How to Debate Libertarians on Taxes — And Destroy Them
On Tax Day, here’s a guide to arguing with libertarians about redistribution.
21035 Article(s) by: Wouter van de Klippe
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.
Next Week, Democrats Can Cut the Defense Budget. Let’s See Where Their Priorities Are.
A new amendment from Bernie Sanders gives Senate Democrats the opportunity to shift the Pentagon’s bloated budget to poor communities. Let’s see how many decide to invest in welfare instead of warfare.
We Spoke to Croatia’s First Anti-Capitalist MP in Three Decades
Last weekend’s Croatian election saw a fresh step forward for the Green-Left coalition, with the Workers’ Front electing Katarina Peović as its first MP. She told Jacobin how activists in the former Yugoslav republic are building the fight for democratic socialism.
Seattle’s Socialists Are Now Enemy Number One for Jeff Bezos and Amazon
In 2018, Amazon beat back Seattle’s attempts to tax the corporation. Last week, socialist city council member Kshama Sawant and a working-class movement helped win a veto-proof majority for a new “Amazon tax.” Now it’s time to defend this victory.
Flight Attendants Tell Airlines: Don’t Even Think About Concessions
Association of Flight Attendants president Sara Nelson has a simple message for airline companies’ management who are preparing to demand massive concessions from their workers: absolutely not.
We Need a World Government — But It Has to Be Democratic
The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged influential figures like Gordon Brown and Tony Blair to press for new structures of global governance. But the system they have in mind won’t be democratic. We need a radically democratic world government.
How the Medieval Jacobins of Bohemia Fought Against — and Terrified — Europe’s Aristocracy
On this day in 1420, a force of peasants and artisans won a famous victory at Vitkov Hill on the outskirts of Prague — the high point of Bohemia’s Hussite revolution. The Taborite rebels dreamed of social equality and terrified Europe’s rulers, but they were too far ahead of their time.
The US Government Gave Big Oil the Power to Prosecute Its Biggest Critic
The government has taken the extraordinary step of giving prosecutorial power to a law firm that has worked for Chevron — and is allowing that prosecutorial power to be aimed at Chevron’s chief adversary, who has been under house arrest for the past year.
It’s Time to Socialize Big Pharma
We don’t have to leave ourselves at the mercy of the most profitable sector on Earth to get the drugs we need. We must nationalize the pharmaceutical industry and turn the medicines millions rely on into public goods.
Peter Beinart on the End of the Two-State Solution for Israel and Palestine
Liberal writer Peter Beinart recently wrote that he no longer believes in the project of a Jewish state, but rather a “Jewish home” within a democratic, equal state. In an interview with Jacobin, Beinart reflects on how his thoughts on Israel and Palestine have evolved, generational shifts within American Judaism, and why Jews must be part of a movement for justice led by Palestinians.
How K-Pop’s Record Labels Exploit Its “Idols”
Donald Trump’s humiliating Tulsa rally showed how K-pop fandom has been able to mobilize fans in a common political cause. But if boy band BTS declared their solidarity with Black Lives Matter protests, the big labels have remained tight-lipped — and even less willing to address their own record of exploiting and abusing hopeful young “idols.”
The Intellectual Dark Web’s “Maverick Free Thinkers” Are Just Defenders of the Status Quo
The “intellectual dark web” made up of thinkers like Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris likes to pose as a bastion of serious intellectual inquiry and open debate. But its animating spirit is deeply conservative: a determination to “prove” that our societies’ hierarchies of wealth and power are natural and inevitable.
A Marxist Guide to Understanding the Gulf States’ Political Economy
Western analysts often regard the Gulf as a strange anomaly among capitalist states. In fact, it has the same underlying dynamics as capitalist countries elsewhere, and it is powerfully shaping the politics of the Middle East.
The Iraq War Is the Skeleton Key
George W. Bush’s war on Iraq is central to understanding our world today. Yet the war has largely been flushed down the memory hole. Remembering how we came to start the war and who sold us it is critical to stopping us from being dragged into similar bloody conflicts in the future.
These Socialist Health Care Workers Are the Future of the Medicare for All Fight
Doctors for Bernie formed during Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign to unite physicians and other health care workers supporting the movement. The campaign may be over, but they’re not going anywhere until we win Medicare for All.
The Threat to Civil Liberties Goes Way Beyond “Cancel Culture”
The “cancel culture” debate is stale. But there are real threats to civil liberties in society today. The Left must claim the mantle of free speech, broaden its scope, and bring in the dimension of class.
Ireland’s National Conflict Is About Imperialism as Well as Sectarianism
Journalism on national conflicts from Belfast to the Balkans often speaks of ancient hatreds and ancestral sectarianism. But a closer look at the Irish conflict shows that questions of nationhood and identity are very modern phenomena — and have to be integrated into any serious analysis of class.
Ashley Kriel Was an Anti-Apartheid Martyr
Thirty-three years ago this month, South African apartheid police murdered 20-year-old activist Ashley Kriel. But his resistance legend has not been forgotten: Kriel’s commitment and fierce oratory still inspire movements for justice in South Africa today.
After the Bushfires and Amid the Pandemic, Australia’s Fossil Fuel Industry Is Gaining Steam
The Labor Party in Australia speaks a progressive language on climate change that it rarely enacts in policy. Now, under cover of the health crisis, the Victorian branch is expanding deforestation projects and onshore gas exploration.
The US-China Rivalry Is About Capitalist Competition
Proclamations of a New Cold War between China and the US herald a clash between authoritarianism and liberal democracy. But what we’re seeing in the growing rivalry between the two countries isn’t based on ideological difference but on inter-capitalist competition.