The Left in Power
Evo Morales’s presidency made real gains for working people. But could it have charted a more radical course?
Search Result(s) for: “China”
We Can’t Rely on Green Capital for Decarbonization
Under Joe Biden, green capitalists primarily sold commodities to help wealthier homeowners decarbonize. Real climate action will require a much more robust public-oriented politics of public investment, public goods, and public ownership.
Muskism Is the Specter Stalking Our Present
Elon Musk sells us sovereignty through technology in an age of crisis. Muskism resembles past futurisms, but with an important difference: this time, the question of who owns the machines is paramount.
Trump Wants a “Video Game War” in Iran
Donald Trump has resurrected the military fantasy of the “video game war,” waged mostly through high-tech, lethal air power with few US casualties. But his administration may have miscalculated the ease of what can pass as victory.
Avi Lewis Is the New Leader of Canada’s NDP
Avi Lewis will lead an NDP in dire straits — but also one with a strategic opening to the left of the Liberals, whose posture against Donald Trump has reshaped the political terrain.
Ethiopia’s Trade Union Movement Is Growing Stronger
Over the last decade, Ethiopia’s trade unions have experienced impressive growth, more than doubling their membership. Ethiopia and other African states with growing unions cut against the idea that organized labor is facing global decline.
The US and Israel Are Making Gaza-Style War the New Normal
In Iran and Lebanon, the US and Israeli militaries are bombing dense residential blocks, destroying civilian infrastructure, slaughtering children, and assassinating health workers. If it sounds familiar, it’s because this is the Gaza playbook.
Trump’s $1.5 Trillion for War Comes From Americans’ Pockets
Donald Trump is proposing to increase the defense budget by nearly half to wage war on Iran. How does he want to pay for it? Cut nearly everything that might help average Americans, from food, housing, and education programs to health care and childcare.
Bernie and AOC Pump the Brakes on Artificial Intelligence
A bill from Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes a moratorium on new AI data centers until oversight mechanisms and legal safeguards are in place. Only federal legislation stands a chance at leashing a monster of this size.
Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation and the Countermovement to Capitalism
Media pundits hail the economist Karl Polanyi as a brilliant theorist of capitalism and a thinker for our time. In order to understand Polanyi’s ideas, however, we need to see him in the context of his own time: Europe’s "age of catastrophe" in the early twentieth century.
The Left Needs an Alternative Cosmopolitanism
While many critics view rising global chaos strictly in geopolitical terms, political philosopher Lea Ypi argues that it’s really ideological — the result of an increasingly coordinated global right. To compete, the Left must internationalize in equal measure.
Iran Is Stuck in Permanent Crisis
War, and now a fragile ceasefire, is not bringing collapse in Iran but reinforcing and reorganizing its existing structures of power and inequality.
Ending Their Wars
On Memorial Day, socialists honor the victims of war and struggle for a world free of it.
The Marxism of Leo Panitch
Leo Panitch emphasized three core themes throughout his career: the process of class formation, the key role of political parties in facilitating this process, and the need to transform the state instead of wielding it in its current form. In doing so, he gave the democratic-socialist movement an invaluable trove of resources to change the world with.
Yemen Could Be Sucked Into the US War on Iran
Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement has held back so far from full-scale involvement in the conflict between the US and its Iranian allies. But with ceasefire talks seemingly close to collapse, Yemen could be drawn into any renewed outbreak of war.
Iconoclashes
Conspiracy theories are rife with esoteric motifs. But what do those symbols actually represent?
When Socialists Joined the Rank-and-File Upsurge
Often forgotten today, the US saw a tidal wave of rank-and-file worker militancy in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Many socialists of the era took jobs on the shop floor to help foment the upsurge and build a revolutionary movement to replace capitalism.
Dear Comrade, Follow the Feds
How the FBI broke into the revolution business.
This Billionaire Is Calling Taxes Soviet Oppression
Sergey Brin’s family fled Soviet authoritarianism, an experience he’s now invoking to portray a proposed wealth tax as Soviet-style tyranny. Ironically this sort of rhetoric is more likely to bring the US closer to today’s Russia: an unabashed oligarchy.
Taking a Good, Long Look Into Elon Musk and “Muskism”
A growing share of world infrastructure is dominated by the eccentric, reactionary, annoying billionaire Elon Musk. He is, regrettably, a key figure to understand — which Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian set out to do in Muskism.