Frederick Douglass, 1852: "What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim."
As he continues to burn millions in futile pursuit of the presidency, Tom Steyer’s vanity demonstrates that even progressive billionaires don’t know how to use their wealth responsibly. That’s why we need to take it from them.
Corporate elites like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff are holding out the prospect of a kinder, gentler capitalism. But relying on the goodwill of businesses won’t mend global inequality. We need democratic socialism.
The response to the coronavirus shows that neither the US nor the world is ready for a global pandemic. We desperately need a public health system that rejects philanthrocapitalism and prioritizes preparedness over corporate profits.
The great abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass died 125 years ago. Today, Jacobin publishes never-before-transcribed articles from Frederick Douglass’ Paper denouncing capitalism and economic inequality.
Brands like Pepsi, Nike, and Amazon are embracing Black Lives Matter on social media. Don't be fooled: corporate anti-racism isn’t about solidarity – it’s just a marketing campaign.
A new book with fresh details about Jeffrey Epstein — his life, death, and relationship with Bill Clinton — reminds us that Epstein’s crimes couldn’t have happened without a system that allowed him to hoard unlimited wealth.
Rising from the ruins of World War I, in the 1920s Vienna’s socialist administration was famous for its innovative housing and public health programs. But at the heart of “Red Vienna” were its services for children, guaranteeing that even the poorest young people could share in the joys of childhood — and the foundations of a fulfilling life.
Like American Apparel before it, Everlane began as a clothing company for Millennials built on a supposedly ethical business model. But by now the lesson should be clear: when push comes to shove, businesses will always subordinate ethics to profit.
A new report on the state of dynastic wealth in America explodes the myth of the hardworking, meritorious rich. If America ever was a meritocracy, it certainly isn’t now.
Thanks to shortsighted nationalism and corporate power, it’s now expected to take until 2078 to achieve global vaccination. The lesson is clear: COVID can’t be overcome until we put human needs before private profit.
For years, Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times column has relentlessly promoted and whitewashed the controversial projects spearheaded by Bill and Melinda Gates, like for-profit education and exploitative microlending. As governor of Oregon, would Kristof continue serving billionaire interests?
Art workers are organizing in response to miserable pay and working conditions. The history of artist unions in the United States can help them chart a path forward.
Labor has seen a jolt of new energy recently. Across the United States, museum workers are part of that upsurge.
In 1872, Friedrich Engels wrote The Housing Question, tying the working class’s perpetual housing crisis to the free market in Victorian England. The century and a half of housing crises since have proved Engels correct.
Beneath the strings and sequins, the Sound of Philadelphia was the backing track to the economic crisis that hit black America in the 1970s.
The philosophy of effective altruism is catnip to well-meaning and intellectually inclined donors. But as a strategy for tackling what’s wrong with the world, it misses the mark.
Despite pop cultural nostalgia for the protest songs of the ’60s, the march to war in Iraq seemed not to interest musicians — with one glorious exception.
Howard Buffett, son of multibillionaire Warren Buffett, has long dominated the social and political life of the central Illinois town of Decatur. It’s a case study in how extreme wealth hollows out democracy.
Karl Marx was an analytically rigorous theoretician. But his 1853 article “The Duchess of Sutherland and Slavery” is a good reminder that he was also motivated by white-hot outrage about injustice.