Two Centuries of the National Question
Critics say Marxism can’t account for the popular appeal of nationalism. But the Marxist tradition contains some vital insights into the origins and future of national communities.
Search Result(s) for: “China”
Revolutionary Mexico Tried to Transform the World Economy
In the twentieth century, the post-revolutionary Mexican government drew up ambitious plans to transform the world economic system for the benefit of the Global South. Their failure helped turn Mexico itself into a laboratory for neoliberalism.
The Fabric of Civilization
Taiwan leads the world in the production of semiconductor material, the basis of the microchips found in everything from cell phones to medical equipment. Washington and Beijing aren’t happy about it.
For a Green Transition, Decommodify Electricity
Despite the plummeting costs of solar and wind power, renewables have not been profitable enough to attract adequate private investment. To decarbonize, public investment in clean power and reclaiming electricity as a public utility are essential.
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.
How Indigenous Taiwanese Are Fighting Corporate Domination
Taiwan’s indigenous people have long been subject to mistreatment by companies seeking to extract resources from their land and integrate Taiwan into the world capitalist system. Now their resistance takes a new form: an organized political assembly.
Behind Russia’s War Is Thirty Years of Post-Soviet Class Conflict
The invasion of Ukraine is not simply a product of Vladimir Putin’s expansionist mindset. It corresponds to a project for Russian capitalism that he and his allies have pursued since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Canada Is Cheerleading New NATO Expansion
Justin Trudeau's Canadian government has eagerly embraced NATO’s new "strategic concept": expansion. The strategy is a return to the Cold War — and a recipe for more frequent military conflict.
We’re Closer to a Nuclear Incident in Ukraine Than You Think
There’s a disconnect between Western leaders’ increasingly hawkish public discourse and the quiet consensus among their military experts that any armed encounter with Russia would likely end in a nuclear catastrophe.
Britain’s Military-Industrial Complex Is Promoting War Fever
Senior figures from Britain’s armed forces, serving or retired, are openly intervening in national politics to demand a massive increase in military spending. The media rarely mentions their ties to private firms that stand to profit from the bonanza.
Henry Kissinger: To Die at the Right Time
From Rockefeller to Nixon, then on to Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump, Kissinger’s service tracked the metaphysical evolution of American power. We all live now in the Kissingerian void. What horrors await?
Mike Davis Revisits His 1986 Labor History Classic, Prisoners of the American Dream
The late socialist writer Mike Davis’s first book was Prisoners of the American Dream, a deep exploration of how the US labor movement became so weakened. Nearly four decades later, Davis revisited the book in an interview with Jacobin.
Rumors of the Death of the Working Class Are Highly Exaggerated
There is no “end of the working class.”
Trump Always Seems to Bounce Back From Adversity. This Time, It’s Hard to See How.
Donald Trump’s lackluster speech announcing his 2024 presidential campaign epitomized the state of Trumpism since last Tuesday’s “red tide” failed to materialize: exhausted, petty, and obsessed with the past. Don’t count him out yet, though.
The Legacy of Mike Davis’s Late Victorian Holocausts
In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis showed how late 19th-century state violence and neglect created colonial markets and infrastructures, which, combined with shifting weather patterns, led to astonishingly brutal famines across the Global South.
Another Energy Transition Is Possible
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s dizzying history of energy consumption argues that no energy transition has ever occurred: each generation consumes more of past fuels. Not only are his claims ahistorical but they justify an unwarranted pessimism about the future.
The Impossible Escape From the European Union
Neoliberalism is embedded in the European Union’s DNA. But for the continent’s left, there are few good alternatives.
Ike & Hayek
Eisenhower’s warning about the “military-industrial complex” marked an era when the American right feared militarism could bankrupt the country and plunge it into socialism.
The European Union Has Been Shaken by Its Crises — but the Left Needs a Plan to Change It
The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have shaken many of the European Union’s dogmas. Yet the EU has repeatedly defied predictions of imminent collapse — posing the need for a serious left-wing program to reform it.
The F-35 Is Everything Wrong With the Military-Industrial Complex
The F-35 fighter jet has been plagued by malfunctions and cost overruns for years, yet Congress continues to order up more. The bipartisan consensus to fund tools of war rather than pro-worker programs like affordable housing or childcare is still strong.