Economic inequality in the United States is vast and unyielding. Despite much fanfare about tight labor markets and wage growth, the top 1% own more wealth than the entire middle 60% of households by income. How did we get here? Historian Steve Fraser discusses capitalism, class, and our new gilded age.
Jewish opposition to Israel, so visible recently through the spectacular actions of groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, is not a recent phenomenon. Historian Marjorie Feld argues that what may seem like unprecedented criticism of Israel by U.S. Jews is part of a long tradition of dissent, which has been repressed by establishment Jewish organizations … Continued
Jane McAlevey was an exceptional organizer and thinker, and her death on July 7th leaves a gaping hole for the left. She dedicated her life to building working class power, in the trenches of the environmental and labor movements and as a radical scholar. McAlevey believed that the left and labor movement abandoned deep organizing … Continued
Times of emergency require difficult decisions and we’re told by the likes of Bill Gates that nuclear power is necessary to get the world off fossil fuels. Nuclear power boosters argue that new technologies have made nuclear reactors cheaper and safer. Scholar and scientist M.V. Ramana calls this a fiction. He asserts that nuclear power … Continued
The backlash against trans people, which has swept both the United States and the world in recent years, is not as new as it seems, according to historian Jules Gill-Peterson. She traces the emergence of trans misogynistic violence over the last two centuries, which she links to the establishment of colonialism, capitalism, and more recently … Continued
Should Marxism be rooted in inter-species liberation? Or is it already, unbeknownst to most of us? Leigh Claire La Berge has delved into what she considers an unrecognized trove of evidence for Marxism’s deep engagement with the feline as a way of making sense of class society — and what would be necessary to leap … Continued
In 1936, Nazi Germany hosted the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin, amidst international calls to boycott. It was an enormously consequential event in the politics of the times, granting Hitler an international spotlight to promote the Third Reich. Much less known, as writer Michael Waters argues, is how Nazi eugenics and paranoia about transgender athletes … Continued
Recent political discussions of marriage have revolved around who should be allowed to wed. But missing from most debates is the question of the unfair privileges conferred by the institution of marriage itself. Scholar Jaclyn Geller discusses the more than one thousand benefits accorded married people, at the expense of the non-married. Resources: Jaclyn Geller, … Continued
For over half a century, Big Oil and the plastics industry, through their trade associations and front groups, have sold the public the false idea that plastics are recyclable. Recycling became the mantra of good ecological stewardship, promoted by the likes of city governments, school children, and environmental groups. Davis Allen lays out the mass-marketing … Continued
The banks and financiers are a common target of the left — and often the right — purportedly sucking the lifeblood out of the real industrial economy. Stephen Maher argues that while the financialization of the economy has intensified under neoliberalism, finance has played a central role in the growth of capitalism — and the … Continued
