
Zygmunt Bauman’s Century
Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman was born 100 years ago today. He is best known as the theorist of “liquid modernity,” in which social bonds decline in favor of an atomized individualism.
Frances Abele CM is Distinguished Research Professor and Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy Emerita at Carleton University. She is a research fellow at the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation and the Broadbent Institute. Much of her work focuses on indigenous-Canada relations.

Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman was born 100 years ago today. He is best known as the theorist of “liquid modernity,” in which social bonds decline in favor of an atomized individualism.

A GOP-led House bill would lower regulatory barriers, including minimum capital requirements, for new and some existing community banks. A loophole in the legislation could help banking giants circumvent regulations meant to prevent bank failure.

Donald Trump has approved a deal with South Korea to equip its navy with nuclear-powered submarines. Combined with Trump’s aggressive posture toward China, the move will further exacerbate tensions in a volatile region.

Economic insecurity is rampant in the United States. A program of universal grocery subsidies could help working-class families deal with the cost of living — and be wildly popular.

Ezra Klein talks with Bhaskar Sunkara about Abundance, Zohran Mamdani’s victory, and why progressives need a state that works at the speed of their ambitions.

Zohran Mamdani’s proposal for an additional 2% tax on incomes over $1 million has provoked gloomy prophecies of elite exodus. Yet a similar policy Massachusetts passed three years ago has not caused the rich to flee and has generated significant revenue.

In the midst of its criminal assault on Gaza, Israel killed hundreds of Palestinian journalists bearing witness to its brutality. It also remade its own press outlets into vehicles abetting genocide. These crimes can’t be swept under the rug.

After years of fighting austerity, real estate, and machine politics from inside city hall, I joined the Democratic Socialists of America because only a mass movement can make those fights winnable.

We know that Donald Trump was extremely close with an incredibly prolific child sex abuser, Jeffrey Epstein. But recent revelations raise another question: Was Trump’s association with Epstein used by Israel to amass political leverage and influence US policy?

At its recent 50th annual convention, members of Teamsters for a Democratic Union assessed what their organization has achieved in recent years and debated their approach to Donald Trump.

Predator: Badlands delivers a fresh spin on the nearly 40-year-old franchise by delving deeper into the alien society at the heart of the franchise. Judging by the impressive box office performance, it’s a rare hit in an otherwise dismal movie season.

Vivek Chibber describes how four decades of neoliberalism have distorted the radical left, but also how the Left is finally starting to rebuild a truly socialist politics — and what it will take to advance further.

Italian workerism had a big influence on the 1960s left, highlighting the role of workers’ struggles in the evolution of capitalism. As one of its key thinkers, Mario Tronti had to make sense of a world where those struggles went into sharp decline.

The cozy relationship between utilities regulators and the firms they are meant to regulate greatly benefits a few bureaucrats turned executives. It’s been a disaster for consumers, who see nothing from it but bigger bills.

The Minneapolis educators’ union won a historic contract just over a week ago. The victory was the product of years of rank-and-file reform efforts as well as workplace and community organizing that bridged occupational and racial divides.

The recent round of Amazon corporate layoffs isn’t a sign of an imminent AI apocalypse. It’s an expression of the company’s brutal corporate culture, enabled by its use of the H-1B visa program.

Tupac Shakur was a deeply political artist, shaped by the radical left-wing traditions of black America. A new biography finally does justice to this side of his life and work.

As Donald Trump tramples over the norms of the postwar liberal order, centrist political leaders are only too keen to accommodate him. Global liberalism is collapsing, while the battle over what replaces it is just beginning.

Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited Frankenstein adaptation for Netflix is a big, bloated mess. Much like Frankenstein’s Creature, it’s dead matter, crudely stitched and bolted together.

Key Canadian industries like auto are currently on the brink of extinction under assault from Donald Trump. Escaping this impasse requires confronting Canada’s subordinate relationship to its juggernaut neighbor to the south.