Rafael Khachaturian is a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and associate faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. He is coeditor of the forthcoming Marxism and the Capitalist State: Towards a New Debate.
The Soviet Union’s collapse created opportunities for nationalist elites. Azerbaijan’s current campaign of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh has been enabled by both this instability and regional jostling for influence by Russia, Turkey, and others.
The past few years have seen widespread speculation about the death of neoliberalism and a restoration of the state to a larger role in society. But the evidence isn’t there. Instead, market-based approaches are redefining themselves for a new era.
Several tensions run deep in Russian society: Politics are decided by elections without democracy. A growing number of Russian billionaires have outlandish wealth but no political power. And Putin is a populist without the people.
The riot at the Capitol on Wednesday was a symptom of right-wing weakness, not power. The real danger isn’t a MAGA coup, but a restoration of the neoliberal status quo that produced the nightmare of Trump and his minions.
Republican senator Mike Lee ignited a controversy last week when he insisted that it’s a good thing the US isn’t a democracy. His comments were appalling — but they remind us that what democracy we do have in the US is thanks to the countless bottom-up struggles against elites like him since the country’s founding.
Democratic socialism is a living political tradition that emphasizes the need to weaken the grip of capital, empower the working class, oppose authoritarianism, expand democracy, and shift our economy and society away from private profit and toward the fulfillment of social needs. It’s a vision worth debating — and defending.
The idea of human rights was once intimately tied to egalitarianism and socialist politics. By the 1990s, it was used to justify neoliberalism.
A new book brings to life Marx’s formative years in London, filtered through the prism of magical realism.
There is no unified “deep state” pulling the strings behind the scenes. The state itself is a site of struggle.
Trump promised an anti-establishment administration. Instead he’s empowered capitalists to rule for personal gain.