Opal Lee is a writer.
Workers’ fear of new artificial intelligence technology makes sense: that technology has the potential to eliminate their jobs. But if we didn’t live under capitalism, AI could be used to liberate us from drudgery rather than hurl us into poverty.
Responding to the Inflation Reduction Act, the EU has unveiled its own green industrial plan. It has little to do with real decarbonization — but hands public money to big business, fueling a global race among “clean-tech” oligopolies.
Over the past two centuries, US imperial interventions have had a devastating impact on the peoples of Latin America. Those interventions have also played a crucial role in US domestic politics, enabling new power blocs to cohere and develop their strategies.
The latest UN climate report was just released, and it’s brought the usual doom loop of grave headlines as emissions keep rising. The way out isn’t getting people to “believe the science” but building a pro-worker climate politics that can win power.
Under existing law, Joe Biden and his health secretary have the power to lower the price of medicines developed with taxpayer funds. They’re refusing to do so for the $180,000-a-year cancer drug Xtandi — after a furious lobbying campaign by Big Pharma.
The wildest fantasy of hypercapitalist ideologues isn’t to expand democracy but to avoid its reach or even snuff it out.
After Silicon Valley Bank’s near collapse, commentators rightly focused on the unfairness of state intervention for an institution that had acted irresponsibly. But little attention was paid to the role that banks like SVB play in financing US militarism.
Twenty years ago, George W. Bush and Tony Blair lied their way into invading Iraq. The mainstream media cheered them along.
Donald Trump has implored conservatives to hit the streets if he ends up indicted in New York. It might be cause for worry — if Trump had any ability to mobilize mass numbers of supporters anymore.
Howard Schultz has yet again left the top executive position at Starbucks. He’s carefully cultivated an image as a progressive CEO. In reality, he has spent his tenure viciously trying to destroy the Starbucks workers’ union.
Public school in the US is already provided universally, free of charge. There’s no reason we shouldn’t provide free lunch to every child at school as well.
Will Sommer, author of the new book Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America, explains where QAnon came from, why it isn’t going away anytime soon, and how material deprivation helps drive conspiracy theories.
Workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have been on strike for nearly half a year. Despite a recent assault on two of the strikers and continued intransigence by the ultrawealthy family who owns the paper, they are digging in for the long haul.
In November, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against Verizon, alleging that the company illegally fired an employee in retaliation for union activities. Now that employee is getting his job back.
Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as SNP leader has exposed deep-rooted problems with the party’s centralized, secretive organizational culture. The contest to succeed her could result in a marked rightward shift with profound consequences for Scottish politics.
Most French people oppose raising the pension age, and there was no parliamentary majority for the change. While the reform has now been railroaded through the National Assembly, mobilized opponents see a chance to finish off an unpopular government.
Australians under 40 face an uncertain future and lower living standards than their parents or grandparents enjoyed. To bring us back from the brink, Australia needs to end the neoliberal consensus.
The three big insulin manufacturers recently announced some reductions in prices. But the price changes didn’t come from corporate beneficence — they came from public and government pressure. And they don’t go nearly far enough.
NBA players are well-paid today, but it wasn’t always so. As a new labor history of the league shows, pro basketball players had to unionize and threaten strikes to get out from under the thumb of owners and win a bigger piece of the financial pie.
Five years before customers fled Silicon Valley Bank en masse, federal regulators acknowledged that the nature of the bank’s deposits made it especially susceptible to such bank runs — but did nothing to reduce the risk.