao 6) Tanuku: Arumilli Radha Krishna 7) Unguturu: Ganni Veeranjaneyulu 8) Denduluru: Chintamaneni Prabhakara Rao 9) Gannavaram: Vallabhaneni Vamsi 10) Gudivada: Ravi Venkateswara Rao 11) Penamaluru: Bode Prasad 12) Vijayawada East: Gadde RamMohanRao 13) Mylavaram: Devineni UmaMaheswara Rao 14) PedakuraPadu: Kommalapati Sreedhar 15) Ponnuru: Dhulipala Narendra Kumar 16) Tenali : Alapati RajendraPrasad 17) Chilakaluripet: Prattipati PullaRao 18) Sattenapalle: Kodela SivaPrasada Rao 19) Vinukonda: Gonuguntla VS Anjaneyulu 20) Gurajala: Yarapathineni SrinivasRao 21) Addanki: Karanam Venkatesh 22) Parchuru: Euru Sambasiva Rao 23) Kandukuru: Divi SivaRam 24) Ongole: Damacharla Janardhan 25) Venkatagiri: Kurugonda RamaKrishna 26) Atmakuru: Guturu Murali Kanna Babu 27)

List of 30 Kamma Billionaires and rankings

The IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2021 shows that India has more than 1,000 individuals who have a net worth of  ₹ 1,000 crore or more across 119 cities. The cumulative wealth in the country has gone up by 51 per cent, while the average wealth has also increased by 25 per cent, the report by Hurun India said. 30 Kamma business and industrialists finds place in the list from AP, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. 14. Murali Divi Rs76,000 crores Divis Laboratories 179. Venkateswarlu Jasti 9,600 crores Suven Pharma  190. Veeraiah Chowdary Nannapaneni 9,100 crores NATCO Laboratories  209. Chava Satyanarayana 8,400 crores Laurus Labs 264. Satya Nadella 6,200 crores Microsoft 368. Mandava PrabhakaraRao 4,300 crores Nuziveedu seeds 377. Ella KrishnaMurthy 4,100 crores Bharat Biotech 384. Doppalapudi Bhaktavatsala Rao 4000 crores Privi Speciality Chemicals 398. Galla Ramachandra Naidu  3,900 crores Amara Raja Batteries  398. Chinta VisveswaraRao 3,900 crores Navayuga Engineering 409. Ma

Kamma Cine Heroes

1) N.T.Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni  11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni  37) Myneni Sarvanand 38) Daggubati Rana 39) Akkineni Naga Chaitanya 40) Nani (Ghanta Naveen Kumar) 41)

Telugu TV Channels own and run by Kammas

1) ETV - Cherukuri Ramoji Rao 2) Gemini - Akkineni Manohara Prasad (Founder and stake holder) 3) MAA - (MAA - Music, MAA Movies) Nimmagadda Prasad, Akkineni Nagarjuna (Majority stake holders - Then sold to Sony) 4) TV9 - Velicheti Ravi Prakash, minority stake holder holds the grip 5) ETV2 - Cherukuri Ramoji Rao 6) TV 5 - Bollineni Rajagopala Naidu 7) NTV - Tummala Narendranath chowdary 8) Studio N - Narne Srinivasa Rao, sold to SivaramPrasad Vasireddi 9) Mahaa TV - Inaganti Venkatarao now taken over by Sujana Chowdary 10) I News - Tummala Narendra and Sabbineni Surendra (sold to Kiran Kumar Reddy) 11) ABN Andhra Jyothi - Radhakrishna Vemuri 12) Bhakti - Tummala Narendranath Chowdary 13) Vanitha - Tummala Narendranath Chowdary 14) ATV - Anil Sunkara  15) CVR News - Chalasani Venkateswara Rao 16) CVR Health - Chalasani Venkateswara Rao 17) Om TV - Chalasani Venkateswara Rao 18) YTV - Yalamanchili Venkateswara Rao (Aired from Vizag) 19) Express TV -  Chi

Richest man in Andhra Pradesh

It is neither Reddy nor Raju. It is only Kamma .. According to the Forbes magazine, Lagadapati Madhusudhan Rao ( 41 ) is the richest person in Andhra Prades h stands at No- 33 among the richest persons in India . Also he is the youngest in the list, there is no Andhrite in the list. Lagadapati Madhusudhan Rao is the Chairman - Lanco Infratech Ltd , the Hyderabad-based diversified group. His net worth is 1.9 billion dollars., ahead of Vijay Mallya, N.R. Narayana Murthy. Divi Murali of Divi's Lab is narrowly missed the berth in the list. Murali, best of luck next year..

Kamma MLA and MPs (Andhra Pradesh)

Kamma MLAs in AP Assembly: 1. Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu Vizag TDP 2. Pendurthi Venkatesh Rajanagaram TDP 3. Vegulla Jogeswara Rao Mandapeta TDP 4. Burugupalli Sesha Rao Nidadavolu TDP 5. Chintamaneni Prabhakar Denduluru TDP 6. Kodali Venkateswara Rao Gudivada TDP 7. Dasari Balavardhana Rao Gannavaram TDP 8. Yalamanchili Ravi Vijayawada PRP 9. Devineni Umamaeshwara Rao Mylavaram TDP 10. Nadendla Manohar Tenali CONG 11. Dhulipala Narendra Ponnuru TDP 12. Kommalapati Sridhar Pedakurapadu TDP 13. Pattipati Pulla Rao Chilakaluripet TDP 14. Yaraparineni Srinivasa Rao Gurajala TDP 15. Gonuguntla VSR Anjaneyulu Vinukonda TDP 16. Gottipati Ravi Kumar Addanki CONG 17. Daggubati Venkateswara Rao Parchur CONG 18. Kurugundla Ramakrishna Venkatagiri TDP 19. Galla Aruna Kumari Chandragiri CONG 20. Nara Chandrababau Naidu Kuppam TDP 21. Gali Muddukrishnama Naidu Nagari TDP 22. Payyavula Kesav Uravakonda TDP 23. Paritala Sunitha Raptadu TDP 24. Konka Meenakshi

Kamma Movie Directors

List of Kamma Movie Ditrectors 1) Gudavalli Ramabrahmam 2) Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasad (LV Prasad) 3) Kovelamudi Bapayya 4) Veeramachineni Madhusudhana Rao 5) Kovelamudi S.Prakasa Rao 6) Kolli Pratyagatma 7) G.Sambasiva Rao 8) Tammareddy Krishnamurthy 9) Mannava Balayya 10) Tatineni Prakasa Rao 11) Tatineni Rama Rao 12) Tatineni Prasad 13) Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao 14) Gutta Ramineedu 15) Kolli Hemambaradhara Rao  16) Uppalapati Visveswara Rao 17) Tripuraneni Maharadhi 18) Tripuraneni Gopichand 19) Tottempudi Krishna 20) Madala Ranga Rao 21) Siva Nageswara Rao 22) Uppalapati Narayana Rao 23) P.Sarat 24) A.Mohan Gandhi 25) Bezawada Gopal 26) T.Kranthi Kumar 27) Maganti Vijaya Bapineedu 28) Tammareddy Bharadwaj 29) Akkineni Kutumba Rao 30) K.Vasu 31) Edara VV Satyanarayana 32) Muppalaneni Siva 33) Yalamanchili VS Chowdary 34) Theja Jasti 35) Sreenu Vytla 36) Koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli 37) Vemulapalli Srikanth 38) AS Ravikumar Chowdary 39) Kod

Akkineni Nagarjuna Vankina Chamundeswaranath buy Mumbai franchise of IBL

HYDERABAD: There will be a dash of glamour and celebrity presence in the Indian Badminton League. The consortium of Sunil Gavaskar, Tollywood actor Akkineni Nagarjuna and former manager of the Indian cricket team Vankina Chamundeswaranath (better known as Chamundi) have bagged the Mumbai Masters, the last of the six teams yet to be announced. TOI had reported on January 29 that an Indian cricketer was interested in buying an IBL team. The deal was finalized on Wednesday. Gavaskar will also be the brand ambassador of the team. Confirming this, Chamundi said both Gavaskar and Nagarjuna are excited to become the owners of a badminton team. "We have been planning this for a while. We are excited to be finally part of this league. Gavaskar and Nagarjuna are big fans of badminton and Sunny loves to play the game. We are all looking forward to have a fantastic tournament next month," Chamundi told TOI. Chamundi, who is also the first sponsor of  Saina Nehwal , said the owne

Kamma MLA's Elected to AP Assembly - 2014

TDP  1) Vizag East: Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu  2) Mandapeta : Vegulla Jogeswara Rao 3) RajaNagaram: Pendurthi Venkatesh 4) Rajahmundry Rural: Gorantla Buchaiah Chowdary 5) Nidadavol: Burugupalli SeshaRao 6) Tanuku: Arumilli Radha Krishna 7) Unguturu: Ganni Veeranjaneyulu 8) Denduluru: Chintamaneni Prabhakara Rao 9) Gannavaram: Vallabhaneni Vamsi 10) Penamaluru: Bode Prasad 11) Vijayawada East: Gadde RamMohanRao 12) Mylavaram: Devineni UmaMaheswara Rao 13) Kaikaluru: Kamineni Srinivas - BJP 14) PedakuraPadu: Kommalapati Sreedhar 15) Ponnuru: Dhulipala Narendra Kumar 16) Tenali : Alapati RajendraPrasad 17) Chilakaluripet: Prattipati PullaRao 18) Sattenapalle: Kodela SivaPrasada Rao 19) Vinukonda: Gonuguntla VS Anjaneyulu 20) Gurajala: Yarapathineni SrinivasRao 21) Parchuru: Yeluri Sambasiva Rao 22) Ongole: Damacharla Janardhan 23) Venkatagiri: Kurugonda RamaKrishna 24) Udayagiri: Bollineni RamaRao 25) Kalyanadurg: Vunnam HanumanthaRaya Chowdary 26) Raptadu:

Kamma Business/Industry - AP (Media & Entertainment)

News papers 1) Eenadu - Cherukuri Ramoji Rao 2) Andhra Jyothi - Vemuri Radha Krishna Television 1) ETV - Cherukuri Ramoji Ravo 2) Gemini - Akkineni Manohara Prasad (Founder and stake holder) 3) MAA - (MAA - Music, MAA Music) Nimmagadda Prasad, Akkineni Nagarjuna (Majority stake holders) 4) TV9 - Velicheti Ravi Prakash 5) ETV2 - Cherukuri Ramoji Rao 6) ABN - Vemuri RadhaKrishna 7) TV 5 - Bollineni Rajagopala Naidu 8) NTV - Tummala Narendranath chowdary 8) Studio N - Jr.NTR 9) Mahaa TV - Inaganti Venkatarao 10) I News - Tummala Narendra, Sabbineni Surendra 11) ATV - Anil Sunkara 12) Bhakti - Tummala Narendranath Chowdary 13) Vanitha - Tummala Narendranath Chowdary 14) Channel 4 - NT Chowdary (Nageli Thirupalappa Chowdary) 15) CVR News - Chalasani Venkateswara Rao 16) CVR Health - Chalasani Venkateswara Rao 17) TV6 - Nara Lokesh