What Will the Outcome of the US Election Mean for the American Left?
Micah Uetricht
With the US election looming, Micah Uetricht considers how a Biden or Trump presidency would impact the American left.
What Would Jesus Do? Cancel the Rent
Francis Brewer
The UK is facing a massive, and avoidable, debt crisis. Throughout history, the cancellation of debts has been used as a safety valve against social and economic collapse - and now's the time to reopen it. If it’s good enough for Christ, argues writer and activist Francis Brewer, it’s good enough for us.
Greece’s Golden Dawn Has Been Crushed – But Its Agenda Lives On
Yannis-Orestis Papadimitriou
Leaders of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn have today been convicted of running a criminal gang masquerading as a political party. It marks the conclusion of a years-long inquiry by Greek courts, said to be the largest trial of Nazis since Nuremberg. But, Yannis-Orestis Papadimitriou explains, its agenda lives on elsewhere.
Automation Will Create More Jobs, But Most Will Be Shit
Matthew Cole
The much-prophesied “jobs apocalypse” of the fourth industrial revolution will likely never materialise. Yet that isn't to say new technologies aren't degrading work, warns Matthew Cole.
The Frontline of the Struggle Against Platform Capitalism Lies in São Paulo
Callum Cant
Angry food delivery workers in São Paulo are at the heart of new intra-continental solidarity networks in Latin America. But despite pulling off one of the biggest ever strikes against platform capitalism, familiar barriers to organising still need to be overcome, writes Callum Cant.
Pseudoscience, Think Tanks and ‘Intellectual Landscaping’: Exposing the Wilful Ignorance of the Right
Rob Faure Walker
Since the 1950s, dozens of think tanks, quangos and commissions have sprung up to lend intellectual weight to government policies, from counter-extremism to coronavirus. These institutions, often government-funded and pseudo-intellectual, seek to undermine the role of academia as an impartial and rigorous advisor to ministers. Never has such advice been more needed - it’s time for universities to reassert themselves.
A Regime of ‘Flexible Despotism’ Reigns Over Retail Work – Can It Last?
Alex Wood
Ever had to beg your boss for suitable shifts? Alex Wood explains how 'flexible discipline' - whereby managers discipline workers by altering their schedule - has become prevalent in retail work, and how it may yet fuel workers' sense of injustice.
Money Alone Won’t Fix the Care Crisis – We Need a Radical Rethink
Emma Dowling
Perma-austerity and the persistent devaluation of care work have left social care in a deficit of millions. But throwing money at the problem won’t make it go away. What we need is a radical rethink, writes Emma Dowling - one that puts care workers and the communities they serve at the helm.
Organising in Supermarkets Means Overcoming Barriers in the Sector – and in the Trade Unions
Max O'Donnell Savage
The future of supermarkets is both the future of a socially necessary service and the future of around 1m workers in the UK today. But overcoming the barriers to organising in the sector means getting to grips with its complexities - and accounting for the failures of unions like Usdaw. Max O'Donnell Savage writes.
‘Capitalism’s Wet Dream’: Amazon’s Patents Signal the Future It Hopes to Achieve
Alessandro Delfanti
By filing hundreds of patents a year, Amazon publishes its ideas for new technologies and ways of managing workers. As part of our focus on the future of work, Alessandro Delfanti explores some of the technological futures Amazon has in mind.
The Tories’ New Support Scheme Shows They’re Adapting to Our New Reality. The Left Must Do the Same
James Meadway
While the Tories' new Job Support Scheme is in no way sufficient in meeting the challenge of rebuilding the economy, it does, however, signal a tentative acceptance of the need for developing a longer-term strategy in adapting to our new Covid reality. It is therefore vital, writes James Meadway, that the left forms a response of its own.
Disabled People and Care Workers Must Build Common Cause in the Fight for Better Conditions
Jamie Hale
Organising carers against disabled people would do nothing to leverage power against the only people who can affect the real terms and conditions of the industry, writes Jamie Hale. The left must instead work to build solidarity between care workers and the disabled people who rely on them to ensure that neither is exploited.
Our Financialised Care System is Built on a House of Cards – We Urgently Need to Rebuild It
Annie Quick and Alice Martin
Care homes in the UK, like much of the care sector, are highly financialised - but there are signs the model is faltering. If we’re going to improve care quality as well as wages and conditions in the sector, we need to build both worker and user-led power, argue Annie Quick and Alice Martin.
Why the Decline of High Street Retail Could Have Troubling Consequences for Our Freedom
Alan Bradshaw
Coronavirus is killing the high street, further accelerating us into a world of big data and algorithm-mediated shopping. Alan Bradshaw argues the shift could have dangerous political implications, allowing corporations to structure and rationalise our lives in previously unimagined ways.
Supermarket Workers Have Power – It’s Time They Got Organised
Jessica Thorne and Seth Wheeler
Supermarket workers hold significant collective power over the economy - a power only compounded by the pandemic. Despite a history of underorganisation, Jessica Thorne and Seth Wheeler argue that mobilising the sector is now a matter of strategic necessity.
The Road to Moria: How Greece’s Refugee Disaster Became Business As Usual
Yannis-Orestis Papadimitriou
The fires that destroyed a refugee camp on the island of Lesbos and displaced 13,000 people have prompted international concern about the treatment of migrants at Europe's borders. Yet in Greece, the horrors of Moria are filtered through a terrifying banality which makes them seem like business as usual, explains Yannis-Orestis Papadimitriou.
Beyond Bernie: How the Democratic National Convention Sidelined Progressives
Freddie Stuart
In the wake of the Democratic National Convention, which saw the party become the mouthpiece of bipartisan corporate elites, progressives at the Democratic base are growing more disillusioned than ever. Freddie Stuart takes a closer look in the fifth instalment of Beyond Bernie, a series tracking the US elections.
‘Fuck the Algorithm’: How A-Level Students Have Shown the Future of Protest
James Meadway
Aside from their much deserved success in forcing the government to ditch algorithmically-moderated A-level grades, protesting students have signalled an increasingly salient area of politicisation. James Meadway takes a closer look at the use and abuse of data within our systems of governance.