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.
The eminent philosopher Raymond Geuss wants us to think about ways of being that exist entirely outside of liberalism. But the most feasible egalitarian project is not one that rejects liberalism, but one that goes beyond it — through democratic socialism.
The owner of Zara is worth $50 billion, and this year net profits at Zara’s parent company Inditex increased 41 percent. Workers are demanding a bigger share of the profits they created.
Democrats were ready to throw railworkers to the wolves, letting even Republicans outflank them on labor rights. But thanks to a last-minute legislative push by Bernie Sanders and his allies today, railworkers may be getting the sick leave they’re demanding.
The UK Supreme Court has blocked an attempt to hold a new referendum on Scottish independence. The setback has exposed the limits of SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s strategy, which channeled the independence movement’s radical energies into a centrist cul-de-sac.
The recent Taylor Swift ticket fiasco is a good reminder: Ticketmaster is a horrible, price-gouging monopoly that everyone hates. Left-wing politicians should make abolishing Ticketmaster part of their platform.
Joe Biden is standing with railroad barons to force a deal on workers who are demanding a reasonable amount of paid sick leave. It’s the latest and possibly starkest example of the chasm between his pro-worker rhetoric during his campaign and his presidency.
Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical The Fabelmans is a dull, self-indulgent victory lap for the most victorious filmmaker in history.
Many of Elon Musk’s critics seem to think he’s an overzealous champion of free speech. In fact, while reinstating noxious right-wing voices, Musk has been censoring the Left.
“Which side are you on?” is the most fundamental question in politics. And in siding with the Chamber of Commerce rather than exploited workers at America’s railways, “the most pro-union president in American history” has made clear where he really stands.
Staughton Lynd, who died earlier this month, played a prominent role in the antiwar movement and documented the radicalism of the 20th-century working class. His work should be read by anyone interested in understanding the history of the Left.
The crisis of neoliberalism fuels social breakdown and a backlash from violent “anti-crime” vigilante groups. It’s a destructive, authoritarian vision of order that the Left can directly challenge.
On November 9, tenants in Kingston, New York, won a 15 percent rent reduction for over 1,200 apartments — the first rent reduction in the state’s history. We spoke with a leading organizer of the grassroots campaign to bring rents down.
Director Rian Johnson follows up on his 2019 crowd-pleaser Knives Out with Glass Onion, this time taking aim at an Elon Musk–esque billionaire and his frenemies. Unfortunately, Netflix has ensured you only have a week to see it with an actual crowd.
Today is Giving Tuesday, so here’s a 1913 article by Eugene V. Debs, never before republished, about why the charity balls of the rich will never deliver justice for the poor. As Debs declared, “What the poor need is that the rich shall get off their backs.”
In 1845, Friedrich Engels wrote a scathing condemnation of English capitalism, The Condition of the Working Class in England. In it, he accused the bosses of carrying out “social murder” against workers and the poor.
J. Edgar Hoover is notorious for his decades-long campaign to stamp out the Left by surveilling and even killing radicals like Fred Hampton. What is less well known is that liberals played an important role in enabling Hoover’s antidemocratic crusade.
Medical residents and fellows at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx are trying to form a union, citing the need to fight overwork and understaffing that’s endangering patients. Jacobin spoke with unionizing doctors about their organizing drive.
The Biden administration has not prioritized pushing through a confirmation of a member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which oversees labor issues for federal workers. The result is that federal unions are far weaker than they should be.
The next time a speculative bubble is massively inflating around a fancy new asset like cryptocurrency and financial carnival barkers are screaming it will change everything, remember Sam Bankman-Fried and how quickly all of his promises proved to be bullshit.
George Saunders may be one of America’s most lauded fiction writers, but when he turns his pen to the phenomenon of Donald Trump and his supporters, he reveals the limits of his political understanding — and produces some of his worst stories in the process.