Vol 8 No 2
Summer 2024Mexico Rising
Is the success of the electoral left in contemporary Mexico linked to the emergence of a new social pact? This article outlines the trajectory of the electoral left, parsing out its understanding of neoliberalism as a political economy of corruption and the budding features of actually existing post-neoliberalism in the country.
Migrancy in the Petrostates
The Gulf states are transit states because migrants constitute a majority of their populations. The politics of labor control is central to the organization of these states and to the predominance of their political and capitalist classes. The contradiction of Gulf labor politics lies in the autocratic nature of rule based on nonmarket forms of labor control and the continuous demand of the market for a willing labor force.
Nationalize the Banks
During the first half of the twentieth century, millions of American workers and farmers wanted to socialize banking. In a nation where socialist principles supposedly lacked appeal, grassroots support for public banks revealed the prevalence and popularity of economic ideas that intersected and overlapped with socialism. Banking politics also presents a potential source of working-class political mobilization today.
For a Rooted Cosmopolitanism
Embracing national belonging strategically and redefining it with inclusive, progressive values can boost consensus and counter the Right’s dominance. However, this approach is neither straightforward nor without risks, which must be carefully considered.
Orwell’s Ethics
George Orwell’s ethics of equality deserve careful consideration from general readers and academic moral philosophers alike. A new book offers a spirited defense of Orwell as a philosophical outsider but fails to historicize his socialist egalitarianism.
How Can Workers Organize Against Capital Today?
John Womack’s labor strategy is about workers finding the capacity to "wound capital to make it yield anything.” But the massive challenge in today’s deindustrialized economy is locating where that leverage actually lies.
New Labour Totally Subordinated Labour to Capital
Why was New Labour “intensely relaxed” about “people getting filthy rich”? The answer lies in a comprehensive analysis and critique of Labourism itself, which the new book Futures of Socialism fails to deliver.
Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy to Boost Capital
Austerity policies have their roots in efforts by economic elites to crush working-class power after WWI and redistribute income upward. To reverse austerity, democratic control over economic policymaking is essential.
How Did the Paris Commune Shape British Culture?
British literary responses to the Paris Commune of 1871 expressed shock and fear about the collapse of the bourgeois social order. But they also registered sympathy with the Communards and their revolutionary aspirations.
Culture Can’t Explain the Arab Revolts
Violence and Representation in the Arab Uprising shows how the Arab revolts empowered democratic citizenship. But a focus on vibrant cultural creativity is no substitute for concrete analysis of political agency and economic structure.
“Settler Colonialism” Can’t Fully Explain Our World
Settler colonialism is often described as a singular, transnational mode of domination. But it’s impossible to understand colonialism without political economy and material interests.