Opal Lee is a writer.
Long before Bretton Woods, powerful capitalist nations perfected the art of exploiting other countries without formally colonizing them. They’ve done this through a rigged international economy, governed by institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.
Thanks to Nike CEO Phil Knight’s cash, the ripple effects of the George Floyd protests and the COVID-19 pandemic, and a deepening housing crisis, Oregon is on the brink of electing its first Republican governor since the 1980s.
Effective altruist Peter Singer argues that individuals should do more to alleviate the world’s poverty. But his emphasis on giving to charity disregards the structural causes of inequality, suggesting that nothing fundamental can be changed.
Over the last week, record rains have again caused flooding in Australia, this time impacting Victoria. Although the disaster was easy to predict, the authorities took few preventative measures, and now residents are expected to bear the costs.
Doctors’ unions are rare in the US, and unions comprised of both physicians and other medical providers are even rarer. But in North Carolina, a group of medical providers has successfully organized an interprofessional union.
A new congressional report commissioned by Bernie Sanders finds that the 1 percent now own one-third of all wealth, while the bottom half of Americans hold only 2 percent. It’s another sign of the slide into oligarchy that Sanders has warned about for years.
There’s a disconnect between Western leaders’ increasingly hawkish public discourse and the quiet consensus among their military experts that any armed encounter with Russia would likely end in a nuclear catastrophe.
Tory British PM Liz Truss resigned this morning, and her downfall is well worth celebrating. But make no mistake: her government was brought down by a revolt of financial capital, of the same kind that would threaten a progressive economic agenda.
On Monday, ballots were sent to United Auto Workers members for the union’s first direct election of top officers. The vote gives rank-and-file members the chance to elect officers who will break with decades of corrupt, business-friendly union leadership.
Following Conservative British prime minister Liz Truss’s U-turn on tax cuts for the rich, the government is now set to attempt sharp spending cuts. More austerity would mean further punishing the poor and crippling already-starved public services.
Last week workers at four different Amazon warehouse across the US walked out to protest the company’s low pay and brutal working conditions. The actions were timed to coincide with Amazon’s Prime Day promotional sales rush.
As local newspapers shut down across the country, partisan mudslinging masquerading as news has filled in the vacuum. The Republicans are trailblazers in “pink slime journalism,” but the Democrats are following their lead.
The Salvadoran civil war didn’t just see US-trained-and-financed far-right forces commit endless war crimes — it also ripped children from families, an unknown number of whom never found their way back to their parents.
Republican Senate nominee Ted Budd helped clear the way for a controversial 2019 bank merger — then took big campaign cash and loans from the resulting financial behemoth.
Policymakers who have belatedly recognized the peril of climate change now promote incremental, market-based solutions to the crisis. But there’s no way we can prevent ecological disaster without tackling the vested interests at the heart of global capitalism.
Video games are the most popular entertainment media on the planet — and one of the American war machine’s most effective propaganda tools.
New Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson comes from a party called the Moderates. But his majority relies on the votes of the far-right Sweden Democrats — and their pressure is already visible in his plans for government.
Intel Corp. successfully pushed for congressional approval of a $76 billion subsidy for the chip industry. Now, it is laying off workers in an austerity regime while continuing to give shareholders massive payouts.
Recent polls suggest that the Democrats’ sidelining of economic issues to go all in on the Capitol riot hasn’t borne fruit. While voters are most concerned about inflation, they think the party’s main priority is January 6, which barely registers.
Neoliberal policymakers present “green finance” as a market-based solution for climate chaos. But the investment scenarios they’ve devised for our transition beyond fossil fuels are really a form of economic planning — one that the Left should take control of.