This weekend’s Czech election shows the weakness of a Left that was once among Europe’s strongest. As the socially conservative base of the old Communist and Socialist Parties withers, a revived left has to relate to the modern working class.
For weeks, voters have been forced to wait in interminable lines just to cast their ballot. That’s an indictment of American democracy — and it points to deeper flaws in a political system that represents the oligarchic minority over the working-class majority.
Few films capture the difficulties of interracial working-class organizing as well as the 1984 movie The Killing Floor, a drama about black slaughterhouse workers attempting to build a union with white ethnic coworkers in Chicago’s World War I–era stockyards.
Socialists say they either want to “realign” the Democratic Party or break with it entirely. But those aren’t political strategies — they are outcomes of political struggle. We need a way to develop working-class politics without condemning ourselves to third-party marginality.
In California’s fight over Proposition 10, it’s Wall Street versus the working class.
The rank-and-file strategy isn't enough. We should examine the broad range of working-class organizing strategies and experiences that are today's socialists' collective heritage.
At its high point, the Communist Party of Australia united thousands of working-class militants in a struggle to transform the world around them. These everyday communists were brave, flawed, and sometimes heroic.
Co-ops are often dismissed as attempts to create islands of socialism. But building democratically controlled tech infrastructure can be part of a wider movement for working-class power.
Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths is another triumph by that legendary dramatist of working-class British life. But films like Leigh’s are a rare breed these days.
Socialist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has accomplished much in just a few months. But one major thing is missing from his tenure thus far: activating mass participation of working-class New Yorkers in the fight for his ambitious agenda.
Egypt’s authoritarian president has recreated Cairo in his image, bulldozing ancient tombs, working-class neighborhoods, and the city’s already scarce green space.
On March 6, 1984, Britain’s coal miners began a strike against mass pit closures. Their yearlong struggle with Margaret Thatcher’s government was a defining moment in working-class history — and the miners’ eventual defeat left lasting scars.
What can the Canadian experience teach us about building a mass working-class party in the US?
For almost a decade, people in three Melbourne local councils — Yarra, Darebin, and Moreland — have elected socialist councilors to represent them. By standing up to developers, neoliberal local government managers, and the federal government, Melbourne’s socialist councilors have not let them down.
The cult-favorite TV show Bob's Burgers is now a movie — and it works, even if its low-key charms don’t always dazzle on the big screen.
From Boy George to Bryan Ferry, the New Romantics were working-class youths who created their own imaginary aristocracy through 1980s pop stardom. Did the mask end up eating the face?
Democratic Party hacks love to accuse socialists of lacking support from black and brown New Yorkers. But a look at the numbers in Brooklyn reveals the opposite: socialism won among black working-class voters. Support from white liberals, on the other hand, was missing.
Chuck Berry perfected simple but sophisticated working-class art.
In 2013, a movement of working-class New Jerseyans halted Cory Booker’s plans to privatize Newark public schools. A new book shows how a group of neoliberals co-opted this victory, securing consent for school charterization under the banner of anti-racism.
In the twentieth century, socialists and communists used municipal power in Paris to build some of Europe's most ambitious social housing projects — housing that was not only beautiful but made for and by the city's working class.