Cristina Groeger is a history professor at Lake Forest College and a member of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America.
Workers in India last week launched a general strike that brought out an estimated 250 million people, arguably the largest in human history. Now, they’re joining hands with farmers to protest Narendra Modi’s pro-corporate, far-right agenda.
We can’t talk about the rise of right-wing populists like Donald Trump, reactionary and bizarre conspiracy theories like QAnon, and the increasingly pervasive sense of nihilism across global politics without talking about neoliberalism.
A modest sum of money would ensure that everyone could participate in holiday traditions without breaking the bank. Let’s have the federal government pay out a universal holiday bonus.
Twitter is now seen as an important medium of progressive activism. But while hashtags may be the quickest way for anyone to tap into the turbulent and frenetic world of online social justice discourse, their record for building the sort of institutions that can boost popular power is an unbroken pattern of defeat.
Diego Maradona was a genius and a cheater, gregarious and despairing, a liar and an open book. Argentinians loved him as we loved ourselves: so much, not at all. And we hated him as you can only hate someone you truly love, someone who’s brought you so much joy, so many times, then ripped it away.
Workers at Amazon’s new Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse have filed for a union election. They’re taking on one of the most virulently anti-union companies in the United States.
Forty-five years ago, under a cloak of secrecy, Operation Condor was officially launched: a global campaign of violent repression against the Latin American left by the region’s quasi-fascist military dictatorships. The US government not only knew about the program — it helped to engineer it.
In a widely publicized article, Jake Smyth and Kenny Graham, two self-styled “Hospo Gurus” from Sydney, derided Australia’s hospitality workers as “whining” and “self-entitled.” Hospitality workers invite these shock jocks to take a look in the mirror.
Smart union organizing tactics can produce incremental growth for unions at some points, or at least slow decline. But those tactics don’t lead to substantial increases in overall union density — those increases happen quickly, in moments of upsurge. Labor and the Left need to be ready for those moments.
The United States is not a failed state — just ask any American capitalist. But we desperately need something better for everyone else.
In 1990s Ontario, austerity measures provoked a long series of strikes and demonstrations known as the Days of Action. The high points of that mobilization can serve as a model for struggles to come as we face post-pandemic cutbacks.
Judith Jarvis Thomson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Her justly famous essay in defense of abortion rights is a model for how to combine philosophical rigor with political engagement in the real world.
Joe Biden’s likely nominee to head the powerful Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, called for cuts to Social Security, saying, “we need to put both entitlements on the table as well as taxes.”
Despite some promising signs, Canada’s auto industry is not experiencing a full rebirth. Any revitalization of the industry, and any transition to green manufacturing, will always be unstable under capitalism, because private auto corporations don’t make decisions with workers and the planet in mind.
Marxist historian Vijay Prashad talks about his new book Washington Bullets and the history of US-backed coups, from the post–World War II period to the recent successful right-wing coup in Bolivia.
With Donald Trump’s defeat, the planet dodged a giant meteor. Now, it needs protection from Joe Biden, whose energy secretary short list includes fracking fanboy and enemy of the Green New Deal, Ernest Moniz.
In the working-class districts of Naples, Diego Maradona was more than their local team’s star player. He was a son of the slums who wanted to “put six goals past the boss” — and stood up for the dignity of their city.
Friedrich Engels was far more than Karl Marx’s benefactor, or the custodian of his intellectual legacy. When they met as young men in the 1840s, Engels was already an accomplished political writer, who first articulated some of the basic concepts of what became “Marxism.”
Two hundred years since his birth, Friedrich Engels is often considered a man rooted in the culture of 19th-century thought. But if not all his predictions ring true, his critique of the rising industrial capitalism offers penetrating insights into our own present.
Friedrich Engels once wrote that he played “second fiddle” to Marx. On the 200th anniversary of his birth, we should remember the profound influence that Engels had on his friend and comrade, as well as his own theoretical contributions.