Search Result(s) for: “working class”
We Need Worker Organizing, Not Firebombs
In March, an environmentalist arson attack near a German Tesla factory halted production — and prompted many workers to defend Tesla. It was further proof that actions bypassing organized labor are unlikely to appeal to those whose livelihoods are at stake.
Meatpacking Workers’ Solidarity on the Killing Floor
In the 1930s and ’40s, meatpacking employers used racial hiring policies as “strike insurance,” strategically fostering racism to discourage unionization. The Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee organized across racial lines and proved them wrong.
Racism Isn’t an Unchangeable Fixture of American Life. We Can Dismantle It.
Thinking about racism as some kind of existential “original sin” that will always be with us no matter what we do, no matter what efforts we undertake to fight it, is a political dead end. Through organizing, we have struck blows against racism in the past — we can do so again today.
From Compromise to Power
Over the course of 1917, the Petrograd Soviet transformed from a body willing to negotiate with capital to one ready for revolution.
Labor and the Long Seventies
In the tumultuous 1970s, women and people of color streamed into unions, strikes swept the country — and employers launched a fierce counter-attack.
Don’t Write Off US Union Organizing Before the CIO
The Congress of Industrial Organizations is often understood to the be the innovative, solidarity-based alternative to the American Federation Labor, its immediate predecessor. But the CIO had limits too — and the AFL had more to offer than it gets credit for.
Emmanuel Macron’s Government Is Using Evictions as a Tool of Control
French interior minister Gérald Darmanin has ordered that families of “delinquents” be evicted from social housing. Such collective punishment tramples on all manner of legal principles — but fits with the government’s repressive crackdown in poor suburbs.
What Is a “Proletarian” Anyway?
With the rise of industrial capitalism and the workers’ movement it created, we created new words to explain a confounding new world.
An Open Letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Liberals Who Love Him
The reparations demand survives as a parlor debate — it cannot address the real needs and interests of black workers.
Lincoln’s Paramilitaries, the “Wide Awakes,” Helped Bring About a Political Revolution
Throughout the 1860 election, the Wide Awakes, a novel paramilitary-style organization, held mass rallies, marches, and demonstrations to combat slave power. These “young working-men for Lincoln” successfully combined new media and unrepentant partisanship to mobilize hundreds of thousands against the Southern planter class.
Bernie’s Revolution Needs the Labor Movement to Win
So far in the Democratic primary, unions have been riding the fence. But they could play the decisive factor in Bernie Sanders’s efforts to defeat the Democratic Party establishment, oust Donald Trump, and win transformative social change.
Why Are the Police Like This?
The police were first created to suppress labor militancy and the Left, before becoming a tool to bludgeon the most marginalized in society, particularly poor black people. We must dismantle this brutal instrument of social control.
The Socialism of William Morris Brought Ecology and Class Struggle Together
William Morris condemned the dehumanizing impact of industrial capitalism on workers and raised an early alarm about the threat it posed to the natural world. His vision of ecological socialism is a vital resource for today’s political movements.
Show Us the Money
Facing pressure from the Left, Democratic presidential candidates are foregoing corporate PAC money. But in private, they’re still cozying up to capitalist supervillains.
Asking the Wrong Questions
No, the British Labour Party didn't lose last month because they were too left-wing.
“Social Democracy at Home Requires Anti-Imperialism Abroad”
An internationalist, anti-imperialist vision has been all but abandoned by the Left. We need to rebuild that vision.
Zohran Mamdani Is Listening — and Taking Notes
At an unusual event in Queens on Sunday, everyday New Yorkers lined up to offer their expertise and experience to democratic socialist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Lelio Basso and the Missed Opportunities of Italian Socialism
Lelio Basso was a major figure of the postwar Italian left who urged its parties to follow through on their revolutionary programs and avoid subordinating themselves to the ruling Christian Democrats. Italy’s Socialists and Communists should have heeded his advice.
Tunisia’s Next Revolution
Young Tunisians, unwilling to abandon the revolution they launched seven years ago, are fighting against a government committed to neoliberal austerity.