The Rank-and-File Strategy and the Trade Union Bureaucracy
To understand the rank-and-file strategy for socialists in the labor movement, you have to understand the role and interests of the trade union bureaucracy.
Search Result(s) for: “working class”
Why America Never Got a Labor Party
In Europe, labor unions and socialist parties marched together and won massive reforms. In the United States, they were divided. Vivek Chibber explains how that split still shapes US politics today.
Why Class Matters as Much as Ever
Some argue that the continued existence of the middle class refutes Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism. In an interview with Jacobin, Vivek Chibber explains why this is wrong.
The Revolutionary Roots of Social Democracy
Why was the revolutionary road out of capitalism abandoned for an evolutionary one? Vivek Chibber explores how socialist parties moved from revolution to reform, but why real progress will always mean a conflict with capital.
Why Do Workers Strike?
Think conservative workers won’t strike? Think again. History shows it’s not workers’ ideas that count, it’s the conditions they face on the job.
Learning From the 1990s Labor Party
As capital ratcheted up its assault on labor in the 1990s and Democrats embraced a neoliberal agenda, some labor unions launched their own political party.
Joe Biden Is Not a Blue-Collar Candidate
Joe Biden has nothing to offer workers of any race. He’s a corporate hack with a phony blue-collar veneer.
W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction Is Essential Reading
W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America is one of the greatest modern studies of revolution and counterrevolution. It’s also an extraordinary example of a materialist and class analysis of race under capitalism.
Dentists of the World, Unite?
The middle class isn’t going away — and we’re not sure they’ll help us.
The Revolution Party
The question of the party is back on the Left's agenda — and not a moment too soon.
“I am not here as the accused, I am here as the accuser of capitalism”
100 years ago today Scottish socialist John Maclean, accused of sedition for his revolutionary organising, delivered an iconic defence of socialism from the dock.
What We Get Wrong About White Workers
Deindustrialization has helped create a right-wing turn in many Midwestern towns. Long traditions of labor militancy can explain why it hasn’t in others.
The Politics of the PMC
Vivek Chibber on how we should understand capitalism's middle strata — and why so many professionals are moving toward anti-capitalist politics.
Trump’s Middle-Class Army
Trump's narrative of American decline has captured a bitter and embattled middle class.
American Philanthropy and its Discontents
Philanthropy thrills to begging and tolerates activism, but cannot abide a demand from those it wants to save.
50 Years After Mao’s Death, China Has Left His Legacy Behind
China’s rulers will pay tribute to Mao Zedong’s role as founder of their state 50 years after his death. But they’ve long since dismantled the economic system he created, swapping Maoist slogans for neo-Confucian rhetoric about a “harmonious society.”
A Party Fighting for Socialism Has to Put Workers Front and Center
Set to win 18 seats in parliament, the Workers’ Party of Belgium is the fastest-growing force on the European left. Newly elected leader Raoul Hedebouw tells Jacobin how his comrades built an explicitly Marxist party with mass appeal.
Yes, Workers Want Progressive Economics
But progressives need to be careful about how they pitch their appeals to workers.
Noam Chomsky: Fight the Class Struggle or Get it in the Neck
As Noam Chomsky puts it in a recent interview, “unless working people take part in the class struggle, they're going to get it in the neck.”