
Make UK Public Transport Free
It’s time for radical proposals to rebuild Britain’s social fabric and combat the climate crisis. Here’s one: make public transport free.

It’s time for radical proposals to rebuild Britain’s social fabric and combat the climate crisis. Here’s one: make public transport free.

Having never recovered from the last recession, America’s states are now being dealt another dose of austerity from the federal government, forcing more budget cuts across welfare, education, and even health care. It’s the opposite approach of what’s needed. Unless we can fund these services, the crises will only deepen.

There’s lots of breathless talk these days about robots replacing all of our jobs. But if you look at the data, there’s little indication that’s actually going to happen.

After three decades of dramatic increases in the cost of living, last month, Berlin’s city government passed a five-year rent freeze. Grassroots campaigns have changed the conversation about rent — and now they’re fighting to break the market’s control over housing.

Policymakers in the Global North have mostly responded to rising inflation by raising interest rates. That’s bad for their own workers — and it’s creating a debt crisis for many countries in the Global South.

The top 10% are responsible for nearly half of the consumer spending that’s keeping the economy afloat. There’s something disturbing about a tiny number of people having so much money that it effectively masks how poor everyone else is.

Though inflation-adjusted wage growth resumed earlier this year, real wages are still down overall since Joe Biden took office. It’s not crazy to suppose that this could be affecting people’s attitudes toward the economy.

After 2008, Lebanon’s oligarchic elites engineered a financialized boom that fueled inequality and lined the pockets of bankers. Now its economy has imploded, leaving the country’s working class to foot the bill.

Every week, Jacobin Radio's The Dig introduces you to the Left's brightest thinkers and activists.

In the early 20th century, Ukraine was repeatedly a site of antisemitic violence and genocide. Even today, racism hasn't disappeared — but Jewish people’s place in today's Ukraine shows that antisemitism is no eternal national trait.

Cash bail creates a two-tier justice system where freedom belongs to those who can afford it. For poor people, Illinois’s new bail reform bill is a step toward justice. For melodramatic conservatives drowning in propaganda, it’s right out of a horror film.

Labour’s critics are horrified that the party would stoop so low: proposing popular policies like free broadband and more public holidays. It’s understandable they’re surprised — before Jeremy Corbyn arrived, the Tories and New Labour spent years insisting that life in the UK can’t get better.

Fixing Britain’s housing crisis requires rebuilding the country’s publicly owned housing system — the opposite of the private developer–centered approach recently announced by Keir Starmer.

Ohio’s Issue 1 was about preventing a popular decision on abortion rights in the short term and undercutting majority influence over policymaking in the long term. Its failure is a win for democracy — but it’s part of a larger campaign that isn’t over yet.

Last year, the Young Democratic Socialists of America’s Red Hot Summer program trained hundreds of young people to organize their workplaces and helped launch union drives representing thousands. This year’s program hopes to be even bigger, writes YDSA’s cochair.

Tony Blair’s government introduced a national minimum wage for the UK 25 years ago. When it comes to lifting people out of poverty, the minimum wage law has been a clear failure — its enforcement has been lax, and it’s never kept up with the cost of living.

New York’s post–Andrew Cuomo governor, Kathy Hochul, has been taking a page from her disgraced predecessor, savvily maneuvering to sideline the state’s resurgent left — even when the main beneficiary turns out to be the GOP.

Canada’s highly precarious housing market has long been perched on the edge of disaster. As the country’s central bank pushes up interest rates to fight inflation, that perch is looking more dangerous than ever.

Elizabeth Warren is up in the polls lately. Where is her new support coming from? A look at the polls shows she is drawing from Biden's supporters and perhaps from undecided and lower-ranked candidates — but not Bernie Sanders's supporters.

The Biden campaign's decision to forsake door-to-door canvassing may have cost Democrats dearly in down-ballot races. It was emblematic of the party's disastrous abandonment of face-to-face organizing.