Philly’s City Worker Strike Has the Garbage Piling Up
Philadelphia’s blue-collar municipal workers have entered their second week on strike. The city’s lowest-paid employees, AFSCME District Council 33 members are demanding a living wage.
21040 Article(s) by: Julia Goodman
The US Government Is Underfunding Flood Warning Systems
Despite the rising threat of climate disasters like last week’s deadly flash flood in Texas, US lawmakers continue to underfund the federal government program supporting a nationwide flood warning system.
A Tale of Two BBBs
The enactment of Donald Trump’s horrendous Big Beautiful Bill is an indictment of the Democrats’ decision to split their agenda into two separate bills in 2021. It’s a reminder that Build Back Better’s failure wasn’t guaranteed — it was a political choice.
In Shifty, Adam Curtis Charts the UK’s Unraveling
Director Adam Curtis’s latest BBC docuseries, Shifty, follows Britain’s late 20th-century retreat into make-believe as managed decline tears everything apart. It’s the familiar Curtis aesthetic, but still as powerful and haunting as ever.
In Finland, the Left Can Meme — and Win Elections
The online right loves to say the Left can’t meme. Alma Tuuva — a meme account admin recently elected in Finland — talked to Jacobin about why the libertarian right is so influential on social media and how she’s getting her anti-capitalist message across.
Red-Baiting Zohran Mamdani Won’t Work
No one should be surprised that Zohran Mamdani supports democratic control over the economy, the end goal of socialism. But he won because he combined socialist politics with practical solutions to the cost-of-living crisis facing working people.
America’s Brutal Capitalist Class Tamed Its Labor Movement
Across Europe, trade unions have a long history of making political demands for universal health care and benefits. The unique brutality of the US capitalist class bred a labor movement that has often limited itself to being a private insurance provider.
Bipartisan Austerity Logic Set the Stage for the GOP Budget
Donald Trump’s budget is a particularly cruel manifestation of the bipartisan consensus of the preceding decades that has refused to treat health care and other basic necessities for a dignified life as public goods.
Zohran Mamdani Can Learn From Paris’s Housing Victories
As Paris’s deputy mayor, Ian Brossat massively expanded the French capital’s public housing stock. He spoke to Jacobin about the left-wing city hall’s record and what lessons it might have for Zohran Mamdani in New York.
Sam Altman’s AI Empire Relies on Brutal Labor Exploitation
Firms like OpenAI are developing AI in a way that has deeply ominous implications for workers in many different fields. The current trajectory of AI can only be changed through direct confrontation with the overweening power of the tech giants.
Student Palestine Solidarity Activism Proves Hard to Squash
Donald Trump’s administration has cracked down hard on Palestine solidarity activism. But despite profound repression, many students on American campuses continue to demand that universities stop investing in companies that profit from the destruction of Gaza.
Albania’s for Sale, and Jared Kushner’s Buying
Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has sealed a $1.4 billion deal to redevelop Albania’s largest island. Long a protected area, now it’s set to be paved over to build a luxury resort.
Populism Was Born From a Rural-Urban Alliance
In 1880s Texas, farmers and factory workers discovered they had the same enemy: corporate capitalists. Their alliance birthed American populism and offers lessons for today’s working class divided by false urban-rural antagonisms.
The “Magabundance” Agenda Is Creating Strange Bedfellows
Supply-side progressivism is forging unexpected alliances between populist Democrats, business-friendly centrists, and MAGA Republicans around militarized growth. The result is a post-neoliberal politics that accommodates authoritarian populism.
Yanis Varoufakis on the Legacy of Greece’s Oxi Referendum
Ten years ago today, the people of Greece voted decisively in a referendum to reject an EU austerity program. Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis speaks to us about how it happened and of the betrayal that followed.
This July 4, Let’s Resolve to Win an Actual Democracy
The US government is already preparing massive celebrations of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for next July 4, the country’s semiquincentennial. It’s high time to scrap the antidemocratic system the framers bequeathed to us.
Shulamith Firestone’s Postmortem for Radical Feminism
Shulamith Firestone’s writing captured the utopian spirit of radical feminism. In her last published book, Airless Spaces, she took stock of that movement’s failures amid the crisis of care unleashed by the destruction of the welfare state.
Christianity and Sex Have Always Had an Awkward Relationship
The latest work by renowned historian Diarmaid MacCulloch tackles Christian attitudes to sex over the centuries. Modern-day Christians who talk about traditional values usually don’t know how changeable their tradition has been.
ICE Is About to Get More Money Than It Can Spend
Donald Trump’s budget bill is set to make ICE the single largest federal law enforcement agency in US history. The mass deportations the far right fantasizes about will remain unrealistic, but not for lack of funds.
How Canada Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dysfunction
Canada’s democracy is in crisis but Canadians don’t seem to care. What looks like complacency, however, may actually be the result of decades of institutional drift and managed inertia.