All Roads Lead to Ruin
Sunil Amrith’s The Burning Earth takes us on a gloomy and bleak tour of how, in the name of progress, Western empires made a mess of everything.
19556 Articles by: Karl Leffme
Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
The First French Revolution Happened During the Middle Ages
Four centuries before the storming of the Bastille, the French peasantry rose up in a great revolt known as the Jacquerie. France’s ruling class drowned the revolt in blood and demonized all those who took part in it.
Retranslating Marx’s Capital
The translators and coeditors of a new edition of Karl Marx’s Capital spoke to the political theorist Wendy Brown about the significance of their undertaking and what this historic text has to offer in the 21st century.
J. D. Vance Is Trying to Push Citizens United Further
J. D. Vance and other Republicans are spearheading a lawsuit that aims to get the Supreme Court to move beyond its Citizens United decision and tear up some of the last remaining rules designed to limit the influence of money in politics.
No One Seems to Have an Answer to Germany’s Far Right
Electoral gains for the Alternative für Deutschland have shown that the far right can win in Germany. Mainstream parties are touting broad coalitions to keep the AfD from power — but they show little sign they can resist its antiestablishment messaging.
Egypt’s Henri Curiel Was a Revolutionary Beyond Borders
Before his assassination in 1978, Henri Curiel organized a solidarity network that supported revolutionary movements around the world. Curiel’s background as a Jewish communist from Egypt illuminates the history of left-wing politics in the Arab world.
The Mpox Outbreak Shows We’ve Learned Nothing From COVID
Vaccines have started to trickle into the Democratic Republic of Congo after a lethal mpox outbreak, but it’s nowhere near enough. The latest health crisis demonstrates once again the perils of relying on Big Pharma to produce vaccines.
Private Equity’s Lucrative Takeover of Minor League Baseball
Private equity firm Silver Lake is eating up more and more Minor League Baseball teams — and reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies as a result.
The Golden Age of Wisconsin Socialism
At its peak in the 1920s and early ’30s, the Socialist Party in Wisconsin used both confrontational tactics and pragmatic alliances with nonsocialists to make legislative advances. It’s a model that may hold promise for socialist legislators today.
Big Tech Is Lobbying to Keep Its Stranglehold on Local News
California legislators were considering bills that would have forced Google, Meta, and other tech firms to pay ongoing fees for earning billions from using news outlets’ content. Big Tech’s lobbying and strong-arm tactics helped kill the legislation.
In Italy, Tourism Is a Cash Cow for a Rentier Class
A recent strike by beach operators prompted ridicule in Italy, where they are widely seen as a protected group that lives off rents from public land. Their lobbying power reflects not just Italy’s reliance on tourism but the narrow interests it benefits.
Autoworkers Have Made Both Candidates Pay Attention
Anyone wanting substantive discussion of jobs in last night’s debate was disappointed. But because of the UAW’s organizing and strikes over the past year, both Trump and Harris felt compelled to insist they were the best candidate for autoworkers.
Justice Warriors Is Funny, but in a Way That Hurts
The indie comic Justice Warriors: Vote Harder is a heartening sign that genuinely subversive political satire remains possible, even in a world that feels like satire itself sometimes. And like the best of the genre, it hits a little too close to home.
The Apple Ruling Is a Setback for Multinational Tax Dodgers
The European Court of Justice has ordered Apple to pay €13 billion in back taxes to the Irish state. Apple’s long history of creative accounting is an object lesson in how the world’s biggest firms manage to shrink their tax bills.
Understanding the Politics of Israel’s General Strike
Last week, Israel’s largest union called a general strike in support of a hostage deal and cease-fire. Opposition from conservative members, the judiciary, and Benjamin Netanyahu put an end to the strike, which exposed deep fissures within Israeli society.
What Does Kamala Harris Want to Do as President, Exactly?
Onstage at the presidential debate last night, Kamala Harris gave the kind of substanceless performance that has characterized her campaign so far, seemingly designed to keep the country from knowing what she would actually get done in the White House.
This Can’t Be It
In last night’s debate, Kamala Harris rightly insisted that much of the country is exhausted by and ready to move on from Trump. But we deserve to move on to something better and more substantive than what Harris had to offer.
There Is No Such Thing as Spontaneous Worker Organizing
The 1930s saw the biggest labor upsurge in US history. Just like today, there was economic discontent and a general pro-labor atmosphere. But labor didn’t just passively benefit. Instead, it saw its opportunity to act, building unions for the long haul.
We Spoke to the Palestinian American Refused a DNC Speech
The Uncommitted movement put forward Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman to speak on the horrors in Gaza at the DNC last month. The party refused to let her speak. We talked with her about the refusal and the future of the Democrats and Palestine.
RIP James Earl Jones
Few American acting careers have made such lasting impressions on so many as James Earl Jones’s.