No Honeymoon for Joe Biden
It’s good that Donald Trump lost. But the Left now needs to pivot immediately to opposition to the Joe Biden administration.
284 Article(s) by: Ben Burgis
Ben Burgis is a Jacobin columnist, an adjunct philosophy professor at Rutgers University, and the host of the YouTube show and podcast Give Them An Argument. He’s the author of several books, most recently Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters.
Let Everyone Vote
More than 31 million adults who live in the United States are legally prohibited from voting in today’s election. That’s an obscene human rights violation.
Nationalize Walmart
Walmart is the largest private-sector employer in the United States, and it’s an important source of low-cost groceries for consumers around the country. It also pays poverty wages, busts unions, and drives economic inequality. Luckily, there is an economically viable route to solving those ills: bring the megacorporation under public ownership.
Aaron Sorkin’s Chicago 7 Are Shockingly Sympathetic, but Lacking Radical Substance
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is surprisingly good for an Aaron Sorkin production. But the artistic liberties he takes with the historical facts, particularly around downplaying or leaving vague the protagonists’ radical politics, tell you a lot about Sorkin’s own blind spots.
Let’s Stop Talking About the “Overton Window”
Socialists should be making well-thought-out proposals for a better future and building the class power to bring that program into reality. The idea that our purpose is simply “shifting the Overton window” by spouting the most radical-sounding slogans is an unhelpful distraction.
So You’re Still Being Publicly Shamed
The Right wants you to believe that a coddled, overly sensitive left is propping up cancel culture. But punitive, hyper-surveillant ways of interacting online are built into the structure of privately owned social media companies, and they’re practiced across the political spectrum. The Left must insist on a better way.
The Cosmopolitan Socialism of Michael Brooks
Michael Brooks, who would have turned 37 years old today, wanted the Left to do better. In the last year of his life, he’d started to write a book about what that might look like.
What Michael Brooks Meant to Me
Michael Brooks was one of the funniest, most intellectually curious human beings I’ve ever known. He was also deeply committed to creating a better world.
How to Debate Libertarians on Taxes — And Destroy Them
On Tax Day, here’s a guide to arguing with libertarians about redistribution.
Nationalize the Ivy League, So We Can Rename Yale “UConn New Haven”
Should Yale, bearing a slave trader's name, be renamed? Yes. Since Ivy League schools are engines of class inequality, we should first nationalize all the Ivies. Then Yale University can become UConn New Haven.
Defund the Police. Then Soak the Rich.
We absolutely need to defund the police and put the money in social services. To attack inequality and invest in poor and working-class neighborhoods of color, we need a massive increase in public spending. That means wresting resources from the rich.
Yes, Power Corrupts. That’s Why Socialists Want to Democratize Society
It’s a common refrain that socialists are naïve, unrealistic dreamers. But precisely the opposite is true: we know that power corrupts, so we want to democratize all spheres of society.
Yes, Socialism Would Handle the Coronavirus Pandemic Better Than Capitalism
My vision of democratic socialism wouldn’t be Utopia. But here’s the case it would be better than the status quo during both normal times and these times of crisis.
Capitalism Isn’t Working. But What Would a Viable Socialist System Look Like?
Criticisms of capitalism’s failures have more power if we can actually imagine an alternative. Here’s what a viable socialist society could look like.
We Shouldn’t Need GoFundMe to Respond to Catastrophes. We Need a Strong Welfare State.
A telltale sign of a broken society is when medical workers are forced to beg for supplies on GoFundMe and parents have to write compelling stories to convince random people to pay for their kid’s cancer treatment. Instead of crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe, we need a generous welfare state that ensures everyone’s basic needs are met.
Why Jordan Peterson Is Always Wrong
Jordan Peterson is one of the most famous public intellectuals in the world. But his pronouncements in favor of capitalism and hierarchy collapse at the slightest bit of scrutiny.
The Left Can’t Just Dismiss the Anti-Lockdown Protests
The anti-lockdown protests may currently represent a Trumpian minority — but that could easily change if the choice becomes going hungry or going back to work. We need a real alternative that refuses to accept the false trade-off between economic security and public health.
Your Boss Is Spying on You
With millions of people now working from their homes, frantic bosses are buying high-tech surveillance software to track their employees’ every keystroke. It’s the latest example of how capitalism is built on employer despotism.
Cuba’s Coronavirus Response Is Putting Other Countries to Shame
Cuba is caricatured by the Right as a totalitarian hellhole. But its response to the coronavirus pandemic — from sending doctors to other countries to pioneering anti-viral treatments to converting factories into mask-making machines — is putting other countries, even rich countries, to shame.
Coronavirus Should Be a Wake-Up Call
From prisoners making hand sanitizer to people forgoing testing because of cost, the coronavirus has exposed the social rot in American society. But we don’t have to live this way — we can transform society for the better.