Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
Forty-five years ago, under a cloak of secrecy, Operation Condor was officially launched: a global campaign of violent repression against the Latin American left by the region’s quasi-fascist military dictatorships. The US government not only knew about the program — it helped to engineer it.
In a widely publicized article, Jake Smyth and Kenny Graham, two self-styled “Hospo Gurus” from Sydney, derided Australia’s hospitality workers as “whining” and “self-entitled.” Hospitality workers invite these shock jocks to take a look in the mirror.
Smart union organizing tactics can produce incremental growth for unions at some points, or at least slow decline. But those tactics don’t lead to substantial increases in overall union density — those increases happen quickly, in moments of upsurge. Labor and the Left need to be ready for those moments.
The United States is not a failed state — just ask any American capitalist. But we desperately need something better for everyone else.
In 1990s Ontario, austerity measures provoked a long series of strikes and demonstrations known as the Days of Action. The high points of that mobilization can serve as a model for struggles to come as we face post-pandemic cutbacks.
Judith Jarvis Thomson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Her justly famous essay in defense of abortion rights is a model for how to combine philosophical rigor with political engagement in the real world.
Joe Biden’s likely nominee to head the powerful Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, called for cuts to Social Security, saying, “we need to put both entitlements on the table as well as taxes.”
Despite some promising signs, Canada’s auto industry is not experiencing a full rebirth. Any revitalization of the industry, and any transition to green manufacturing, will always be unstable under capitalism, because private auto corporations don’t make decisions with workers and the planet in mind.
Marxist historian Vijay Prashad talks about his new book Washington Bullets and the history of US-backed coups, from the post–World War II period to the recent successful right-wing coup in Bolivia.
With Donald Trump’s defeat, the planet dodged a giant meteor. Now, it needs protection from Joe Biden, whose energy secretary short list includes fracking fanboy and enemy of the Green New Deal, Ernest Moniz.
In the working-class districts of Naples, Diego Maradona was more than their local team’s star player. He was a son of the slums who wanted to “put six goals past the boss” — and stood up for the dignity of their city.
Friedrich Engels was far more than Karl Marx’s benefactor, or the custodian of his intellectual legacy. When they met as young men in the 1840s, Engels was already an accomplished political writer, who first articulated some of the basic concepts of what became “Marxism.”
Two hundred years since his birth, Friedrich Engels is often considered a man rooted in the culture of 19th-century thought. But if not all his predictions ring true, his critique of the rising industrial capitalism offers penetrating insights into our own present.
Friedrich Engels once wrote that he played “second fiddle” to Marx. On the 200th anniversary of his birth, we should remember the profound influence that Engels had on his friend and comrade, as well as his own theoretical contributions.
Former government officials Tony Blinken, Michele Flournoy, and Lloyd Austin may run Biden’s national security agencies — their firm is telling investors it expects to profit off ties to those officials.
In the years after Karl Marx’s death, Friedrich Engels wrote that a rising socialist movement could now advance by means other than violent insurrection. This didn’t mean an embrace of existing institutions — rather, it meant recovering the mass democracy experimented with during the French Revolution.
Growing up in the south of Iran, our distraction from life was football, our passion was football, and our heroes were footballers. And it seemed at the time that our heroes were immortal. Rest in peace, Diego Maradona.
Friedrich Engels was just 22 when he was sent to England to help run the family firm. His father hoped this would draw him away from radical ideas — but in industrial Manchester, young Friedrich instead saw the suffering, and the power, of a growing working class.
Friedrich Engels was born 200 years ago today. We should thank him for helping out his friend Karl Marx — but also for the critique of capitalism he produced in his own right.
John Carpenter’s movies provide visions of societies falling apart. No wonder his work is resonating now more than ever.