capitalism — Bunk History

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Female prisoners at Parchman sewing.

From Chain Gangs to the “Modern” Southern Prison

Those who sought to modernize and reform prisons have expanded them in the process and more permanently entrenched a racialized carceral state.

by Kirstine Taylor via Inquest on October 29, 2025

Food stand at a carnival advertising a wide ranging menu.

Why an Abundance of Choice Is Not the Same as Freedom

It’s only in recent history that freedom has come to mean having a huge array of choices in life. Did we take a wrong turn?

by Sophia Rosenfeld via Aeon on October 16, 2025

Donald Trump in a gold hardhat poses with construction workers at the Trump Palace.

How the Capitalism of the 1980s Created Donald Trump’s Theory of the State

The proliferation of privately held companies during the Reagan years laid the foundations for Trump’s approach to government.

by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on October 14, 2025

Illustration of Karl Marx in front of map of the United States.

The Triumphs and Travails of American Marxism

Karl Marx never visited the United States, but he and his ideas left an imprint nonetheless.

by Robin Blackburn via The Nation on October 13, 2025

Poop emojis against a yellow backdrop.

Brown Stage Capitalism

Cory Doctorow’s ‘Enshittification’ describes how tech platforms (and everything else) went down the sewer. Hint: It rhymes with ‘deshmegulation.’

by Maureen Tkacik via The American Prospect on October 7, 2025

FDR at his desk.

The Invention of American Liberalism

What does it mean to be a liberal in America—and why has that label inspired both devotion and disdain?

by Kevin M. Schultz, Jacob Bruggeman via Fusion on September 23, 2025

Black and white image of a MAGA rally.

Repeal the 20th Century: Pre-MAGA

To understand the intellectual coordinates of Trumpism we must look in unconventional places.

by William Davies via London Review of Books on September 17, 2025

Illustration of Henry Ford looking evil holding a town in his hand standing in a factory.

We’re Living in the World Henry Ford Built

Ford was a raving bigot and a tyrant who wanted complete control over his workers. Ford is a perfect example of why rich capitalists should not run the world.

by Nathan J. Robinson via Current Affairs on September 15, 2025

An apartment building on fire.

Did Racial Capitalism Set the Bronx on Fire?

To some, the fires lit in New York in the late seventies signaled rampant crime; to others, rebellion. But maybe they were signs of something else entirely.

by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on August 18, 2025

Mike Davis

The Marxism of Mike Davis

On the life, influences, and “sophisticated yet lucid brand of Marxism” of the late, great writer.

by Nelson Lichtenstein via Jacobin on July 31, 2025

Photo of Karl Marx

Red Like Me

A new book shows that Marxism in the US "was never constrained to the reiteration of a set of dogmatic principles one associates with party ideologues."

by Alan Wald via New Politics on July 24, 2025

Tornado over the Texas capitol building.

The History of Eugenics in Texas Isn’t What You Think

A new book unearths a chapter of the state’s story when anti-intellectual fundamentalism was put to good ends.

by Gus Bova via Texas Observer on July 14, 2025

Samuel Gompers the president of the American Federation of Labor in December 1920.

America’s Brutal Capitalist Class Tamed Its Labor Movement

The unique brutality of the US capitalist class bred a labor movement that has often limited itself to being a private insurance provider.

by Maya Adereth via Jacobin on July 7, 2025

Karl Marx's face in the American flag

The Marxists Are Coming

Calls to defund the Marxist left and similar mobilizations against rumors of a new red dawn are nothing new.

by Mathias Fuelling via The Baffler on June 10, 2025

Trump poster hanging on a federal building, scowling at people below.

If Trump Could Make John Wayne the Head of Homeland Security, He Would

Trump mixes restoration with revolution—his reactionary modernism wooed Silicon Valley, but for everyone else, it signals looming repression.

by John Ganz via The Nation on June 10, 2025

Book cover for The Invention of Design by Maggie Gram features a phone cord snaking around text.

Irrelevant at Best, or Else Complicit

The state of design in 1970.

by Maggie Gram via HNN on June 3, 2025

Cover of book. Red text on a blue background with stickers of Karl Marx's face arranged like the 50 stars.

Marx: The Fourth Boom

Were you to vanish Marx from every library, you’d destroy the central interlocutor around which most of capitalism is built.

by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 27, 2025

AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland stands behind a podium speaking into an array of microphones.

When US Labor Backed US Imperialism

After the successful purges of leftists from unions, US labor leaders were enlisted by government officials to join in their global imperialist operations.

by Micah Uetricht, Jeff Schuhrke via Jacobin on May 26, 2025

Friedrich Hayek

Hokey Cowboy: Is Hayek to Blame?

Hayek suspected that nothing about the vindication of neoliberalism was likely to be straightforward.

by David Runciman via London Review of Books on May 22, 2025

Malcolm X

What Made Malcolm X Dangerous

He challenged the violence of US power, abroad and at home. His radical internationalism, from Congo to Palestine, speaks to our moment.

by Donté L. Stallworth via Jacobin on May 21, 2025

Portrait of Henry George

“The Great Enigma of Our Times”

The 1881, Henry George’s ”Progress and Poverty” proposed a land value tax — helping to usher in the Progressive Era.

by Hunter Dukes via The Public Domain Review on May 21, 2025

A still from the Sound of Fury of two men fighting.

Dangerous Work

Cy Endfield, film noir, and the blacklist.

by Imogen Sara Smith via Current [The Criterion Collection] on May 21, 2025

AFL-CIO headquarters.

Blue Collar Empire

The AFL-CIO’s role in weakening left-wing labor unions around the world, between the 1940s and 1990s.

by Gabe Levine-Drizin via NACLA on May 2, 2025

Garment workers use sewing machines at a textile facility in New York City in 1975.

Tariffs and the Shop Floor

A former garment worker reflects on rank-and-file agitation in the US garment industry just before the industry fled the country.

by Ron Whitehorn via Jacobin on April 26, 2025

Chinese migrants wrapped in blankets on a beach, from the cover of "Camp of the Saints."

Mutant Capitalism

How the dystopian visions of the nativist right are in keeping with a long tradition of neoliberal ideology.

by Quinn Slobodian via HNN on April 15, 2025

Elon Musk holds a chain saw as he shakes hands with Argentine president Javier Milei at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The Method in the Far Right’s Madness

How today’s far right manages to combine the call for economic freedom with pseudoscience about natural hierarchies of race and IQ.

by Quinn Slobodian, Bartolomeo Sala via Jacobin on April 13, 2025

Headshots of Charles Murray, Friedrich Hayek, and Elon Musk in front of a red backgrounds.

Free Markets and Fixed Natures

How neoliberals fell in love with “human nature”—the glue that still unites the divergent factions of the new right.

by Quinn Slobodian via Boston Review on April 9, 2025

Harvester on farmland.

America’s Pernicious Rural Myth

An interview with Steven Conn about his new book, “Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is—and Isn’t.”

by Steven Conn, Jacob Bruggeman via Public Books on April 9, 2025

Farmer working a mule-drawn plow.

Racism Isn’t the Only Cause of the Racial Wealth Gap

Widening the lens to capitalism itself could yield insights on how to close the gap.

by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on March 6, 2025

The title card of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

George Romero’s Pittsburgh

City of the living dead.

by Victoria Timpanaro via The Metropole on February 20, 2025

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