Akil Vicks works in clinical research and is a member of River Valley Democratic Socialists of America. He writes about politics and culture at onone.substack.com.
Atlanta is constructing a massive police militarization complex on the site of a former prison farm. Residents are overwhelmingly opposed — but business interests, police, and city government are pushing ahead with the proposed “Cop City.”
In the deindustrialized town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, police recently killed a man having a mental health episode. Now residents are organizing to attack the deep social and economic ills that led to his death.
Capitalism creates social disorder and relies on police and prisons to manage it. Until liberals recognize this link between criminal justice and the economy, their reform programs will be ineffectual — and racist policing and mass incarceration will persist.
From California to Massachusetts, companies like Uber and Lyft are promoting legislation that misclassifies gig workers. What’s worse, they’ve convinced some people that their pursuit of cheap labor is actually a crusade for equality.
“It’s like Uber, but for nurses.” Does that scare you? It should. Private hospitals are increasingly teaming up with Silicon Valley to make American health care even more exploitative.
Neoliberals say that inflation is directly caused by high social spending and good wages, and that working-class people must sacrifice these to bring prices down. But there are other causes of inflation, and solutions to it that don’t pit us against ourselves.
Economic elites and their press organs are up in arms over the decriminalization of syringe possession in New York. Beneath their reactionary bluster about “junkies” lies a stronger belief: that the purpose of a city is to provide investment opportunities for capital.
It’s easy to laugh at people eating “horse paste.” But the widespread willingness to take off-label treatments and drugs formulated for animals stems from problems in our privatized health care system, from domestic pharma prices to global vaccine inequality.