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....
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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. Former Greek finance...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...