The day after forty-eight-year-old soccer journalist Grant Wahl collapsed in the press tribune at a World Cup quarterfinal in Qatar and died of an aortic aneurysm, a Los Angeles Times headline compared Wahl’s life to that of the late travel host Anthony Bourdain. The...
Jacobin
How the Supreme Court’s Agenda Is Being Shaped by Right-Wing Billionaire Money
Conservative activist Leonard Leo is spending millions to shape the Supreme Court’s agenda. On his docket: ending affirmative action, rolling back antidiscrimination protections, and giving state legislatures unreviewable oversight of federal elections. Conservative...
In 2023, Politics Are Probably Going to Stay Stuck. That’s a Good Thing for the Right.
With dueling investigations into Donald Trump and Hunter Biden, low-energy presidential campaigns based on not being the other guy, and maybe a government shutdown, 2023 will see political gridlock. Except in the conservative Supreme Court, that is. Supporters of...
Morocco’s World Cup Run Was a Political Game Changer for North Africa
The Moroccan football team and its fans subverted a World Cup that looked set to be a stultifying showcase for state and corporate power. From solidarity with Palestine to the celebration of Amazigh identity, they’ve left behind an important legacy. Morocco players...
Europe Is Recognizing Platform Employees as Real Workers
On Monday, the EU Parliament backed a directive granting employees of platforms like Uber labor and social security standards just like other workers. It’s time to stop tech firms using bogus self-employment to deny their employees’ rights. An Uber driver checks his...
Can Tech Workers Organize to Prevent Layoffs?
“About to be great furniture deals on Craigslist,” the tweet reads. Accompanying it is a spreadsheet detailing the thousands of employees laid off by Silicon Valley tech companies in recent weeks. Each line lists deep layoffs: Twitter fired half its seven thousand...
Hundreds of Video Game Workers at Microsoft-Owned Studios Are Trying to Unionize
This month, around 300 workers at three Microsoft-owned video game studios across the US are voting on whether to unionize. Jacobin spoke to workers involved in the effort about their organizing and why they want a union. Three game studios owned by Microsoft will...
For Railworkers, Sick Days Weren’t the Real Issue — It Was Basic Control of Their Lives
By ramming a contract down railworkers’ throats that they had previously rejected, Joe Biden turned to a kind of authoritarianism that cemented a basic fact of American life: when you’re at work, you have no democratic rights. A railworker at the Union Pacific...
Biden Is Still Refusing to Give Railworkers Paid Sick Leave
If he wanted to, Joe Biden could give railworkers the sick days they’re seeking without any need for Senate approval. He is choosing not to. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on unions and pensions the week after calling on Congress to impose a contract on...
How C. L. R. James Helped End the Racial Hierarchy of West Indies Cricket
No matter how well black West Indies cricketers played before 1960, they never made captain. When the political winds changed, Trinidadian Marxist intellectual C. L. R. James threw himself into the campaign to transform both the sport and popular consciousness. West...
The Impossible Escape From the European Union
Neoliberalism is embedded in the European Union’s DNA. But for the continent’s left, there are few good alternatives. European flags fly at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on September 9, 2022. (John Thys / AFP via Getty Images) For decades, European nations...
The World’s New Richest Man, Bernard Arnault, Is Hardly Better Than Elon Musk
Hold your applause for luxury brand magnate Bernard Arnault, the billionaire who just surpassed Elon Musk as the richest man in the world. He may not be taunting the Left on social media, but he’s just as much an emblem of grotesque inequality. Bernard Arnault,...