We Need a Green New Deal to Expand Worker Ownership of Our Economy
A Green New Deal can’t just move us towards ecological sustainability — it also has to democratize the entire economy by expanding worker ownership.
19650 Articles by: William G. Martin
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
“Bolivia’s Coup President Will End up Fleeing the Palace in a Helicopter”
Faced with the Left’s lead in the polls, coup-installed president Jeanine Áñez has suspended Bolivia’s election for the third time. The COB trade union federation has responded with a general strike and road blockades around Bolivia — showing that the country’s mighty social movements will not allow an illegitimate regime to continue clinging to power.
The US Labor Movement Needs More of the UE’s “Them and Us” Unionism
The United Electrical Workers was once one of America’s mightiest unions. But because many leaders were leftists who challenged corporate power, UE was decimated by McCarthyism. The union managed to survive, though, and UE’s model of militant, democratic unionism is exactly what we need to revive labor in the 21st century.
The George W. Bush Administration Lives on in Donald Trump
The media is full of anti-Trump pundits pining for the leadership of George W. Bush. Yet virtually every aspect of Donald Trump’s presidency was built on the hard-right, authoritarian legacy of his Republican predecessor.
The United States Should Not Be Hoarding Its Coronavirus Research
The fact that the United States is recusing itself from pretty much all global cooperation in the search for a coronavirus vaccine does not bode well for equitable distribution of a cure.
“Bosses Can’t Be Anti-Racist, Their Job Is to Exploit People”
When workers at Minneapolis’s Tattersall Distilling tried to secure safe working conditions during the pandemic, their bosses blew them off. So now they’re fighting to unionize. We spoke with a Tattersall worker about the organizing drive — and why racial justice has been central to their unionization push.
Our Path Forward After Bernie Must Include Rank-and-File Unionism and Class-Struggle Elections
Bernie Sanders lost in large part because we lacked the strong working-class and leftist institutions needed to defeat the establishment. Key to rebuilding those institutions is waging more class-struggle electoral campaigns and ramping up rank-and-file labor organizing.
The Mask Wars Reveal the Feeble State of the Right-Wing Culture War Machine
Conservatives have predictably tried to turn face masks into a pseudo-populist culture war issue. But the people aren’t buying it: new polling shows a solid majority of Americans support enforcing tough mask mandates — once again exposing the Right’s waning popular appeal.
From Capitalist Pioneer to London’s Satellite: Scotland’s Road to Financial Dependency
Scotland played a pioneering role in the rise of global finance, from the Industrial Revolution to the age of neoliberalism and the great crash. Since 2008, however, its banks have become offshoots of the City of London, posing a sharp dilemma for supporters of Scottish independence.
Mark Zuckerberg Is Right: Facebook Should Not Be the Arbiter of Truth
The answer to misinformation on social media is not to empower private corporations as censors, but instead to reduce their power altogether.
The “Subversive” Life of Concetto Marchesi, a Classicist and Italian Communist
The rector of Padua University, the classicist Concetto Marchesi stunned colleagues in December 1943 as he fled the city calling on students to join the partisan uprising against fascism. A lifelong Marxist, he embodied the revolutionary spirit of the Italian Communist Party — but also the compromises militants made during the long decades of dictatorship.
Silicon Valley’s Vast Data Collection Should Worry You More Than TikTok
Practically everything TikTok critics and China hawks say about the country’s data collection applies to the United States and its tech firms, too. We should be finding ways to protect privacy and free speech from governments and corporations everywhere — including our own.
Democratic VP Candidate Susan Rice Has Made a Lot of Money on Fossil Fuel Investment
Susan Rice is reportedly one of Joe Biden’s two vice presidential finalists. She also had millions invested in fossil fuels and energy companies as recently as 2015.
Cori Bush on How She Took on the Political Establishment and Won
Cori Bush, the Ferguson activist and nurse running for Congress in St Louis, caused a political earthquake this week, unseating a powerful centrist incumbent. Yesterday, she sat down with Jacobin to talk about how she took on the political establishment’s big money and won.
Congress Has Failed to Extend Unemployment Benefits. We Need Them Desperately, and Much More.
The federal relief measures Congress passed this spring were already inadequate. Now they’ve lapsed and millions are facing financial ruin. Here’s a breakdown of what those bills actually did, who benefited, and what we need to do now.
Abdullah Öcalan: My Solution for Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds
For over two decades, Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has been held in the Turkish prison on İmralı Island. In this op-ed for Jacobin, he calls for a “democratic nation project” able to unite citizens of different ethnic backgrounds and cultural traditions.
Parents Like Me Shouldn’t Have to Fight This Hard to Ensure Schools Go Remote
I’m an educator and parent of a seven-year-old who loves school. It’s devastating to keep her home in the fall — but it’s the only way to keep her and her classmates healthy. We shouldn’t have to fight this hard to ensure all schools go remote and all students and teachers stay safe.
Without the Ability to Democratically Plan Our Society, We Don’t Have True Freedom
The Right couches their arguments about not wearing face masks or reopening their local Baskin Robbins in the language of “freedom.” We have to take that language of freedom back, making the case that real freedom means the ability to democratically decide, together, how to protect everyone from hunger, homelessness, and sickness.
The For-Profit Aged-Care Industry Has Led to Crisis
The epicenter of Melbourne’s COVID-19 outbreak is, predictably, aged-care homes, where years of marketization have led to an industry based on low wages, understaffing, and cost cutting. Amid the tragedy taking place in aged care, we need to call for an overhaul of the entire for-profit system.
We Deserve Better Than Trump Versus Biden
In the past week, two separate and very painful videos have circulated showing Donald Trump and Joe Biden the presidential nominees of the two major US political parties in action. Watching them, there’s only one conclusion we can reach: we’re so screwed.