Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
Stanley Aronowitz, who died last month at age 88, brought people together for critical, imaginative thinking not limited to narrow topics or narrow approaches. You didn’t have to be credentialed or famous to get his attention — you just had to want a better world.
A warehouse safety bill proposed in the California legislature could force Amazon to be transparent about its productivity quotas — and threaten the aura of invincibility and omnipotence the company uses to intimidate and silence workers.
The Supreme Court has chosen to side with landlords over the millions of renters on the edge of eviction. The tidal wave of pain that will soon descend on the nation is hard to comprehend.
Chicago recently made headlines for turning public parks space over to Amazon package lockers. But those lockers are only one example of Amazon and public officials using public-private “partnerships” to give away public resources and harm communities.
New York fans are right to boo the Mets. But they’re booing the wrong people.
As they come to resemble corporations, universities increasingly wield the kind of power and influence that were hallmarks of ruthless employers in isolated company towns. Historian Davarian Baldwin calls this ominous trend the “rise of the UniverCity.”
Ed Asner was an immensely talented actor. He was also an uncompromising union militant who fought for lower-paid actors and against Ronald Reagan’s murderous interventions in Central America.
Lee “Scratch” Perry, who died last week at the age of 85, wasn’t just a sonic genius — he was also a politicized producer whose work was full of demands for justice.
Gun violence is a major problem in the US. But many attempts to reform gun laws involve more criminal statutes and longer prison sentences — “solutions” that only make the problem of mass incarceration worse.
At Amazon, big organizing campaigns by established unions — like the one in Bessemer, Alabama, this year — are only the most visible face of labor organizing. The other is Amazonians United, a militant shop-floor group with a presence around the country.
Bernie Sanders, who’s fighting to pass his ambitious $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill in the Senate, spent the past weekend on the road, doing something his Democratic colleagues seldom do: selling his ideas in swing states.
A historic symbol of Italian communism, Livorno’s football club went bust this summer after more than a century of professional competition. But fans and former players are fighting to keep the team alive — and take control of it for themselves.
Vaccine mandates can help. But the most unifying way for workers to push for safer workplaces is by fighting for paid sick leave for all.
China hawks love to fulminate about how Beijing’s military strength is growing and will challenge the United States in the coming decades. But China’s military is vastly more likely to be fighting climate change than American soldiers.
Martin Luther King argued that the desire for individual greatness marred US society. But he also believed that desire could be channeled into collective action, with everyone acting as “drum majors” for justice against the “triple evils” of racism, capitalism, and militarism.
The country and the planet are engulfed in climate disasters. But the consensus at one of the country’s biggest fossil-fuel summits is that only the fossil-fuel capitalists that caused this crisis can be trusted to save us.
The legendary actor Ed Asner, who died at 91 this week, was an unflagging supporter of socialist causes. And he paid a price for his leftism, taking a stand against Ronald Reagan’s bloody Central America interventions and losing a show over it.
In Graz, Austria’s second-largest city, Communists have ridden a wave of working-class discontent to become the main challenger to the ruling conservatives.
Raymond Williams would not have claimed to have found all the answers. But we should remember him as one of the most thoughtful socialist writers of the 20th century.
