Being Against Capitalism Isn’t Enough
Socialists need more than a critique of capitalism. We need a concrete account of how a socialist economy could work — and make ordinary people’s lives better.
26 Article(s) by: Mike Beggs
Mike Beggs is an editor at Jacobin and a lecturer in political economy at the University of Sydney.
Economic Democracy Is at the Heart of Socialism
Democracy should not end when the workday begins. Workers deserve a say over how their workplaces are run — and a claim on the wealth they create.
We Can Craft a Workable Workplace Democracy for a Socialist Future
The structure of democratic firms within a socialist framework might clash with broader goals such as balanced growth and equitable income. We will need a model that can harmonize firm-level democracy with macroeconomic expansion and a solidaristic wage.
Viral Socialism Now!
Class struggle will shape how this crisis plays out, and the world that’s created in its wake.
The Global Corporate Tax Scam Is Under Pressure
For decades, multinational companies have used fraudulent accounting techniques to evade corporate taxes with impunity. Thanks to populist pressure and national rivalries, international talks are now underway to explore reforms. The risk now is that reform ideas will be watered down, and poor countries excluded from the benefits.
Economics for the Socialist Autodidact
Here’s what you should read.
The Minsky Millennium
In 2008, Hyman Minsky finally had his moment. But he was miscast as a prophet of financial collapse. The real “Minsky moment” was the bailout, not the crash.
The Dumb Money
The definitive explanation of why Bitcoin is stupid.
The Keynesian Counterrevolution
What is it about capitalism that makes Keynesianism a horizon even would-be revolutionaries have trouble seeing past?
Jobs For All
In an age of precarity, a left-wing demand for full employment could be massively popular. But liberalism can't deliver it.
The Void Stares Back
Has the decline of the mass party caused the decline of democracy itself?
Why Class Matters
Erik Olin Wright on class, socialism, and the meaning of Marxism.
A General Without an Army
For all Piketty’s mainstream respectability, it is only the radical left and the labor movement — not treasuries and central banks — that can push his program.
Not Another Piketty Symposium
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been covered ad nauseam. But how it will change the ideological landscape remains to be seen.
Don’t Mention the War
With a vacuous social vision, economics confronts the “return of the social question” woefully unprepared.
Dollar Diplomacy
Money crosses the divide between states and markets. Capitalism.
Jacobin Book Club: The Making of Global Capitalism
Over the next couple of weeks we will run the inaugural Jacobin Book Club seminar on The Making of Global Capitalism.
Debt: The First 500 Pages
We need more grand histories. But 5,000 years of anecdotes is no substitute for real political economy.