5LL - Lefty Links 101-200

Amazon
Hate Amazon? Try Living Without It
Nona Willis Aronowitz, The New York Times
My dad was a longtime labor activist. He despises what Jeff Bezos built, but he can’t quit it.
Architecture
Capitalism Is Responsible for Your Depressing Office Building
Chris Gelardi, The Nation
Over a century ago, John Ruskin predicted how ugly and inhuman industrialized capitalism would become.
Art
Street Art Used To Be the Voice of the People. Now It's the Voice of Advertisers.
Christine MacDonald, In These Times
Corporations like Red Bull and Stella Artois are co-opting graffiti art.
Automation
So You Automated Your Coworkers Out of a Job
Brian Merchant, Gizmodo
We may be witnessing the rise of a truly broken system where coworkers are forced to struggle with whether or not to automate each other out of work, competing for a thinning pool of decent jobs as profits flow upstream, where the pool of investment for future automation projects grows.
Banks
The Alternative to Traditional Banking You've Never Heard Of
Valerie Vande Panne, In These Times
What Westerners can learn from collective “money circles.”
Billionaires
The World Would Be a Better Place Without the Rich
Sam Pizzigati, Jacobin
They coarsen our culture, erode our economic future, and diminish our democracy. The ultra-rich have no redeeming social value.
Broadband
The New Sewer Socialists Are Building an Equitable Internet
Evan Malmgren, The Nation
A blue-collar manufacturing town in southern Appalachia offers a roadmap for reclaiming the Internet’s utopian potential.
Capitalism
Republicans and Democrats are Wedded to Capitalism. Americans Deserve Better.
Richard Wolff, HuffPost
Whichever party wins, it's capitalism that prevails.
McKinsey & Company: Capital's Willing Executioners
Anonymous, Current Affairs
An insider’s perspective on how the world’s most elite consulting firm spreads the gospel of capitalism…
Capitalist Freedom Is a Farce
Rob Larson, Jacobin
Milton Friedman was wrong. Capitalism doesn't foster freedom — it produces autocratic workplaces and tyrannical billionaires.
Charity
Privatizing Morality
Luke Savage, Jacobin
Individual acts of holiday charity by the rich are a hustle. Real altruism is collective.
Childcare
Family Fun Pack
Matt Bruenig, People's Policy Project
Capitalism is hostile to families. The welfare state can fix that.
Climate Change
The Optimistic Activists for a Green New Deal: Inside the Youth-Led Singing Sunrise Movement
Emily Witt, The New Yorker
Sunrise, founded a year and a half ago by a dozen or so twentysomethings, has established itself as the dominant influence on the environmental policy of the Democrats’ young, progressive wing.
Focusing On How Individuals Can Stop Climate Change is Very Convenient for Corporations
Morten Fibieger Byskov, Fast Company
Sure, it’s morally good to reduce your footprint–but don’t let that deflect attention from who is really to blame.
A Green New Deal Can Give Us the Freedoms to Allow Humanity to Flourish
Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos, The Guardian
Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to redefine freedom in the face of war. The Green New Deal imagines goals for a colorful democracy.
Could A Green New Deal Make Us Happier People?
Kate Aronoff, The Intercept
The Green New Deal components that its critics have decried as wasteful add-ons — social housing, a federal job guarantee, universal health care — are anything but.
Co-Ops
Meet the Radical Workers' Cooperative Growing in the Heart of the Deep South
Peter Moskowitz, The Nation
Cooperation Jackson is trying to build an alternative economy for the city’s majority-black residents.
These Trans Latinas Started Their Own Beauty Co-Op to Defy Discrimination
Moira Lavelle, Vice
After years of experiencing discrimination at work, three trans immigrant women started a trans beauticians' co-op in Queens, New York—and are welcoming others to join.
Giving Workers Equal Power Isn't Radical. This Studio's Done It For Years.
Patrick Klepek, Vice
Canadian developer KO_OP has been experimenting with the co-op model long before America's socialism flirtation—and it's working.
New Group Looks to Unite North America in a Cooperative Economy
Valerie Vande Panne, Truthout
The Symbiosis network is linking cooperative movements offering alternatives to hyper-capitalism.
Debt
Student Debt Must Become Part of the Battle Against Poverty
Daniela Senderowicz, Truthout
While the Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter and teacher strikes are bringing thousands out into the streets demanding racial, gender and economic justice, why are student debtors not rising up en masse too?
Americans Are Drowning in Debt
Joyce Rice and Kevin Moore, The Nib
We live with it. We die with it. And we’re told it’s our fault.
Democracy
The Public Ownership Situation
Thomas Hanna, Jacobin
The US has a surprisingly large amount of public ownership. But in order for it to truly serve the social good, it must be expanded — and democratized.
"Capitalism Is the Number One Threat to Democracy Today"
Meagan Day, Jacobin
From Plato to Marx, thinkers have insisted on the incompatibility between democracy and inequality. Filmmaker Astra Taylor explores that question and others in her new documentary, What is Democracy?
Design
More Designers and Illustrators Than Ever Are Saying, "Oh My God, Maybe I'm a Socialist."
Meg Miller, AIGA Eye on Design
A lesson from the NYC-DSA’s Media Working Group in how to use your skills to volunteer for causes you believe in
You Don't Want Hygge. You Want Social Democracy.
Meagan Day, Jacobin
Hygge has exploded as a cozy, comforting interior design trend. But the security and intimacy it evokes can't be achieved by scented candles alone — that requires social democracy.
Design is Not Neutral
Colleen Tighe, The Baffler
Creativity does not belong to Google, to Adweek, to graphic design, to capitalism.
All Power to the Pack Rats
Ian Svenonius, Jacobin
In the sleek Apple future, our "outdated" possessions are turned into symbols of poverty.
Education
We Can't Educate Our Kids Out of Inequality
John Schneider, The Outline
Better schools are not a magic bullet for fixing social problems.
The History of the SAT Is Mired in Racism and Elitism
Mariana Viera, Teen Vogue
It’s “proof of the miles we have left to reach social justice and liberation for all in this country.”
The Case For Free College
Sparky Abraham, Current Affairs
Is it “regressive”? No, and that’s the wrong question…
Elections
The Left Victories That Defined 2018—And Give Us Hope for the New Year
Mark Daalder, In These Times
Despite Trump’s destructive presidency, the Left made important strides this year—from electoral victories to strikes, union campaigns, movement organizing and popularizing left-wing policies.
Is It OK to Criticize Politicians for Things They Have Done?
Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs
Not only is it okay to criticize Democratic politicians, but we must do it.
Who's Afraid of the Bernie Bros?
Bridget Read, Vogue
The Brooklyn rally presented the first real-time, IRL answer to this question of who exactly wants Bernie Sanders to be president in 2020, in the New York metropolitan area at least.
A Pair of Leftist Teens Are Tired of the Democratic Party's "Bullshit." They're Launching A Presidential Campaign to Fix It.
Ryan C. Brooks, BuzzFeed News
David Oks and Henry Williams are pushing an octogenarian politician to make another run at the White House to help move the Democratic Party further left.
Entertainment
Means TV, With A Boost From the Nyan Cat, Launches A Post-Capitalist Streaming Service
Ryan Grim, The Intercept
The working-class filmmakers behind Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s viral campaign video are launching their next challenge to capitalist hegemony, Means TV.
Outlaw Kings and Rebellion Chic
Alister MacQuarrie, New Socialist
As the liberal order collapses and open authoritarianism takes its place, our films, TV dramas, and videogames are filled with rebel heroes. Yet the heroic rebel on screen is often very evasive about the principles behind their actions.
Feminism
Beyond Girl Power: The Answer to the Commodification of Feminism is a Women-Led Socialist Movement
Roqayah Chamseddine, In These Times
Liberals are whitewashing feminism and watering down the legacies of socialist women. We mustn’t let them rewrite history.
The Most Feminist Revolution the World Has Ever Witnessed
Carne Ross, Vice
In Rojava, a Kurdish anarchist collective led by women is at the heart of the fight with ISIS, and behind a political upheaval putting equality front and centre.
Government
The Left Critique of Bureaucracy
Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs
We need a strong public sector but it has to actually be run well…
Healthcare
Medicare for All is Even Better Than You Thought
Tim Higginbotham, Jacobin
Previous estimates suggested that Medicare for All would save $2 trillion. But it's even better: a new study finds that Bernie Sanders's bill would save $5.1 trillion — while providing universal, comprehensive coverage.
I Read 1,182 Emergency Room Bills This Year. Here's What I Learned.
Sarah Kliff, Vox
A $5,571 bill to sit in a waiting room, $238 eyedrops, and a $60 ibuprofen tell the story of how emergency room visits are squeezing patients.
A Public Option Isn't Good Enough
Libby Watson, Splinter
A public option would preserve the fundamental injustices of the current American healthcare system. It actively works to preserve the private insurance industry and their profits, because this allows patients “choice.”
America's Insulin Crisis Shows Why We Need Socialism
Victoria Gagliardo-Silver, Vice
When people are begging for money to afford a medicine they need in order to live, that's a failure of capitalism.
Americans Are Going Bankrupt From Getting Sick
Olga Khazan, The Atlantic
Doctors’ bills play a role in 60 percent of personal-bankruptcy filings.
5 Women on What It's Actually Like to Have Universal Health Care
Clio Chang, Elle
We talked to women in five countries with universal health care systems—Canada, Iceland, Taiwan, Australia, and the UK—about their daily interactions with their country’s medical systems.
Historical Figures
One, Two, Many Rosa Luxemburgs
Ines Schwerdtner, Jacobin
On the 100th anniversary of her murder, Rosa Luxemburg’s incredible life provides us with a model — not necessarily of what to do, but of how to do it.
Seeking Utopia in Louisiana
Elle Hardy, Current Affairs
The lost story of a group of socialists who built an extraordinary, but flawed, colony…
The Face of American Socialism Before Bernie Sanders? Eugene Debs
Paul Buhle and Mari Jo Buhle, The Guardian
It is impossible to understand the appeal of socialism in America today without looking at its past. And that inevitably leads to Debs.
Housing
In The Meantime
Lori Teresa Yearwood, Hmm Daily
Finding a low-income home these days means going through a twilight of waiting and enduring.
Coming of Age in Cohousing
Courtney E. Martin, Curbed
Growing up communally brings exposure to the world of adults—and lessons in interdependence
Immigration
The Case Against 'Border Security'
Daniel Denvir, The New York Times
Voters want more open borders, not a ‘smart wall.’ Democrats should listen.
The Case for Opening Our Borders
Brianna Rennix, In These Times
Democrats cannot have it both ways. If you oppose jailing and exiling people for crossing an invisible line, you must be in favor of significantly opening our borders. Fortunately, that’s fine.
Language
The Language of Capitalism Isn't Just Annoying, It's Dangerous
Rebecca Stoner, The Outline
A new book argues that words like “innovation” are doing more than telling you who to avoid at parties.
The Left
The Stifling Air of Rigid Radicalism
Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery, The New Inquiry
Can radical politics harbor a deadening conservatism?
A Speech on Socialism at Andover
Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs
Introducing left politics to high school students…
The Spiritual Case for Socialism
Jedediah Britton-Purdy, The New Republic
This Life attempts to deepen the philosophical dimension of this left and to anchor its commitments in a larger inquiry: What kind of political and economic order can do justice to our mortality, to the fact that our lives are all we have?
Socialism, But in Iowa
Elaine Godfrey, The Atlantic
DSA members in the state view socialism as a vehicle for changing their own immediate circumstances—and they want to build a movement that transcends electoral politics.
Liberalism
The Obama Boys
Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs
If you want to understand why leftists look back on the Obama years with such a sense of frustration and disappointment, all you need to do is pick up one of the White House memoirs written by members of Obama’s staff.
Mental Health
Self-Care Won't Save Us
Aisling McCrea, Current Affairs
Self-care slots in neatly with capitalism, treating mental ill-health as an individual problem divorced from material and political context, to be solved by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and maybe spending a little money on the way.
Alone in America
Elle Hardy, Current Affairs
Nobody is immune to our epidemic of separation and despair.
Millennials
Millennials Didn't Kill the Economy. The Economy Killed Millennials.
Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
The American system has thrown them into debt, depressed their wages, kept them from buying homes—and then blamed them for everything.
How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation
Anne Helen Peterson, BuzzFeed News
We’re deeply in debt, working more hours and more jobs for less pay and less security, struggling to achieve the same standards of living as our parents, operating in psychological and physical precariousness, all while being told that if we just work harder, meritocracy will prevail, and we’ll begin thriving.
The American Dream Isn't for Black Millennials
Reniqua Allen, The New York Times
What I learned from talking to more than 70 of my peers — and trying to buy a house.
Why Are Millennials Burned Out? Capitalism.
Sean Illing, Vox
Author Malcolm Harris on why millennials need a revolution.
Minimum Wage
Dollars On the Margins
Matthew Desmond, The New York Times
A living wage is an antidepressant. It is a sleep aid. A diet. A stress reliever. It is a contraceptive, preventing teenage pregnancy. It prevents premature death. It shields children from neglect.
Palestine
Time to Break the Silence on Palestine
Michelle Alexander, The New York Times
Martin Luther King Jr. courageously spoke out about the Vietnam War. We must do the same when it comes to this grave injustice of our time.
Ilhan Omar's Critics Are Not Your Friends
Jacob Bacharach, Truthdig
The criticisms of Omar show the triumph of a meaningless opportunism over the far more difficult work of building solidarity with other minorities in the United States against a wave of intolerance and violence that is explicitly and inarguably a product of the political right.
Politicians
How One Socialist Lawmaker Is Trying to Change His State's Pro-Business Policies
Farah Stockman, The New York Times
Mr. Carter, who won an unexpected victory in 2017 against a Republican who served as majority whip, has already served a year in office. And his tenure gives a glimpse of what happens when a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America is elected to office.
Productivity
The Political Case for More Free Time
Matt Hartman, The Outline
Some people are burnt out while others are simply exploited. We can organize around the shared interest of making our free time actually free.
Busy Doing Nothing
Megan Marz, The Baffler
Jenny Odell’s search for a better way to resist productivity
Racial Justice
Dear Liberals, Don't Assume People of Color Will Solve All Your Problems
Bhaskar Sunkara, The Guardian
Tracking demographic shifts is the terrain of the right. So why do so many liberals and progressives do just that?
The Forgotten Socialist History of Martin Luther King Jr.
Matthew Miles Goodrich, In These Times
King believed that a multiracial working-class movement was required to overcome the failings of capitalism.
How Identity Became A Weapon Against the Left
Briahna Joy Gray, Current Affairs
Reaction to criticism of Kamala Harris shows how the voices of progressive people of color are erased…
How to Survive a Police Stop
Brian Platt, Jacobin
Programs that teach young people how to interact with police are popping up around the country. But they're often exercises in victim-blaming — shifting the responsibility for avoiding lethal stops from cops to the very civilians they brutalize.
Socialist Principles Have Always Been Part of Black American Tradition
Robert R. Raymond, Truthout
Socialism has never been a movement mostly for and by white men. It has a long and rich tradition within Black communities and other communities of color in the U.S., and within feminist organizing.
Retirement
Economic Insecurity Is Becoming the New Hallmark of Old Age
Katherine S. Newman and Rebecca Hayes Jacobs, The Nation
It’s time to face this country’s looming retirement crisis.
Revolution
How to Seize the Means
c.e., Commune
How can we—the non-owning class, the landless, the oppressed, the poor—take power over the economy? How can we become the force that governs our lives and our work? And how can this involve not just one or two companies, but a whole world system?
Sex Work
Decriminalizing Sex Work Is a Matter of Survival
Jordan N. DeLoach, Truthout
Sex worker rights are tied to racial and gender justice, which is why D.C.’s decriminalization bill is crucial.
Social Media
Log Off
Benjamin Fong, Jacobin
Social media will always be destructive for the Left. We should log the fuck off.
Unfortunately, We Can't Log Off
Meagan Day, Jacobin
Social media sucks — but it might just be the best propaganda tool socialists have ever had. That's why we can't log off.
404 Page Not Found
Kate Wagner, The Baffler
The internet is perhaps the most potent and active delivery system in history for the thesis “capitalism will obliterate everything you know and love”—online it happens in real time.
Strikes
Strikes and Picket Lines, Explained
Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue
Why does the concept “never cross a picket line” matter? What does it mean to “go out on strike” or to be a “scab”?
The Return of the Strike
Steven Greenhouse, The American Prospect
This year, thousands of teachers, hotel workers, Google employees, and others walked off the job and won major gains. Which raises two questions: Why now? And will this continue?
'This Is Much Bigger Than Us, Than Our Union, Even Than Our City'
Sarah Jaffe, The Nation
How LA’s teachers joined forces with the community and won a landmark labor contract.
Everything You Need to Know About General Strikes
Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue
How is a general strike different from a planned, industry-specific work stoppage; why are people interested in the idea now; and what would one look like in 2019?
Taxes
Ocasio-Cortez's 70 Percent Top Tax Rate is a Moderate, Evidence-Based Policy
Eric Levitz, New York Magazine
In terms of public opinion, Ocasio-Cortez’s view on tax policy for the rich is much more mainstream than Susan Collins’s.
Why the Government Makes Filing Your Taxes Intentionally Difficult
Elizabeth Zach, In These Times
Americans spend 7 hours filing our tax returns. In other countries, it can take 5 minutes.
Transportation
Why is U.S. Public Transit Crumbling?
Josh Kramer and Dan Nott, The Nib
The United States is falling way, way behind on funding public transit. And it’s hurting us.
Unions
The Good Tidings of Solidarity
Wei Tchou, The Outline
In June, a successful unionization effort at ‘The New Yorker’ proved to be more than a victory for labor.
Game Developers Need to Unionize
Tim Colwill, Polygon
A union can work in this business, and other industries have proven it.
Fast-Food Industry Workers Continue to Fight for Their Right to Unionize
Kim Kelly, Teen Vogue
The Little Big Union is the latest chapter in the struggle, but the workers involved hope their efforts will spread and bring about real, lasting change in material conditions in fast-food and other industries.
Forget Your Middle-Class Dreams
Alex Press, Jacobin
When it comes to workplace organizing, there's no such thing as a “privileged” worker. You’re either with your coworkers or you’re against them.
Work
Can the Working Class Speak?
Maximillian Alvarez, Current Affairs
In a world where working people are consistently reminded that we don’t matter, where we become accustomed to being, at best, exploitable and, at worst, invisible to each other, seeing and affirming the trembling humanity we share with our neighbors is revolutionary.
How "Creative Jobs" Pervert Your Soul
Nick Slater, Current Affairs
Instead of seeking outlets for our creativity in jobs that bastardize our most human impulses, we should look beyond the world of work for ways to express ourselves.
Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?
Erin Griffith, The New York Times
I saw the greatest minds of my generation log 18-hour days — and then boast about #hustle on Instagram. When did performative workaholism become a lifestyle?
Craft Beer's Moral High Ground Doesn't Apply to Its Workers
Dave Infante, Splinter
It’s a lot easier to tell if a craft beer tastes good than it is to tell if the brewery that made it is treating employees well.
People Fought For Time Off From Work, So Stop Working So Much
Jon Staff and Pete Davis, Fast Company
Don’t eat lunch at your desk. Stop fetishizing being busy. Unplug not just from your screen–but from the clock.
The Sharing Economy Is Going to Innovate Us Into the Victorian Era
Pete Tosiello, The Outline
A sociologist shares stories from members of the new American underclass.
Bosses Will Be Considered Unthinkable 50 Years From Now
Bhaskar Sunkara, Vox
Workplaces will look totally different in the future.
Thanks for reading!
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