Over seven decades, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has advanced one of the most radical critiques of capitalist modernity. But in opposing modernity, he has denied a key insight of Marxism: socialism must develop, not reject, capitalism’s dynamism.
Automation won’t necessarily lead to either mass unemployment or a utopian workless future. Power and politics impact how automation affects work — which means that automation can create dignified jobs through class struggle.
In response to radical demands to defund and disband the police, liberal reformers are pushing the “Camden model.” Don’t fall for it. Camden relies on mass surveillance to pacify its population — all to benefit business interests.
In South Africa, the political class is scapegoating immigrants to distract from their failure to root out the country’s massive inequality. But just like everywhere else, immigrants aren’t the problem — economic elites and their political handmaidens are.
Queer theory fought the marriage equality movement and lost. What comes next will require scholars to come out of their journals and into the streets.
To end global poverty, we have to end global capitalism.
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, started spewing antisemitic conspiracy theories this week. It’s not the first time something like this has happened — and a reminder that LLMs aren’t truth-telling machines but aggregators of undifferentiated online scribblings.
The Civil War inaugurated a titanic revolution that within years brought slavery to an end and broke the planter class.
John Maynard Keynes warned that when real investment becomes the by-product of speculation, the result is often disaster. But it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Though often condemned to the fringes of American political life, the radical left has changed the course of US history.
The Left’s predicament today is not that there is no opposition or resistance and not that the Right has all the power. It’s the sense that we lack the levers of power we once wielded.
Philosopher Henry David Thoreau has developed a reputation as an advocate for self-help in the form of withdrawal from work. But in his writing, he advanced a thoroughgoing critique of work under capitalism and defended the emancipatory potential of labor.
Will the work ethic decline under socialism? No — socialism empowers ordinary people to be active participants in shaping the economy. And that’s a lot more motivating than fear of losing your job.
The cultural critic Fredric Jameson died on September 22, leaving behind a body of work of incomparable breadth and sophistication. Robert Tally, a critic and former student of Jameson’s, reflects on what he was like as an intellectual, teacher, and friend.
Let’s give identity politics its due, but let’s also be clear about why we need universalist politics.
Slavery in America, Brazil, and Cuba relied on capitalist markets, which supplied credit and demand for slave-made goods. The Reckoning, Robin Blackburn’s monumental history, offers a dizzying account of the politics behind this system’s rise and fall.
Austerity policies originated with efforts by economic elites to crush working-class power and redistribute income upward after World War I. That history demonstrates the need for democratic control over economic policy to defend workers’ interests.
Building on the work of Karl Marx, Hungarian philosopher Ágnes Heller developed a framework for distinguishing between truly essential needs and artificial ones. Her ideas are more important than ever in the face of a global ecological crisis.
Hegel was no reactionary, and he had a special sympathy for the French Revolution.
Rosa Luxemburg’s work The Accumulation of Capital described the havoc that capitalism wreaked upon what we now call the Global South. Today’s socialist and environmental activists can draw valuable insights from Luxemburg’s understanding of the world system.