Happy 150th Birthday, Rosa Luxemburg
One hundred and fifty years ago today, the Polish Marxist thinker and organizer Rosa Luxemburg was born. She is, without question, one of the towering figures in the entire history of the socialist movement.
19655 Articles by: Elizabeth Mahony
Liberals Should Stop Trying to Save the GOP. Republicans Don’t Want to Be Saved.
Despite the pious wishes of many leading Democrats, the “good old” Republican Party is never coming back. Over the past four decades, GOP leaders set out to transform the party into the perfect vessel for Trumpian extremism — and they succeeded beyond their wildest nightmares.
Trade Agreements Like NAFTA Are a Menace to Democracy
Free-trade agreements enable companies to sue governments if they interfere with profit-making activities, no matter how destructive. The Biden administration now faces a legal threat for halting the Keystone XL project. These trade deals put us in an antidemocratic straitjacket — it’s time we got rid of them.
Bernie Sanders Hasn’t Given Up on the $15 Minimum Wage
Joe Biden may have thrown in the towel on a $15 minimum wage, but Bernie Sanders has not. His recent Senate Budget Committee hearing on the country’s biggest retailers’ low wages was classic Sanders: a hard-nosed, commonsense message of class struggle.
Warehouses Are Today’s “Dark Satanic Mills”
Working in a warehouse during a pandemic means taking your life in your hands — and doing it for poverty wages. An activist with Warehouse Workers for Justice in Illinois tells Jacobin the story of how he finally got fed up, how he and other workers are fighting back, and what would happen if every warehouse worker in the country took the day off.
Jeremy Corbyn on Stan Newens and the Fight for Socialism in Our Time
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn remembers the lifelong struggle for socialism of his late comrade Stan Newens. Newens was a pillar of the Left — and proof that spending years in Parliament doesn’t have to strip left politicians of their radicalism.
Joe Biden’s Immigration Policies Must Bring Deportees Back Home to the US
Under the Obama administration, millions of people were ripped from the United States and deported to countries they hadn’t known for years or even decades. The Biden administration needs a plan to bring those deportees back home to the United States.
David Graeber: After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep
In an essay penned shortly before his death, David Graeber argued that post-pandemic, we can’t slip back into a reality where the way our society is organized — to serve every whim of a small handful of rich people while debasing and degrading the vast majority of us — is seen as sensible or reasonable.
Labour MP Jon Trickett: “A Divided Movement Will Not Win the Next Election”
Labour MP Jon Trickett speaks to Jacobin about leader Keir Starmer’s triangulation on the corporation tax and the need for the Labour Party to advance a bold, activist agenda in the pandemic era.
How Bernie Sanders, an Open Socialist, Won Burlington’s Mayoral Election
On this day in 1981, Bernie Sanders became Burlington’s first socialist mayor by a margin of just ten votes. Here’s a definitive history of how Bernie beat the political establishment with a working-class coalition behind him and how we can do the same today.
Oren Cass Is Insisting That Starving Some Kids Is Important for Society
Despite branding himself as a fresh “pro-worker” conservative, former Mitt Romney adviser Oren Cass believes that excluding poor children from key social welfare benefits is good and we should do more of it. It’s conservative, all right — but the furthest thing from “pro-worker.”
Bernie Is Right: We Shouldn’t Let the Senate Parliamentarian Block a $15 Minimum Wage
Bernie Sanders is absolutely right to insist we should ignore the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling against a minimum wage increase. Reducing poverty is far more important than adhering to fusty, old Senate rules.
The Tide of Feminist Organizing Is Rising in Chile
In recent years, the women’s strike in Chile has become a driving force in the broader fight for dignity and equality across society. As the country prepares to rewrite its constitution, feminist organizers want to steer the process toward deep social transformation.
Placing the Proud Boys on Canada’s Terrorism List Is a Threat to the Left
The far-right Proud Boys is an odious and reactionary force. But the Canadian government’s decision to designate them a “terrorist group” is an overreach that threatens the ability of progressives to organize themselves and protest injustice.
Bill Gates Can’t Save the Planet
Bill Gates is making the rounds promoting his plan to solve climate change. But his new book ignores the fact that the same capitalist system that made him rich is the one killing the planet. We need a working-class environmentalism.
Van Jones and Meghan McCain’s Centrist Manifesto Doesn’t Have Answers
Here’s a documentary no one asked for: a Van Jones and Meghan McCain production arguing that the problem with America isn’t poverty and exploitation, but political divisiveness. It’s warmed-over centrism that won’t solve any of the problems ailing the United States.
Newly Obtained FBI Files Shed New Light on the Murder of Fred Hampton
The horrifying story of the 1969 police murder of Fred Hampton is now well known. But there’s still much to be revealed about the case — like the information in bureau files newly obtained by Jacobin showing the FBI awarded Special Agent Roy Martin Mitchell, the handler of informant William O’Neal who was key to the raid that killed Hampton, a $200 bonus for work well done.
The Man Who Would Be Stalin
Ronald Suny has given us the best picture to date of Stalin’s path to the October Revolution. But the story of the future dictator’s early life doesn’t explain the rise of Stalinism. The key developments and choices that produced that system came after the Bolsheviks took power.
Andrew Cuomo Shielded Killer Nursing Home Executives From Justice
Governor Andrew Cuomo offered blanket immunity from prosecution for negligent nursing home executives last year. Now those who lost love ones during the pandemic thanks to those executives’ greed have nowhere to turn. Those who put profit over human life — and Cuomo — need to be held responsible.
To Get Better Work Conditions, We Have to Be Ready to Strike for Them
Since the 1990s, workers in the Basque Country have gone on strike more than twice as often as any other workforce in Europe. The Basque unions insist that we have to fight for our interests — a strike-fund-centered strategy that has won huge victories even in the age of austerity.