The Teachers’ Strike Wave Comes to Charter Schools
Chicago charter school educators are poised to strike. Their unionization and militant organizing show how teachers around the country can fight corporate education reform.
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Why Shadow Banking Is Bigger Than Ever
Despite nearly destroying the global economy in 2008, the shadow banking revolution marches on.
The 2018 Jacobin Mixtape
Don’t cry in your champagne. Here’s the best of Jacobin from a remarkable year.
Billionaires vs. LA Schools
The Los Angeles teachers' strike isn't all about wages. At its core, the strike is a fight against a hostile takeover of public schools by the superrich.
Black Political Life and the Blue Lives Matter Presidency
To meaningfully confront mass incarceration and police violence, the Left must move past race reductionism by recognizing the complexities of black political life.
We Don’t Need Space Colonies, and We Definitely Don’t Need Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos says his space colonies will produce “a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins.” But we already have millions of talented people here on Earth — the problem is, they’re toiling in obscurity for people like Bezos.
Bernie Sanders Could Be the Best Arts President in US History
State support for the arts in the United States pales in comparison to arts funding overseas. Bernie Sanders could change that.
Manners — Revolutionary and Bourgeois
It's easy to dismiss manners as simply markers of social hierarchy. But manners can perform an egalitarian, progressive function — and they're essential to any democratic organization.
The American Federation of Teachers’ Endorsement of Joe Biden Was Blatantly Undemocratic
The American Federation of Teachers recently announced its endorsement of Joe Biden for president. Even by the dismal standards set by the rest of the labor movement, the AFT’s endorsement was comically undemocratic.
Our Revolution Failed to Live Up to Its Potential. But the Bernie Movement Needs a Mass Organization Now.
A few weeks ago, we had a democratic-socialist presidential campaign with several million donors and over a thousand-person staff. Today, we have no mass organization to carry on the struggle. We can change that — but only with Bernie’s help.
We Need Unionized Jobs, Not Crumbs of Charity
Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, has donated $100 million to food banks during the current crisis, but he won’t even pay his own workers sick pay. Instead of charity, we need rights we can rely on — and as Unite leader Len McCluskey argues, the best way to win them is to organize with our coworkers.
Barons of the Valley
The tycoons of Big Tech are following in the footsteps of their Gilded Age predecessors, using a facade of social concern to cover over their depredations. We need to depose the new Robber Barons.
The United States Has a Long History of Mutual Aid Organizing
Mutual aid networks cropped up all over the United States at the start of the lockdown, helping communities organize themselves in the absence of adequate state support. Those projects have a deep history in the US, especially within early organized labor.
Tearing Down Statues Doesn’t Erase History, It Makes Us See It More Clearly
The protesters tearing down monuments to slaveholders and perpetrators of genocide are often accused of “erasing the past.” But their actions are bringing closer scrutiny on the figures these monuments celebrate — allowing history to be retold from the viewpoint of their victims.
Liberalism Is as Bad as the Economist Makes It Sound
Liberalism is often presented as a loose set of principles like reason, freedom, and the rule of law. But over almost two centuries, the Economist has provided a window into the dominant strand of liberalism in action — with imperial conquest and undemocratic regimes defended in the name of upholding “free trade.”
Workers at Four Pittsburgh Museums Are Unionizing
More than a century after the landmark Homestead strike against Andrew Carnegie’s steel empire, workers at four Pittsburgh museums — including three founded by Carnegie — are unionizing with the United Steelworkers. It’s the latest episode in a nationwide wave of museum organizing.
How Black Pullman Porters Waged a Struggle for “Civil Rights Unionism”
Led by A. Philip Randolph, black Pullman porters struggled against the exploitation of the company and the racism of the mainstream labor movement to win a fighting union. They secured dignity on the job — and laid the foundation for the modern Civil Rights Movement.
The 1776 Unites Project Is an Exercise in Empty Capitalist Boosterism
Last week, Donald Trump denounced the “radical” ideas brainwashing students to hate America. Right on time, the 1776 Unites project released education materials they claim are a corrective. Praised by education secretary Betsy DeVos as "wonderful," the materials aren't a serious look at American history — they’re empty boosterism for American free markets.
What Engels Gave To Marx and Marxism
Friedrich Engels was far more than Karl Marx’s benefactor, or the custodian of his intellectual legacy. When they met as young men in the 1840s, Engels was already an accomplished political writer, who first articulated some of the basic concepts of what became “Marxism.”
Resisting Amazon Is Not Futile
Amazon represents the pinnacle challenge to union organizers and socialists throughout the country. Are we in a 1919 moment, still a generation of failures away from breakthrough success? Or closer to 1935, approaching the tipping point of winning real worker power?