Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy

18/01/2024

Just this week, we're offering a $5 trial subscription to Catalyst that gets you four print journals filled with accessible analysis from a Marxist perspective.

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A quarterly journal of theory and strategy with capitalism as its target. Published by Jacobin.

29/12/2023

The new issue of Catalyst is out now! Get a yearlong print sub for $20 that includes digital access to our entire archive.

https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=TWENTY

Don’t miss fantastic essays on Allende’s Chile, Edward Said on empire and literature, W. E. B. Du Bois’s Marxism, and much more.

21/12/2023

John Womack’s labor strategy is about workers finding the capacity to "wound capital to make it yield anything.” But the massive challenge in today’s deindustrialized economy is locating where that leverage actually lies.

John Womack’s labor strategy is about workers finding the capacity to

11/12/2023

Why was New Labour “intensely relaxed” about “people getting filthy rich”? The answer lies in a comprehensive analysis and critique of Labourism itself, which the new book Futures of Socialism fails to deliver.

Why was New Labour “intensely relaxed” about “people getting filthy rich”? The answer lies in a comprehensive analysis and critique of Labourism itself, which the new book fails to deliver.

13/11/2023

Austerity policies have their roots in efforts by economic elites to crush working-class power after WWI and redistribute income upward. To reverse austerity, democratic control over economic policymaking is essential.

23/10/2023

British literary responses to the Paris Commune of 1871 expressed shock and fear about the collapse of the bourgeois social order. But they also registered sympathy with the Communards and their revolutionary aspirations.

14/10/2023

A new book shows how the Arab revolts empowered democratic citizenship. But a focus on vibrant cultural creativity is no substitute for concrete analysis of political agency and economic structure.

shows how the Arab revolts empowered democratic citizenship. But a focus on vibrant cultural creativity is no substitute for concrete analysis of political agency and economic structure.

07/09/2023

In No Politics but Class Politics, Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed show how an identity politics that obscures class politics and ignores economic inequality only makes the many miseries around us worse.

In , Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed show how an identity politics that obscures class politics and ignores economic inequality only makes the many miseries around us worse.

06/09/2023

What kind of revolutionary filmmaker was Jean-Luc Godard? This is not an easy question to answer in periods when the divide between art and politics is hard to bridge in practice.

05/09/2023

Settler colonialism is often described as a singular, transnational mode of domination. But it’s impossible to understand colonialism without political economy and material interests.

29/08/2023

The new issue of Catalyst is out now! Get a yearlong print sub for $20 that includes digital access to our entire archive.

https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=TWENTY

Don’t miss fantastic essays on war and democracy, American federalism, Bayard Rustin's Freedom Budget, and much more.

03/08/2023

The case against the neoliberal privatization of public institutions is based on the harmful effects it has on workers and citizens. But the case for public ownership needs more: the legitimacy of democratic governance.

02/08/2023

A Stranger in Your Own City is a powerful account of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq and its catastrophic effects on the Iraqi people. Does the Tishreen uprising mark the beginning of the end of Iraq’s sectarian political structure?

is a powerful account of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq and its catastrophic effects on the Iraqi people. Does the Tishreen uprising mark the beginning of the end of Iraq’s sectarian political structure?

01/08/2023

John Rawls, perhaps the greatest political philosopher of the 20th century, has much to teach the Left. But Rawls’s theories failed to grapple adequately with the fundamental obstacles capitalism imposes to realizing a just society.

The ideas of John Rawls, perhaps the greatest political philosopher of the 20th century, have much to teach the Left. But Rawls’s theories failed to grapple adequately with the fundamental obstacles capitalism imposes to realizing a just society.

14/06/2023

The new issue of Catalyst is out now! Get a yearlong print subscription for $20 that includes digital access to our entire archive.

https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=TWENTY

Don’t miss fantastic new essays on the new levers of state power, race and the housing question, the ongoing banking crisis, Du Boisian sociology, and how to create a stronger left journalism.

28/05/2023

Classless Politics traces the historical roots of Egypt's current revolutionary closure. It examines why the 2011 mass revolt found a Left in deep political crisis and the Muslim Brotherhood ascendant.

traces the historical roots of Egypt's current revolutionary closure. It examines why the 2011 mass revolt found a Left in deep political crisis and the Muslim Brotherhood ascendant.

27/05/2023

The Invention of Marxism is a rich group biography of the founding generation of European socialists who introduced millions to Karl Marx’s ideas. But it doesn’t identify this generation’s core theoretical and philosophical unities.

is a rich group biography of the founding generation of European socialists who introduced millions to Karl Marx’s ideas. But it doesn’t identify this generation’s core theoretical and philosophical unities.

26/04/2023

During the Industrial Revolution, the British working class lived in poverty and squalor. Their written testimonies capture those conditions — but also how they fought to find fulfillment despite their exploitation and bleak circumstance.

25/04/2023

"Bread and Freedom: Egypt’s Revolutionary Situation" is a riveting account of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. But it ignores class and capitalism and fails to explain the reasons behind Egypt’s mass mobilization and why it was defeated.

Bread and Freedom: Egypt’s Revolutionary Situation is a riveting account of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. But it ignores class and capitalism and fails to explain the reasons behind Egypt’s mass mobilization and why it was defeated.

03/04/2023

The New Left rightly struggled against bureaucracy and conservatism, but it failed to organize popular dissent into a new democratic mass party. That remains the key challenge for the Left.

02/04/2023

The equalization of classes is not the abolition of classes. If the Left is not anti-capitalist, is it still a Left?

Left-wing politics for generations was focused on the “labor question” in opposing capitalism. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, the Left became increasingly preoccupied with inequality. The labor question faded in significance, as did the opposition to capitalism. This essay examines why ...

20/03/2023

The new issue of Catalyst is out now! Get a yearlong print sub for $20 that includes digital access to our entire archive.

https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=TWENTY

Don’t miss fantastic new essays on class and inequality, socialism and the power grid, Henry Kissinger, and much more.

22/02/2023

Event in NYC!

Catalyst editor Vivek Chibber discusses his book Class Matrix next Monday, February 27 at 5pm.

06/02/2023

The Saudi state is packaging its heritage industry as a mode of citizen participation. It’s an attempt to paper over a fundamental fact: the regime remains a dictatorship that maintains its rule by violently clamping down on opposition.

10/01/2023

This paper lays out a model that seeks to marry firm-level democracy with macroeconomic growth and solidaristic wage policy.

04/01/2023

The new issue of Catalyst is out now. Get a yearlong print sub for $20 that includes digital access to our entire archive.

https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=TWENTY

Don’t miss fantastic new essays on workplace democracy and market socialism, capitalism and bu****it jobs, the legacies of the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, and the history of proletarian literature.

05/10/2022

The new issue of Catalyst is out now. Get a yearlong print sub for $20 that includes digital access to our entire archive.

https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=TWENTY

Don’t miss fantastic new essays on post-work socialism, left victory in Colombia, C. L. R. James, and the politics of public debt.

03/10/2022

Our review of Branko Milanovic’s "Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World."

A view warped by capitalism dooms the world to more inequality. Oxford geography professor Danny Dorling argues that growing dissatisfaction with capitalism breeds new hope.

20/09/2022

The Winston Churchill myth industry ignores the historical record. The man remembered for World War II leadership was an imperialist, a racist, and above all else committed to upholding class hierarchy.

15/09/2022

New from Grace Blakeley: Jeremy Corbyn presented a historic opportunity that was missed, and a deep structural shift in British politics must be reckoned with.

Review of Sebastian Payne’s "Broken Heartlands: A Journey Through Labour’s Lost England."

Can a Westminster insider explain the Labour Party’s loss of working-class voters and the collapse of the red wall? Jeremy Corbyn presented a historic opportunity that was missed, and a deep structural shift in British politics must be reckoned with.