After every long day at the office I go home to face my addiction: watching other people work. Whether I’m gritting my teeth as elderly miners crawl through a tunnel to chip out coal, or cracking up as drag queens scurry to complete missions assigned by RuPaul (catch-phrase: “You better work!”), there’s nothing I’d rather do after a two-hour commute than watch reality television.
Choosing a visual representation for a collective can be as politically fraught as the drafting of a written manifesto, and the image that graces our masthead is no exception. I presented four options to the Jacobin editorial board, but the debate boiled down to two.
We’ve lost the ability to talk about social democracy (much less socialism) not simply because of a crisis of faith. It’s because the institutions with the ability to articulate an alternative discursive framework have been defeated as real political alternatives.
The Socialist Party is an unusual organization, perhaps even unique. While its policies might at first glance give the impression of a kind of progressive social democracy, its pervasive grassroots activism reveals a different reality.
an interview with Emmanuel Todd
Naipaul’s career developed at a time when Western reactionary intellectuals could still be formidable, dynamic and unpredictable; there was space carved out on the Right for reactionary talent like Naipaul.
It’s no small feat that this mega-charity has successfully branded a color, making pink synonymous with fighting breast cancer. According to an old New York Times profile, Brinker is well aware of her achievement.
The Left Party is neither a radical anti-capitalist formation like France’s ailing Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste or Portugal’s Bloco Esquerda, both of which define themselves as being to the left of both “official” socialist and (post-)communist parties; nor is it a social-democratized formation such as France’s Communist Party or Italy’s tragically splintered Rifondazione Communista.
If you hang out with industrial designers, one thing you may have noticed is that they’re really into chairs.
In fact, tastes are predictable enough that you can often tell a designer’s favorite chair maker from his or her shirt.
In the fall of 2009 I was approached by Hal Clifford, executive editor of Orion Magazine, and asked to write an essay about American philanthropy, especially in relation to environmentalism. From the first I was dubious about the assignment.
Issue 6
