The System of Capitalism Has Always Been Built on Violence
Capitalism is often presented as synonymous with peaceful exchange. But the system has always reproduced itself through violence in defense of private property and power.
19197 Articles by: Rob McIntyre
Rob McIntyre is a United Workers Union delegate at the Toll Kmart warehouse in Truganina.
“The PRO Act Could Give Us the Ability to Collectively Bargain”
Rideshare drivers across California rallied in support of the PRO Act, a major labor law reform bill that could transform working conditions for gig workers. We spoke with one of the organizers about how Proposition 22 misled drivers, why gig workers need collective-bargaining rights, and the difficulties of organizing these workers.
Nina Turner: “Good Ideas Are Not Enough, We Need to Marry Our Ideas to Power”
Former state senator and Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign cochair Nina Turner is running for Congress. In an interview with Jacobin, Turner reflects on the heartbreaks and new opportunities of both Bernie campaigns, the left agenda she will bring to Capitol Hill, and why policies like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal are racial justice issues.
The March Action and the Tragedy of German Communism
A hundred years ago today, the German Communists tried to spark a revolution, but their would-be uprising ended in disaster. In this extract from a recently discovered memoir, Rosa Luxemburg’s biographer Paul Frölich describes the failure of the 1921 March Action and its impact.
The US-Australia Alliance Is a Charter for Imperialism, Not a Defensive Pact
Prime Minister Scott Morrison claims that the alliance with Washington is crucial to keep Australia safe from aggressors. But a look at history shows this to be a myth. The alliance has always been a vehicle for Australia’s rulers’ imperial ambitions.
The Democratic Party’s Real War in 2020 Was Against Bernie Sanders
In their sequel to 2016’s Shattered, Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen give a behind-the-scenes look at Joe Biden’s 2020 run — a campaign even more inept than Hillary Clinton’s, driven first and foremost by defeating Bernie Sanders, and saved in the end only by blind luck and historical accident.
Last Week’s Bolivian Elections Showed the Right Is Up to Its Old Antidemocratic Tricks
Bolivians went to the polls last week for the first local elections since the 2019 coup. Evo Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism party won big — and it would have even performed even better without the undemocratic scheming of the Right.
We Can’t Bookend Vivian Gornick
Vivian Gornick’s brilliant half-century writing career can’t be captured in a single essay or volume. To engage with her writing is to be left wanting more of her writing.
Kenyon College Students Are on Strike Today. They Want a Student-Worker Union.
Kenyon College student workers are on an unfair labor practice strike today. The strike comes during a campaign to organize the first US union representing all undergraduate workers on a campus. Jacobin spoke to several strikers and two campus maintenance workers supporting them about why they’re organizing — and how other students can follow their example.
Joe Sacco Has Given Voice to the Oppressed in Palestine and Beyond
Joe Sacco’s iconic graphic novel Palestine turns twenty-five this year. Its depiction of life under occupation is in keeping with his life’s work — telling the stories of the oppressed that the powerful would prefer to forget.
Andrew Cuomo’s Reign Is Over. Now It’s the Left’s Turn.
After years of bullying, brutal austerity, and massive giveaways to the wealthy, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s rule in New York is finished. His allies are in disarray, never expecting their prince’s fall from grace. Now it’s time for the Left to step up and reshape New York for the many, not the few.
AMLO Is Fighting to Make Mexico’s Energy a Public Resource
Over the last thirty years, resource-rich Mexico has had its energy grid handed over to corporations and foreign multinationals — when it should be in the hands of the Mexican people. Andrés Manuel López Obrador is trying to reverse that trend by bringing back the nation’s long-debilitated public energy sector.
Living on Poverty Wages Means Living on a Razor’s Edge
We spoke with Fight for $15 activist Terrence Wise, who recently testified before the Senate Budget Committee, about life on low wages, the rhythms of collective protest, and why the Biden administration will pay a price if it abandons its pledge to support the movement’s central demand of a $15 minimum wage.
The New Amazon Headquarters Is Butt-Ugly. That’s Because It’s Not for Us.
Most new architecture, like Amazon’s proposed new HQ, is hideous. That’s because it is made for corporations. Despite all the mistakes and brutalities of the Soviet experiment, at least their architecture was designed to serve the people instead.
The Cold War Is Over. It’s Time to Appreciate That Eugene Debs Was a Marxist.
For decades, many of Eugene Debs’s admirers have claimed that the socialist leader was a good, patriotic American unsullied by a foreign doctrine like Marxism. But the Cold War is over, and there’s no need to be defensive: Debs was a Marxist who rightly opposed American nationalism.
If Australia’s Unions Don’t Organize Unemployed Workers, They’re Digging Their Own Graves
Faced with the unemployment crisis of 1890, jobless workers in Melbourne formed a union to fight for relief. But the Australian labor movement remained indifferent to their struggle — and soon paid the price. Those self-defeating attitudes are still alive in unions today.
Labour Must Fight a Class War, Not a Culture War
If the Labour Party has a future, MP Jon Trickett argues in Jacobin, it needs to unite divided workers and win postindustrial regions with a clear economic program and the rhetoric of class, not culture, war.
The Wollongong Jobs for Women Campaign Shows the Power of Working-Class Solidarity
In Wollongong in the 1980s, four young socialist activists founded the Jobs for Women campaign to take on the mighty Port Kembla steelworks, demanding equal employment rights. The solidarity they built achieved a historic victory that reverberated across Australia.
No, the PRO Act Wouldn’t “Kill” Freelancing
Some freelancers have come out against the PRO Act, insisting that the pro-labor bill threatens their livelihoods. But they needn’t worry: the bill would transform labor relations for the better, it wouldn’t “kill” freelancing.
Germany’s Left Has New Leadership but Not a Strategy
After years of stagnant poll numbers and declining electoral results, Germany’s Die Linke party hopes that its new leadership team will return it to the promise of the 2000s. But as its social base in the former East fragments, the left-wing party doesn’t just need a different marketing strategy — it needs to rebuild its roots in working-class life.