Benjamin Case is a researcher, educator, and organizer living in Pittsburgh.
Boosters of the capitalist system love pointing to statistics suggesting stunning progress in eradicating global poverty. But those metrics set the bar pathetically low — and don’t account for the obscene explosion in global inequality.
The rise of neoliberalism wasn’t simply about centrist and right-wing politicians deciding to unleash market forces. It reflected a genuine crisis of the postwar economic order — and the absence of a powerful working-class movement to push a left alternative.
Many liberal responses to Trumpism lament “polarization” on all sides. But the call to return to a sensible centrism ignores the real crises we face — falsely equating those who want to solve them with a far right who would make them worse.
After harassing and defaming grieving Sandy Hook parents, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones may finally get what’s coming to him. But as long as the nation’s most powerful institutions fail to earn the public’s trust, hucksters like Jones will always find an audience.
A just-released deal crafted by senators Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer is being touted as a way to fast-track clean energy development. A closer look at the details reveals the main outcome will be speeding up natural gas pipeline projects.
Alabama is rife with corporate abuse: six deaths at an Amazon facility, a grueling coal strike, child labor in auto plants. State attorney general Steve Marshall seems uninterested in weighing in on any of these fights, seeking kudos from Fox News instead.
Discussions of violence in contemporary culture are dominated by pearl-clutching conservatives. Philippa Snow’s debut, Which as You Know Means Violence, breaks with this trend and finds value in everything from the work of artist Marina Abramović to Jackass.
Behind the growth of “cult-like” multilevel marketing lies the fact that our economy leaves growing numbers of people isolated, insecure, and vulnerable to promises of a quick way out.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s kidnapping of dozens of migrants as a political stunt is disturbing. More troubling is the help he seems to have gotten from the Department of Homeland Security, a pro-MAGA federal agency that’s been quietly amassing vast powers.
Today, Senate Democrats vote on the DISCLOSE Act, legislation that would force nonprofits spending on elections and judicial nominations to publicly name their donors. Lawmakers should pass this bill — but without ending the filibuster, they probably can’t.
For all the talk of social justice on her new podcast, Archetypes, Meghan Markle seems only to vaguely endorse trickle-down celebrity feminism — and to promote herself as a symbol of the enlightened liberal ruling class.
Starbucks and Amazon’s current anti-union strategy is an effective one: infinite delay. Employers can’t always stop workers from winning a union election, but labor law currently allows them to buy time to kill union support.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis recently decried the efforts of “woke capital” to reduce carbon emissions. Two things are true at once: his attacks are disingenuous, and supposedly environmentally conscious corporations are not going to stop climate change.
The pandemic, which continues to kill hundreds of Americans a day, is an argument for transforming US health care. But now Joe Biden is claiming the pandemic is over — signaling not just that he’s in denial but that he’s dropped any New Deal–size aspirations.
Ten years ago, Amazon operated zero facilities in California. It now operates close to 40 facilities in the Inland Empire alone, making it the region’s largest employer. Workers essentially live in a company town — which may be why many want to unionize.
Jean-Luc Godard was the last radical working in cinema during an era where the medium of movies still genuinely had the power to shock.
W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America is one of the greatest modern studies of revolution and counterrevolution. It’s also an extraordinary example of a materialist and class analysis of race under capitalism.
Despite overseeing famines in colonial India, celebrating imperial war, and sending troops to attack striking miners, Winston Churchill continues to be celebrated by the British establishment. He shouldn’t be.
Thanks to gerrymandered and malapportioned party elections, the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party is dominated by factional power brokers and bureaucrats. Until that changes, Labor will remain on the ropes.
Mayor Eric Adams has suggested that New York’s response to Governor Greg Abbott’s busing of migrants into the city include rethinking its “right to shelter” law. But the solution to the homelessness crisis is in strengthening housing laws, not eroding them.