American Capitalism Is Working — That’s the Problem
The United States is not a failed state — just ask any American capitalist. But we desperately need something better for everyone else.
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Nationalize the Railroads
As we learned in the recent rail union contract negotiations, ruthless profit-seeking has made conditions for railworkers unbearable. It’s also made railroads less efficient. America badly needs a national rail service owned and operated for the public good.
If Australia’s Unions Don’t Organize Unemployed Workers, They’re Digging Their Own Graves
Faced with the unemployment crisis of 1890, jobless workers in Melbourne formed a union to fight for relief. But the Australian labor movement remained indifferent to their struggle — and soon paid the price. Those self-defeating attitudes are still alive in unions today.
Mario Fiorentini (1918–2022): The Last Partisan
Mario Fiorentini was the last surviving militant of Rome’s Communist-led Gruppi d’Azione Patriottica partisan units. With his passing last night, we lost a powerful witness to the fight against Italian Fascism and German occupation.
At Davos, Capitalists Are Trying to Solve the Problems They Themselves Create
At the World Economic Forum’s conference in Davos this week, elites will try to address problems from climate change to the threat of worldwide recession. But these elites’ endless thirst for profit created these problems — and will doom their efforts to fail.
Michael Brooks and the Meaning of Socialist Internationalism
Michael Brooks’s ability to understand and analyze the similarities among authoritarians across the globe meant that he had little time for narratives that sought to portray non-Western culture as the source of barbarism and authoritarian rule.
US Billionaires Have Increased Their Riches By $1 Trillion During the Pandemic
A trillion dollars could maintain wages at pre-crisis levels for all workers in America, enabling people to stay home and stop the spread of the virus, for four months. Instead, it’s gone into the personal piggy banks of a handful of billionaire owners and investors.
Bernie Is Right: Extreme Wealth Concentration Has Turned America Into an Oligarchy
A new congressional report commissioned by Bernie Sanders finds that the 1 percent now own one-third of all wealth, while the bottom half of Americans hold only 2 percent. It’s another sign of the slide into oligarchy that Sanders has warned about for years.
Colombia’s Sinú River Tells the Story of Profit-Driven Violence and Environmental Destruction
The Sinú River in Colombia has provided food, water, and transportation to local people for thousands of years. In recent decades, wealthy landowners used violent force to push through construction of a dam that has caused disastrous flooding in the region.
Organizing a Union? Yes, There’s an App for That.
We are rightly skeptical of apps because the tech industry has plundered the commons, but a new app for union organizing should be given the opportunity to demonstrate proof of concept. Anything that makes union organizing easier has the potential to do good.
Bernie Is Right: We Shouldn’t Let the Senate Parliamentarian Block a $15 Minimum Wage
Bernie Sanders is absolutely right to insist we should ignore the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling against a minimum wage increase. Reducing poverty is far more important than adhering to fusty, old Senate rules.
Ilhan Omar’s Critics Want Impunity for US and Israeli War Crimes
Democratic Party leaders have accused Ilhan Omar of “moral equivalency” because she rejected the brazen double standard underpinning US foreign policy. But Omar is right: murderous violence against civilians is no less criminal when Israel or the United States are the perpetrators.
Unionized Nursing Homes Literally Saved Lives at the Pandemic’s Height
A new study finds that the COVID-19 mortality rate in unionized nursing homes was more than 10 percent lower than in their nonunion counterparts. Unionizing the whole industry, the numbers suggest, would have saved the lives of 8,000 nursing home residents.
The Global South Needs Power and Resources, Not Empty Representation
Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is rumored to be the next president of the World Trade Organization. But placing an African woman at the top of the powerful institution will do little if it continues to push neoliberal policies that harm workers and farmers across the Global South.
Corporations Are Using Carbon Credits to Exploit Refugees
The UN is putting refugees to work in poorly paid green jobs to generate carbon credits for billion-dollar firms. It’s one of the most cynical instances of a corporate greenwashing agenda that has done little to address climate change.
Republicans Run Toward Their Base. Democrats Run Away From Theirs.
This year’s RNC was predictably a circus, while the DNC was largely pitched to a relatively small sliver of affluent professionals and suburban conservatives. While conservatives are pulled ever rightward by an increasingly radicalized fringe, liberal elites discipline their base into accepting a message crafted for someone else.
CEO Performance Pay Is One of Capitalism’s Great Myths
The ratio of CEO pay to worker pay is almost 300 to 1. Are we really supposed to believe CEOs work 300 times harder or create 300 times more value than us?
Whoever Wins, This Election Is Not the End of Trumpism
Joe Biden and the Democrats have steadfastly refused to articulate a compelling alternative political vision to Donald Trump’s reactionary right-wing politics. Trump looks likely to have lost, but without creating an alternative to defeat it, Trumpism could return with a vengeance four years from now.
Republicans Have Normalized Voter Suppression
New polling shows many Republican voters now consider trampling voting rights a legitimate tactic. It’s a worrying trend — and a threat to democracy.
Rest in Power, John Lewis
With the death of John Lewis, we’ve lost another giant of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s up to us to carry on the struggle for the “beautiful community” he spent his whole life fighting for.