Wouter van de Klippe is a freelance journalist and writer based in Europe. He is particularly interested in organized labor, social and environmental justice, and social welfare states.
A century ago, universities were hotbeds of reaction, and Ivy League undergraduates would leave class to break strikes. The Left has now built a base within the academy, but without ties to organized labor, these movements will achieve little.
Protests in the UK are at a low by historical standards. Yet Labour and Conservatives insist that bans on civil liberties are needed to protect public order. In truth, the UK’s authoritarian turn is a response to its economic stagnation and decline.
The spread between loan interest rates and deposit rates is at a record high, allowing big banks to make out like bandits while consumers miss out on hundreds of billions of dollars in potential savings.
Originally published in 1983 and recently reissued, My Search for Warren Harding follows a failing academic and self-loathing gay man who attempts to seduce his way into the life of a former president’s mistress. It’s a forgotten classic of biting humor.
Recently declassified documents have exposed former Mexican president José López Portillo as a CIA asset. The revelations are a reminder of his ignominious contributions to Mexico’s brutal “dirty war” against left dissent during the Cold War.
Cornel West has a compelling message. Instead of running a third-party campaign most voters won’t notice, he should grab the spotlight by challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
Donald Trump’s indictment was the biggest news of the week, but what was lost in the typical Trump absurdities of documents in ballrooms and bathrooms is the revelation of US plans to attack Iran.
Andreas Babler, a Marxist who has described the EU as a worse military alliance than NATO, is the new head of Austria’s Social Democratic Party. To win, he narrowly beat an anti-immigrant candidate. Now he must rout the Right within the party.
It’s sometimes hard to remember that five years ago, both Labour and Conservatives were in general agreement about the need to expand rights for trans people. But since then, both parties have drifted to the right on LGBTQ politics.
A first-of-its-kind study from Jacobin, YouGov, and the Center for Working-Class Politics finds that economic populism can help progressives win more working-class voters.
Conservatives today want to root out discussion of racism and other “controversial” topics from schools. Less discussed: the Right is also making advances in its age-old fight to indoctrinate the next generation in rabid free-market ideology.
Spanish deputy prime minister Yolanda Díaz has hailed a unity deal that will see the Left run together in July’s snap election. The deal hasn’t pleased everyone — but it could help keep the far right from power.
Barack Obama abandoned his commitments to unions, and many top staffers went to work for the gig economy. In his Netflix series Working, the former president bears witness to workers’ suffering as if it were immutable — and something he had nothing to do with.
There’s no substitute for building worker power and winning state power to change the world. But we also shouldn’t reject the utopian spirit that has long driven many to create egalitarian living and working arrangements.
Silvio Berlusconi, who died today at age 86, centered Italian politics on his TV empire and brought the far right to power. A predecessor to Donald Trump, he remains the ultimate icon of the sidelining of democracy by media power.
The highly hyped new crime series The Crowded Room could’ve been an unsparing take on extreme mental illness in a society that’s never been equipped to deal with it. Instead, it gives away its only source of suspense far too early.
France’s neofascist groups are on the rise, with a spate of recent attacks against their opponents. Their violence against migrants, left-wingers, and even state officials shows that the far-right advance isn’t just “populist” rhetoric — it’s a deadly danger.
The Bank of Canada’s incoherent stance on inflation and interest rates underscores the class conflict at play in shaping its decisions. As with previous hikes, the bank’s new rate increase will have terrible repercussions for workers.
The Italian communist Antonio Gramsci left behind a rich and complicated legacy of thought on socialist strategy for transforming the world. Historian Michael Denning guides us through the great — and misunderstood — thinker.
The Temecula Valley school board in Southern California wants to erase slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk from history, defaming him as a “pedophile” in the process. It’s precisely the type of ignorance and bigotry that Milk stood against in his lifetime.