Thirty years since reunification, the former East Germany is routinely presented as a “second German dictatorship” where human rights were all but nonexistent. Yet when that state took sides with Third World causes and antifascists in the West, it frequently used the language of human rights — an expression of solidarity that often clashed with realities in East Germany itself.
In the last years before the Berlin Wall's fall, most opposition movements in East Germany sought a reformed, more democratic socialism. But the effect of reunification on October 3, 1990 was a wave of neoliberal triumphalism in both East and West — undermining the principles of social solidarity and pushing the Left into the wilderness.
After the Berlin Wall's fall, the introduction of the West German currency was widely presented as the East’s path to prosperity. But the result was a fire sale of East German industry to Western businesses — a massive destruction of jobs and public property whose harmful effects are still felt 30 years after reunification.
When Jacobin was founded in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the Left was dominated by academic jargon, sectarian organizations, and samba bands. Ten years later, we have a long way to go, but it’s become a lot easier to talk about socialism as a real political force.
Thirty years since German reunification, the “new states” from the former East still suffer the effects of mass deindustrialization and emigration. But if reunification hasn't delivered the promises of 1990, socialists should recognize why most East Germans didn't defend the old system — and why welfare and public services aren’t enough to build a viable socialist society.
The president made a big show of stepping in to help struggling Americans when Congress failed them. But his executive orders have failed, too. Trump claims to back the working class, but he has abandoned them at every turn.
Socialists’ goal isn’t to destroy liberalism, but to transcend its limitations — pairing civil liberties and other liberal rights with a democratic, egalitarian foundation that makes those rights real.
On Palestinian rights, Bernie Sanders was a progressive outlier in 2020, sandwiched among Israel hawks and imperialists. But in the coming decades, his candidacy won’t be an outlier at all: progressives are forcing a reckoning on Israel.
The lesson of Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis is not that he deserved it or that anyone should celebrate — it's that you can’t pretend that the basic laws governing the universe don’t apply to you forever.
This week, workers filed discrimination charges against Darden Restaurants, one of the largest restaurant companies in the US. Forcing workers to rely on tips violates the Civil Rights Act, advocates say. They’re calling for a single minimum wage for tipped and non-tipped workers alike.
Longtime leftist writer and activist Naomi Klein discusses her work from No Logo to On Fire, connecting the fight against climate change to the fight for good jobs, and how COVID-19 is showing the utter failure of the neoliberal model.
Eighteen months ahead of France’s 2022 presidential election, candidates are already jockeying to be the main representative of the Left. Green Party leader Julien Bayou told Jacobin that the Left can only win if it puts the ecological transition at the forefront of its program — no matter who its candidate is.