“Runaway Inflation” Won’t Be Getting Very Far on Foot
The “wage-price spiral” was the distinctively destructive form that inflation took in the 20th century. It’s unlikely to make a comeback anytime soon.
122 Articles by: Seth Ackerman
Seth Ackerman is an editor at Jacobin.
The Start of Inflation as We Know It
In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes built a new theory of inflation that sought to reckon with the proletariat’s recent and explosive entry onto the stage of history.
In 2021, Larry Summers Won the Inflation Debate. But His Victory Was Transitory.
With price growth trending down over the past year despite a strong labor market, it’s looking more and more like Larry Summers was wrong about inflation after all. It’s time to revisit the great inflation debate of 2021–2022.
Democrats May Have Won More Suburban Votes in the Midterms. That Doesn’t Bode Well.
If Democrats survived this week’s midterms because they increased their share of wealthier voters, it’s a bad omen for building a working-class coalition around left-wing politics. Something needs to change.
Higher Inflation Doesn’t Reduce Real Wages
The Fed is now considering moves to tamp down inflation that risk spiking unemployment. Supporters of the idea are claiming that inflation itself is bad for workers because it “eats away at real wages.” They’re wrong.
Don’t Forget to Worry About Inflation!
Throughout the inflationary years of the 1970s, nearly half of Americans saw rising prices as the most important problem facing the country. Today, despite the best efforts of inflation alarmists, only 5 percent of Americans think it is.
Class Politics in America Is Far From Dead
A venerable theory about people’s political values is making a comeback: the theory of “postmaterialism.” But despite what you may have heard, the theory doesn’t say class politics is doomed in rich countries — and neither did the scholar who created it.
Larry Summers Is Wrong About Inflation
Enraged at the rise of an “intransigent” left, Larry Summers put his credibility on the line with wild predictions of runaway inflation in the wake of Joe Biden’s stimulus package last January. It’s looking like his predictions were wrong.
The Marginal Tax Bracket Is an Enemy of Democracy
The marginal tax bracket at the heart of our income tax system obfuscates the key question about taxes in a democratic society: Who pays what? In the 1930s, France’s Popular Front government had a solution — until it was dismantled by the right-wing Vichy regime.
The Invention of Inequality
From chiefs and kings to billionaires today, a small handful of humans over thousands of years have figured out how to amass tremendous power and wealth. We talked to an anthropologist about how the ruling class got started.
Biden’s COVID Relief Bill Is the Biggest Anti-Poverty Program in…Months
The Biden administration is selling its COVID relief bill as a historic milestone in the war on poverty. In reality, it’s a temporary measure whose anti-poverty impact is roughly the same as last year’s CARES Act signed by Trump. For Biden to claim an anti-poverty legacy, he needs to make the child benefit permanent.
Failure Is an Option
Haunted by the specter of democracy, the Constitution’s framers blundered into a historic miscalculation. We’re still living with the consequences.
The Victory to Come
Bernie critics seem to think they dodged a bullet. They haven’t — the bullet is still on its way.
If Neoliberalism Were to End, How Would We Know?
What will decide the fate of neoliberalism today is not the extent of the economic damage the virus wreaks — it is the extent to which the virus transforms popular expectations.
Economists Told Us “Flexible” Labor Markets Were a Good Thing. Now They’re Plunging the US Into an Economic Catastrophe
For decades, America’s “flexible” labor markets have been celebrated by economists and favorably compared to Europe’s “sclerotic” labor institutions — the products of a century of militant worker struggle. Now, thanks to that very flexibility, the US stands on the brink of an economic disaster.
A Study Last Week Claimed to Prove That Bernie Is Unelectable. It Turns Out the Study Is Bunk.
A big new study came out last week arguing that Bernie Sanders’s electability could be a “mirage.” There’s just one problem: the report is nonsense.
The Cosmic Irony of Bernie Sanders’s Rise
What makes Bernie Sanders so threatening to the Democratic establishment is that he stands for what millions of Democrats thought their party stood for all along.
You Absolutely Don’t “Gotta Hand It to Them”
Last night’s UK elections results point to a deep problem in world politics today: the gravitational pull of privileging cultural over economic combat — an outcome that consistently divides the Left and hands victory to the Right.
Fear of a Populist Planet
“Populism” is today employed as a bogeyman by liberals and centrists alike. Is there anything worth salvaging in the concept?
Looking at Impeachment From the Left
How should the Left view the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump? Are they a political opportunity or a distraction from the issues that leftists care about? A Jacobin roundtable.