“You Can Sleep Here All Night”: Video Games and Labor

Exploitation in the video game industry provides a glimpse at how many of us may be working in years to come.

The New Right Wants Activist Judges to Rule, Not the People

Liberal “anti-populists” often portray grassroots democracy as more a threat than an asset. But as reactionaries turn to judges to win their political battles for them, it’s time the Left got serious about putting power in the hands of the majority.

Explaining Our Morbid Political Symptoms

We can’t talk about the rise of right-wing populists like Donald Trump, reactionary and bizarre conspiracy theories like QAnon, and the increasingly pervasive sense of nihilism across global politics without talking about neoliberalism.

Manchester’s Music Scene Dragged the City Out of Postindustrial Decline

Manchester in the 1980s was home to bands like Joy Division and the Smiths and a world-famous rave scene. The music rose from the conditions of life in postindustrial Manchester — and, ironically, it paved the way for a new wave of capital investment.

Tulsi Gabbard Is Not Your Friend

Tulsi Gabbard is hailed as a progressive champion. But her views on Islam and support for far-right leaders suggest otherwise.

Happening Is an Abortion Story About Working-Class Women

Audrey Diwan’s film adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s abortion memoir, Happening, captures the violence and drama of its source material. It depicts a time when sex, for young women — without the resources of contraception and abortion — carried unfathomable consequences.

J. Posadas, the Trotskyist Who Believed in Intergalactic Communism

From his hopes in human-dolphin socializing to his claims that UFOs were sent by alien communists, J. Posadas’s quixotic beliefs are today legendarized in countless memes. But a new biography suggests that the Argentinian Trotskyist was not such an outlier — and explains why his revolutionary optimism draws such ironic veneration today.

Did Paul Goodman Change Your Life?

Tariffs and the Shop Floor

A former garment worker reflects on rank-and-file agitation in the US garment industry just before the industry fled the country.

In Today’s Election, the Survival of Brazil’s Democracy Is at Stake

Today, Brazilian voters are not just choosing between Bolsonaro and Lula — the far right and the Left — but whether their nation's politics will be authoritarian or democratic.

Adventures in Marxism

The best of Marx is full of life, full of joy — and above all, deeply human.

The Market Goddesses

With Ashley Madison, capitalism has reached a new low: the commodified Ideal Woman.

Our Struggle Too

Ireland’s revolutionary women made the fight for emancipation their own.

Against Generational Politics

Generational politics is a socialism of fools.

Drug Decriminalization Policies Work — With Properly Funded Treatment Services

Critics of decriminalizing drugs have pointed to rising overdose rates to argue that decriminalization doesn’t work. In fact, such policies are effective — when combined with robust state support for addiction treatment.

Blood on the Forge Is a Masterful Proletarian Novel That Deserves to be Read Anew

Forgotten for decades, Marxist novelist William Attaway’s 1941 Blood on the Forge is a brilliantly brutal depiction of the connection between racism and capitalism. Haunting and sublime, it will leave you feeling the scars of working-class life.

A Scandal Took Down Toronto’s Mayor, but the Real Disgrace Was His Politics

Last week, Toronto mayor John Tory announced his resignation after an affair with a young staffer came to light. But his unstinting attacks on working people and the poor should have rendered him unfit for office years ago.

The New A League of Their Own Takes on Jim Crow–Era Racism in Women’s Baseball

The new TV show A League of Their Own, about the true story of the WWII-era women’s baseball league, captures its racial segregation — with a central character based on trailblazing black women players who were forced to play in the male Negro Leagues instead.

Ontario Looks Right

Canada is not immune to the rise of right-wing populism. Case in point: the recent election of Doug Ford as Premier of Ontario after years of Liberal rule.

Our Country Friends Is a Disquieting Vision of the Post-COVID America to Come

As novelists begin to turn their eyes to the pandemic and the destruction it has wrought, Gary Shteyngart’s latest stands out. He depicts a vision of America that is deeply unsettling: a collapse that is merely more of the same.