In this issue
The Politics of a Second Gilded Age
The mass inequality of America’s first Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. In 2021, we’re headed down the same path.
- Issue No. 40 out now!
- Winter 2021
Biden Our Time
The Biden administration’s preemptive surrender on the $15 minimum wage is nothing like its guns-blazing approach to getting union-buster Neera Tanden confirmed for a White House job. The contrast demonstrates Biden’s lack of sincerity when he claims to be a working-class fighter.
Get Rid of the Patents on COVID-19 Vaccines Already
The spread of COVID-19 anywhere on the planet threatens us all, yet Big Pharma’s monopoly on the vaccine supply ensures that people in most of the world aren’t getting inoculated. In this appeal, left-wing figures like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Rafael Correa, and former Brazilian president Lula call on governments to lift the patents and ensure vaccines are distributed as cheaply and quickly as possible.
In Defense of Herbert Marcuse
For journalist Matt Taibbi, Herbert Marcuse is a pseudo-intellectual at fault for much of what ails the contemporary left. But the real Marcuse was a serious thinker who remained committed to socialism and working-class struggle. In our moment of political defeat, his works like One-Dimensional Man are well worth revisiting.
Nomads in Search of a Villain
The new film Nomadland is a heartfelt look at the lives of itinerant Americans cast aside by the Great Recession. But it ignores how employers like Amazon are raking in profits off this new class of worker.
The Biden Administration Bombed Syria Before Raising the Minimum Wage
Yesterday, we were treated to a telling contrast: Joe Biden bombed Syria without congressional authorization, and then refused to lift a finger when the Senate parliamentarian slapped down a minimum wage increase. It’s a pathetic reflection of Biden’s twisted priorities.