Virulence and Contagiousness

Deadly pathogens may kill their host before the host has a chance to pass on the pathogen. That’s why there tends to be a trade-off between virulence and contagiousness.

Krona Virus

A magic money tree does exist — and not just in Scandinavia. The question is who gets to shake it first.

We Set Amazon on Fire

Millions of people stuck at home means more orders for Amazon. But squeezed Amazon employees in France and Italy didn’t want to be “essential workers” — and they launched a wave of strikes to demand a shutdown.

An Urgent Appeal for Your Support

We’ve avoided making an appeal up to this point, but if you’re able, we’d appreciate your support.

Corona C.R.E.A.M.

With the appalling Senate scandal over coronavirus insider trading, it is no longer possible to deny it: we are governed by a caste of the unimaginably rich, far removed from our realities.

We Need Better Drugs

We’re in a race with bacteria to develop new classes of antibiotics. The free market isn’t helping.

The New Thatcherites

Jacobin’s Quarantine Movie List

A new canon for those stuck indoors.

A Pandemic Foretold

Thirty years ago, an urgent report about microbial threats to public health was ignored by policymakers.

When the “Unskilled” Become “Essential”

World War II made the economically impossible suddenly possible. As our capitalist states mobilize for the pandemic, the Left has another golden opportunity for worker empowerment.

The Coronavirus Wouldn’t Be Decimating Meatpacking Plants If Company Bosses Hadn’t Busted the Unions

COVID-19 is ravaging the country’s meatpacking plants, turning packinghouse workers into sacrificial lambs. But none of this was inevitable — it’s the result of companies’ decades-long assault on meatpacking unions, which destroyed workers’ ability to have a say over their working conditions.

“Black Capitalism” From Richard Nixon to Joe Biden

Joe Biden has been touting black capitalism as part of the path to racial equality. The strategy remains as futile today as when Richard Nixon pushed it fifty years ago.

Health Insurance Companies Are Pissing on You and Saying It’s Raining

Even during a pandemic, health insurance companies are both raking in huge profits and cooking up new ways to justify denying their customers’ claims. Do we really want to keep using public resources to prop up a barbaric system like this instead of establishing Medicare for All?

How the “Stranger Danger” Panic of the 1980s Helped Give Rise to Mass Incarceration

The 1980s saw the spread of a nationwide panic about “stranger danger,” a supposed epidemic of child kidnappings and murders. Under the guise of protecting children, the media-driven hysteria helped spur mass incarceration.

It’s Time for Democrats to Abandon the Earned Income Tax Credit

The Earned Income Tax Credit was supposed to substantially reduce poverty and efficiently increase employment. It’s failed. It’s time for Democrats to abandon the EITC and turn toward much more effective universal social welfare programs instead.

The Many Assassins of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme

It’s been over three decades since Swedish prime minister Olof Palme was assassinated outside a Stockholm cinema, and Swedish police have still never found the killer. The vast array of theories explaining the killing are a reflection of Swedes’ ongoing fascination for Palme — but also highlights how many enemies he made as prime minister with his bold internationalism.

Stop the $2 Billion Arms Sale to the Philippines

Amid the worsening COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, the US government is brokering a $2 billion arms sale to Rodrigo Duterte’s repressive regime. The sale would only pour further fuel on an already dire human rights catastrophe.

The Left in Lockdown

We’re living through a bewildering moment for socialists. We talk to radical organizers Adolph Reed, Barbara Smith, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Jodi Dean, and Jane McAlevey about how they’re staying politically engaged under quarantine.

The Left Must Address a Historic Crisis of Representation

The defeats for Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn point to the Left’s difficulties in overcoming old party machines. Bottom-up labor organizing may sound like an attractive alternative — but it shouldn’t ignore the power of left populism in uniting people outside the workplace.

No, We Don’t Want a “War Economy” to Deal With the Pandemic

Many pundits have likened the massive government interventions in response to COVID-19 to states’ resource mobilization during the World Wars. But this “war socialism” has never been the same thing as serving human need — and today it’s being used as a means of propping up private capital.