Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
This week, workers filed discrimination charges against Darden Restaurants, one of the largest restaurant companies in the US. Forcing workers to rely on tips violates the Civil Rights Act, advocates say. They’re calling for a single minimum wage for tipped and non-tipped workers alike.
Longtime leftist writer and activist Naomi Klein discusses her work from No Logo to On Fire, connecting the fight against climate change to the fight for good jobs, and how COVID-19 is showing the utter failure of the neoliberal model.
Eighteen months ahead of France’s 2022 presidential election, candidates are already jockeying to be the main representative of the Left. Green Party leader Julien Bayou told Jacobin that the Left can only win if it puts the ecological transition at the forefront of its program — no matter who its candidate is.
The US government is trying to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for publishing leaked US government documents. That should be extremely concerning to anyone who cares about holding governments and the powerful accountable.
The real scandal isn’t that Donald Trump is secretly poor — it’s that our system let such an obvious fraud get so rich.
Offering a welcome rejoinder to many neoliberal orthodoxies, French economist Thomas Piketty has established himself as a sharp critic of growing inequality. But when he presents these ills just as a result of wrong choices, he ends up erasing the realities of class struggle — leaving him unable to explain how neoliberalism imposes its power.
Canada’s growing economic and military might abroad is exploding any notions of “Canadian exceptionalism.” It might not be as vicious as the United States, but Canada is nonetheless an imperialist power.
Trump was asked to employ jobless workers to plug abandoned wells that are exacerbating climate change. Instead he bailed out oil and gas executives and shareholders — potentially putting states on the hook for $280 billion.
A tiny handful of rich people make life worse for the vast majority of us, and most of the time it feels like we can’t do much about it. But Illinois voters could change that on Election Day: the state can follow the example of Abraham Lincoln and finally establish a progressive state income tax.
The new series in the Deutschland trilogy starts in the hours before the fall of the Berlin Wall. But there’s little time for either joy or commiseration — everyone’s too busy trying to lay their hands on East Germany’s assets.
When it hit the Bay of Bengal in May, Cyclone Amphan caused apocalyptic scenes, flooding whole districts and flattening villages. Amid a pandemic and in a region already riven by food insecurity, storms like these are catastrophic.
After a sustained campaign of judicial persecution, Lenín Moreno’s increasingly unpopular government has barred former president Rafael Correa from running in February’s elections. But radical economist and presidential candidate Andrés Arauz is pushing ahead with his bid to continue Correa’s Citizens’ Revolution — standing defiant against moves to block the Left from standing.
An entertaining new documentary helps explain the strange visual alchemy of the internet — and how a goofy cartoon of Pepe the Frog became, despite its creator’s opposition, a mascot of the postmodern right’s virulent reactionary politics.
We’re working longer hours than in decades. But we don’t have to. We deserve a more democratic economy in which we have the free time to develop our talents, hang out with friends and family, and do whatever else we please.
Even though Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, raked in billions in profits last year, new documents show their tax rate actually went below zero. This may help explain why CEO Stephen Schwarzman has spent nearly $25 million to help Trump and GOP senators win: to ensure the tax breaks enriching Blackstone stay in place.
Last night’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was a ninety-minute stream of consciousness that pitted a mediocre-at-best challenger to a raving, dangerous reactionary. Were we expecting anything different?
Austria’s capital city is famous for its model public housing and social services, the legacy of municipal socialism in the 1920s. But it’s been decades since the Social Democrats have done anything to build on this record. Now a new leftist party is working to turn Vienna red again.
In last night’s debate, Donald Trump failed to condemn white supremacists — even telling the Proud Boys to “stand by” — then refused to promise he would encourage his supporters to refrain from political violence in November. His rhetoric is growing more and more dangerous.
Earlier this month, nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina voted to unionize. Taking place in one of the most anti-union states in the country, and challenging a bitterly anti-labor employer, the campaign is a monumental victory for labor.
In both his campaigns, Trump has run ads aimed at killing black voters’ enthusiasm for the Democratic nominee and lowering their turnout. The strategy is craven, but the ads exploit real disillusionment. Without a sharp break from their history of failing black constituents, Democrats will remain vulnerable to such opportunistic gambits in the future.