Assessing Léon Blum
In French Popular Front leader Léon Blum we find both the grandeur and misery of interwar social democracy.
Search Result(s) for: “working class”
Argentina After Kirchner
Tomorrow's Argentine elections will mark the end of Kirchner rule. What should the Left's strategy be going forward?
Chileans Revolted Against Their Constitution. Americans Should Too.
In recent years, Chileans have struggled to overturn their undemocratic political system and write a new constitution. Americans should take Chile’s lead and fight for a new constitution too.
The 1970s: Decade of the Rank and File
The 1970s were a high-water mark for the US labor movement, with work stoppages, wildcat strikes, and sit-downs spreading up and down the country, involving workers in all industries.
In Chile, Jeannette Jara Is the Candidate for Organized Labor
The Left’s candidate in Chile’s presidential election is Jeannette Jara, a Communist who was until recently the country’s labor minister. She’s running on her record of boosting the minimum wage and shortening Chileans’ working hours.
In Defense of Density
New construction isn’t the only solution to New York’s affordable housing crisis, but the Left is wrong to dismiss it outright.
Jonathan Chait Is Wrong About Everything, Including Bernie’s Electability
Jonathan Chait says “running Bernie Sanders against Trump would be an act of insanity.” But sticking with the Democratic establishment’s orientation to affluent moderates will spell disaster in 2020, just like it did in 2016 when 4.4 million Obama voters stayed home.
Identity Politics Is a Poor Substitute for Socialism
In No Politics but Class Politics, Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed show how an identity politics that obscures class politics and ignores economic inequality only makes the many miseries around us worse.
Workers and Renters of the World, Unite!
Although unions seek higher wages from employers, much of that extra pay goes straight to the landlords. To build workers’ power, we need decommodified and democratically controlled land and housing.
We Need a Strategy to Win Zohran’s Agenda. Call It Plan Z.
Electing Zohran Mamdani is just the beginning. To actually win his agenda against billionaire opposition, we need to build popular power — permanent grassroots organizations that can mobilize tens of thousands to have his back when the fight gets real.
Why the Paris Commune Still Resonates, 150 Years Later
The Paris Commune ended on this day in 1871, after just two months in power. How do we explain, Enzo Traverso asks, the longevity and freshness of the memory of a fleeting revolutionary government?
This Can’t Just Be About a Presidential Campaign. It Has to Be About a Political Revolution.
Whatever happens today in Iowa, we must think beyond one campaign. Our aim is to deliver on what W. E. B. Du Bois championed so many decades ago: breaking capital’s dictatorial power over our society, so all can flourish and all can control the forces that shape their lives.
From “No Kings” to “A Fair Shot”
The fight to defend democracy will succeed only if it is rooted in the everyday economic realities that drive people’s disillusionment with politics in the first place.
The Neoconservative Counterrevolution
In the anti-sixties backlash, neoconservatives were the most formidable intellectual opponents of social progress.
As Germans Drink Alone at Home, Community Pubs Are Closing
Skyrocketing prices and stagnating real wages are forcing more and more pubs to shut their doors. The closing of neighborhood pubs means the loss of leisure space, and of the community built around it.
The United Auto Workers Strike Is Already Shaking Up the Presidential Race
The UAW strike has rocketed into the presidential race, with Trump announcing a speech to autoworkers and the union trying to use Biden’s electric vehicle subsidies to open the sector to unionization. The strike's result will have major political implications.
Half the Way with Mao Zedong
How Students for a Democratic Society went from building a mass movement to embracing the politics of self-destruction.
Cyprus’s Polarized Elections Highlight a Crisis of Political Legitimacy
Sunday’s Cypriot election brought victory for nationalist hardliner Nikos Christodoulides. The Left’s vote held up, but the campaign also showed its weaknesses in combining class politics with answers to the country’s enduring division.
Nina Turner Is Coming Out Swinging — Again
This week, Nina Turner announced a second run for Congress in Ohio’s 11th District. She spoke with Jacobin about fighting pro-corporate Democrats, frustrations with the Biden administration, and why “evil never sleeps, so good can never take a vacation.”