Barack Obama Has Nothing to Say About Central America
In his recently released memoir A Promised Land, Barack Obama has neatly removed Central America from his narrative of the first years of his presidency. Perhaps he thought no one would notice.
19141 Articles by: Ryan Switzer
Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
We Can’t Survive on $600. The New Relief Bill Is Not a Victory.
Democrats refused to seize a rare opportunity to outmaneuver Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. They settled for a COVID relief bill that skimps on benefits, provides tax breaks to the rich, and pulls us toward austerity extremism.
Walmart and Amazon Are Making Record Profits. Their Workers Are Getting Scraps.
Walmart and Amazon, millions of whose workers and suppliers have struggled to make ends meet amid the pandemic, are flush with cash — and just as virulently anti-union as ever.
Bring Back the Superdole!
By providing workers an extra $600 every week in unemployment insurance, the CARES Act delivered the most significant expansion of the welfare state since the 1960s — and delivered the Left its most impressive policy victory in years. We should demand that the government do it again.
Why Workers Everywhere Should Read Labor’s Untold Story
Reading and study are required for militants in any labor union. And there are few better resources for telling the heroic story of American class struggle to workers today than the classic labor history book Labor’s Untold Story.
Donald Trump Has Just Traded Western Sahara Like a Victorian Colonialist
The Trump-brokered deal between Morocco and Israel normalizes relations between the two states. But the outgoing president bought Morocco’s agreement by endorsing its ownership of Western Sahara — making the US the only major state to rubber-stamp an occupation regime condemned by international law.
The Coles Warehouse Lockout Is a Front-Line Struggle in the Battle Over Automation
Australia’s biggest supermarket chain has locked out its warehouse workers in New South Wales. The lockout is the first battle in a coming war over who will benefit from automation — solidarity with the Coles workers is vital.
They Said Tax Cuts for the Rich Would Create Jobs. It Never Happened.
For forty years, governments around the world have been cutting taxes on the rich, claiming that the result would be more jobs and higher incomes. A new study shows how catastrophically wrong that policy has been.
Jimmy Dore Is Right About the Urgency of Medicare for All. But AOC Isn’t the Problem.
It’s good that we’re talking about the urgent need for Medicare for All. But democratic-socialist politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aren’t the ones standing in the way of an American welfare state. Let’s figure out how to actually build working-class power and win change.
A New Congressional Budget Office Study Shows That Medicare for All Would Save Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Annually
The most exhaustive study on Medicare for All just came out. Its conclusion: a single-payer system would guarantee health insurance to all people while reducing overall health spending by hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
A Millionaire Senate Republican Cited the Deficit To Block Aid — After Enriching Himself With Tax Cuts
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson led the fight to give himself a tax cut of up to $205,000. Now he is citing budget concerns to block emergency $1,200 checks as America faces mass starvation.
Peter Mertens: This Pandemic Shows How Elites Have Forgotten Us
With 18,000 dead out of a population smaller than Ohio’s, Belgium has suffered the world’s worst rate of coronavirus deaths. Belgian Workers’ Party leader Peter Mertens told Jacobin how the population has been abandoned by the country’s elites — and why things didn’t have to be this way.
Bolivia’s Indigenous Masses Have Changed the Course of History
Fifteen years after Evo Morales was first elected president of Bolivia, his socialist party has returned to power. The far right hasn’t given up — but the indigenous masses that reversed the right-wing coup and forced elections have proven themselves a formidable force for justice and democracy.
From Anti-Politics to Authoritarian Restoration in Brazil
Two years on from his election, the anti-political wave that Jair Bolsonaro rode to office appears to have ebbed. In its place we are seeing a restoration of the reactionary forces that have ruled the country for most of its history.
The Canadian Government Talks About Peace — But It’s Investing in War
Canada likes to see itself as a benign global actor, but its extensive history of military intervention tells a different story. A $70 billion upgrade of the Canadian navy now carried out by Justin Trudeau will strengthen its capacity for military action as a US sidekick in world affairs.
We Need to Take On Drug Companies’ Abuse of the Patent System
If we want to curb the power of pharmaceutical companies and rising drug prices, we need to overhaul the patent system.
Neoliberalism Is Driving Away Working-Class Voters of Color. They Need to Be Won Back.
Universal programs and economic redistribution, far more than rhetorical moderation and identity-based pandering, are the best bet for winning over workers of all races.
We Don’t Need a Culture War. We Need a Class War.
“Polarization” isn’t intrinsically good or bad, but the kind we have now is a roadblock to progress. We need to find ways to depolarize along culture war lines and repolarize along class war lines.
How Sci-Fi Shaped Socialism
From William Morris to Ursula K. Le Guin and Iain M. Banks, science fiction has provided an outlet for socialist thinkers — offering readers a break from capitalist realism and allowing us to imagine a vastly different world.
Congressional Democrats Are Raking in Huge Donations from War Profiteers
A look at the numbers reveals that congressional Democrats who voted for Trump’s defense budget last week accepted four times as much war industry cash in the House and six times as much in the Senate as those who voted against. To stop the war machine from sucking up resources that could be used on social programs, we need to confront those Democrats happy to rake in cash from war profiteers.