Fassbinder and the Red Army Faction
As his fellow West German radicals began to embrace violence in the 1970s, legendary filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder decided to celebrate another path for emancipation: class struggle in the workplace.
383 Articles by: Meagan Day
Meagan Day is an associate editor at Jacobin. She is the coauthor of Bigger than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism.
The Problem Isn’t Classism, It’s Class
Under capitalism, prejudice against workers is common. But it only adds insult to a deeper, more profound injury.
Scabby the Rat Lives, But His Enemies Never Sleep
The labor movement’s iconic inflatable rat has survived a pathetic judicial attempt at extermination. But though Scabby is free, unions remain hamstrung by the oppressive federal prohibition on secondary boycotts encoded in the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act.
Elites Profit From “Nonprofit” Charter Schools
Charter schools don’t improve education outcomes. But they do funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of unscrupulous — often criminal — school operators. It’s a national disgrace that needs to end.
Biden Just Turned Down a Golden Opportunity to End Vaccine Apartheid
Joe Biden publicly supports proposals to waive vaccine patents to help end the COVID-19 pandemic. But so far he appears to have no intention of spending political capital to make those proposals a reality.
The Olympics Is a Racket
The world’s top athletes coming together in a spirit of friendly competition is a beautiful vision. But the Olympics have become a machine for the ruthless extraction of profit at the expense of working-class people.
A New Texas Law Puts a Bounty on Abortion Care Providers’ Heads
Texas’s new “heartbeat bill” offers private citizens $10,000 to successfully sue organizations that help women get abortions. It’s a public subsidy for the anti-abortion movement that harms working-class women.
The Supreme Court Just Dealt a Blow to Farmworkers — And All Other Workers, Too
Agricultural bosses won a Supreme Court case barring California unions from talking to farmworkers on the job site. It’s a major setback not just for farmworkers but all other workers, too.
India Walton’s Historic Victory in Buffalo Needs Defending
Buffalo mayor Byron Brown is launching a write-in campaign against socialist primary winner India Walton. Brown has bipartisan establishment support and organized money. Walton will need the Left to rally to her defense.
Bob Marley’s Peace Gesture Supported Radical Change in Jamaica
An iconic 1978 image shows Bob Marley uniting left- and right-wing party leaders on stage, calling for a truce. Misread as apolitical, his gesture was actually meant to rescue a socialist political movement in danger.
China’s Downwardly Mobile Millennials Are Throwing in the Towel
Exhausted and alienated Chinese students and white-collar workers are “lying flat” to register discontent with the status quo. For their protest to produce change, they’ll need to transform individual passivity into collective activity.
In the Era of Decolonization, West Indies Cricketers Refused to “Grovel”
The 1970s in the Caribbean were marked by major political and social upheaval. Cricket became a primary vehicle for asserting West Indian independence — and defeating England was paramount.
Houston, We Have a Labor Dispute
It has long been rumored that a strike in outer space occurred in 1973. Astronauts say that isn’t quite true, but the real story is still a testament to the potential of strikes — or even just the threat of strikes — to shift the balance of power in the workplace.
There Once Was a Socialist College in the Rural South
Commonwealth College was a radical experiment in socialist education nestled deep in the Arkansas mountains. It taught and trained over 1,500 worker-activists before becoming an early casualty of American anti-communism.
The Rich Breathe Easier Than the Poor
A new study shows that disparities in pulmonary health between the rich and poor have been widening for six decades, setting the stage for vastly unequal, devastating outcomes during the pandemic. The rich quite literally breathe easier than the rest of us.
Capitalism Has a Compulsive Hoarding Problem
Pathological hoarding, now recognized as a mental disorder, is a fitting malady for an economic system predicated on the compulsive accumulation of profits — achieved, in practice, by flooding the world with stuff.
Rachel Kushner Wants to Radicalize the Novel
Novelist Rachel Kushner, author of The Hard Crowd and The Flamethrowers, speaks to Jacobin about bourgeois novels, Italian Marxism, Palestinian resistance, the George Floyd uprising, and Bernie Sanders.
Unions Can Keep Workers From Falling Prey to the Far Right
The center has no convincing way to account for unemployment and low wages. Workers are compelled to choose between the solutions provided by the Right and the Left — and unionization can make all the difference in how they choose.
Fentanyl Is the Genie That Won’t Go Back in the Bottle
Two bandmates saw their sons both overdose on fentanyl in the space of a few years. The synthetic opioid crisis is more out of control than many realize, and the coronavirus pandemic has only made it worse.
The Nazis Stole May Day, But Socialists Took It Back
To win over German workers and replace their socialist loyalties with fascism, the Third Reich made a Nazi version of May Day a national holiday. But the real International Workers’ Day is the one that lives on today.