Yes, You Should Worry About Inflation
For a generation, the Left dismissed any concerns about inflation as elite fearmongering. But now inflation is here. And it’s hurting workers more than anyone.
93 Articles by: Doug Henwood
Doug Henwood edits Left Business Observer and is the host of Behind the News. His latest book is My Turn.
Corporate America’s Tax Bill Is Miniscule. Corporations Are Still Whining.
The average corporate tax rate in the 1950s was 50 percent. Today, it’s below 20 percent. Yet the US business class is still whining about the modest tax increase on corporations in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Austerity Is Causing America to Rot
If it seems like nothing works anymore in the US, you’re not imagining things. Record-low public investment and declining private investment have given us a failing, decrepit infrastructure.
The CHIPS Act Is a Massive Giveaway to Tech Companies
President Biden signed the bipartisan CHIPS Act earlier this week. It’s a massive giveaway to the semiconductor industry, which has spent the last decade padding the pockets of CEOs and stockholders with billions upon billions of dollars in stock buybacks.
Fewer Americans Are Identifying as Middle-Class
According to Gallup polls, the number of Americans who self-identify as below middle-class, including those who identify as working-class, is on the rise — a rise especially pronounced among those age 18–34.
More Workers Are Quitting Their Jobs in Red States With Low Union Rates
Talk of the “Great Resignation“ is everywhere. But a close look at the numbers reveals something interesting: more workers are quitting their jobs in Trump-voting states with low unionization rates than in states with high unionization rates that rejected Trump.
The History Behind Putin’s War in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is a horrific, unconscionable act. NATO’s expansionist policy made such an invasion more likely. Both of these things are true.
Union Membership Is Still Declining
Unions raise wages and benefits and increase job security. So, the fact that unionization rates are still in decline, despite some recent bright spots in worker militancy, is very bad news.
Unfortunately, There Was No “Striketober”
Everyone is desperate for signs of life in the American working class, so the breathless talk of a “Striketober” a few months back made sense. But new Bureau of Labor Statistics data throws cold water on that idea: there was no strike upsurge.
Over Half of Households Are Having Trouble Paying Their Bills
Things may not be trending in the right direction for workers in the United States.
The Job Market Is Far From Recovered
COVID-19 sparked the worst job losses since the Great Depression. The most recent numbers make clear that while American workers are still suffering immensely, they’re also feeling emboldened to reject bad jobs.
Occupy Wall Street at 10: It Was Annoying, But It Changed the World
Ten years ago, I was ready to throw in the towel on this whole politics business, writes Doug Henwood — things were too bleak. Then Occupy Wall Street kicked off. Now, thank God, we’re living in the world Occupy created.
Why Socialists Should Distrust Antitrust
People are right to be disgusted by giant corporations. But the liberal “antitrust” response too often valorizes small-scale competition instead of solidarity and worker organization.
Jane McAlevey on the Union Defeat at Amazon
Labor strategist Jane McAlevey offers her take on why Amazon workers were defeated in their recent Bessemer, Alabama union drive.
Take Me to Your Leader: The Rot of the American Ruling Class
For more than three centuries, something has been going horribly wrong at the top of our society, and we’re all suffering for it.
Ignore Corporations Whining About the Infrastructure Bill’s Costs. They Can Afford It.
Whatever the size and shape of Joe Biden’s proposed infrastructure bill, you can be sure to hear corporate weeping and gnashing of teeth about how they can’t afford a tax hike. The truth: they’ve got the money — they just don’t want to share.
American Workers Aren’t Striking
Strikes are the labor movement’s muscle, and when unions don’t strike, that muscle atrophies. Unfortunately, the latest data shows just how atrophied that muscle is. Simply put, workers aren’t striking.
The GameStop Bubble Is a Lesson in the Absurdity and Uselessness of the Stock Market
The online pranksters behind the great GameStop bubble of 2021 are probably going to lose a lot of money. But they’ve done the world a service by reminding us of the utter uselessness of the stock market, an institution that serves no purpose besides making a small number of undeserving people rich.
The US Agriculture System Is a Disaster for Farmworkers and the Planet
US-style industrial farming has ravaged two of the world’s most fertile regions, California’s Central Valley and the Midwest’s corn belt. But we can build an agriculture system that delivers food in a sustainable way — and empowers farmworkers, too.
How Mass Incarceration Was Built in the United States — And How We Can Undo It
With an incarceration rate exceeding 700 people for every 100,000, Americans have built a prison monstrosity that has few parallels in history — destroying untold millions of lives and families in just a few decades. We need to study the economic origins of this mass incarceration system in order to dismantle it.