Poverty and the “Tailspin of Culture”
Rep. Paul Ryan’s recent explanations for urban poverty don’t differ significantly from President Obama’s.
20417 Article(s) by: Ryan Switzer
Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
The Left and Free Speech
Is the Left more opposed to free speech today than it used to be?
Writing History with Wite-Out
PBS’s The Abolitionists relegates African Americans to little more than background scenery to a struggle against slavery won by whites.
In Defense of Density
New construction isn’t the only solution to New York’s affordable housing crisis, but the Left is wrong to dismiss it outright.
A Crack in the Wall
The barbarity of US immigration and deportation policy has led to the reemergence of mass border crossings.
Circling The Square
Jehane Noujaim’s The Square offers a sympathetic portrait of courageous Egyptian protesters while papering over the serious political divisions in Tahrir.
All That Is Solid Melts into Condos
Bill de Blasio’s recent housing deals give some insight into what the Left is up against in New York, even with a progressive mayor.
Saving Labor From Itself
For union officials, too often “saving the union” means maintaining union dues from a workforce suffering under bad contracts.
Wes Anderson and the Old Regime
With The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson has reached the dizzying point of fantasizing about feeling nostalgic for nostalgia itself.
Underestimating Capital, Overestimating Labor
There was no crisis of profitability heading into the financial crisis and there is even more obviously no profitability crisis now.
Tony Benn (1925–2014)
Tony Benn really did pose a danger to the British establishment; because he continued, even after Thatcher and Blair, to inspire those pushing for radical change.
Jacobin Radio South Africa, Ep. 2
On the Democratic Alliance party and the failures South African liberalism.
Venezuelan Jacobins
Only the Venezuelan sans culottes can save the Bolivarian Revolution.
The Right’s Challenge to Chavismo
The Venezuelan Right appears to be building the kind of mass movement that could reverse the gains of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Bloodless Liberals
A concern for human life, not international law, should drive opposition to the US “targeted killing” program.
Which Side Is Your Pension On?
The failure of unions to gain control over their pension funds gives insight into corporate-controlled finance and the obstacles to democratizing it.
Uncommon CORE
The 2012 Chicago Teachers Union strike would have never come to be without the patient building of a radical formation within the union, the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators.
On Fredric Jameson
Jameson writes from an immense sense of engagement with the world around him, and with faith in what that engagement might accomplish.
Trotsky in Cuba
Like his narrator in The Man Who Loved Dogs, Leonardo Padura has been made to matter less than he should.
Michelle Goldberg Goes to Washington
The problem isn’t just voting for Democrats, it’s letting a rightward-moving Democratic Party set the Left’s political horizons.