William G. Martin teaches at SUNY-Binghamton and is co-author of After Prisons? Freedom, Decarceration, and Justice Disinvestment (2016) and a founding member of Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier; he covers local justice matters at www.justtalk.blog
In 1381, English peasants and the urban poor rose up against feudal domination and briefly took control of London. Their revolt against the established order was crushed by brutal force, but it left behind the idea of a world without masters.
From the Caribbean to West Africa, black anti-colonial thinkers of the interwar period advanced a compelling vision of how imperialism and capitalism worked on a global scale. They sought to develop a struggle against racial domination that was equally broad.
Canada’s price-fixing grocery giant Loblaws, drunk on excess profits, gave its CEO, Galen Weston, a huge bump in his 2022 compensation. The raise ensures that Weston, a scion of Canada’s third-richest family, continues to live large at workers’ expense.
After an April 11 plastics recycling plant fire that spewed toxins and caused mass evacuations in Richmond, Indiana, the Biden administration has failed to take action on regulations that could prevent similar chemical infernos from occurring in the future.
Beef tells the story of a chance road-rage encounter that blossoms into a modern feud. Director Lee Sung Jin says it’s about “how hard it is to be alive,” but the show’s cross-class fantasy logic points at the powder keg of growing alienation in our society.
This year, the average American paid $1,087 in taxes just for Pentagon contractors alone. Imagine the kind of society we could construct with just a fraction of the resources we devote to war.
Emmanuel Macron has pushed through a rise in the pension age despite vast protests. In a televised address on Monday night, he said he’d “heard the anger” in the streets — yet his government’s new budget plans promise further attacks on France’s social model.
At Middlesex College in New Jersey, faculty have been working without a contract for nearly three years. Their contract battle is a window into the fight over higher ed’s future erupting across the US — including at less-discussed community colleges.
During the Great Depression, St Louis’s Funsten Nut Factory was racially divided. Black workers, mostly women, worked harder and made less than their white counterparts. So they went on strike — and got their white coworkers to join them on the picket line.
Australian foreign minister Penny Wong claims she wants peace in the Asia-Pacific. At the same time, she is doubling down on Australia’s role in maintaining the global dominance of US capitalism — and threatening war in the region.
Economic data doesn’t suggest that the US economy is in a recession, but Americans’ on-the-ground experiences tell a different story. Extreme income inequality can explain the discrepancy between the economic data and the real-world belt tightening.
In Renfield, Nicholas Hoult is a delight as Dracula’s much-abused personal assistant. But even Nicolas Cage as the Count himself can’t keep the movie on track.
A new poll found that 80% of French people believe the class struggle is a reality. While workers are seeing their pensions cut back, the superrich are wealthier than ever — and it’s because of their success in capturing the Republic’s institutions.
Today is Tax Day, the deadline for Americans to pay their taxes. One group that won’t be paying much today: the rich, who have stashed $2 trillion in offshore tax havens.
Members of the Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,000 television and feature writers, have voted almost unanimously to authorize a strike. The work stoppage could begin as soon as their contract expires on May 1.
When Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015, some hoped his administration would enact a left-populist agenda. A close examination of his administration’s ideological roots reveals that was always wishful thinking.
Some fear Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s new mayor-elect, as a longtime union organizer, can’t serve the public. That’s exactly wrong: the public is served by electing workers and trade unionists to office.
The recent leak of Ukraine war documents reveals much about how the US government has been misleading the public. But the corporate media is more concerned with catching and punishing the leaker, all in the name of defending democracy.
After Emancipation, black people fought for public benefits like pensions that would make their newly won citizenship meaningful. They instinctively realized something that we should today: universal social programs are the foundation of freedom.
The Francoist regime is one of the few fascist governments that mainstream politicians and writers feel comfortable praising publicly. They shouldn’t: on top of anti-communism, antisemitism was also central to Francisco Franco’s reign of terror.