Season 7 Episode 20: We Have Always Had a Union (ft. Shaun Richman) Artwork

Give Them An Argument

Give Them An Argument is a YouTube show and podcast dedicated to building a smarter, funnier and more strategic Left. New episodes are live on YouTube on Monday nights with an exclusive postgame for GTAA patrons after the main show. (To become a patron, go to patreon.com/benburgis and sign up for the monthly cost of a milkshake at a 50s nostalgia diner in 1994.) Past guests have included Slavoj Žižek, Richard Wolff, David Pizarro, Gregory Sadler, Glenn Greenwald, Krystal Ball, Bhaskar Sunkara, Sam Seder, Ana Kasparian, Emma Vigeland, Matt Christman, and Amber Frost. The show has also featured debates between host Ben Burgis and opponents ranging from Walter Block to Charlie Kirk.Ben is a philosophy professor, Jacobin columnist, and frequent debater. He did a regular "Debunk" segment on the Michael Brooks Show until 2020. He's appeared on the Debate Night with Charlie Kirk, System Update with Glenn Greenwald, Rising, Krystal, Kyle & Friends, the Majority Report w/Sam Seder & the Joe Rogan Experience.benburgis.compatreon.com/benburgis

All Episodes

Give Them An Argument

Season 7 Episode 20: We Have Always Had a Union (ft. Shaun Richman)

July 18, 2025 • Ben Burgis • Season 7 • Episode 20

Labor scholar Shaun Richman joins us to talk to Ben Burgis about his book "We Always Had a Union: The New York Hotel Workers’ Union, 1912-1953." Before that, Ben does an Opening Argument on the absurd attacks on Zohran that have been made everywhere from National Review to Reason to...Matt Taibbi's Substack. (Goddamnit, Matt.) In the postgame for patrons, Ben and the crew get heart-breakingly close to finally being done with "Jordan Peterson vs. 20 Atheists."

Read Ben's MSNBC article on the hysteria about city-owned grocery stores:

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/zohran-mamdani-grocery-stores-food-deserts-panic-rcna216332

Read his Jacobin article on the "seize the means of production" hysteria:

https://jacobin.com/2025/07/zohran-mamdani-socialism-bernie-taibbi

Order Shaun's book:

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p088537

Follow Shaun on Twitter: @Ess_Dog

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Visit benburgis.com