Historians have underestimated the role of pandemics in changing the course of history. Long before the Black Death hit Europe, an outbreak of bubonic plague triggered a profound social crisis in sixth-century Byzantium, shaking the foundations of the empire.
Jon Melrod was part of a wave of student radicals who took jobs in factories in the 1970s. He spoke to Jacobin about life in working-class Wisconsin, becoming a workplace leader, and how to merge shop-floor fights with a broader left politics.
A new collection of early writings by Christopher Hitchens reveals the writer as a scourge of American imperialism who skewered Cold War hypocrisies in shining prose. But it also foreshadows Hitchens’s post-9/11 transformation into a neoconservative mascot.
In parts of Queens, socialists hold office at the local, state, and federal levels. Those victories are no accident: they’re the fruit of years of local organizing in a borough known for being anything but flashy.
A referendum to end discrimination against gay couples in marriage and adoption just won big in Cuba. That’s a victory for the core values underlying the socialist project.
The National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly ruled that Starbucks and Amazon’s union busting is against the law. Yet both companies seem intent on continuing to flagrantly break labor law in the hopes of breaking their fledgling unions.
Recent announcements of neoliberalism’s demise in the wake of the pandemic are mistaken. Ending neoliberalism will require purposeful effort and struggle, not just economic and political crises.
Pierre Poilievre, the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, presents himself as a friend of the working class. Some New Democrats claim they’ll fight Poilievre’s rhetoric with class war, but is the party up for it?
How comfortable are sitting members of Congress with broadcasting brazen corruption to the world? Well, during a televised hearing, Indiana representative Trey Hollingsworth gushed thanks to Bank of America’s CEO for hiring his top aide.
Rise of the Bolsonaros, a new documentary chronicling Jair Bolsonaro’s ascent, makes for compelling viewing. But it ignores the fact that Brazil’s crises are rooted in its flawed developmental model, not just the rise of a family of reactionary zealots.
Puerto Rico is still reeling in the wake of Hurricane Fiona, with hundreds of thousands without electricity. Energy privatization has made the problem worse — and the solution, historically, has been to fight it in the streets.
A new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute shows what the Left has always argued: that our best tool in the fight against poverty is redistributive social spending.
Italian far-right leader Giorgia Meloni’s biggest ally is the Lega party. Like Fratelli d’Italia, it’s an anti-immigrant party — but it has built its base promising to defend Italian business from globalization.
Democratic socialist congresswoman Rashida Tlaib is under fire from the Democratic establishment for saying that support for Israel’s apartheid government is incompatible with progressive values. They’re livid that Tlaib is telling the truth.
Director Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling is a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes celebrity scandal, helping to keep an otherwise forgettable film in the public’s consciousness.
The latest union hot spot is a Trader Joe’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As at union drives at companies like Starbucks and Amazon, workers say Trader Joe’s has fired a key organizer for union activism. We talked to the fired worker about the campaign.
Rich in resources that it exports to the West, Nigeria today is blighted by shocking rates of inequality. With an elite working in the service of foreign capital, Nigerian workers and raw materials are a key site of exploitation for global capitalists.
A “clean power” group with ties to the fossil fuel industry is touting a new bill, backed by senators Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin, that will accelerate oil and gas pipeline construction — and claiming it as a climate victory.
Yesterday’s Italian election brought victory for Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Fratelli d’Italia — and record-low turnout. The opposition between technocrats and the far right is the symptom of a deeper decline.
Dozens of people were arrested in Britain for taking part in peaceful protests against the new king. Two of them spoke to Jacobin about why they oppose the monarchy — and how the British state trampled on their dissent.