The House just passed a resolution condemning the Democratic Socialists of America and socialism broadly. While it rehearses opposition to Stalinist authoritarianism, the bill’s real preoccupation is with socialists’ advocacy for expanded democracy.
The Rise of the Billionaire Lobby
California’s Proposition 40 would tax roughly 200 billionaires to fund health care for millions. Google cofounder Sergey Brin and friends have responded by inventing a new kind of pressure group: a lobby whose only client is the billionaire class itself.
The Sewer Socialists Were Pragmatic Class Warriors
Milwaukee’s “sewer socialists” have often been dismissed as tepid reformers. In fact, they were pragmatic champions of a world beyond capitalism who were laser-focused on organizing the working class.
Decades of Growing Inequality Powered MAGA’s Rise
The collapse of the GOP and Democratic establishments, and the rise of Donald Trump, have been driven by popular disillusionment with an economy that has for decades failed millions of people.
In Defense of Victor Serge
Victor Serge’s legacy is not that of a man who abandoned socialism for anti-communism. It is that of a socialist thinker who refused every capitulation — to Stalinism, to liberalism, to despair — and who paid the full price of that refusal.
American Freedom Was Built on Endless Conquest
The Founders made expansion the precondition of American freedom. We must find an alternative.
Jonathan Chait’s Atlantic essay claims the Democratic Socialists of America has betrayed the legacy of its founder, Michael Harrington. It gets DSA’s history, and what the organization is today, wrong.
Spiking Bond Yields Pay the Rich and Squeeze Everyone Else
Rising Treasury yields are not a market verdict on government recklessness. They are a policy decision that transfers income from workers and borrowers to bondholders and financial institutions.
Trump’s Oil Deal Is a Return to Venezuela’s Colonial Past
Donald Trump’s backroom deal with Venezuela’s leaders formally gives the US control over the country’s oil. It marks the definitive end of modern Venezuela’s social contract, in which oil production was meant to serve national economic goals.
Will AI Destroy the Meritocracy?
The continued development of artificial intelligence could have far-reaching social and economic implications. Matt Bruenig shares his thoughts on three issues where AI may radically change our behavior and self-understanding.
Under Israeli Settler Attacks, I Feel I Am Not Alive
Ruqayya Rabe’i was three months pregnant when a mob of Israelis invaded the village where she lives. She spoke with Jacobin about her lost pregnancy and how settler violence seeks to destroy the basis of Palestinian life.
Mainstream economics cannot accept the concept of contradiction that is foundational for Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism. David Harvey explains why we need the Marxist perspective if we want to make sense of capital’s latest mutations in the age of AI.
A Strong Welfare State Changes the Meaning of Unemployment
Under capitalism, being unemployed is usually a hardship, and often a financial and personal disaster. Yet the experience of unemployment in countries with generous welfare states is radically different from what Americans are used to.
Centrist Democrats Are Trying to Throw the Michigan Race
Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate race could decide control of the chamber. Yet some centrist Democrats are openly working to sink his campaign — because they’d rather hand the seat to a Trump-backed Republican than let the Left gain a foothold in their party.
The Israel Lobby Is Out of Control
Twenty years ago, scholars could be accused of antisemitism just for acknowledging the Israel lobby exists. Today the lobby’s influence has become an undeniable and ubiquitous issue in American politics.
The Human Soul of the Fight to Control AI
Pope Leo XIV issued a welcome call to defend the human person in the age of artificial intelligence. Yet compared to his predecessor, Pope Francis, he is less clear about who exactly can mobilize against our corporate overlords.