A broken key with a fist

The Road Not Taken

The shuttering of the GM works in Lordstown will also bury a lost chapter in the fight for workers’ control.

The Square Deal

Some people called it "Welfare Capitalism." George F. Johnson called it "The Square Deal."
Label for Venere brand lemons, featuring a woman wearing lemon flowers in her hair and picking the fruit.

How Sicilian Merchants in New Orleans Reinvented America’s Diet

In the 1830s, they brought lemons, commercial dynamism, and a willingness to fight elites.
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Why The Racial Wealth Gap Persists, More Than 150 Years After Emancipation

When one system of economic oppression collapsed, new ones were created to fill the void.
Lithograph of Black wet nurse nursing a white baby.

George Washington’s Midwives

The economics of childbirth under slavery.
Workers with a steam plough on a sugar plantation in Puerto Rico.

How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

The expansion of banks like Citigroup into Cuba, Haiti, and beyond reveal a story of capitalism built on blood, labor, and race.

‘The Lehman Trilogy’ and Wall Street’s Debt to Slavery

If the play holds up a mirror to our moment, it is by registering slavery in a peripheral glance only to look away.
Horses with ribbons and a man counting his gambling winnings.

History’s Greatest Horse Racing Cheat and His Incredible Painting Trick

In the sport’s post-Depression heyday, one audacious grifter beat the odds with an elaborate scam: disguising fast horses to look like slow ones.

Full Metal Racket

A history sheds light on venture capital’s ties to the military-industrial complex.

Contract Buying Robbed Black Families In Chicago Of Billions

A new study on the toll of contract buying in Chicago during the 1950s and 1960s: $3 billion to $4 billion in lost black wealth.
Ad for Betty Crocker in the Ladies' Home Journal, featuring a recipe for chiffon cake.

The Power of Corporate Interests Over Home Baking

Throughout the early 20th century, food corporations created advertisement campaigns directed at women.

The American Revolution’s Starving, Barefoot, Heroic Troops

Our young nation was very poor, the war was very expensive, and Congress and the states wanted everyone else to pay.
Bucket of indigo dye.

Colonialism Created Navy Blue

The indigo dye that created the Royal Navy's signature uniform color was only possible because of imperialism and slavery.
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Paying for the Past: Reparations and American History

Reparations for African-Americans has been a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail, but the debate goes back centuries.
Drawing of a woman being blown away holding a kite made of books

Margaret Fuller on the Social Value of Intellectual Labor and Why Artists Ought to Be Paid

“The circulating medium… is abused like all good things, but without it you would not have had your Horace and Virgil.”

Jefferson, Adams, and the SAT’s New Adversity Factor

Discussions of admissions to élite colleges are built around the idea that somewhere around the next bend is the right way to do it.

The Forgotten Economic Idea Democrats Need to Rediscover

A neglected theory that helps explain today’s problems.
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Betsy DeVos Wants to Resurrect an Old — and Failed — Model of Public Education

Government-funded schools evolved from a broader system of public education that couldn't provide what students needed.

Fiscal Fright in NYC

A review of Kim Phillips-Fein’s "Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics."

To Save Democracy, We Need Class Struggle

The historical record is clear: democracy was only won when poor people waged disruptive class struggle against the rich.

What Does Tax Policy Have to Do with the Civil Rights Movement?

How congressional conservatives undermined the civil rights movement through the Tax Reform Act of 1969.

All Stick No Carrot: Racism, Property Tax Assessments, and Neoliberalism Post 1945 Chicago

Black homeowners have been an oft ignored actor in metropolitan history despite playing a central role.

The Price of Meat

America’s obsession with beef was born of conquest and exploitation.

The Price of Plenty: How Beef Changed America

Exploitation and predatory pricing drove the transformation of the beef industry – and created the model for modern agribusiness.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez speaks to an audience in front of a Green New Deal sign.
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The Federal Government Subsidized the Carbon Economy. Now it Should Subsidize a Greener One.

Why the Green New Deal fits right in with America’s energy economy.

The Mind Behind Early American Protectionism

Before free trade became a consensus, Friedrich List argued that U.S. industry should be put first.
Photo over Obama's shoulder facing Larry Summers and Timothy Geitner on the other side of a conference table.

Obama's Original Sin

A new insider account reveals how the Obama administration’s botched bailout deal reinforced neoliberal Clintonism.

How the Chicago School Changed the Meaning of Adam Smith’s ‘Invisible Hand’

Smith wasn’t warning about government intervention in the market; he was warning about government capture.

The Innovation Cult

The function of the "innovation" buzzword is to sustain the myth that business genius creates society’s wealth.

Like Jackie Robinson, Baseball Should Honor Curt Flood's Sacrifice

Fifty years ago, Flood took a stand and paved the way for free agency.