Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
When Joseph Yun was the chief US negotiator in the Pacific, he also led talks that are likely to deliver a lucrative advantage to the consulting firm where he currently works and the powerful defense contractor it represents in the region.
The terrifying escalation of attacks between Israel and Iran is a predictable result of Benjamin Netanyahu’s clear desire to start a war with Iran — enabled, like everything else Netanyahu has done since October 7, by Joe Biden.
Author Édouard Louis was asked if he thought someone lacking his experience of homophobia could stage a theater adaptation of one of his books. In his response, he argues against a restrictive idea of identity as a property some of us own.
Liberals believe that the greatest obstacle to necessary climate intervention is a lack of social awareness and professional leadership. The real problem is the absence of a militant, worker-led climate stabilization program.
The Labour Party’s online voting system appears open to tampering — and some left-wing candidates claim it’s been systematically rigged. If true, these allegations would mark a new low for party democracy under Keir Starmer.
The small wars waged by European empires generated arguments for the legitimacy of state violence that remain in use today. Lauren Benton’s new book, They Called it Peace, finds that the era of gunboat policing anticipated the age of the predator drone.
The 1937 Little Steel strike is often dismissed as a failure and relegated to a footnote. But it was a courageous organizing effort and a crucial moment in US labor history — revealing the limits of the New Deal order and the deepest dynamics of capitalism.
The South has long been the Achilles heel of the American labor movement. The United Auto Workers are trying to make inroads — including with a heated contract fight between workers and bosses at the multinational corporation Daimler Truck North America.
Nothing Joe Biden has done to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu’s brutality against the people of Gaza has worked. Biden has proven too weak, indecisive, and indulgent of Israel to even induce Netanyahu into making small tweaks to his behavior.
Today, Yanis Varoufakis was banned not just from visiting Germany but from participating in video conferences about politics hosted in Germany. Here’s the plea for humanity and justice in Palestine that got him banned.
The small handful of ultrawealthy winners are firmly ensconced in their positions of privilege in power. Yet so many of them seem haunted by the possibility that maybe they don’t deserve it.
Ken Loach’s longtime screenwriter Paul Laverty talks to Jacobin about their final collaboration on The Old Oak, which follows Syrian refugees and ex-miners in Northeast England, and why the working class remains the last hope for justice in the world.
In 2023, Pfizer made more than $27 billion in revenue and paid zero federal income tax. Like many other large US companies, it took advantage of Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law, which widened existing loopholes and set off a tax-avoidance bonanza.
We know the rich are getting richer, but what exactly are they doing with all those riches? Sociologist Ashley Mears examined one site of elite consumption: the world of VIP clubs and its rituals of garish waste and exploitation of women.
San Francisco’s groundbreaking Union at Home legislation encourages tenants to organize in their buildings the way employees organize at work. Housing activists in Berkeley are hoping their city will follow suit — but landlords are pushing back.
Netflix’s new series Ripley, the latest iteration of Patricia Highsmith’s murderous con man from The Talented Mr Ripley, is an arty, inert snooze. Its flat portrayal of the title character doesn’t come close to the novels or other fantastic adaptations.
Today post-1945 Italy is often presented as an age of anti-fascist hegemony. But Cold War Italy was no paradise for the Left — and neorealist filmmakers and writers had to resist Church censorship and right-wing hegemony over the country’s culture.
Some Christian churches have moved on to their next lives.
Right-wing populism’s disdain for the opinions of experts can be mistaken for the Left’s scorn for technocracy. But democratic principles and mass politics are the real antidote to the appropriation of power by experts.