Daniel Finn is the features editor at Jacobin. He is the author of One Man’s Terrorist: A Political History of the IRA.
The Great Recession sent Europe’s social-democratic parties into a tailspin, exposing the contradictions of their political model. Now they face the pressure of another economic downturn, without having recovered from the last one or developed a convincing new vision.
The novelist Albert Camus is omnipresent in French cultural life, from TV shows to comic books, magazine covers and one-man shows. Camus-mania isn’t just a literary phenomenon: it draws on a deep well of political revisionism and colonial nostalgia.
Twelve months after the electoral defeat of Corbynism, we shouldn’t allow its opponents to rewrite history. It was the Brexit crisis with all its side effects that dealt a crippling blow to Corbyn’s project, not a left-wing policy agenda that spoke to the issues of the future.
In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, many hoped it would contain an inadvertent silver lining, in the form of reduced carbon emissions. But the real lesson of the past few months is now clear: we can’t stop global warming without radical systemic change.
US media outlets like the New York Times rightly dismissed bogus claims of electoral fraud by Donald Trump. Now they need to start applying the same standards to Latin America, where such claims have been used to justify the violent overthrow of elected left-wing governments.
When Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission announced it was investigating Labour’s treatment of its Jewish members, many of Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents claimed this as proof of his supposed antisemitism. But the inquiry is itself a political weapon — and as the Commission publishes its much-hyped, long-delayed report today, the attacks against the Left are only intensifying.
With his 1971 book A Theory Of Justice, John Rawls became the most influential political philosopher of his time — just as the liberal agenda he supported was retreating under conservative fire. A close look at Rawls can help us understand the fate of contemporary liberalism.
Shinzō Abe became Japan’s longest serving prime minister thanks to the weakness of his political rivals. But Abe never realized his dream of rewriting the Japanese constitution to legitimize the nationalist militarism that was central to his worldview.
“Football gives meaning to life, yes. But life also gives meaning to football.”
A historic leader of moderate nationalism, John Hume is widely eulogized for helping end the war in Northern Ireland. But praise for his rejection of violence shouldn’t be combined with amnesia about the deep injustices that fueled the conflict in the Six Counties.
Journalism on national conflicts from Belfast to the Balkans often speaks of ancient hatreds and ancestral sectarianism. But a closer look at the Irish conflict shows that questions of nationhood and identity are very modern phenomena — and have to be integrated into any serious analysis of class.
By sacking Rebecca Long-Bailey on a trumped-up pretext, Keir Starmer has set the seal on a drastic shift to the right for the British Labour Party. That shift comes just as the key arguments by Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents to justify a break with his left leadership have been falling apart in the face of overwhelming evidence.
US police have used rubber bullets against civilian protesters on a massive scale the past week. These projectiles actually originated in Northern Ireland — and their history is anything but “nonlethal.” There can be no justification for police use of rubber bullets.
The Black Death wiped out a third of Europe’s population in just a few years. But the peasants and laborers who survived wielded newfound power over their masters.
We don’t need melodramatic hyperbole from New Leftists telling us to campaign for Joe Biden. We need to build a democratic-socialist movement that is the only real hope for the planet’s future.
Europe’s radical left has been bitterly divided over the question of European integration. But wishful thinking aside, the structures of the European Union can’t be used to achieve socialist goals. Sooner or later, any left government will have to confront and defy its economic straitjacket.
Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party ends this weekend. We need to defend his legacy and carry on his noble democratic-socialist program, while being honest about where and why he fell short.
If socialists want to take power through the ballot box, we have to be ready for when capitalists stop playing by the rules.
Last Saturday, Ireland bucked the European trend as its voters turned sharply left. Sinn Féin was the main beneficiary, but the party has some big choices to make in the months ahead if it’s going to capitalize on this breakthrough.
Gerry Adams has called time on a political career that began in the age of Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev, as his party stands on the brink of a historic breakthrough. The arguments about his place in Irish history are just beginning.