Property, Race, Colonialism, and Capitalism
In colonial regimes, dominant conceptions of private property developed alongside racial hierarchies.
120 Article(s) by: Daniel Denvir
Daniel Denvir is the author of All-American Nativism and the host of The Dig on Jacobin Radio.
How Capitalism Remade Homophobia
Before tragically dying at age 32, Chris Chitty, a brilliant historian of gay life and capitalism, produced an illuminating unfinished book, Sexual Hegemony. In it, he provided a longue durée account of the development of homophobia and homosexuality.
Making Sense of Antonio Gramsci
The Italian communist Antonio Gramsci left behind a rich and complicated legacy of thought on socialist strategy for transforming the world. Historian Michael Denning guides us through the great — and misunderstood — thinker.
No, It’s Not Techno-Feudalism. It’s Still Capitalism.
Some thinkers are arguing that capitalism as Marx defined it is over, and we’re entering something like digital neo-feudalism instead. Not true, argues Evgeny Morozov. To understand how capitalism operates today, Marxists have to drop the factory bias.
New Deal–Era Leftists Tried to Win Beautiful Social Housing for the Masses
The US housing system is organized around subsidized private homeownership and underfunded public housing. But during the New Deal, leftists had a different vision: beautiful social housing for all but the rich.
The United States Has Used Latin America as Its Imperial Laboratory
Over the past two centuries, US imperial interventions have had a devastating impact on the peoples of Latin America. Those interventions have also played a crucial role in US domestic politics, enabling new power blocs to cohere and develop their strategies.
You Can Thank George W. Bush’s War on Terror for Donald Trump
The Bush administration’s war on terror meted out unthinkable violence in the Middle East while imposing an atmosphere of repression and nativism at home. It was the perfectly malignant petri dish for helping produce Donald Trump.
For Workers, Hospitals Have Become the New Steel Mills — Minus the Strong Unions
Health care workplaces have replaced steel mills and auto plants as the nation’s big employers. But while industrial workers once had mighty unions, hospital workers have struggled by comparison to win representation and good contracts.
Michael Denning on Antonio Gramsci and Hegemony
The great labor historian Michael Denning reflects on what Antonio Gramsci’s work has to tell us today.
Inflation Is About Class Struggle
Inflation is far from being a boring economic concept — it’s a question of who gets what in society, and how much power workers have versus bosses and shareholders.
The History of American Public Housing Shows It Didn’t Have to Decline
In order to put social housing back on the agenda in American politics, we first have to understand how public housing was destroyed — especially by Bill Clinton’s Hope VI program.
Today’s Conservative Movement Has Roots in the Capitalist Backlash Against the New Deal
During the New Deal, right-wing businesspeople were furious that their authority was being challenged in the workplace and in society. So they started organizing. And that’s the origin story of the modern conservative movement.
The Impossible Escape From the European Union
Neoliberalism is embedded in the European Union’s DNA. But for the continent’s left, there are few good alternatives.
How Capitalism Worms Its Way Into Every Aspect of Our Lives
Marxists have a powerful critique of exploitation in the capitalist workplace, but our analysis can’t stop there. A comprehensive analysis of capitalism, Nancy Fraser argues, must also account for the social relations that make the official economy possible.
Neoliberalism Was a Counterrevolution Against Democracy
A group of 20th-century intellectuals saw the democratic nation-state as a threat to private property. Their solution: shifting power to unaccountable international bodies like the WTO, helping pave the way to what we now call “neoliberalism.”
The ACLU’s Drift From Radical to Neutral Tells the Story of Modern American Liberalism
Once an arm of the radical labor movement, the ACLU now defends free speech as a neutral principle — including the anti-union speech of bosses and the political speech of corporations. The story of the ACLU’s evolution is the story of liberalism itself.
Mike Davis Revisits His 1986 Labor History Classic, Prisoners of the American Dream
The late socialist writer Mike Davis’s first book was Prisoners of the American Dream, a deep exploration of how the US labor movement became so weakened. Nearly four decades later, Davis revisited the book in an interview with Jacobin.
Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò: “Oppression Is Not a Prep School”
In activist and academic circles, privileged people are expected to automatically defer to marginalized people on issues of oppression. Philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò argues that this norm kills solidarity and replaces effective politics with endless navel-gazing.
The Prison-Industrial Complex Goes Beyond Cops and Jails. It’s All Around Us.
Police and mass incarceration are only the most visible and obvious manifestations of the prison-industrial complex. Ruth Wilson Gilmore argues that the prison-industrial complex is a holistic social organizing principle that pervades life under capitalism.
Corporate Interests Are Inflaming US-China Tensions
In a global economy defined by overproduction and underconsumption, American and Chinese corporations are struggling to extract profits from developing nations. Without massive wealth redistribution, consumption won’t return to stable levels.