It is a gross injustice that 30 million Americans lack health insurance — but the insured also face serious problems, paying through the nose for substandard care. We need a universal, automatic, free health care plan.
Finland’s UBI experiment serves as a cautionary tale for basic income proponents on the Left.
Basic income schemes are no silver bullet to make up for the loss of well-paid union jobs. But they can allow workers say no to the most thankless, low-wage work — and provide a platform from which to rebuild our bargaining power.
Andrew Yang likes to present himself as a serious policy thinker. But he's just the latest corporate salesman pitching a quack remedy to suffering people.
The successes of Canadian single-payer are overstated — not because of outsized government involvement, but because public provision isn’t generous enough.
Old ways of thinking about mass democratic politics won't cut it in today's globalized, atomized society.
Andrew Yang might be gearing up to run for New York City’s mayor. But he’s more likely to be the pro-developer, pro-cop second coming of Mike Bloomberg than a real alternative.
The super-rich talk to one another about a rising tide lifting all boats, all the while arming their yachts ahead of potential crisis.
Politicians who represent the interests of capital clearly grasp the point that a UBI would tilt the playing field in favor of workers. That’s why they’re fighting the idea tooth and nail, even amid an unprecedented crisis.
Throughout his adult life, Martin Luther King Jr believed in striking down not only racial apartheid but class exploitation. That twin commitment was embodied in his final effort: the often-forgotten Poor People’s Campaign.
The Democratic Party’s pursuit of well-off whites undermined its ability to deliver gains for all workers. Going forward, it must place the multiracial working class at the center of its political vision.
Women are forced to take on both wage and social reproductive labor, then made to negotiate this contradiction individually. Second-wave feminism tried to change that.
The social dividend provided by a social wealth fund is not about unemployment or welfare at all. It is a socialist answer to the question of what to do about capital’s share of the national income.
The slow, decades-long destruction of the US unemployment insurance system has resulted in more than just personal hardship for millions of workers — it has further weakened the fighting strength of the whole working class. The solution is to fully federalize it.
The US has never seriously considered far-reaching responses to the coronavirus pandemic like a national lockdown or a universal basic income that would allow people to stay at home without immiseration. The result: unnecessary mass deaths, with more on the way.
The Green New Deal is gaining prominence internationally, with transformative green programs that respond to the specific needs of national economies. In debt-laden Argentina, leftists are arguing for a new Gran Pacto that implements a basic income and suspends all external-debt payments.
Centrists claim free college is a giveaway to the rich. That’s just a smokescreen for their opposition to universal social programs.
Why Marx loved work — and we should, too.
Giving everyone a job is the best way to democratize the economy and give workers leverage in the workplace.
US reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar just introduced the End Child Poverty Act, which would set up a universal child benefit. It’s a major improvement on previous proposals to help poor and working-class families — and would instantly slash child poverty.