Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
New York’s jails have become a focus of COVID-19, with 103 inmates and 80 staff testing positive already. One Rikers Island detainee told Jacobin about the outbreak in the prison — and the inhumanity of trapping people in a hotbed of infection.
Spain’s requisitioning of private hospitals is a fine example of government mobilization to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. Yet the country’s overwhelmed wards also show how neoliberal policies have chipped away at public health care — starving hospitals of resources while siphoning them off to paid-for alternatives.
It’s been a week since I was laid off, and my husband is out of work, too. Today, I need a rent suspension. Tomorrow, I need a homes guarantee.
Instacart workers are walking off the job today in protest of what they say are dangerous working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. We spoke with one of them.
Amazon workers are preparing to walk out of a Staten Island warehouse, claiming that COVID-19 is rampant there. “My job description says have a high school diploma and lift fifty pounds. It doesn’t say risk my life working during a pandemic.”
The Australian government is preaching unity in the face of coronavirus but its emergency measures, which protect business interests above all else, are set only to deepen inequality.
People tend not to rebel against their oppressors, because the cost is simply too high. But sometimes they do, overcoming extraordinary odds — and understanding how and why rebellions like the Civil Rights Movement happen is crucial for socialists today.
Instead of letting Amazon use coronavirus to dominate even more of the economy, the company should be nationalized and reoriented to serve the public good instead of predatory capitalism.
The Russian provocateur Eduard Limonov venerated “talented misfits” and claimed to offer a galvanizing cause for hopeless youths. But his politics were built on Russian revanchism — a “National Bolshevism” combining fascist imagery with a claim to restore Soviet grandeur.
The bitter mid-20th century struggle waged by Canada’s socialists to achieve single-payer health care holds lessons for Americans today: all the predictions of disaster we hear today were made back then — yet Canadian Medicare is now the country’s most widely cherished institution.
The COVID-19 crisis has shown that markets alone can’t meet our societies’ fundamental needs. But state measures to ward off economic collapse are just the start of a battle over the future — one where the principles of solidarity must be extended from health care to all aspects of society.
Texas and Ohio have ordered a stop to abortions, saying they’re not essential medical services. Other states will follow. Right-wing forces are using the pandemic as a pretext to crack down dramatically on abortion rights. We can’t let them.
The United States could have followed the example set by countries like Denmark, which have guaranteed workers’ wages during the crisis. Instead, America has set itself up for a devastating and unprecedented wave of layoffs.
Elected mayor of Vermont’s biggest city, Bernie Sanders found himself stymied by an obstructionist local establishment at every turn — until he and the movement behind him started fighting back and winning.
The coronavirus epidemic has shown the complete bankruptcy of neoliberalism. But the neoliberal order won’t be toppled if we don’t give it a hard push.
Uber announced it will give its drivers two weeks paid leave — but only if they test positive for coronavirus. We talked to a veteran Uber driver in Philadelphia about his decision to stop driving and the company’s pathetic response to the pandemic.
As housing becomes more and more unaffordable, liberal mayors have jumped to recognize the crisis. At the same time, they’re fully committed to the status quo, giving carte blanche to developers at the expense of legitimately affordable housing.
The fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 threatened Washington’s relationship with one of its most valuable client states. But since then, US military aid has been used to build up a new machinery of repression that’s strangling the hopes of the revolution.
In chaotic times, New York governor Andrew Cuomo wants to convince you he is the calm, competent leader you need. It’s been effective — so effective you might miss that even in a pandemic, Cuomo is fighting to protect the rich and impose austerity, including devastating Medicaid cuts, on everyone else.
The coronavirus shock has shaken the world’s stock markets, imposing the need for massive state bailouts. But the measures to deal with the crisis risk spurring an authoritarian controlled capitalism — one that protects corporate interests while offloading the costs onto the rest of us.