Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
George Orwell was a self-professed socialist. The Right’s misreadings of his books like Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four have less to do with his actual work than with conservatives’ anti-egalitarian agenda.
During tonight’s Super Bowl, ads funded by pillars of conservative Christianity will promote a compassionate Jesus aligned with young people’s left-wing values. They’re compelling — but those values can’t be found in conservative churches.
The war in Ethiopia has largely been ignored by the outside world, and information has been hard to come by. But what we know about the conflict is horrific: at least 500,000 civilians have been killed, and 5 million have been displaced.
Last week, graduate workers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore voted to form a union — with 97 percent voting in favor. Jacobin spoke to worker-organizers about how they got there and what the victory means for Hopkins graduate students.
The global economy is “efficient” alright: it efficiently funnels wealth to the top while leaving most of humanity behind.
A new book shows how the grand designs of Edwardian architects expressed the anxieties and illusions of their time. Imperial confidence in the peaceful integration of the world ran alongside fears of decline and collapse, echoing the dilemmas of our own age.
The recent train derailment in Ohio shows the need for more stringent safety rules for train brakes, especially for trains carrying hazardous materials. Transportation regulators are instead bending to the interests of rail industry lobbyists.
Unionized graduate students at Temple University are on strike. The school’s administration has responded with unabashedly brutal retaliation, cutting off their health care and tuition remission, in an attempt to crush them.
Capitalism’s apologists are throwing around economic concepts like inflation, recession, labor shortages, and supply chain shortages to justify ripping off consumers, raising rents, and depressing wages. Don’t ask them to define their terms.
The exploitation of workers is central to the functioning of capitalism. The socialist argument is simple: we can live in a world without such exploitation.
A third Trader Joe’s store location has just voted to unionize, this one in the notoriously anti-union South. “If a Trader Joe’s in Louisville, Kentucky, can do this,” says an organizer, “any Trader Joe’s across the country can do this.”
Whether the Ukraine war brings on a global catastrophe will hinge in large part on whether Washington decides to back a Ukrainian effort to retake the Crimean peninsula.
Once a major national force, today’s French Socialist Party finds itself outcompeted by both the radical left and neoliberal president Emmanuel Macron. But last month’s congress shows many leaders would rather kill the party than sign up for radical policies.
Social theorists identify automation as both the main cause of unemployment and the future launchpad for a high-tech post-scarcity world. But, Aaron Benanav argues, the problem is the stagnation of global capitalism and its inability to generate enough jobs.
“Let them eat price gouging” appears to be grocery giant Loblaws’ response to the rising number of food-insecure Canadians. The company blames supply chain issues and inflation for soaring grocery costs — yet is posting stratospheric profits.
Israel routinely refuses to extradite its own citizens — including people who’ve flown there purely to escape justice. Its Law of Return rewards criminals who can claim a vague connection to Israel, even as it denies innocent Palestinians their homeland.
Achieving a fully socialist society is going to take a long time, and there’s no guarantee of victory. But we should never lose sight of the goal, because every step we take in that direction makes life better for working-class people and deepens democracy.
For years, rail companies have resisted federal safety regulations to cut costs. The major train derailment in Ohio last weekend, which resulted in the emergency evacuation of residents nearby, is the fruit of such profit maximization.
Since he first ran for president, Donald Trump has not only become the dominant figure in Republican politics — he’s embedded his own priorities and personal style deep in the GOP base. They’ll accept no substitutes for the real thing at this point.
Mass protests on Tuesday showed the strength of popular anger at Emmanuel Macron’s plans to raise the pension age. But the coalition of left-wing parties, NUPES, has fallen into infighting — which risks wasting the progress it has made since last spring.