JACOBIN

JUNE 4. 2025

France Can’t Ban Solidarity With Palestine

Emmanuel Macron’s government is calling for a ban on one of France’s largest Palestine solidarity campaigns. The proposal is repression of free speech — and makes a mockery of Macron’s attempt to sound more critical of Israeli crimes.

In Poland, Liberalism Takes Yet Another Hit

Establishment candidate Rafał Trzaskowski had the perfect résumé to become Poland’s centrist, pro-European president. His defeat to the hard-right Karol Nawrocki reflects the liberal establishment’s evaporating support among the middle and working classes.

JUNE 3. 2025

Corporate Money Is Flooding NYC Council Elections

The last few years have seen corporate interests and pro-Israel groups teaming up to try to crush left-wing congressional candidates and challengers. Now that same strategy is rearing its head way down ballot: in the New York City Council elections.

The Economist Who Solved the Free-Rider Problem

Defenders of capitalism argue that cooperation is undermined by individuals’ tendency to take more from society than they contribute. The economist Elinor Ostrom refuted this idea, but without identifying capitalism as the real cause of exploitation.

The IP Machine Laughs at Itself

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg mock Hollywood’s creative collapse in The Studio — while continuing to churn out sequels, reboots, and branded spin-offs.

Serbia’s Protests, From Blockades to the Ballot

A deadly station roof-canopy collapse in Novi Sad, Serbia, last fall sparked months of protests. Blockades and rallies have mobilized masses of people — but the difficulty forcing institutional change has made some activists look to the electoral arena.

JUNE 2. 2025

Here Lies Hudson’s Bay Company, Murdered by Private Equity

Hudson’s Bay Company, Canada’s oldest retailer, didn’t die of natural causes — it was gutted by private equity. Stripped of assets and loaded with debt, it leaves behind job losses, endangered pensions, and a hollowed-out legacy reduced to branding rights.

Trump’s Budget Includes a Giveaway to a Chilean Billionaire

Mining was banned in northeastern Minnesota due to the irreversible damage it would do to the state’s fresh water. A last-minute provision to the Republican budget bill will allow a Chilean magnate with ties to the Trump family to mine the protected lands.

Mahmoud Khalil’s Case Is About the Future of Free Speech

Despite some recent advances in his case against the Trump administration, Mahmoud Khalil remains confined for opposing genocide in Gaza — an imprisonment that makes a mockery of the First Amendment.

The Boss Is Right to Talk About Class

Bruce Springsteen recently accused the Trump administration of taking “sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers. ” He rightly attacked the administration’s favorite lie: its claim that Trump represents the working class.

Defending Academic Freedom in The Male Animal

At a time when academic and political repression is sweeping the United States, the 1942 screwball comedy The Male Animal offers a reminder of what courage in the face of crackdowns on a college campus can look like.

French Leaders Are Using Trump’s Trade War to Push Austerity

European leaders have lined up to condemn Donald Trump’s tariff plans as absurd. Yet some are also using the crisis to push their existing agendas — with France’s government stepping up pressure for sweeping budget cuts.

JUNE 1. 2025

A Half-Century of Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital

Harry Braverman’s arguments in his classic book Labor and Monopoly Capital presciently forecasted much of our present labor regime — and can help us move beyond it.

MAY 31. 2025

Today’s Far-Right Crankery Has Libertarian Ancestry

The virulent nationalism and racism of the contemporary far right are typically seen as having little in common with figures like Friedrich Hayek. But the far right’s pseudoscientific defenses of hierarchy have roots in Hayek and his acolytes’ thought.