The awful billionaire James Dolan’s stranglehold on one of sports’ greatest franchises is holding the New York Knicks back. The solution? Yes, that’s right: public ownership of the Knicks.
Financial Speculators See Big Opportunities in Puerto Rico
Without full sovereignty, Puerto Rico is significantly constrained in its ability to design independent fiscal or monetary policies — leaving the island vulnerable to tourism investments that are becoming increasingly financialized.
Kill Dick Attempts the Great OxyContin Novel
In Luke Goebel’s much-hyped novel Kill Dick, a rich dropout is hooked on OxyContin, a drug manufactured by her lawyer dad’s biggest client. Aptly set in a strange and soporific Los Angeles, it captures the degradation of American society and interior life.
Class War on the Red Carpet
The Cannes Film Festival might seem like an elite event, but it has deep roots in anti-fascism and the labor movement. Its early history in the years after World War II tells us how cinema can truly belong to the working class.
Reforming Capitalism Is Not Enough
The era of class compromise is never coming back. Any serious democratic socialist politics must pursue a politics of rupture with capitalism.
Socialism cannot mean merely managing capitalism more fairly. It must point toward a society where survival is no longer contingent on the market — and where democracy extends into the economy itself.
America Brings the World Cup to a New Low
Other recent World Cup hosts used sports to prettify their image. But Donald Trump isn’t so much “sportswashing” as using the World Cup to show off the United States’ ability to discriminate against other teams and their fans.
South Africa's Left Can Rebuild — If It Rejects Corruption
The South African left today is dominated by parties of patronage and corruption and small sectarian groupings. If the Left is to rebuild itself, it needs to break with these elements and forge a movement committed to emancipatory working-class politics.
Trump Is Pressing Lawyers to Share Info on Migrant Children
The Trump administration is withholding pay from legal aid groups while demanding they share confidential case data about the unaccompanied migrant children whom immigration enforcement agencies are trying to deport.
Albanians Are Against Jared Kushner’s Israel-Linked Venture
Albania’s government is one of the most toadyish allies to Donald Trump and Israel. Yet as Jared Kushner seeks to tarmac a protected nature reserve in the country, Albanians are saying no to their cronyish government and its international allies.
Neoliberalism didn’t win an intellectual argument — it won power. Vivek Chibber unpacks how employers and political elites in the 1970s and ’80s turned economic turmoil into an opportunity to reshape society on their terms.
The Attacks on Graham Platner Are Politically Motivated
Graham Platner’s critics are operating with a politically motivated double standard.
The Era of Cheap AI Is Over
For years, AI companies promised their product would become a democratized and abundant utility. But as the sector pivots toward business clients and financial and environmental costs rise, the question is whether its unequal gains justify the price.
Obama Blasts Dems for Their Most Obama-Like Traits
Barack Obama has attacked his party for its unwillingness to challenge institutional obstructions to enacting their agenda. It’s a fair criticism, but the 2009–10 retreat on a public option in Obamacare might be Exhibit A of this tendency.
China’s Hukou System Is Stubbornly Resistant to Reform
The Chinese authorities have announced a reform of the hukou system that ties citizens to a particular region and fosters inequality. But proclamations of the system’s death are premature, as powerful social groups have an interest in maintaining it.