The overthrow of slavery in the United States wasn't a byproduct of capitalist development nor the triumph of an enlightened activist vanguard. It was a battle waged and won in the field of democratic mass politics — a battle that holds enormous lessons for radicals today.
Since inflation started rising, British capitalists have been raking in massive profits while workers have suffered a disastrous wage slump. Yet the Bank of England still wants to boost unemployment in case workers develop their fighting strength.
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has achieved more than just policy victories during his five years in office. He has reshaped the national political field and established a new cycle of left-wing governance.
Labour lost this election not because it was too much of a working-class party, but because it was too little of one in too many places. Our cause endures — and now is the time to steel ourselves for the next fight.
In an interview, writer Thomas Frank discusses how populism brought together workers, farmers, and all those struggling against the wealthy for a more egalitarian society — and why that’s made it a dirty word for the elite, both in the 1890s and today.
Eugene Debs’s unswerving commitment to democracy and internationalism was born out of his revulsion at the tyranny of industrial capitalism. We should carry forth that Debsian vision today — by recognizing that class struggle is the precondition for winning a more democratic world.
Our conceptions of black politics today are often monolithic and juxtaposed as separate from or even against democratic-socialist politics. But 75 years ago, black leaders and activists shared a broad consensus around the importance of the labor movement and multiracial class organizing for black liberation.
The hosiery workers of Philadelphia created a vibrant union by mixing Jazz Age culture with militant socialist politics.
Canada has a long history of ignoring its class divide. In recent years, the divide has become a chasm and can no longer be ignored. Accepting that class division is central to the national makeup is the first step in bridging it.
Bernie Sanders’s greatest advantage is his intensely invested support base. Mainstream pundits are trying to reframe that passion as a drawback, but nurturing it is how we win.
Political theorist Nancy Fraser tells Jacobin that we face several crises at once: in the economy, in social reproduction, in the environment, and in politics. Without dramatic intervention, we may end up with “cannibal capitalism.”
For decades, government policy helped make segregation worse. But we can use the power of the government to reverse it in the twenty-first century.
Brexit offered the Left bad choices, and its aftermath has emboldened a racist right. What do we do now?
Twentieth-century black labor leader Ernest Calloway never became a household name. But through his work in both the Teamsters and the NAACP, he embodied the transformative potential of a united labor and civil rights movement.
Bringing together weak unions and weak social movements isn’t enough. We need a new kind of socialist party.
Medicare for All is not just about fixing our broken health-care system. It’s about unlocking the power of a mass, working-class movement in the United States.
The far right has made breakthroughs in old Communist heartlands across Europe. A new memoir blames this on the slow and painful erosion of class politics.
Nina Turner’s primary loss this week stings, but a close look at the numbers makes clear her loss wasn’t the result of a bold left-wing candidate being unable to win over black workers. On the contrary: in black working-class districts, Turner performed well.
Bernie Sanders says more pro-worker candidates should run for office as independents rather than as Democrats. He’s right.
The populist right’s new intellectuals are abuzz about capitalism and class. Don’t be fooled. Their denunciations of "cosmopolitan elites" actually provide cover for the plunder by the rich and powerful.