We won. Every union representing workers at the University of California sued the Trump administration in September. Today, judge Rita Lin issued a preliminary injunction barring Trump’s attempts to extort political leverage from public higher education. democracyforward.org/updates/cour...

Observations from the @dsaeastbay.bsky.social general meeting today: The organizers opened the event by stating that electing socialists to office is only the beginning. The power holders will fight every socialist-hued policy they attempt. The people will need to mobilize to counterbalance those 1/

DSA meetings in the coming weeks will be essential to building a mass movement across the nation. We have Zohran's energy and the @socialists.nyc victory filling our sails. This is the moment to participate in @demsocialists.bsky.social meetings wherever you are. Check your local chapter's calendar!

Marxism tends to dismiss generosity—and charity even more so. In this article, I show that a reconstructed Marxism is necessary for a proper understanding of religious generosity: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1... The article is an offshoot of the book below.

I presented my in-progress book manuscript on right-wing regimes at the University of Chicago's sociology department. The room was packed! I got excellent questions, and thinking about them will make the book better. I got to meet several brilliant graduate students, and caught up with +

Is Bourdieu incompatible with Marxism? No. Analytical demonstration: My book on religious generosity. Field analysis with a world-historical market-making and market-contestation angle. www.routledge.com/Caring-for-t...

Mamdani’s victory against Cuomo-Trump shows: Socialism is the only thing that can defeat the marriage of authoritarianism and corruption. Mamdani didn’t win alone. At least 50K @demsocialists.bsky.social-organized volunteers helped him win. So did unions and other movement organizations. 1/

What is at the root of the historic violence of the last two years in the Middle East? In a recent panel on the Global Turn to the Right, I argued that an integrative analysis of 1) movement dynamics, 2) accumulation regimes, and 3) each nation’s place in inter-imperialist rivalry gives us

The rich are selling out to Trump one by one. It would be very idiotic for the resistance to count on them. Here's a recent piece from the Times, deifying Bill Gates. They might regret this today. But they will soon tell us to rally behind yet another rich hero. Don't fall for it.

7 million marched on Saturday to protest authoritarianism! We participated with the Civil Rights era anthem “We Shall Overcome” and (what in the US has become) the Latinx-Hispanic anthem “El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido.” +

Nancy Chodorow, the great feminist sociologist, passed. Her first book is a must-read for not only social scientists but for everyone. If you are a parent, or ever intend to be one, or if you simply want to be a better person and keep wondering what’s preventing you, make sure to read this classic.

This panel on the global turn to the Right starts in 30 minutes. I am presenting on the violence of the last few years in Syria and Israel/Palestine.

I was invited to deliver the keynote speech for a three-day conference on Michael Burawoy. Another verse of a long goodbye to my dearest colleague, friend, and comrade… Thanks to Portuguese sociologists for organizing this conference. Details of the conference 🧵

University of California professors, students, staff, and workers are resisting higher education's increasing complicity with the Trump administration. A damage to one is damage to all. We will not leave our colleagues, students, and coworkers alone. cucfa.solidarity.tech/academic-fre...

My sociological explanation of the recent surge of violence against Palestinians, Alawites, and the Druze ... coming up as a part of this panel:

In a meeting attended by close to 100 people, @dsaeastbay.bsky.social discussed whether the Trump regime is “fascist,” and what difference that label makes in terms of how we organize. We read texts by Ernest Mandel, Fred Glass, @leninology.bsky.social and me to frame the discussion. 1/

Why is a Polanyian-Gramscian analysis of Gezi still necessary and always “timely”? You’ll find some answers in my review essay on Kaan Ağartan’s book. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... “Capitalism’s endless drive to accumulate has now run against the world’s limits,

Educators, researchers, students, and workers on University of California campuses are fighting for freedom. But their higher administrations are siding with Trump in this fight. It is not Trump, but the system itself that put these administrators in their current positions. +

My talented comrades at @DSAEastBay created this poster. It's more eye-catching than anything else on the UC Berkeley campus. PS: This was produced before the news of the university ratting out its own professors, students, and staff. Next time, we'll have to add: "How does higher education +

Btw, is Trump indeed a fascist? As I have been arguing for years, Trump is a not a fascist leader but fascism *is* a real threat. Even though the actual fascist organizations and individuals are disorganized and disoriented, Trump's use of them is becoming increasingly more systematic. And ++

Centrist liberals call Trump “fascist.” They ask leftists to vote for them against “fascism.” They co-organize meetings and rallies with the left against “fascism.” Then they sell the left to “fascists.” If Trump *is* a fascist, don’t cooperate with him. + www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Belated labor day celebration. @speakoutsocialists.org invited our band Bambáshka and we performed anti-capitalist songs in French, Russian, Turkish, and Ukrainian. The one below: A song from the 1920s, on fighting the White Army. The much needed spirit of struggle and resilience today.

Join us to talk about Trump and fascism! Labor historian Fred Glass will start the conversation by putting Trumpism in historical and theoretical context. We will then discuss our immediate practical tasks. www.eastbaydsa.org/events/4488/...

Wise words from Du Bois (d. August 27, 1963): "There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl Marx’s Capital." What is THE book you would add to his list? (On top of the obvious one below)

Unlike just a few weeks ago, most people now admit that Likud-led forces are on the brink of destroying an entire people. Here are Samera Esmeir's reflections on what can and can't be done during "the days before." ctjournal.org/2025/08/21/t...

After a decade of “anti-imperialism,” the Turkish AKP-MHP regime is cooperating with Western powers to restructure Syria. Massacres of Alawites and the Druze are an essential component of this restructuring, rather than an accidental outcome. ++

3 revisions to my Classical Sociological Theory course: I) In line with the Burawoy-Fourcade tradition of teaching Soc 101 at our department, I am starting the semester with Adam Smith for the first time. Over the years, I have increasingly emphasized how not only Marx & Engels, but also Weber 1/

One of the greatest slave rebellions in history started on this day in 1791. For those who want a splendid analysis, here is a classic. This is also essential reading for those interested in colonialism, social movements, revolution, and labor.

Capitalism is destroying the planet. What can we do about it? Join a presentation and group discussion for the only effective and viable response: Ecosocialism. www.eastbaydsa.org/events/3857/... There will be food!

The increasing number and intensity of disasters make us feel helpless or lash out at scapegoats. Can we feel and act otherwise? www.jadaliyya.com/Details/4684... In this essay, I point out that 1) organizing against visible, targetable, powerful culprits is an essential beginning point. One 🧵

While much of Western Europe is shielded by environmental laws, Western companies are pillaging the rest of the earth. This includes Europe’s peripheries. Why can’t people put an end to this plunder? lefteast.org/grassroots-r... There are many factors, and I’ll discuss each in due time. But I 1/

A brilliant discussion of Trump's impoverished "fascism" through a focus on art and political economy. jacobin.com/2025/06/trum... "Trumpism’s future orientation at best constitutes a thin form of hegemony. It is often forgotten that Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is not +

Yesterday, millions of people marched against the oligarchic dictatorship! Protests are necessary to register our discontent. However, we need sustained mass organization and a clear agenda to empower working people of all colors against the oligarchs. These people have been amassing wealth at ++

In the longest-lasting far-right regime of our century, the state is core to growth, employment, and the consent for the governing party, as I demonstrate here: journals.sagepub.com/eprint/IJYMK... This is a warning against the exclusive focus on the repressive face of resilient far-right regimes ++

Gezi is 12 years old. It started out as an urban and ecological resistance. And then turned into one of the most massive democratic uprisings of history. Why are its ecological and urban dimensions mostly forgotten? Why couldn’t it deliver on its democratic promises? How did the far right +

"Transnational" capital is collaborating with the religious-nationalist regime in Turkey to restrict access to one of the best protest music bands worldwide. Shame on Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music. Music lovers in "democratic" countries, beware. These companies hone their techniques and then 1/4

An intriguing series on multinational companies’ plundering of the European periphery. The EU and the national authorities are their accomplices. But there is resistance. Not only common interests, but also a love of nature bring together people of different + lefteast.org/grassroots-r...

From the last lecture of my 20th year at the University of California, Berkeley. Photo credit: Jialiang Ling

With this lecture, I completed two decades of teaching at UC Berkeley. These students were truly special. No other cohort asked so many brilliant questions on classical theory. They were uplifted by the emancipatory frameworks offered by Marx, Engels, and de Beauvoir. After a week of silence 1/

Gramsci’s prosecutor famously stated, “we must stop this brain from functioning.” They indeed stopped his brain and heart, but not before the Sardinian produced some notebooks that would transform politics, mass media, and scholarship. His struggle lives on.

From the Wall Street Journal to @jacobinmagazin.bsky.social, there is renewed talk on the Right's use of Gramsci. But critics argue that rightists' references to Gramsci and his mentor Lenin are just name-dropping. In the article below, I documented ++ journals.sagepub.com/.../10.1177/...

Time to break the association between populism and whiteness! The Berkeley Journal of Black Law and Policy is holding a day-long symposium on populism. My talk: "How the Right appropriates revolutionary populism and how to reclaim it." www.eventbrite.com/e/all-power-...

The journal I help edit, Critical Sociology, is running a special issue on Antonio Gramsci’s notion of the “passive revolution.” Here is one of the articles by @grundrza.bsky.social and Paret that considers absorption as a bottom up process. Check it out online first.

This essay is now translated to Turkish and German: a3haber.com/2025/04/01/t... jacobin.de/artikel/tuer...

Highlights from my analysis of the resistance and how it is pushing Turkey's mainstream opposition to the left. Published by @jacobinmag.bsky.social jacobin.com/2025/03/turk... "Turkey’s main opposition party has long been a centrist and unradical force. But the jailing of Istanbul mayor 1/

The global significance of the protests in Turkey: 1) The world is shifting to the far right and Erdoğan is the only far-right leader in an electorally competitive context who has had an uninterrupted 23-year rule. 2) There were several electoral victories, uprisings and coup attempts against him.++

My obituary for Michael Burawoy. What distinguished him from other socialists was that he did not sidestep or ignore conservative criticisms of Marxism. Rather, he took them head-on to reconstruct sociology. jacobin.com/2025/03/bura...

Western corporations such as Google are cooperating with repressive regimes throughout the world to stifle speech. @gazeteduvar.com.tr was one of the most popular news sites in Turkey. Established after the government took control of the major media outlets, it hosted 1/ bianet.org/haber/indepe...

Proud of and humbled by the women in my part of the world. The true heirs of March 8 -- a day of struggle against patriarchy, violence, dictators, and plutocrats. apnews.com/video/protes... Not a day of corporate platitudes, or of female CEOs who exploit female workers under the banner of DEI, +

"las ciencias sociales críticas señalan al «neoliberalismo» como principal problema. Esto presenta un punto ciego: los movimientos de izquierda están en una profunda crisis desde la década de 1960, que precede a la era neoliberal". @cihantugal.bsky.social en La Enzina laenzina.es/debe-la-izqu...