Jonathan Sas has worked in senior policy and political roles in government, think tanks, and the labor movement. He is an honorary witness to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. His writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, National Post, the Tyee, and Maisonneuve.
Recent polls suggest that the Democrats’ sidelining of economic issues to go all in on the Capitol riot hasn’t borne fruit. While voters are most concerned about inflation, they think the party’s main priority is January 6, which barely registers.
Neoliberal policymakers present “green finance” as a market-based solution for climate chaos. But the investment scenarios they’ve devised for our transition beyond fossil fuels are really a form of economic planning — one that the Left should take control of.
Democrats running in the upcoming midterms are rightfully pushing the need to protect abortion rights, but they are failing to tie that push to a populist economic message.
In 1981, Lula da Silva spoke to the first Brazilian Workers’ Party convention about his country’s path to democratic socialism. Ahead of the second round of Brazil’s presidential election later this month, we reproduce his speech here.
From chip bags full of air to that suspicious dimple on the bottom of the peanut butter jar, food corporations are shamelessly reducing the treats-per-dollar ratio. Snacks are a small but key pleasure that the capitalists are quietly ripping away from us.
The British sitcom Peep Show depicts the life of a 2000s unemployed guy who lives comfortably. Today, austerity has all but destroyed the possibility of such a slacker lifestyle — an option we all deserve.
At Kaiser Permanente in California, 2,000 mental health care workers have been on strike since August 15. They say Kaiser consistently fails to provide adequate staffing and wages, with patients waiting weeks or months for a second appointment.
Driven by inflation, the prices of basic goods are spiraling out of control. The Fed’s solution of raising interest rates will hurt average workers. Rep. Jamaal Bowman is proposing a better solution: price controls.
Defenders of capitalism insist that chasing profit is the only reason anything ever gets made. But when Warner Bros. Discovery killed Batgirl to take advantage of a tax loophole, it showed the opposite: the profit motive can stand in the way of creation, too.
The Crusades seem like a classic example of religious ideology triumphing over materialism. But a closer look shows that multiple class interests underpinned the crusading enterprise, from merchants seeking trade routes to peasants evading feudal oppression.
Sixty years ago, the world seemed on the brink of nuclear war before the superpowers reached an agreement. The missile crisis led Cuba’s leaders to distrust their Soviet ally — an attitude that ultimately helped their revolutionary system to outlast the USSR’s.
In the lead-up to the midterms, Americans’ number-one issue is the economy and the squeeze they’re feeling thanks to inflation. Republicans get this and are making that squeeze their top-line message. Why aren’t Democrats?
Emmanuel Macron promised he’d shorten France’s two-million-long waiting list for public housing. But the promised construction boom hasn’t materialized — and even poorly maintained housing is becoming ever more unaffordable.
The idea that workers in wealthy countries like the United States are part of a “labor aristocracy” bought off with the fruits of imperialism is nonsense. The best way to build a movement against US imperialism is to build the labor movement domestically.
As millions of Americans struggle with the high cost of living, the Democratic leadership seems out of touch. It could cost them in the upcoming midterms.
You must have an incredibly dismal view of both human agency and human nature to believe that we will continue to live in the future much as we live today.
Mike Gold was a pioneer of proletarian literature and once one of America’s best-known writers. But his refusal to capitulate to McCarthy-era blackmail saw him written out of history.
Canada is reviewing its privacy legislation, and its facial recognition technologies are under scrutiny. It’s well past time to strictly regulate their usage by both public and private actors.
A strike at France’s oil refineries is demanding pay raises that reflect firms’ soaring profits. Liberal president Emmanuel Macron’s government is forcing employees back to work — but unions insist they’ll defend their right to strike.
Despite its flowery rhetoric about transnational cooperation, Biden’s new National Security Strategy ultimately recommits to a basic principle of ruling-class foreign policy: US hegemony, now and forever.