RICHARD D. WOLFF – One crucial lesson of the New Deal will have been learned and applied. Leaving the capitalist class structure of production unchanged—a minority of employers dominating a majority of employees—enables that minority to undo whatever reforms any New Deal might achieve. That is what the U.S. employer class did after 1945. The solution now must include moving beyond the employer-employee organization of the workplace. Replacing that with a democratic community organization—what we elsewhere call worker cooperatives—is the missing element that can make progressive reforms stick
Tag: Great Depression
Why grassroots activists are turning to the wonky world of monetary policy to fight for economic justice
PAMELA HAINES – Determined to challenge the all-encompassing threat of private banks, a small group in Ohio is leading a campaign to put monetary reform on the national agenda
American Workers Have Been Given a Raw Deal Throughout the Trump Era
LAWRENCE WITTNER – It’s hard to take seriously Trump’s claim that U.S. workers have thrived during his presidency. Indeed, even before the disasters wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, American workers received a raw deal.
‘Sadness’ and Disbelief From a World Missing American Leadership
KATRIN BENNHOLD – The coronavirus pandemic is shaking bedrock assumptions about U.S. exceptionalism. This is perhaps the first global crisis in more than a century where no one is even looking for Washington to lead.
Why Mitch McConnell Wants States to Go Bankrupt
DAVID FRUM – Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is prioritizing the Republican Party rather than the American people during this crisis.
Coronavirus Is a Historic Trigger Event—So Let’s See a Social Movement Rise
PAUL ENGLER – There are times in history when sudden events — natural disasters, economic collapses, pandemics, wars, famines — change everything. They change politics, they change economics and they change public opinion in drastic ways. Many social movement analysts call these “trigger events.†During a trigger event, things that were previously unimaginable quickly become reality, as the social and political map is remade
Naomi Klein: Coronavirus Is the Perfect Disaster for Disaster Capitalism
MARIE SOLIS – Naomi Klein explains how governments and the global elite will exploit a pandemic.
With the Crisis of Kavanaugh’s Confirmation Comes Opportunity
GEORGE LACKEY – We need to step up and use our strategy heads to think clearly enough to map out campaigns that win.
Meeting Einstein’s Challenge: New Thinking about Nuclear Weapons
ROBERT R. HOLT – In May 1946, The New York Times reported that Albert Einstein had sent a telegram appeal to several hundred prominent Americans, asking for contributions to a fund “to let the people know that a new type of thinking is essential†in the atomic age. Einstein wrote in his telegram: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.†It is clear from other statements made by Einstein that the new thinking he called for was to abandon competition and the preparation for war, and to focus instead on cooperation and the peaceful resolution of conflicts. Einstein added that, to be successful, such changes presupposed the eventual creation of a world government.