Enver Motala is an associate of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT) at the University of Johannesburg and of the Centre for Integrated Post-School Education and Training at the Nelson Mandela University.
Christian moralists long promoted hobbies as a way to occupy idle hands, bringing the work ethic into our free time. Today hobbies risk turning into side hustles — yet they also point to what work might look like if it wasn’t about making money.
The US Supreme Court will soon hear a case that could make it legal for corporations to enrich politicians in exchange for lucrative favors — establishing a far-reaching precedent that further limits the scope of anti-corruption law.
The International Court of Justice’s ruling to prevent genocide in Gaza has triggered cutoffs and legal challenges to military cooperation with Israel. Despite its many problems, international lawmaking is hurting Israel’s ability to wage brutal war.
A year after a rail crash in Tempe killed 57 people, Greece’s ruling New Democracy party filed a report blaming the accident on staff. But victims’ families point to the years of cuts and neglect that created an avoidable tragedy.
Contrary to some headlines, Donald Trump didn’t threaten immigrants with a “bloodbath.” But he did say some immigrants are “not people” — and the last five months in Gaza have shown us where this kind of rhetoric about “human animals” can lead.
The Moroccan left-wing revolutionary Ben Barka was one of the towering figures of the anti-colonial movement. His murder by agents of the Moroccan king with help from France and Israel was a major blow to socialist forces throughout the Arab world.
Among the hard problems in tackling climate change is addressing the needs of workers employed by the oil and gas industries. In California, labor and climate organizers are working together to ensure a just transition as fossil fuel production scales down.
Without solid data, discussions about class and class consciousness are often just guesswork. Empirical Marxist studies of class structure and class consciousness are invaluable for a robust socialist politics, and we need more of it.
After the UAW’s stand-up strike against the Big 3, the union pledged to embark on an aggressive campaign to organize nonunion automakers. Today, the UAW announced it is filing an election at the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Volkswagen plant.
Use of the US’s unprecedented weapons supply to Ukraine has not been properly tracked by the Department of Defense — and the country has a history of alleged misuse, loss, or selling of munitions.
The European Investment Bank has an over half-trillion-euro balance sheet — and real power to invest in the green transition. But far from pursuing its public mandate, it’s devoting public resources to propping up the continent’s largest companies.
Today’s gentrification is not an accident, nor is it simply the effects of shifting preferences for urban living or the so-called invisible hand of capitalism. It’s the intentional, predictable result of policy choices. And we can halt it in its tracks.
Born in rural Ireland and a veteran of the IRA, “Red” Mike Quill went on to form one of America’s most militant unions — and to stand side by side with Martin Luther King Jr in the fight against racism.
Del Monte’s impunity in Kenya goes beyond its security’s alleged murder of pineapple thieves. The US corporation’s leverage over the state has allowed it to swallow Kenyan land and labor whole in its quest for profit.
Movies depicting the spread of disease have become a well-established genre and helped frame our understanding of the real-life COVID-19 pandemic. The spirit of these films increasingly reflects the despair and atomization of neoliberal capitalism.
Megapopular right-wing YouTube channel PragerU’s “moral case for capitalism” fails to address capitalism’s massive defects — its injustice, exploitation, and instability. Instead, it offers a glib pep talk about why modern society is better than feudalism.
As the number of inmates continues to soar, France has among Europe’s most overcrowded jails. But with the range of imprisonable crimes also growing, Emmanuel Macron’s government shows little interest in rehabilitating convicts outside the cell walls.
Bougainville is a Pacific island with a population of just 300,000, but its independence movement successfully challenged one of the world’s most powerful and predatory mining companies. Its people have now voted overwhelmingly to form their own state.
For the first time ever, Medicare is negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to reduce the cost of lifesaving medicines. Big Pharma’s favorite Democrats are working to curtail the negotiations and protect the industry’s tax loopholes.
Federal regulators have introduced a ban on one of banks’ most blatant profit grabs: nonsufficient funds fees. Even though most don’t charge those fees now, financial institutions are fighting the rule to preserve their future right to.