Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
The radical idea at the heart of republicanism is a challenge to private bosses and public tyrants everywhere: that we can live free from the whims of arbitrary power. Democratic socialists should embrace the radical currents of this ancient philosophy.
The war in Ukraine provided a pretext for tight government control over this weekend’s local elections in Russia. Yet with the situation clearly worsening, the vote has given rise to signs of popular dissent.
As energy bills soar, Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, proposes short-term measures to prop up suppliers with public money. But we won’t be “back to normal” anytime soon — and it’s working-class Britons who will suffer.
For Chileans who resisted Augusto Pinochet’s regime, the election of left-wing president Gabriel Boric offered hope. Yet the rejection of a proposed new constitution threatens to hobble his government and reverse the democratic breakthrough of recent years.
Justin Trudeau’s recent housing initiative announcement was better than nothing but woefully inadequate to the scale of Canada’s housing crisis. We need social housing now.
After the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, the young radical poet Percy Bysshe Shelley proclaimed he was deserting “the odorous gardens of literature” for “the great sandy desert of politics.” Instead, he infused literature with revolutionary political ideas.
Migrant workers have served as the foundation for Germany’s rapid economic growth in the postwar years, but the benefits of that growth have not been evenly distributed. Today, precarious workers are pushing back against Germany’s exclusionary economic system.
Even though most Canadians would prefer an elected head of state, Charles III is the country’s new king. But enduring monarchism does suit Canadian elites, whose worldview is sustained by the idea of inherited privilege and power embodied by the crown.
The American Revolution was inspired by ruthless criticism of the British monarchy. Why stop now?
When the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike against Mayor Rahm Emanuel ten years ago, corporate education reform was on the march. The CTU won that strike, beat back the neoliberal Democrats, and turned the tide in favor of public education.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin struck a deal to fast-track approval of new gas and oil pipelines as part of a must-pass spending bill. House progressives have the ability to block it — but most won’t say whether they will.
Rather than doing away with the old aristocracy, capitalism has found its own uses for the British monarchy. The two now function in tandem to preserve the status quo in Britain — and should be opposed together.
Last month, Chipotle workers in Lansing, Michigan, became the first workers at the corporation to unionize. We spoke to three of the Chipotle workers and union activists about how they did it.
The latest British monarch will be the first King Charles since the Stuart dynasty of the 17th century. The revolutionary struggle against the Stuarts gave birth to a radical democratic tradition — one that will be unfinished as long as Charles III is king.
Railroad workers bargaining for better pay and working conditions are at an impasse with their employers, causing the federal government to intervene to ward off a disruptive strike. But railworkers should be allowed to strike if and when they want to.
During Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year reign, the UK witnessed immense social transformation. Throughout this tumultuous period, the monarchy served one purpose: suppressing Britain’s political divisions in the name of unity and deference to the Crown.
Before the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike against Rahm Emanuel 10 years ago, corporate reformers were on the march and teachers were on the ropes. The CTU won that strike, beat back neoliberal Democrats, and turned the tide in favor of public education.
In this summer’s New York state primaries, DSA’s Kristen Gonzalez defeated the Queens Democratic machine candidate in a 25-point blowout. She spoke with Jacobin about how she did it and what comes next as she joins the growing bloc of socialists in Albany.
The British monarchy is a vestige of tyranny, a grand monument to hierarchy and plunder. As Irish socialist James Connolly wrote in 1911, the royals are for the other despots of society, the capitalists and landlords — not for the working class.
Just months after Roe v. Wade was overturned, conservative antiabortion activists have now petitioned the Supreme Court to take on a case that would establish “fetal personhood” nationwide — potentially producing a federal ban on abortion.