Following its failed crypto scheme, authoritarian president Nayib Bukele’s cash-strapped government is making moves to reverse El Salvador’s metal mining ban. Its reintroduction would be a disaster for the nation’s already contaminated water supply. Salvadorans participate in a protest against mining outside the Legislative Assembly in San Salvador

American unions’ members are down, but their finances are through the roof. The labor movement can’t rebuild its dismally low membership unless unions start spending their resources on aggressive new organizing campaigns. Rory Gamble, former president of United Auto Workers, speaks during the Ford Motor Co. centennial celebration of the Rouge manufacturing

One frequent casualty of war is the confident belief shared by new soldiers that their cause is just and worthy of great personal sacrifice. After Al-Qaeda downed four civilian airliners and caused nearly three thousand deaths on September 11, 2001, US military recruiters were flooded with eager volunteers. Patriotic fervor, coupled with an urge for […]

Matt Karp on class dealignment and why the Left’s weakening connection to blue-collar workers isn’t a problem we can wish away. Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at North Coast Air aeronautical services at Erie International Airport on October 20, 2020 in Erie, Pennsylvania. (Jeff Swensen / Getty Images) In a recent article, Chris Maisano raises some

French president Emmanuel Macron plans to hike the retirement age to 64, sparking massive protests. The government claims the current retirement age is unsustainable: but what French workers really can’t afford is to work till they drop. Placards with the face of Emmanuel Macron being held during the march against pension reform in Paris, France, on January

Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is expected to announce her bid for president this month. As a South Carolinian, I can tell you that having her in the White House would be a disaster for workers and their families. Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign for Georgia Republican senate candidate Herschel Walker on December 5, 2022 in Kennesaw,

In Russia, mounting authoritarianism and the wartime crackdown on dissent have hobbled trade unions. A five-day strike by food couriers showed that at least some workers are refusing to be muzzled. Yandex.Eats food delivery couriers push their scooters along a pedestrian bridge in Moscow on April 30, 2021. (Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP via Getty Images) In

House Republicans have wasted no time in red-baiting the Left, and the centrist leadership of the Democratic Party has apparently been happy to join them. Representative Nancy Pelosi during an event to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 2, 2023. (Ting Shen / Bloomberg

Some Democrats apparently thought voting for the GOP’s ludicrous anti-socialism resolution would keep them safe from Republican attacks. They’ll find out soon enough how wrong they were. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks during his weekly news conference on Capitol Hill on February 2, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images) For

Rosa Parks was born on this day in 1913. Far from being a face of respectability politics, she was a defiant and seasoned working-class organizer who despised the cringing submission that Jim Crow induced and who doggedly fought oppression in all its forms. Rosa Parks speaking at the conclusion of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery civil rights march, with Reverend

The US-dominated economic order constructed after Bretton Woods did not take the Global South into consideration. A new, just system will have to change that. An artisanal gold miner digs at the Bantakokouta gold mine in southeastern Senegal on February 2, 2023. (John Wessels / AFP via Getty Images) The most damming indictment of the world’s economic system

As public officials across America prepare to funnel even more of government workers’ savings to private equity moguls, they risk gambling away public retirement money as private equity values drop and industry executives continue to rake it in. Exterior view of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street during the 2023 first trading day in New York City, January

Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne’s new detective show, Poker Face, is a brilliant working-class riff on Knives Out. Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face. (Paramount, 2023) It’s a relief to watch Poker Face, the new hit mystery series created by Rian Johnson of Knives Out and Glass Onion fame, currently airing on Peacock. Not just because it’s a delightful show, made

Few scenes are as emblematic of the barbarism of American capitalism as the now-routine “sweeps” in which police round up homeless people and destroy their belongings. By some estimates, it would be cheaper to just provide them with housing. A homeless man moves his belongings from an encampment in Concord, California after city workers cleared the camp and

Following every juicy, unhinged twist and turn of Rod Dreher’s writing is trash TV for leftist intellectuals. Rod Dreher. (Elekes Andor / Wikimedia Commons) For some time, I have been trying to figure out exactly how to describe the quality of horrified fascination that the right-wing writer Rod Dreher evokes for so many of the people I know — many of them the

Ilhan Omar has been kicked off the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The move is a backhanded acknowledgment by her enemies of her unusual effectiveness as a critic of the hypocrisies of US foreign policy. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in Washington, DC. (Ricky Carioti / the Washington Post via Getty Images) It was a long time coming. Republicans have been periodically

J. D. Vance, the faux-populist senator from Ohio, says that Donald Trump “kept the peace” as president. He has a short memory. Ohio senator J. D. Vance speaking in Columbus, Ohio. (Sarah L. Voisin / the Washington Post via Getty Images) In an op-ed this week for the Wall Street Journal, Ohio senator J. D. Vance praises Donald Trump’s record as president and endorses

After the end of French colonial rule, Algeria’s first government began to promote workers’ self-management in the “Mecca of Revolution.” But a backlash by conservative elements led to a military coup that established the regime still in power today. FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella (C, tie) sits next to Colonel Houari Boumédiène (to his left), chief of the general

Israel’s air strikes on Iran highlight the risk that Israeli bellicosity and Biden administration fecklessness could combine to produce a disastrous regional war in the Middle East. Eli Cohen, Israel's foreign minister, speaks at a news conference with Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, in Jerusalem, Israel, on January 30, 2023. (Kobi Wolf / Bloomberg

The City University of New York is the crown jewel of the city’s once-robust welfare state, a vital resource for working-class New Yorkers. Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul are starving it. Ahead of the final state budget, over a thousand New Yorkers including students, faculty, staff, and supporters of City University of New York (CUNY) and State University

With pharma giant Moderna planning to quintuple the price it charges for its COVID vaccines — developed using taxpayer dollars — the case for nationalizing an out-of-control drug industry has never been stronger. Moderna plans to raise the price of its vaccine from $20.69 to as much as $130 per dose. Pfizer is reportedly planning to do much the same. (Eko Siswono

In 2020, Quaker Oats and its parent company, PepsiCo, announced the retirement of the Aunt Jemima brand for their syrup and pancake mix. The move was a response to backlash against the negative “Mammy” stereotype the brand invoked. But the discourse being what it is, there was inevitably a backlash to the backlash, with some […]

Emmanuel Macron plans to raise France’s retirement age — but this Tuesday, well over a million people mobilized against him. One of the biggest social movements in years, it has a chance to deal a decisive blow to attacks on welfare. Protesters march through the streets of Paris as part of a nationwide protest and strike against President Macron's pension reform

On the evening of June 14, 2017, an electrical fire broke out on the fourth floor of a West London high-rise apartment block. This fire grew and took hold on the cladding that had been added to the exterior as part of a revamp a few years before. The cladding had a core equivalent to […]

The Bush administration’s war on terror meted out unthinkable violence in the Middle East while imposing an atmosphere of repression and nativism at home. It was the perfectly malignant petri dish for helping produce Donald Trump. George W, Bush speaking at campaign rally in Burbank, CA in 2000. (Joe Sohm / Visions of America / Universal Images Group via Getty

With its upstart golf league, LIV Golf, Saudi Arabia has picked a fight with the American golf establishment. And because that establishment has stiffed so many pro golfers for so long, the Saudis appear to be winning. Brooks Koepka plays his shot from the 16th tee as former US president Donald Trump looks on during day one of the LIV Golf Invitational Bedminster

As soon as it became electorally inconvenient, the Democrats largely dropped their support for police reform and adopted a crime-fighting approach straight out of the ’90s. The result: shocking police murders like Tyre Nichols’s have become more common. A photo of Tyre Nichols, killed by Memphis police, is positioned for a press conference, January 27,

Prisoners in Massachusetts may soon be forced to choose between their organs and their freedom: Democratic legislators in the state are proposing a law that would allow prisoners to donate organs or bone marrow in exchange for up to a year off their sentence. A proposed Massachusetts law would allow prisoners to receive sentence reductions between two months

In several Canadian provinces, burned-out health care workers are leaving in droves, a result of wage suppression and attacks on workers. The fight for labor rights is key to fixing Canada’s health care crisis. Ontario's pediatric care crisis had the Sick Kids Critical Care Unit busy moving children between hospitals and making space for the most severe cases.

It’s not that partisan voting patterns are becoming decoupled from class — it’s that a complicated new set of alignments, rooted in the social and occupational structures of a postindustrial economy, is emerging in the United States. A man fills out a ballot at a voting booth on May 17, 2022 in North Carolina. (Sean Rayford / Getty Images) By the time he published

The UK’s neoliberal university system is pushing more and more faculty into precarious, low-paid positions while charging students ever more exorbitant fees. University of Liverpool staff and supporting students take part in a rally as strike action hits universities on November 24, 2022 in Liverpool, England. (Christopher Furlong / Getty Images) Within

Unlike with other academic workers, unionization among tenure-track faculty is rare. But unions can make it easier for tenure-stream faculty to fight back against the corporatization of higher ed. Elisheva Gross, a continuing lecturer in the University of California system, supporting a graduate student worker strike. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times

At the October 2022 summit of the National Restaurant Association's legal wing, union-busting lawyers shared their latest strategies for shutting down workplace democracy. Recent food service union successes, it seems, have worried industry executives. Members of a recently formed union of Starbucks workers hold a rally to celebrate the first anniversary

Given the programs’ popularity, the only way to break Social Security and Medicare is an economic shock. It’s possible that manufacturing such a shock is behind Republicans’ refusal to raise the debt ceiling. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy takes the gavel after securing the speakership on the fifteenth ballot on January 7, 2023. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll

The Index on Censorship, a right-wing nonprofit led by a vicious Jeremy Corbyn opponent that receives funding from the US government, has named Mexican president AMLO its annual “Tyrant of the Year.” Come on. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico's president, during the North American Leaders' Summit in Mexico City, Mexico, on January 10, 2023. (Alejandro

Today “ethical consumerism” mostly refers to individuals feeling morally righteous about what they buy. But the consumers movement was once motivated by the broader, collective goal of democratic management of the economy. Helen Hall (R, front), chair of the Consumers’ National Federation, with a committee at the White House making demands for a "new deal"

Much of the world is likely to have a recession this year, and Britain is expected to be especially hard hit. We can thank years of stagnant wages for workers — made worse by the Tories’ return to cruel austerity policies. A sign painted on the side of a house directs people to a local food bank in Leeds, England. (Christopher Furlong / Getty Images) The year 2023 looks

The organizer of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech was also the leader of the first successful black labor union. For A. Philip Randolph, labor and civil rights were one and the same. A. Phillip Randolph, socialist, labor organizer, and civil rights leader, speaks at the Fair Employment Practices Committee

We are rightly skeptical of apps because the tech industry has plundered the commons, but a new app for union organizing should be given the opportunity to demonstrate proof of concept. Anything that makes union organizing easier has the potential to do good. A construction worker uses his phone while on break. (Anthony Wallace / AFP via Getty Images) Among

Millions of renters are suffering immensely right now as they face down imminent evictions in a housing market that has seen rents skyrocket in recent years. Joe Biden’s recently announced renters relief plan won’t do much to aid them. Florida tenants struggling with rent watch news of US President Joe Biden in their home on January 19, 2022. (Chandan Khanna

Indian economist Amartya Sen has posed a devastating challenge to the dominant capitalist understanding of development. But Sen’s own analytical framework doesn’t go far enough in exposing the inherently exploitative logic of capitalism. Amartya Sen speaking in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2012. (Fronteiras do Pensamento / Wikimedia Commons) Amartya Sen is

Eric Adams loves to style himself as a mayor for the working class. But with his new budget’s long list of cuts to education and health programs that millions depend on, he’s putting forward an austerity agenda that only a plutocrat could love. Mayor Eric Adams is pictured in Times Square in October. (Luiz C. Ribeiro / New York Daily News / Tribune News Service via

Billionaire Kelcy Warren has sued Beto O’Rourke for defamation over old campaign ads. Judges who could be presiding over the case have previously taken election funds from Warren, making a ruling for Warren — and against free speech — more likely. Kelcy Warren, chairman and chief executive officer of Energy Transfer Partners LP, speaks during the 2018 CERAWeek

Karl Marx was one of the greatest intellectuals of the nineteenth century. He was also one of its greatest writers. Like Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, and the Brontë sisters, Marx looms large among the peaks of nineteenth-century prose. Ludovico Silva’s newly translated Marx’s Literary Style, originally published as El estilo literario de Marx in […]

Ottawa’s refusal to ruffle feathers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government, the most far-right in Israel’s history, is par for the course. Canada remains a staunch ally of Israel’s apartheid state. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau (R) attend a ceremony in Paris on November 11, 2018

Ukraine is being sized up by neocolonial vultures from BlackRock to the EU for a carve-up after the war is over. On the menu is deregulation, privatization, and “tax efficiency” — measures that may have already begun. Ukrainian rescuers examine a damaged residential building after a Russian shelling in Kherson, southern Ukraine, on January 29, 2023, amid

Last August, workers in an auto parts plant in Mexico voted to form an independent union. As their employer, VU Manufacturing, continues to try and bust the union, workers are fighting for a contract. Auto parts workers after winning an independent union at a VU Manufacturing factory in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, in 2022. (CorpWatch / Twitter) In the

The war in Ukraine has overshadowed the ongoing battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But both conflicts show the Soviet Union is still unraveling — with devastating, bloody consequences. Azerbaijani servicemen stand guard at a checkpoint at the Lachin corridor, the only land link with Armenia for the Armenian-populated breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has outsourced billions of dollars’ worth of contracts, including $100 million to McKinsey. Instead of shoveling money into the private sector, the Liberals could make the novel choice of investing in state capacity. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau during the North American Leaders' Summit in Mexico City, Mexico,

Following recent victories at Yale and Northwestern, graduate student workers at the University of Chicago are voting on whether to unionize at the end of the month. We spoke with workers there about the history of their effort and what they think is next. University of Chicago graduate student workers after submitting a petition for union recognition to the

As conditions worsen in Haiti, Ottawa remains steadfast in its provision of resources for the repressive Haitian National Police. This stalwart aid stands in stark contrast with Ottawa’s miserliness when the social democratic Fanmi Lavalas party was in power. A protester taunts police officers during Jean-Jacques Dessalines Day in Port-au-Prince, Haiti,

In his monumental collage series Projections (1964), American artist Romare Bearden encapsulated a century of African-American strife. Builders, matriarchs, and blues guitarists coalesce in lyrical street scenes, juxtaposing their dilapidated homes with the sleek urban landmarks they helped construct. Bearden charted the transition from chattel

Health care workplaces have replaced steel mills and auto plants as the nation’s big employers. But while industrial workers once had mighty unions, hospital workers have struggled by comparison to win representation and good contracts. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Shadyside, in 2017. (Nick Amoscato / Wikimedia Commons) How did it come to

Ron DeSantis’s crusade against “woke ideology” was always a thinly disguised assault on the rights of Florida teachers and their unions. His recent “Teacher’s Bill of Rights” only makes it explicit. Florida governor Ron DeSantis seen during a press conference in Daytona Beach Shores, Florida, on January 18, 2023. (Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images / LightRocket

I have had what I have been privately referring to as a poetry block for several years: I can barely read it, I certainly can’t write it, and it’s difficult to properly read anything about it. I used to live for poetry, and I still make a living by, occasionally, teaching it. It’s a strange […]

Across Eastern Europe, the war in Ukraine has reinvigorated narratives that present life under Soviet rule as akin to Nazi genocide. It’s bad history — and it indulges the nationalist groups who collaborated with Adolf Hitler. The Memorial of Red Army Soldiers is scaffolded ahead being dismantled at the Antakalnis Cemetery in Vilnius on December 6, 2022.

We all know that the rents are too damn high and that our cities’ efforts at providing affordable housing have been failures. The reason they fail is because the “affordable housing” playbook does not consider housing as a public good. A public housing building south of Paris, France, January 21, 2023. (Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt / AFP via Getty Images) Over the

The United Packinghouse Workers of America was a beacon of “civil rights unionism.” And in the aftermath of Emmett Till’s grotesque lynching in 1955, the union spearheaded a mass campaign on Till’s behalf in the North and South. Four women from the United Packinghouse Workers of America Louisiana delegation to the trial of Emmett Till’s murderers, standing

Protesters against a massive police militarization complex in Atlanta have been slapped with domestic terrorism charges for throwing bottles and breaking windows. That should be deeply worrisome for anyone who values the right to dissent. Police arrest a protester during a "Stop Cop City" protest in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 21, 2023. (Benjamin Hendren

Does the long-term fallout from the Brexit crisis mean that a united Ireland, Sinn Féin’s overriding political objective, is now within reach? After last year’s Northern Ireland Assembly election, Sinn Féin is now the largest party on both sides of the Irish border — a scenario that seemed utterly far-fetched little more than a decade […]

Yesterday, staff at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse did something no British workers at the company had previously done: they walked off the job. Amazon workers on strike outside the Coventry Amazon fulfillment center on January 25, 2023. (Christopher Furlong / Getty Images) It’s 5 a.m. and Amin is on the picket line outside the Amazon warehouse in Coventry.

Russell Banks, the acclaimed novelist who died of cancer earlier this month at the age of eighty-two, did not so far as I know identify as a socialist. But he did describe himself as a person of the Left, and in 1985 he wrote a profile for the Atlantic of the then-not-widely-known socialist mayor of […]

Last week, South Korea’s intelligence agency raided the country’s largest group of independent unions. It’s a blatant attack on workers’ rights that has raised fears the conservative government is resurrecting dictatorship-era methods of bludgeoning labor. President Yoon Suk-yeol walks with his aides in Seoul, South Korea. (Chris Jung / NurPhoto via

Last week, South Korea’s intelligence agency raided the country’s largest group of independent unions. It’s a blatant attack on workers’ rights that has raised fears the conservative government is resurrecting dictatorship-era methods of bludgeoning labor. President Yoon Suk-yeol walks with his aides in Seoul, South Korea. (Chris Jung / NurPhoto via

Austerity-minded Jeff Zients’s appointment as White House chief of staff signals Joe Biden’s return to the fiscal hawkishness that has always been his sweet spot. US president Joe Biden makes an announcement on additional military support for Ukraine in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 25, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

In a world where norms and codes of conduct mattered, George Santos’s would be an open and shut case. But as long as he remains useful to the narrow Republican House majority, the chronically dishonest congressman likely isn’t going anywhere. Representative George Santos leaves a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club on January

Britain saw a massive wave of collective action in the 1970s as trade unionists opposed a law that limited the right to strike. Revisiting this history provides a blueprint for fighting back against the Tories' anti-union legislation today. Workers protesting against the Industrial Relations Act in London, 1973. (PA Images via Getty Images) The postwar

Synthpop icon Molly Nilsson speaks about the future of creative pursuits in a neoliberal world, her hatred of pessimism, and her admiration for revolutionaries like Rosa Luxemburg. Swedish Singer Molly Nilsson performs live in in Berlin, Germany, 2015. (Frank Hoensch / Redferns via Getty Images) On her days off from working at the cloakroom at Berlin’s Berghain

With its new immigration policy, the Biden administration isn’t even breaking from Trump-era anti-immigrant policies, much less charting a new, humane course for immigrants and refugees. Joe Biden speaks to the press in Mexico City on January 10, 2023. (Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images) The Biden administration’s newly announced immigration policy represents

Right-wing demagogue Steven Crowder recently turned down a $50 million offer from Ben Shapiro’s billionaire-funded media organization, calling it a “slave contract.” If only these guys showed as much concern for the conditions of ordinary workers. Steven Crowder on his show Louder With Crowder in 2015. (Wikimedia Commons) Conservative commentator Steven

Analytic philosophy, a branch of the discipline that emphasizes rigorous argumentation, is often dismissed as a set of abstract puzzle games. But analytic philosophers have reinterpreted Marxism to provide a radical critique of capitalist society. Workers packing syrups and fruit delicacies into glass jars at a bottling plant, circa 1890. (Hulton Archive

Before their illiberal turn, Poland and Hungary were lauded as postcommunist poster children. Both nations have combined moderately redistributive welfare states with attacks on civil liberties — but inflation is putting their growth model to the test. Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki welcomes Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán in front

Labor minister Yolanda Díaz is Spain’s most popular politician — and her new Sumar electoral vehicle promises to greatly expand the Left’s support. But the project remains marred by infighting, with strained relations between Díaz and her Podemos allies. Yolanda Díaz during the presentation of the working coordinators of Sumar in Madrid, Spain on September

The mainstream pro-choice movement has mounted a highly individualized defense of abortion rights, one centered on privacy and choice. But abortion rights can also also be rooted in achieving economic justice for everyone. Abortion rights activists attend the Women's March Action Rally for reproductive rights at Mariachi Plaza on October 8, 2022 in Los

A North Carolina charter school that receives 95% of its funding from public sources is forcing girls to wear skirts. If the Supreme Court hears the case, it could determine if constitutional protections governing public education apply to charter schools. Charter schools, to which states delegate some of their responsibility to provide free, universal

Joe Biden has repeatedly pushed to cut Social Security in the past. But a proposal to end the payroll tax exemption for the rich would bolster the crucial government service and even has Joe Manchin’s support. The president has no excuse not to support it. President Joe Biden speaks during an event with a bipartisan group of mayors in the East Room of the White House

Left political strategies have traditionally divided between social democratic parliamentarism and the Leninist idea of “smashing the state.” Nicos Poulantzas argued that neither strategy was adequate and developed his own vision of “revolutionary reformism.” The Petrograd Soviet in 1917. (Wikimedia Commons) The publication of Nicos Poulantzas’s

Former iCarly child actor Jennette McCurdy’s new memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, exposes how a profit-hungry entertainment industry encouraged the abusive behavior of her mother, who used her daughter’s stardom as an escape from financial precarity. Jennette McCurdy backstage at a fashion event at Lincoln Center in New York City on February 14, 2015. (Chelsea

A New York Times investigation has uncovered a scam by which food service workers are made to pay out of pocket for state-mandated “safety” courses run by the restaurant lobby — which then turns around and spends millions of dollars pushing lawmakers to keep food service workers’ wages low. A restaurant worker carries drinks to customers at a restaurant in Wyomissing,

When Rishi Sunak became the leader of the Conservative Party last October, he was the fifth Tory leader since Sunak himself entered Westminster for the first time in 2015. During the last Conservative stint in government, there were just two party leaders in the whole period between 1979 and 1997, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. […]

The US health care system forces new parents to pay thousands of dollars simply to have their child delivered into the world. That’s absurd. We could easily make childbirth free for all. A pregnant woman holds her belly on September 27, 2016 in Cardiff, United Kingdom. (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images) Last year, Elizabeth Bruenig wrote a piece at the

The great labor historian Michael Denning reflects on what Antonio Gramsci’s work has to tell us today. A mural of Antonio Gramsci in Rome, 2015. (Nicholas Gemini / Wikimedia Commons) Italian communist leader and theorist Antonio Gramsci is perhaps more referenced than actually read. But his work is worth wrestling with. As an organizer, Gramsci developed

The Federal Trade Commission has proposed banning “noncompete clauses” in labor contracts. It’s a win for workers, but the FTC’s rationale — a blind devotion to “competition” as the solution to injustices in the labor market — is wrongheaded and dangerous. Construction workers in San Francisco, California. (Paul Chinn / the San Francisco Chronicle via Getty

Ontario premier Doug Ford is outsourcing surgical procedures, handing health care provision over to entities that oppose Medicare. The measure is another step toward the dismantling of public health care in Canada. Ontario premier Doug Ford and deputy premier and minister of health Sylvia Jones at a news conference in Toronto announcing the privatization

The CEO of United Airlines has stated publicly that airlines are selling more flight tickets than they can actually staff, causing chaos for customers. Yet Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg all but refuses to do anything about it. Pete Buttigieg during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing on January 21,

Elon Musk has cultivated an image as a down-to-earth billionaire who can propel us into a wondrous climate change–free future. But even his most ambitious visions leave the plutocratic status quo intact. Elon Musk after a T-Mobile and SpaceX joint event on August 25, 2022 in Boca Chica Beach, Texas. (Michael Gonzalez / Getty Images) In 2015, the blog Wait But

Syriza’s surrender to the troika in 2015 continues to hang over Greece’s radical left. With general elections coming this spring, it needs to break out of its impasse — and create a real alternative to the country’s permanent austerity regime. Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras speaks to the press outside his office in Athens on June 6, 2019. (Louisa Gouliamaki /

Kindness, empathy, and compassion were values at the heart of Jacinda Ardern’s political career — but they were often absent from her government’s policies. The result was a squandered opportunity to overhaul New Zealand’s economy for the better. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern announces her resignation at the War Memorial Centre on January 19,

From the Cold War to the war on terror, Washington has backed a series of Ethiopian governments while turning a blind eye to their human rights abuses. The Biden administration’s appeasement of Abiy Ahmed’s government is the latest example of this shabby record. US secretary of state Antony Blinken meets with Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed during the

Despite high-profile organizing drives at Starbucks and elsewhere, the latest numbers show that union membership is still shrinking as a percentage of the workforce. Unions will have to massively scale up new organizing to counter the brute might of capital. Chris Smalls, a leader of the Amazon Labor Union, leads a march of Starbucks and Amazon workers and

The key to Lula’s success with religious voters is offering them respect without pandering to them. Lula artfully refrains from instrumentalizing religion and refuses to be instrumentalized by it. The Vatican's secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and Brazil's president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the Vatican, November 13, 2008. (Maurix /Gamma-Rapho

The year was 2008. Italian investigative reporter Stefania Maurizi had lost contact with one of her sources; the source believed they were being wiretapped illegally. The source was spooked and failed to even show up for one last meeting. Following Maurizi’s source’s cutting off ties, the journalist began to research the best ways to protect […]

Almost a year into Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the state is cracking down ever harder on all signs of dissent. Today exiled or jailed, the Russians who spoke out against the war are key to rebuilding a peaceful, democratic society. Russian artist Alexandra Skochilenko, 32, who was detained in April on charges of spreading "fake information" about

Algeria’s national cinema emerged from the cross-cultural exchange and solidarity that was vital to resisting French colonialism and war. It’s a striking example of the internationalist energies of film committed to national liberation struggles. Algerian film director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina (third from left), Greek actor Yorgo Voyagis (second

The Israeli state and its allies have campaigned tirelessly to promote the misleading concept of the “new antisemitism.” This effort brands effective, well-documented criticism of Israel as antisemitic while sowing confusion about real anti-Jewish prejudice. An Israeli left-wing peace activist shows a Palestinian national flag painted on her palm

Though Occupy Wall Street, the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns, and other developments have brought the themes of class and economic inequality back into public consciousness in recent years, this resurgence has been accompanied by denunciations of Marxism as an outdated framework for social and political analysis. Pundits and politicians warn

According to the latest data, the ranks of unionized workers grew by 200,000 between 2021 and 2022. If the United States’ unionization rules in place weren’t so biased toward bosses, tens of millions more workers indicate they would have joined a union, too. The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union on strike for higher wages. (Getty Images) According

After a decade that produced a series of shocks, the European Union seems to have weathered its worst moment of crisis. Yet the EU still suffers a fundamental lack of democracy — and the Left should be in the forefront of demanding its reform. European Parliament president Roberta Metsola (at the rostrum) speaks during the conference on the Future of Europe in

Last week, graduate student workers at Northwestern University voted to unionize by a landslide margin. We spoke to some of the worker-organizers about why they wanted to unionize and how they won. Northwestern University Graduate Workers march in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo courtesy NUGW) On Thursday, January 12, the Northwestern University Graduate

Taiwan has been subject to the machinations of great powers for much of its history. A better international order would ensure that all nations, big and small, have an equal voice in the global arena. Chiang Kai-shek and his wife walk past government officials, military leaders, and servicemen in Taipei, Taiwan, after attending the rally marking the 60th anniversary