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Articles by Taking Power
Branko Marcetic
The January 6 Riot Was a Spectacular Failure of US Law Enforcement The monumental security failure that led to the breach of the Capitol building on Jan. 6 has always been something of a mystery — and it still is. But one thing is clear: there is a disturbing level of support for right-wing extremism within US law enforcement.
News Highlights: Top Global Markets News of the Day
China's Economy Grew 3.9% in the Third Quarter China's economy grew more strongly than expected in the third quarter as the country bounced back modestly from crippling Covid lockdowns in the spring, though challenges remain. Hong Kong Stocks Dive After China Party Meeting Almost all shares in the Hang Seng Index were trading lower, but Chinese technology stocks were particularly hard hit.
News Highlights: Top Global Markets News of the Day
China's Economy Grew 3.9% in the Third Quarter China's economy grew more strongly than expected in the third quarter as the country bounced back modestly from crippling Covid lockdowns in the spring, though challenges remain. Yen Rises Sharply Versus Dollar After Hitting 32-Year Low on Friday The yen rose sharply Monday morning after falling to a new 32-year low against the dollar on Friday.
Ben Burgis
Karl Marx Was Right: Workers Are Systematically Exploited Under Capitalism Even among Marx-friendly economists, the labor theory of value has fallen out of favor. But its technical validity is less important than the core message: workers are exploited because the value they create is undemocratically taken by capitalists.
Cedric Johnson
To Roll Back the Police State, We Need to Tackle Economic Inequality The last few years have seen unprecedented mobilization of mass outrage against the most blatantly racist aspects of US policing. But we can’t confront police abuses without addressing their role in our society as managers of an unequal class status quo.
Hadas Thier
Is This the Beginning of the End for Crypto? Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin took huge nosedives this week. Unfortunately, we aren’t living through the end of crypto — but hopefully the talk of it being the money of the future that will make us all rich has been shown to be lies.
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How Postwar West Germany Used Support for Israel to Whitewash Its Image In 1952, West Germany paid reparations to Israel — not as compensation to Holocaust survivors, but in the form of supplies to the Israeli state. Coming at the same time as denazification reached its end, the move had little to do with moral atonement, and everything to do with whitewashing West Germany's international image.
Adam Goodman
On Migrant Rights, Joe Biden Still Has a Long Way to Go The Biden administration has made some encouraging noises on immigration policy. But activists are tired of talk — they want to see action.
Carl Beijer
Carl Beijer is a writer at carlbeijer.com. Donald Trump won the presidency claiming he was a radical opponent of the political establishment. That was always a lie — and his four years in the White House revealed he was just another reactionary, capitalist billionaire. Speculation is growing that the scandal-plagued Joe Biden might drop out of the presidential race. That’s extremely unlikely. But if he does, there’s only one alternative: Bernie Sanders.
Loren Balhorn
Loren Balhorn is a contributing editor at Jacobin and co-editor, together with Bhaskar Sunkara, of Jacobin: Die Anthologie (Suhrkamp, 2018). The East German protests in the fall of 1989 included many who aspired for a democratic socialism. In the state’s final years, the young supporters of the Modern Socialism Project fought for an alternative to authoritarianism — promoting an ecological socialism rooted in democratic rights.
Free Speech as Battleground
You have to give the political right credit. In recent months, they have, Judo-style, baited the campus left into bumptious overreactions that have seen student activists at Middlebury, UC Berkeley, and a few other places calling on university administrations to shut down — that is, censor — vile speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos and Charles Murray. Students and faculty are absolutely correct to challenge reactionary speakers. But they should never ask for censorship.
How the Strike for Equality Relaunched the Struggle for Women’s Liberation in the US
Interview by Nancy Rosenstock The Women’s Strike for Equality in August 1970 was a landmark in the development of second-wave feminism. On August 26, fifty thousand women marched down New York City’s Fifth Avenue, defying the efforts of the police to confine them to the sidewalk as they mounted the largest feminist demonstration that the United States had seen. The protest in New York was flanked by actions in ninety US cities, coming fifty years to the day after women had won the right to vote.
Voting For the Boss
Interview by Meagan Day During the 2012 campaign, Mitt Romney stopped at a coal mine outside of Beallsville, Ohio and delivered a speech surrounded by workers in hardhats, their faces dusted with coal from the shift that had just ended. It made for a striking visual — but not all the workers who were present for the photo-op were Romney supporters. Their employer Murray Energy had told them that attendance at the rally was mandatory.
The Left Needs the “Uneducated” Working Class
When Donald Trump first ran for president in 2016, he uttered a line that, to most journalists and liberal pundits, seemed bizarre and condescending. “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old,” Trump boasted during a victory speech in Nevada. “We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated.
Voices From the Valley Is a Snapshot of the Tech Industry, as Told By Workers Themselves
The tech industry has always had bosses and workers, of course, but until a few years ago, most coverage of the sector suggested otherwise. Silicon Valley was the epicenter of libertarianism, we were informed. A techno-utopianism powered a twenty-first-century gold rush, driven by software engineers huddled over their computers, only taking breaks to play ping-pong or sip kombucha in the office. “Will this app change your life?” headlines asked.
Anti-Corruption Protests Show the Hollowness of Bulgaria’s Democracy
Protests demanding the resignation of Bulgaria’s prime minister Boyko Borissov and attorney general Ivan Geshev have now continued for over a hundred days, with daily rallies continuing across the country. The target of protesters’ ire is the ruling coalition led by Borissov’s Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party, now widely discredited following a series of corruption and tax evasion scandals, controversial Black Sea construction projects, and a deep social crisis.
The Rich in Portland, Maine, Are Spending Big Money to Defeat Left Politics
How much does an election cost in Portland, Maine? The Chamber of Commerce, real estate developers, and Airbnb’s corporate offices are hoping it’s around $1 million. With just days to go, opponents of five progressive referenda sponsored by People First Portland are pouring money into direct mailers (I’ve received dozens in the last two weeks), Facebook ads, and high-price social media advertising.
New York City’s Fiscal Crisis Can’t Be Solved on the Backs of Its Working Class
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed nearly twenty-five thousand New York City residents. The worst of the public health crisis may have passed, but its dire toll has triggered a second crisis. Shutting down huge swaths of the economy was necessary to save lives, but the deep freeze on economic activity has plunged the city into its worst fiscal crisis since the troubled 1970s. Then as now, municipal workers and their unions are in the crosshairs.
Canada Needs to Get Serious About Taxing the Rich
Canada needs to get serious about taxing the rich to reverse the rise of extreme inequality, blunt the concentration of economic and political power, and create ongoing streams of revenue to fund badly-needed public services. A wealth tax is one important tool to accomplish these ends, but it will require breaking with a status quo that narrowly serves the interests of Bay Street (Canada’s equivalent of Wall Street) and the wealthy few. Canada’s richest 1 percent control 26 percent of our wealth.
Italians Need Measures to Stop COVID-19, But They Need Income Support, Too
“Fascists and mafia behind anti‑lockdown riots in Naples,” boomed London’s Times. Or, as Vice put it, “Italy’s Anti-Lockdown Protests Turn Violent as Far-Right Take to the Streets.” There definitely have been some far-right militants involved in anti-lockdown protests, which began in Naples on Friday October 23 — especially as they spread the length and breadth of Italy.
If There’s a Gap Between the Popular Vote and the Electoral College, Hit the Streets
We’re less than a week out from the presidential election, and Joe Biden is by all accounts the favorite to win both the Electoral College and the popular vote. Then again, so was Hillary Clinton. Though polling methods have been tweaked for accuracy in the intervening years, there remains a note of hesitation in liberals’ predictions about this race: defeat hurts bad enough without the shock of having been certain of victory.
Bolivian Trade Union Leader Orlando Gutiérrez Gave His Life for Democracy and Socialism
The charismatic mining union leader Orlando Gutiérrez has died in Bolivia, days after he was beaten viciously by a fascist gang protesting the results of the Bolivian elections in which the left-wing Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) triumphed. Gutiérrez’s death at just thirty-six years comes amid a surge in violence directed against the trade union and campesino movements in the wake of the coup last November.
Rossana Rossanda Wanted a Party of and for Workers in Struggle
This text is an abridged extract from Controllo operaio e transizione al socialismo. Le sinistra italiane e la democrazia industriale tra anni Settanta e Ottanta (Aracne, 2017). Rossana Rossanda, who died aged ninety-six in September, was one of the figures who did most to inspire and lead Italy’s dissident-communist manifesto group.
Happy 100th Birthday to the Communist Party of Australia
On the weekend of October 30–31, 1920, twenty-six socialists from all over Australia met in Sydney. They resolved to establish the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), an organization whose contribution to the workers’ movement echoes to this day. The CPA grew rapidly in the 1920s and ’30s, claiming over twenty thousand members by the late 1940s. Although the party enjoyed a brief upsurge during the 1960s and 70s, the anti-communist atmosphere of the Cold War eventually tipped it into slow decline.
Chileans Can Finally Finish the Revolution Against Augusto Pinochet
This piece was translated from our Spanish-language publication, Jacobin América Latina. Interview by Pablo Abufom Daniel Jadue is a Palestinian, a communist, and mayor of the Recoleta commune in Santiago de Chile. An architect and sociologist by training, he has emerged as a possible candidate for the Left in next year’s presidential election, with some polls attributing him 19 percent support.
An Alliance for Insecurity
This week, the leaders of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are gathering in Miami with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for a “Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America.” The conference, co-hosted by the United States and Mexico, seeks to revamp strategies to stem the tide of mass migration from Central America’s Northern Triangle nations by addressing the root causes of...
"After Bernie" Cover (18" by 24")
"After Bernie" Cover (18" by 24") $14.95 + s/h By popular demand, we made 250 prints of our summer 2020 cover. Designed by Zohar Lazar.
Both Football Players and Fans Are Sacrificial Lambs for Money-Hungry Universities
If you turn on a college football game these days, you might notice something rather strange in the middle of a raging pandemic: tens of thousands of densely packed, screaming fans who are often, but not always, wearing masks (and less often wearing them properly). As other countries continue to flow in and out of economic lockdowns and government-imposed gathering limits, American college fans are streaming into colossal stadiums across the country, filled up to a quarter of capacity.
Rep. Van Taylor Is Against Bailouts for Everyone But His Own Industry
Facing a tough reelection battle in a newly competitive district, Texas Republican Rep. Van Taylor has brandished his conservative bona fides by taking hard-line stances against legislation to forgive some student debt and to provide assistance for renters facing eviction during the pandemic. Taylor’s fiscal conservatism, however, has not extended to the real estate industry, which is not only his largest campaign donor but which he is personally invested in.
Poland Is in Revolt Against Its New Abortion Ban
The ban on abortion, introduced in 1993 by the Polish Parliament, and fixed as the law by the Constitutional Court in 1997, was one of the milestones of Poland’s transition from state communism to neoliberal capitalism. The law established in 1997 allowed abortion in three situations: when the pregnancy resulted from rape, when the life or health of the woman was in grave danger, or when the fetus risked severe illness or death.
MAS’s Adriana Salvatierra: “Now We Can Continue the Revolution in Bolivia”
Interview by Denis Rogatyuk Bruno Sommer Catalan Looking at the sweeping successes for Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) in the October 18 general election, one can easily find parallels with its first successful presidential campaign back in 2005. As with the clashes leading up to the recent election, the years preceding Evo Morales’s success in that earlier contest saw a series of crises, which helped propel the coca growers’ leader to the highest office in the land.
It’s Not Centrism Versus Extremism, It’s Socialism Versus Barbarism
Review of Netflix’s The Social Dilemma (2020). In the summer of 1945, the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated in the high desert of New Mexico. J.
How Australia’s Greens Are Winning a Left-Wing Vote in the Heart of “Conservative Queensland”
Interview by Tom Ballard The Australian Greens were founded in 1992, although the party’s origins can be traced to the anti-nuclear and environmental campaigns of the 1970s, as well as to the Green Bans movement, pioneered by the Builders Labourers’ Federation under Jack Mundey. After gaining momentum and a number of senate seats during the 1990s, green triangles bearing the party’s name became ubiquitous at demonstrations opposing the Iraq War, in the 2000s.
Technology and Socialist Strategy
“Anything but capital.” For mainstream economists, that’s the unspoken rule governing talk of what’s to blame for inequality. From Greg Mankiw’s petulant response to Occupy to Tyler Cowen’s argument that technology has rendered the middle class obsolete, those tasked with explaining economics to Americans are eager to exonerate the rich. Cowen’s argument in particular develops a theme that has become increasingly prominent in the debate over inequality.
Maybe Masks Really Are a Socialist Plot
The president did not wear a mask. He also encouraged others around him not to do so, mocking those who did. He contracted COVID-19, as did many of his close associates. He expressed no remorse over any of this. He still does not wear a mask. By contrast, a large majority of Americans, about 74 percent, according to a poll taken this month, are wearing masks to prevent the spread of a deadly pandemic. Most Americans even approve of a national mask mandate.
Amy Coney Barrett Helped Corporations Quash Discrimination Cases
As Donald Trump works to try to halt racial sensitivity training in America’s workplaces, he has pushed to appoint a Supreme Court justice who has periodically ruled against workers who claim that they have faced racial discrimination on the job.
Indonesia Is in the Middle of a New Protest Wave
In recent weeks, Indonesia has seen a wave of mass protests and workers’ strikes in response to the government’s new so-called Omnibus Law — the collection of amendments to existing laws that are set to strip rights from workers and undermine environmental standards. Over nine hundred pages long, the bill was passed into law in on October 5 without even a draft being released to the public. Dozens of existing laws, including regulations on labor, mining, and environmental protection are affected.
The Electoral College Makes It Easier for the Courts To Steal Elections
Donald Trump has said he wants a new Supreme Court justice confirmed quickly because he expects the court to decide the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. A new study finds that the Electoral College system significantly increases the possibility of that happening — and the data suggest that such a process is far more likely to help Republicans win the White House.
“The Residents in My District Don’t Have the Luxury of Incremental Change”
Interview by Nicholas Rea Omar Fateh is a first-generation American, a community organizer, and a democratic socialist who is one of the latest Democratic Socialists of America–endorsed candidates headed to public office. Fateh’s campaign and political pedigree are very much of the Minneapolis left, reflecting his district’s East African, Latino, indigenous, and African American activist history — the center of which is Lake and 38th, where George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in May.
How US Neocons Inspired the Netherlands’ New Radical Right
To many, it felt as if new alliances were being formed. This February, a National Conservatism conference was held in Rome’s glitzy Grand Hotel Plaza, in a bid to build bridges between Anglo-American conservatives and European radical right-wing populists. On one side, the conference featured influential American and British conservatives, such as Chris DeMuth, longtime head of the American Enterprise Institute, the British neoconservative Douglas Murray, and the Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski.
Art Museums in the US Are Facing a Reckoning
When Warren B. Kanders resigned from the Whitney Museum of American Art’s board of trustees last year, the disgraced multimillionaire penned a sour letter lamenting a demise in decency.
The Australian Right Is Trying To Import Trump-Style Reactionary Populism
Nineteen-year-old Edward Bourke, the leader of Victoria Forward (VA), fancies himself an up-and-coming antipodean Steve Bannon, albeit with an affected Etonian sensibility. His suits may not be cut to Savile Row standards — but if there’s one quality he shares with his Tory and Republican heartthrobs, it’s an inflated sense of self-importance.
Bolivia Has Provided Us a Radical Vision of Hope
Last Sunday, eleven months after the right-wing coup against Bolivian president Evo Morales, his MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo) party won a landslide victory with 55 percent of the vote. MAS presidential candidate Luis Arce needed at least 40 percent of the vote and a ten-point lead over his nearest rival to win outright.
What Should Bolivia Do Now With Its Coup Plotters?
The recent victory for the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party in Bolivia’s election is a triumph of indigenous, socialist organizing in the wake of a brutal coup by the right wing and the military. With a victory margin so wide that even the leaders of the coup government couldn’t contest it, the party of ousted president Evo Morales will return to leadership under his successor, Luis Arce.
Chileans Can’t Draw on Their Retirement Money Forever
This July, the Chilean opposition celebrated a major political victory, as the Senate passed a bill allowing Chileans to draw on some of the money locked away in their privatized pension funds, or AFP (Pension Fund Administrators). This was a blow not only against Sebastián Piñera’s right-wing government, but also one of the pillars of the neoliberal economic model inherited from Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
New York State Is Lagging Far Behind on Its Climate Commitments
Governor Cuomo touts himself as a leader on climate. Like just about any elected Democrat, he says all the right stuff: climate change is an existential crisis, a national emergency, indeed a global emergency. To not address it would be gross negligence. And to his credit, under pressure from activists, Cuomo has banned fracking, denied major pipeline proposals, and signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
Chileans Finally Have a Chance to Scrap Pinochet’s Constitution
Interview by Miriam Pensack In a year now notorious for the dismal pandemic that has gripped the globe, as well as the far-right authoritarianism that has blossomed in its midst, a remarkable opportunity is facing Chile.
At the Debate Last Night, Biden Finally Distanced Himself From the GOP’s Austerity Talking Points
A few months ago, our reporting team spotlighted how Joe Biden’s campaign was suggesting that if Donald Trump is defeated, a new Democratic administration may not even try to fulfill its campaign promises because of deficit concerns. When our story went viral, Biden’s campaign frantically — and rightly — backtracked, which was a huge win for accountability journalism.
GOP Senators Are Trying To Pull a Bait and Switch on Preexisting Conditions
Republicans have said Americans shouldn’t worry if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act next year, because they’ve offered their own legislation to protect people with preexisting medical conditions. However, the bill being touted by the GOP’s most politically endangered Senate incumbents would significantly weaken those protections. Among other things, the legislation authored by Sen.
A Decent Health Care System Was the Big Loser in Last Night’s Debate
Most coverage of last night’s debate is understandably focused on which of the two candidates performed better and what that means for a potential Donald Trump second term or Joe Biden presidency. It’s also worth dwelling on the prospects for another main character in American politics: Medicare for All, or a single-payer health care system, popularized by Bernie Sanders in his first and second presidential campaigns.
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