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film

We Rarely See Films As Fresh as I Love Boosters

Eileen Jones Jacobin
Boots Riley’s remarkably easy confidence and visual flair in I Love Boosters is a tonic in an era of boring CGI slop. He’s one of the most compelling filmmakers working today.

Is AI Coming for Our Jobs?

Vivek Chibber, Melissa Naschek Jacobin
Artificial intelligence is unlikely to produce permanent mass unemployment, Vivek Chibber argues. But without class struggle from below and state action, automation will deepen inequality and leave workers to bear its costs.

film

Next Sohee Is Korean Cinema at Its Bleak and Brilliant Best

Kap Seol Jacobin
Behind South Korea’s economic growth, there’s a system that grinds workers to the bone at every stage of the life cycle, from high school students to retirees. The film Next Sohee dramatizes the impact of that system to devastating effect.

The True Threat of OpenAI

Andrew Deck The Nation
Karen Hao’s recent book on the company argues that its ambitions are not merely about scale or the market but the creation of a global force that rivals a colonial power of old.

Forced Prison Labor in the “Land of the Free”

Nina Mast Economic Policy Institute
These exploitative dynamics are rooted in slavery and are particularly extreme in the South, which incarcerates people—primarily Black men—at the highest rates in the world.

Wall Street’s New Prison Scam

Katya Schwenk The Lever
As states crack down on prison-phone price gouging and resulting government kickbacks, telecom companies and their private equity backers have new ways to game the system.

‘War Against the Children’

Zach Levitt, Yuliya Parshina-Kottas, Simon Romero and Tim Wallace The New York Times
The Native American boarding school system — a decades-long effort to assimilate Indigenous people before they ever reached adulthood — robbed children of their culture, family bonds and sometimes their lives.

The Colonial Roots of Peru’s Troubles

Saraha A. Kennedy Sapiens
An archaeologist traces the current protests in Peru to exploitive labor policies enacted in silver mines during Spanish colonial rule from 1532 to 1800.

tv

In the WWE, Wrestlers Say Labor Abuses Are Everywhere

Tim Gill Jacobin
The WWE wrestlers who put their bodies through the ringer on a near-nightly basis lack basic control over their work and lives. Many know they need a union — but the barriers to forming one are steep.
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