Agathe Dorra is a PhD researcher in political aesthetics at King’s College London
Because self-isolation hurts corporate profits, billionaires are calling to end the too-limited public health measures taken so far by the US government. Unless we take action, Trump might heed their advice — and enormous numbers of people could die as a result.
Some of the first US cases of coronavirus came from Washington nursing homes. We spoke to a nursing home worker and in-home care worker in the state about what it’s like providing care in the midst of a pandemic, and the brutal low-wage working conditions, worker shortages, and lack of decent health care that can only worsen the crisis.
Faced with another global recession, many governments are responding with even stronger state interventions than they did in the 2008 financial crisis. But stimulus packages to prop up businesses must also pose the question of public control — not just bailing out corporations, but repurposing their operations to confront the disasters ahead of us.
Brands like Gap and H&M have long been able to shop around for outsourced suppliers, driving sweatshop conditions in newly industrializing countries. But their rising dependence on large, centralized suppliers is undermining the bases of the sweatshop model — and increasing workers’ power to fight for improvements.
In Bernie Sanders, we finally have a presidential contender fighting for the restoration of incarcerated voters’ democratic rights — a long overdue, commonsense reform that could have far-reaching implications for American prisons, the American political system, and, at a time of pandemic, society as a whole.
Toni Van Pelt, the president of the National Organization for Women, recently warned that Bernie Sanders had done “next to nothing for women.” Which is strange, because NOW has praised Sanders as a staunch feminist ally throughout his career.
Enver Hoxha’s Albania is mostly famous for its bureaucratic paranoia, symbolized by its hundreds of thousands of concrete bunkers. His wife Nexhmije was one of the ruling party’s leading figures — and to her dying day defended the brutal measures taken in the name of socialism.
Last night Italy’s prime minister declared that all nonessential workplaces will be shut down to stem the spread of COVID-19. For two weeks, social distancing has been undermined by employer pressure to keep production going. As contagion soars, other countries would be foolish not to learn Italy’s lesson.
Setbacks for left-wing parties across Europe have led many analysts to declare the end of the “left-populist moment” which began after the financial crisis. But these defeats don’t have to be permanent — and populist strategies remain a vital means of mass mobilization.
In fighting for a Green New Deal we can’t just focus on clean power and innovative ways to decarbonize our society and world. We also need to rethink what and how much we consume — without falling prey to left arguments that amount to austerity.
Iran is ravaged by coronavirus — and US sanctions are making the pandemic even more deadly.
Our economy is crashing hard and fast. But with a bold set of policies, like nationalizing the banks to fund a Green New Deal, we can save millions of workers from untold suffering — and transform the country in the process.
With classic rock riffs and fuzzed-out melodies, Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag wears their left-wing politics on their sleeves.
Coronavirus is pushing us from our workplaces, classrooms, and public spaces into our homes. High-speed internet is more essential than ever to maintain social ties. But millions are denied this fundamental right.
Despite the coronavirus outbreak, the University of Illinois has jacked up health care premiums for graduate workers and refuses to grant additional sick days to those who test positive for COVID-19. This is what workers have to deal with in the corporatized university.
With the appalling Senate scandal over coronavirus insider trading, it is no longer possible to deny it: we are governed by a caste of the unimaginably rich who don’t care if we live or die.
If we are going to avert the worst-case COVID-19 scenario and prevent unimaginable human suffering, we have to fight — and even nationalize — the corporations that are trying to profit off of this crisis at everyone else’s expense.
Faced with impossible choices between going to work and facing potential exposure to coronavirus or staying home and losing needed income, workers at a Brooklyn cafe got organized. To ensure a just response to coronavirus, millions more working people will need to get similarly organized in our workplaces, in our communities, and in politics.
In the face of inadequate health and safety protections against coronavirus on public transit, Detroit bus drivers walked off the job Tuesday demanding management take action. They won.
As Marxist geographer David Harvey argues, forty years of neoliberalism has left the public totally exposed and ill prepared to face a public health crisis on the scale of coronavirus.