The Politics of Debt in America

From Debtor’s Prison to Debtor Nation.

The US Military’s JROTC Program Is Even Worse Than You Thought

We’ve long known that the US armed forces target poor and working-class students to meet their enlistment goals. But according to a recent report, the military’s JROTC program is also rife with sexual misconduct and outright abuse of young women.

Civil Rights Unionism

In 1940s North Carolina, a Communist-led union of tobacco workers fought to bring democracy to the Jim Crow South.

From the Raised Fist to the Bended Knee

Colin Kaepernick's protest is part of a long history of black athletes taking politics to the field.

The Anti-Communism That Fueled Jean-Marie Le Pen

After the Axis powers’ defeat in World War II, many former Nazis and Vichyites recycled themselves as anti-communists. Jean-Marie Le Pen sought to rally such forces with radicalized conservatives in a common front against the red peril.

Trump’s Assault on Labor

Donald Trump’s bait and switch with American workers is his greatest fraud of all. While uttering meaningless platitudes about fighting for workers, he is setting back the labor movement in ways that previous administrations could never do.

Daniel Bensaïd Breathed New Life Into Marxism for the 21st Century

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.

Ivory Perry, the Forgotten Civil Rights Hell-Raiser

Activists are often held up as exemplars of personal morality — but in every social struggle, ordinary people with complex lives rise up as leaders. Ivory Perry was one of these who waged a relentless war for racial and economic justice.

To Crush Left-Wing Organizing, Canada Embraced Ukrainian Nazi Collaborators

Canada’s Nazi ovation gaffe in the House of Commons was just the tip of the iceberg. For years, the country deliberately admitted World War II Nazi collaborators in the hopes of dismantling political radicalism and suppressing labor militancy.

MLK Day Should Be About Continuing Dr. King’s Radical Project

On Martin Luther King Jr Day, rather than embracing a sanitized, deradicalized King, we remember a committed foe of not only racism, but economic inequality and militarism.

The Radicalism of Thaddeus Stevens

The Civil War and Reconstruction–era Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens understood far better than most of his contemporaries that fully uprooting slavery meant overthrowing the South’s economic system and challenging property rights — first the right of some human beings to own others, but also beyond it.

In Spanish Trenches, Irishmen Fought Against Fascism

After General Franco launched his military coup in July 1936, anti-fascists from around the world joined the International Brigades to defend the Spanish Republic. For the Irish volunteers, the fight against fascism in Spain was about upholding the internationalist spirit of Ireland’s own revolt against empire.

The Class Conflict Between Elites and Workers Goes Back to America’s Founding

You wouldn’t know it from the widespread glorification of America’s “founding fathers,” but the years around American independence were shot through with class conflict between elites and working people. And most of the founding fathers were on the wrong side.

Bernie Sanders and AOC’s Rallies Can Become a Mass Movement

The “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” rallies headlined by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can become something much bigger — if Bernie and AOC direct their rally attendees into sustained organizing efforts against Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Ernst Nolte’s Revenge

Conflations of Bolshevism and Nazism are the order of the day. Ernst Nolte would be pleased.

Bob Crow in Rojava

Who are the British volunteers fighting with the Kurdish YPG in Rojava?

Beyond the Fields

Mike Davis Revisits His 1986 Labor History Classic, Prisoners of the American Dream

The late socialist writer Mike Davis’s first book was Prisoners of the American Dream, a deep exploration of how the US labor movement became so weakened. Nearly four decades later, Davis revisited the book in an interview with Jacobin.

Canada Has a Nazi Monument Problem

A journalist in Edmonton is the most recent Canadian to be charged with vandalizing a Nazi monument. How Canada came to be home to so many monuments dedicated to Ukrainian Nazi collaborators is rooted in some dark chapters in the country’s history.

Can Federal Workers Stop Trump?

After what has felt like an eternity of Elon Musk and DOGE running rampant across the federal government, federal workers themselves and their unions are now leading the pushback.