Beneath the spectacle of fighters beating each other bloody on the White House South Lawn, fight promoters, tech billionaires, and the Saudi government are working to concentrate wealth and power in fewer, richer hands.
The Other Side of China’s Economic Miracle
China has witnessed the greatest stretch of growth and poverty alleviation in human history, made possible by the brutal exploitation of millions of workers. A new book recounts one of their lives, offering a glimpse into the dark side of China’s success.
Your Wars Just Aren’t Worth It
The Belgian Workers’ Party is the strongest rising force on Europe’s radical left. Its general secretary, Peter Mertens, writes for Jacobin on his party’s fight against the EU’s rearmament plans.
Building 21st-Century Rank-and-File Unionism
A small but important segment of the New Left “turned to industry,” getting jobs in steel, auto, and elsewhere to build a militant current in the US labor movement. The Rank-and-File Project is aiming to build a similar current of democratic, militant unionism today.
The End of the Old Economic Order Is an Opening for the Left
For decades, the rules of the global economy — and the economics discipline — seemed fixed. But now, with Donald Trump’s help, the edifice is collapsing. We talked to heterodox economist Ha-Joon Chang to understand dying dogmas and emerging alternatives.
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.
Putting the Marxism Back Into “Cultural Marxism”
The Palm Springs School for Social Research wants to revitalize historical materialism, revive ideology critique, and ask big questions about social life. We talked to one of its founders, Catherine Liu, about gangster capitalism and the future of socialism.
Senegal Is in the World Cup but Hardly Made Welcome
One of Africa’s top teams, Senegal has good reason to look forward to the World Cup. But the US government has put up major barriers to its fans and journalists visiting the country, in a policy of deep discrimination against Senegalese citizens.
How Döner Workers Skewered Their Bosses
Döner is one of Germany’s favorite fast-food meals, but workers processing the meat for the skewers are badly paid. Now they’ve won their first ever collective agreement, after a 12-day strike waged by a multinational workforce.
The SEC Is Radically Loosening Trading Rules for SpaceX
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is making a record-breaking IPO today. For the occasion, the SEC exempted Wall Street brokers from consumer protection rules — potentially jeopardizing the assets of investors, including 401(k)s and pensions, if markets are volatile.
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.
Don’t Write Off a Third-Party Challenge to the Democrats
Voters quite simply do not like the Democrats. The Democratic Party brand is complete trash. Although the structural barriers to a break from the Dems are real, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
Stop Yapping and Pay New Parents
Is “girlboss feminism” responsible for declining birth rates? Are endocrine disruptors lowering teenage boys’ sperm counts? Stop asking ridiculous questions designed to stir up the culture wars, and start figuring out how to put cash in new parents’ pockets.
Backrooms and Obsession Are Glimpses of a Better Hollywood
Two indie horror movies with YouTube origins, Obsession and Backrooms, crushed big-budget Star Wars and He-Man movies at the box office. But claims that these films represent a revival of cinematic creativity à la the New Hollywood era are overblown.
How Not to Write About Class
For over a decade, Édouard Louis has been one of France’s most perceptive writers on his country’s working class. But as he has drifted away from this milieu, he has swapped clear-eyed analysis for cliché-ridden romanticization of the suffering poor.