Jacobin

Thomas Frank on the middle class’s most cherished idea, creativity, and how it became the cover story for the plutocracy that replaced it.

The Milwaukee Brewers are in the World Series for the first time since 1982. The small-market team’s success this season is a reminder of Milwaukee baseball’s progressive heritage and the city’s proud socialist history.

A sudden offensive by Ansar Allah this summer took its Yemeni opponents and their Saudi allies by surprise. But the resumption of conflict is likely to be long and protracted, with disastrous consequences for Yemen’s civilian population.

Vancouver’s Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) elected all 12 candidates it ran in the city’s recent election. The democratic socialist party is now part of a progressive council majority.

Victory for Flávio Bolsonaro in Brazil’s election would bring mafiosi to power and reward interference by the White House and Miami reactionaries. In the final stretch of the campaign, Bolsonaro no longer looks invincible.

If you want to know whether artificial intelligence is a gigantic economic bubble, don’t just take pundits’ word for it. Major investors are now moving their money to try to protect themselves from the AI bubble popping.

The British medieval historian Chris Wickham, who died earlier this month, transformed our understanding of the Middle Ages. Rooted in the great tradition of British Marxist historiography, Wickham covered a staggering range of case studies in his work.

This year has seen the resolution of major suits against tech giants Alphabet and Meta, both of which were found liable for serious lawbreaking. Yet the penalties imposed on the corporations are laughably inadequate to restrain their power.

Evangelical churches like Rick Warren’s wouldn’t be as massive as they are with real retention of members over time without a serious plan for member leadership development. The Left could learn from them.

In You Can See Everything, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim turn their confrontation with Elizabeth Holmes into a Hitchcockian thriller about the slippery nature of truth. It’s a masterpiece.

In her new book, economist Isabella Weber explains how inflation has helped drive the far right’s ascendance around the developed world — and how effective price regulation can promote affordability and boost the Left.

Key to a long-term solution to defeating the far right is an economic program that guarantees security to all, including the affordability of housing and other essential components of a dignified life, Isabella Weber tells Jacobin.

Peter Thomas, the Marxist theorist best known for his work on Antonio Gramsci, has died. He restored the political edge to Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and saw his own scholarship as part of the Left’s fight for power.

Historian Mike Wallace, author of the Gotham trilogy of New York City history and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tried to capture everything about New York and the world through a droll, cheerful, humanistic Marxism.

In You Can See Everything, Nathan Fielder appears almost willing to believe Elizabeth Holmes’s increasingly implausible claims of innocence. Whether or not his credulity is genuine, the result is a fascinating study of Silicon Valley self-deception.

Zack Polanski’s leadership of the Green Party is facing its biggest challenge to date. But the Greens can weather the storm if they stand their ground against deceitful attacks from Andy Burnham’s Labour government over their solidarity with Palestine.

Egypt in the Middle Ages was steeply class stratified. When the rains failed, the rich dined on hoarded grain while the starving poor ate grass. Periodically, the masses would erupt in revolt — sometimes with petitions, other times with stones.

Working people’s share of national income has fallen to a record low, even as corporate profits soar to unthinkable new heights. The trend reflects decades of eroded worker power, and reversing it will take a revitalized labor movement.

People are right to want control over their homes and their futures. Socialized housing, not private ownership, can make that promise a reality for everyone.

Walmart has long stymied attempts to unionize any part of its business. Which is why the breakthrough union victory won by 800 workers at a Mississauga, Ontario regional distribution center is worth closely examining.