New York City mayoral election was bizarre. And it’s not over: Eric Adams’s unique blend of supposedly anti-racist law-and-order politics, pro-landlord policy, and appeals to outer borough resentment of liberal Manhattan elites won the first round.
In the Era of Decolonization, West Indies Cricketers Refused to “Grovel”
The 1970s in the Caribbean were marked by major political and social upheaval. Cricket became a primary vehicle for asserting West Indian independence — and defeating England was paramount.
A Century Ago, West Virginia Miners Took Up Arms Against King Coal
The Battle of Blair Mountain is one of the most stunning episodes in the United States’ violent history of class warfare. In 1921, twenty thousand armed miners in West Virginia marched on the coal bosses and were met with bombs and submachine guns.
General Mills Workers Speak Out: “Be Strong, Fight for Your Rights, and Fight for a Decent Pay Raise”
Despite making record profits in 2020, multinational food manufacturer General Mills claims it can’t afford a modest pay raise for workers at its New South Wales plant. Sick of being disrespected, the workers have gone on strike.
Sweden’s Social Democrats Got No-Confidenced Because They Tried to Remove Rent Controls
Sweden’s Social Democrat-led government is in crisis after its defeat in Monday’s no-confidence vote. It lost its left-wing support after it moved to abandon rent controls — showing how the neoliberalized wing of social democracy is undermining its own past achievements.
- Issue No. 41 out now!
- Spring 2021
The Ruling Class
In this issue
Take Me to Your Leader: The Rot of the American Ruling Class
For more than three centuries, something has been going horribly wrong at the top of our society, and we’re all suffering for it.
McKinsey consultants have packaged capitalism for decades, offering a glimpse into the moral compass of the ruling class.
Americans Are at Least $27.6 Billion in Debt to Courts
States and municipalities are increasingly relying on court fees as revenue streams, creating at least $27.6 billion in debt for Americans. To handle that debt’s collection, those states and municipalities, and even the IRS, are increasingly turning to private firms, which can add up to 40 percent surcharges onto the fees.
UK Liberals Could’ve Stopped Boris Johnson. They Wanted to Stop Corbyn Instead.
Five years after the Brexit referendum, Boris Johnson is flying high in British politics. He could have been stopped, but the pro-Brexit right and the anti-Brexit center were united in opposing Jeremy Corbyn and a Labour left–led government.
Operation Barbarossa Was a War of Racial Annihilation
The Nazis reserved two fates for the Soviet Union’s people: slavery or extermination. The outside world still hasn’t fully registered the scale of the horrific crimes unleashed by the Nazis’ invasion of the Soviet Union on this day in 1941.
You Can Have Billionaires or You Can Have Democracy
The billionaire class isn’t just a group of people who happen to be superrich. It’s a dynastic oligarchy with a single overriding objective: controlling the government to protect its inherited wealth.
The Green New Deal program has enormous potential to generate mass popular support. But absent real leverage from labor, it’s likely to be continually watered down into a toothless slogan for NGOs.
The Secret Life of Communist Richard Sorge, Hitler’s Nemesis and the World’s Greatest Spy
One man put a stop to Hitler’s march across Europe: not Stalin, Churchill, or Roosevelt, but a German Communist called Richard Sorge. Sorge was a real-life spy whose exploits surpassed any fictional creation, and one of the twentieth century’s great heroes.
Why Are Billionaires Always Presumed Innocent?
After an IRS leak about billionaires’ massive tax avoidance schemes, corporate media says there’s nothing to see here because the avoidance is surely legal. But there’s no reason we should assume that these billionaires are playing by the rules.
For Soviet Filmmakers, There Was No Glory in War
The Soviet experience of Nazi invasion inspired many powerful works of cinema. In contrast with Hollywood’s approach to World War II, Soviet filmmakers avoided triumphalist images of warfare, depicting the conflict as a brutal necessity that should never be repeated.
Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony Was a Defiant Counterblast to Nazi Aggression
Performed in a city under siege, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony symbolized popular resistance to the Nazi invasion. A complex work with several layers of political meaning, the symphony was a high point of twentieth-century classical music.