Bob Moses (1935–2021)
Legendary civil rights champion Bob Moses died over the weekend at age eighty-six. He was a brilliant organizer who believed deeply in the capacity of ordinary people to change the world.
19202 Articles by: Ryan Switzer
Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
The Ku Klux Klan Was Also a Bosses’ Association
The KKK should be understood not just as a white supremacist organization, but as an employers’ organization: it violently resisted the revolutionary gains of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and sought to keep the black masses toiling in submission.
Ban Private Beaches
There are few summertime activities more essential than trips to the beach. But huge swaths of waterfront throughout the country are private property, off-limits to the public. This is a crime: all beaches should be public.
Sorry, You Can’t Be “Progressive Except Palestine”
American liberalism has long had a curious quirk: that of the liberal who is progressive on every issue except Palestine. But as the brutality of Israel’s occupation becomes impossible to ignore, that position is increasingly impossible to hold.
In Poland, Amazon Workers Are Organizing
Ever since Amazon arrived in Poland in 2014, the country has been a laboratory for the company’s strategy of pitting workers of different nations against one another. We spoke with Polish shop-floor activists who are organizing Amazon workers for a global fightback.
The Neoliberal Australian Labor Party Once Tried to Nationalize the Banks
Today the Australian Labor Party is among the most neoliberal parties in the world. But after World War II, Australian Labor PM Ben Chifley wanted to nationalize the banks. No surprise, the bankers ferociously stopped him.
Bosses Shouldn’t Be Able to Close Factories Whenever They Feel Like It
US labor law is so stacked against workers it allows companies to pack up and leave just to avoid dealing with a unionized workforce. We shouldn’t give employers this nuclear option — it completely undercuts working-class power.
Why Socialists Should Support Proportional Representation
Support for a multiparty system is widespread in the United States. Such a system is crucial to ridding this country of the two-party trap and building a real democratic system. That’s why socialists should support proportional representation in our electoral system.
How Cuba’s Communists Survived the Fall of the Soviet Union
The fall of the USSR in 1991 left Cuba mired in economic crisis and increasingly vulnerable to hostility from Washington. For the revolution to survive, it had to draw on its own domestic legitimacy — including its independence from the Soviet model.
Scabby the Rat Lives, But His Enemies Never Sleep
The labor movement’s iconic inflatable rat has survived a pathetic judicial attempt at extermination. But though Scabby is free, unions remain hamstrung by the oppressive federal prohibition on secondary boycotts encoded in the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act.
A People’s History of the Hoser, Canada’s Blue-Collar Icon
From Bob and Doug McKenzie to the Trailer Park Boys, the Canadian hoser is an integral part of the country’s cultural landscape. The hoser is also a working-class emblem, whose uncertain fortune in the face of economic downturns reflects the wider experience of Canadian workers.
The Tata Group Is Everything Wrong With Indian Capitalism
The megacorporation Tata has shaped Indian capitalism for 150 years. Despite its best efforts to sustain an image as an ethical company, Tata’s roots in war profiteering and the opium trade, and its sophisticated suppression of worker organizing, is testament to the fact that “ethical capitalism” is only ever a contradiction in terms.
Right-Wing Operation Condor Murderers Should Be in Jail
This month, Italian courts jailed fourteen men for their roles in Operation Condor, the US-backed Latin American terror campaign. But many more torturers are living out a peaceful retirement — denying justice to the leftists they brutalized and murdered.
Elites Profit From “Nonprofit” Charter Schools
Charter schools don’t improve education outcomes. But they do funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of unscrupulous — often criminal — school operators. It’s a national disgrace that needs to end.
Happy 20th Birthday, Trailer Park Boys
This year, the Canadian TV show Trailer Park Boys turns twenty. The program’s refusal to patronize its marginal, working-class characters was key to its comedic and popular success, and won it a special place in our hearts.
Before Jeremy Corbyn, There Was Michael Foot
Michael Foot was a giant of Labour Party politics. The attempts by Labour centrists to diminish his legacy after his death only reveal the extent to which his socialism, like that of Jeremy Corbyn, threatened the British establishment.
Justin Trudeau’s Post-Pandemic Plans Will Leave Canadian Workers Behind
Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are strengthening their commitment to tech entrepreneurialism as they scale back Canada’s COVID-19 benefits. This is not a road map to recovery; it is a path to austerity and precarity in the workplace.
Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
In more and more of the country Amazon acts like an employer in a company town, sucking up whole communities and shaping public goods and services to fit its profit-making needs.
Algerians Toppled a President. Now They Are Fighting for Real Democracy.
Two years since millions-strong protests toppled Algeria’s longtime president, June’s regime-organized elections met with a massive popular boycott. For Algerians to really control their lives, the whole regime must go.
The Many Faces of Regime Change in Cuba
Cubans confront a host of problems amid a national health emergency — and the Biden administrative is only adding to punitive sanctions with the intent to make everything worse.