Starbucks Workers Are Demanding Management Stop Acting Like Petty Dictators
The massive Starbucks unionization drive is about striking a blow against the authoritarian power of management.
20415 Article(s) by: James Bloodworth
James Bloodworth is a writer and journalist from London.
Don’t Believe a Corporation That Promises to Do Better
Corporate responsibility pledges are an increasingly common response to public scrutiny. But trusting private companies to keep their promises hasn’t worked in the past, and it won’t work in the future.
Kenyon College Student Workers Are Striking to Demand Union Recognition
On April 11, Kenyon College student workers began an indefinite strike to win union recognition. Jacobin spoke to four student organizers about what their fight means for the growth of undergraduate student worker unions across the country.
The GOP’s New War on Divestment
Republican lawmakers are quietly building a nationwide effort to pass anti-divestment bills that would punish financial institutions that consider the climate crisis in their business deals — all while oil and gas companies flood their campaign coffers.
Orrin Hatch Was the Quiet Architect of Our Miseries
The rote memorials hailing Orrin Hatch’s civility and bipartisanship miss the point. Hatch was a committed, often fierce right-wing warrior who served corporate power and reshaped the political order toward greater misery.
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.
David Foster Wallace Couldn’t Fully Escape Neoliberalism
David Foster Wallace was one of the great American writers of the neoliberal era. With a career spanning the years of Reagan’s reelection to the collapse of Lehman brothers, his novels, for all their complexity, reiterated the dominant ideology of the times.
You Won’t Be Alone Is Inspired and Mesmerizing Folk Horror
The debut folk horror film You Won’t Be Alone, set in 19th-century Macedonia, is an amazingly mature piece of work that weighs the overwhelming, bloody brutality of the world against its strange enchantments.
The French Left Is Uniting Around Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Radical Agenda
After years of division, left-wing parties are in talks to run together in June’s French parliamentary elections. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s strong presidential bid has placed him at the heart of the Left — and an alliance that could deny Emmanuel Macron a majority.
Transnistria Has Soviet Flags, but Its Oligarchs Want to Trade With the West
Russia has long used breakaway states in Abkhazia and Transnistria to assert military power abroad. Yet the regions’ recent history also shows their growing integration into Western capitalism — and the limits of Moscow’s imperial power.
Federation Built a Racist and Anti-Worker Australia
Unlike some nations, Australia’s origin story wasn’t marked by revolution or a democratic movement. Rather, it was a way for the colonial bourgeoisie to unite against the union movement and close the nation to non-white immigration.
Biden’s New COVID Czar Should Push for Global Vaccine Equity
Dr Ashish Jha is the White House’s new COVID-19 response coordinator. He has an opportunity to reverse the Biden administration’s course and push for global vaccine equity — but all signs indicate he won’t.
Eric Adams Is the Most Pro-Landlord Mayor New York City Has Had in Years
New York mayor Eric Adams ran openly as a pro-landlord candidate, and now — unsurprisingly — he’s governing as a pro-landlord mayor. His recent appointments to the city’s rent board now guarantee that higher rents are on their way for working-class New Yorkers.
Remember “Frontline Workers”? Corporate America Wants You to Forget
In 2020, corporate America made a big show of supporting frontline workers with pay increases. But as soon as nobody was looking, it went right back to paying less than a living wage — and funneling the massive gains to shareholders and executives.
The Clarence Thomas Controversy Shows Why the Supreme Court Is Irredeemable
In the wake of revelations that Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia, are deeply enmeshed in far-right networks, we shouldn’t shore up the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. We should attack the Court’s undemocratic foundations.
The Forgotten Casualties of America’s Never-Ending Global War on Terror
The US’s deadly drone strikes have faded from the headlines. But in the Libyan village of Ubari, family members of the victims of a 2018 strike are still enraged at the indiscriminate killing and seeking justice for their loved ones.
The Death of Neoliberalism Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
Despite predictions of its demise, the neoliberal power bloc of think tanks and lobby groups is still deeply entrenched and pushing into new territory, from health care to space exploration. Neoliberalism won’t be over until the Left can challenge that power.
Elon Musk Won’t Protect Free Speech Online
Instead of counting on an allegedly benevolent billionaire like Elon Musk to guard free speech online by buying companies like Twitter, we should just take our digital public square out of rich people’s hands and into public ownership.
Billionaires Like Elon Musk Don’t Know the First Thing About Democracy
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has bought Twitter. Musk says he’s trying to safeguard democracy and promote free speech — but what does a megabillionaire with a history of silencing critics and retaliating against workers know about democracy?
How China’s Labor Migrants Write Poetry in the Workshop of the World
The labor of hundreds of millions of rural-to-urban migrants has spurred China’s incredible levels of growth. This social transformation has birthed a tradition of migrant worker poetry, documenting the hardship of the workers behind China’s economic miracle.