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When he became the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to democratize the USSR without embracing free-market capitalism and end the Cold War without enabling US domination. The world is still haunted by his inability to achieve those goals.
Hold your applause for luxury brand magnate Bernard Arnault, the billionaire who just surpassed Elon Musk as the richest man in the world. He may not be taunting the Left on social media, but he’s just as much an emblem of grotesque inequality.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise claimed to replace old political parties using ad hoc structures based on “consensus.” But battles over its post-Mélenchon future have pitched this model into crisis — and show the need for real democratic structures.
Once a major national force, today’s French Socialist Party finds itself outcompeted by both the radical left and neoliberal president Emmanuel Macron. But last month’s congress shows many leaders would rather kill the party than sign up for radical policies.
Chile’s socialist experiment was made possible by a confrontational working-class political party and a militant labor movement. The experience shows the promise, and the dangers, of a movement based in both government initiatives and grassroots militancy.
Most French people oppose raising the pension age, and there was no parliamentary majority for the change. While the reform has now been railroaded through the National Assembly, mobilized opponents see a chance to finish off an unpopular government.
The European Commission has proposed a slight loosening of debt limits — but Germany’s neoliberal finance minister Christian Lindner is blocking the change. His zombie economics will impoverish citizens and hasten the rise of the far right.
The French Marxist thinker Daniel Bensaïd grappled with the history of socialist defeats to supply us with a road map for the present. The result was a brilliant reformulation of Marxism that can guide today’s left-wing movements in their struggles.
The ideas of John Rawls, perhaps the greatest political philosopher of the 20th century, have much to teach the Left. But Rawls’s theory of justice failed to grapple adequately with the fundamental obstacles capitalism imposes to realizing a just society.
Ed Broadbent is one of the most successful democratic socialist politicians in North America in the last 50 years. In a 1969 speech, reprinted here in full, he laid out a bold plan to erode the tyranny of private ownership and expand democracy to the economy.
Jacobin has been putting out socialist content at a rapid clip since 2010. Here’s a handy guide to some of the most important works from our archive, from our humble beginnings to the present day.
The British vote to leave the European Union is often cited as a far-right breakthrough. But as anti-immigration parties surge across the EU, Europe's own claim to represent internationalist values looks increasingly in doubt.
Now starting his 41st year in jail, Lebanese communist Georges Abdallah is Europe’s longest-held political prisoner. French authorities keep finding pretexts to deny his release, trampling on civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism.
In a wide-ranging interview, novelist Rachel Kushner, author of Creation Lake, discusses the aftermath of the revolutionary ’60s, the allure and brutality of American individualism, and why liberals long for naively romantic depictions of radical politics.
The immense power financial institutions wield over most aspects of our lives makes a mockery of democracy. To build a truly democratic society, we need to democratize finance.
In recent months, Emmanuel Macron insisted on the need to slash public debt, yet now he calls for huge military spending. The call to remilitarize has become the center of the French president’s agenda — and offers a pretext for even further cuts to welfare.