Jacobin

War, dollar chaos, and soaring oil prices fueled the inflation of the 1970s. Workers and the welfare state took the blame. As war sends oil prices soaring again, that story still limits what we think society can afford.

Hoping to pressure Starbucks to finally sign a contract with its 12,000 unionized baristas, Starbucks Workers United has called for a boycott of the company. It is asking individuals as well as organizations and unions to stop patronizing the coffee giant.

Matt Johnson’s Tony takes a few pages from Anthony Bourdain’s best-selling memoir and turns them into a warm, character-driven film about a spoiled kid learning how to work. It’s fantastic.

The response of Colombia’s new leader, Abelardo de la Espriella, to a deadly earthquake has been tawdry beyond belief. The reactionary president has used the disaster for publicity stunts and will only accept overseas aid from his far-right allies.

The civil rights movement’s commitment to nonviolence wasn’t just moral but also strategic, based on a calculation of how the movement could best exert power. No practitioner of that nonviolence was more effective and disciplined than Rev. James Lawson.

Employers have long put customers to work watching and judging workers. With the development of technology like Ray-Ban Meta glasses, now customers have new surveillance tools of their own.

Donald Trump’s trade demands, which would have killed off whole sectors of the productive economy, like auto, were impossible to accept. The negotiations’ collapse could open space for democratic industrial strategy that rejects free trade.

France’s first presidential debate on Thursday was hosted by employers’ group Medef. Entrepreneurs laughed when left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon called for wage raises, but he was deadly serious.

The new slasher film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma promises “a frenzy of psychosexual mania.” What director Jane Schoenbrun delivers is tamer but considerably funnier.

Media coverage around Michigan’s Senate race and Abdul El-Sayed’s ties to Hasan Piker has become constant and hysterical. Less discussed: Michigan Republican Mike Rogers’s career-long advocacy for an Iran war now wreaking economic havoc on Michigan.

Democratic Party centrists’ well-funded and single-minded war on socialists is leading them to take increasingly contorted, absurd positions against figures like leftist streamer Hasan Piker.

Blue-collar and white-collar workers increasingly find themselves on opposite sides of the groundswell against AI data centers. But there are opportunities for building trades unions to make common cause with data center opponents.

United Auto Workers members are now voting by mail ballot for their top officers. The election will decide whether President Shawn Fain, who led 2023’s stand-up strike against the Big Three automakers, will continue the effort to reform the UAW.

Spooked by anti-billionaire talk from the Democratic Party base, ultrawealthy donors are backing Republicans this cycle. That confronts the Democrats with a choice they’ve spent years avoiding: chase big money or build mass politics.

Caparezza is one of Italy’s most inventive rappers, and one of few who combine mainstream success with political engagement. He spoke to Jacobin about music, freedom, and his hometown of Molfetta, which recently elected a communist mayor.

From Dr Frank-N-Furter to Pennywise the killer clown, Tim Curry played every role at full volume — and made a six-decade career out of refusing to be small.

The harshest critics and the biggest boosters of childcare programs are trapped in an unproductive debate. We need much more generous funding for both daycare and at-home childcare so families can choose the option that works best for them.

Daron Acemoglu, who won the Nobel Prize in 2024, is no heterodox economist. But now The Economist magazine has damned his work, because it challenges the untrammeled power of Big Tech elites.

For decades, Dolly Parton, who died yesterday at age 80, wrote about poverty, hard work, and the defiant pride of working-class women. The Left should steal a page from her songbook.

Ever more footballers are pressuring FIFA chief Gianni Infantino to resign after he plotted to sell off the World Cup. Removing him should be the first step in a root-and-branch reform to put the game back in the hands of players and ordinary fans.