Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
In 1981, Bernie Sanders achieved the unthinkable — dethroning a deeply entrenched city establishment in Burlington, Vermont, with an upset victory in the city’s mayoral race that no one saw coming. His methods were familiar: a populist, working-class message, door-to-door grassroots organization, and a dogged refusal to bow to elite pressure.
Political scientists are discovering something that today’s Democrats refuse to understand: social policy is about more than technocratic tinkering — it defines who counts as a full citizen. And means testing tears apart the very fabric of society.
The NHS is one of the great social achievements of the twentieth century — and it’s currently under attack. If an incoming Jeremy Corbyn–led Labour government wins today’s election, it will have to be serious about rebuilding Britain’s health service.
You can tell a lot about a candidate’s foreign policy by the way they’ve responded to the right-wing coup in Bolivia. Bernie Sanders immediately called out the coup by name. Elizabeth Warren did not.
Australia’s sadistic border regime doesn’t stop at its offshore detention camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. As those island prisons are wound down, a new asylum-seeker-led organization is campaigning for basic rights for those living in precarious situations inside Australian borders.
There are three things Pete Buttigieg wants you to know: He’s smarter than you. He’s allergic to any hint of a progressive agenda. And he’s smarter than you.
In the first part of an ongoing series covering Bernie Sanders’ time as mayor of Burlington, we look at Sanders’ years in the wilderness and the circumstances that made his rise possible.
This election campaign has marked a grim milestone in British political history: a pathological liar in Downing Street, Boris Johnson, has run a campaign in which all standards of honesty and accuracy have been tossed aside — and a ferociously partisan media has done everything it can to cover it up.
As soon as we show up for work, our much-vaunted free speech goes out the window. But when we win full employment and don’t fear losing our jobs, we can tell the boss what we really think.
Two-time presidential loser Hillary Clinton has dusted off her time-worn excuses and leveled another round of attacks on the Left. Someone should remind her she’s in a glass house.
The Communist Party USA, which turned 100 this year, has left behind a complicated legacy, filled with great victories and terrible blunders.
Argentina’s Mauricio Macri officially steps down as president today, having overseen four years of neoliberal mismanagement, inflation, and a new IMF bailout program. The election of the Peronist Alberto Fernández is good news for the Left, but it faces an uphill battle in stabilizing a deeply indebted economy.
Jane McAlevey believes in the potential of working people to unite across divisions, develop their collective potentials into a creative social force, and change the world. Her new book offers concrete tactics and practices for how workers can win more battles — and prepare for the larger wars to come.
When Pete Buttigieg was a high school senior, he wrote a prizewinning essay praising Bernie Sanders. Here, we republish the essay in full.
This year marks a century since the First Red Scare, which decimated the ranks of the US left. One of the worst episodes was the Centralia incident — where a reactionary mob tortured and killed a group of IWW members to drive them out of the Washington town.
Paul Volcker, who died yesterday, won’t be mourned by this publication. As Federal Reserve chair under Reagan and Carter, he destroyed millions of working-class jobs and pushed a radical neoliberal program.
It’s clear from his platform that Bernie Sanders understands that people with disabilities are confronted with daily acts of discrimination and oppression in the United States. A Sanders presidency would offer an unprecedented chance to improve the lives of disabled people across the country.
While Boris Johnson’s Conservatives rely on a narrative that nothing could possibly get better, the transformative project of Corbynism rebuffs this cynicism — and isn’t afraid to speak in terms of hope.
In Finland, the government owns nearly one-third of the nation’s wealth, and 90 percent of workers are covered by a union contract. That may not be socialism, but it’s also not a “capitalist paradise,” as the New York Times ridiculously claimed over the weekend.
For years, divisions on France’s left have helped Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen dominate the political terrain. But in the country’s second city, grassroots pressure has forced them to put aside their differences — and ahead of March 2020’s elections, they’re promising to launch a “Marseille Spring.”