In a landmark case with national implications, Democratic Governor Tim Walz’s regulators have greenlit a private equity giant’s acquisition of one of the Midwest’s largest power companies. Critics argue that the precedent-setting case opens the doors to a new wave of...
Jacobin
Alex Salmond Made Scottish Independence a Tangible Goal
It’s a year since the death of Alex Salmond, the most important Scottish politician of his generation. Although Salmond’s career ended in marginalization, there’s no doubting his achievement in popularizing the cause of Scottish independence. Alex Salmond brought...
Love Can Still Liberate
Just because love is compromised by patriarchal society doesn’t mean it has lost its ability to transform us and, through us, the world we build. Research increasingly shows that romantic love — far from being a mere vehicle of patriarchy — can also serve as a site of...
Shawn Fain: “We Need More Than a Party — We Need a Movement”
UAW president Shawn Fain, speaking at a Center for Working-Class Politics and Jacobin event, emphasized the need for a political program that addresses workers’ most basic issues — and how a broad strike in 2028 could put them front and center. UAW president Shawn...
Bailing Out Pfizer Won’t Lower Drug Prices
A new agreement between the Trump administration and drug manufacturer Pfizer will exempt the giant from proposed pharmaceutical tariffs in exchange for allegedly cutting price for American consumers. The deal has inspired Trump to declare victory over Pfizer,...
New England Unions Lead the Way on Offshore Wind
Building trades unions in Rhode Island and Massachusetts are successfully fighting for offshore wind projects that create good union jobs and revitalize the economy. In the process, they’re showing how to defend clean energy from Donald Trump. Building trades unions...
In France, Too, Billionaire Tycoons Are Silencing Their Critics
In France, right-wingers love to pose as defenders of free speech. Yet the takeover of media by a cast of billionaire pro-Trump tycoons means that just a handful of individuals have a veto over huge swaths of the press. French billionaire Vincent Bolloré stands next...
Anti-Corruption Politics May Be the Key to Beating Trumpism
The Trump administration’s cartoonish graft presents a unique opportunity for a populist anti-corruption platform. But for the Democrats to pull it off, they’d have to repudiate corruption within their own party first. A laser-like focus on anti-corruption would be...
What Populism Can (and Can’t) Do for the Left
We live in an age of populism, on the Right and on the Left. In an interview with Jacobin, Vivek Chibber explains both populism’s potential and limitations for putting class and economics back into politics. Recent electoral victories, such as Zohran Mamdani’s primary...
Life Inside China’s Gig Machine
Hu Anyan’s I Deliver Parcels in Beijing describes life working in China’s logistics and service trades. Anyan’s account reveals differences in context between Chinese and US workers that indicate the difficulty of international working-class solidarity. A courier...
Private Equity Delivers Consistently Poor Health Outcomes
Private equity, the scantly regulated high-risk industry best known for burying companies in debt and liquidating them for parts, wants to manage your health care — even if it means killing you. Research shows that when private funds enter the picture, patients...
Why the Deck Is Stacked Against Workers Under Capitalism
The death of German sociologist Claus Offe on October 1 marked the passing of one of the last postwar European socialist intellectuals. Famous for his analysis of the contradictions of advanced capitalist societies in the 1960s and 1970s, he came from a cohort of...