Jacobin (magazine)

''Jacobin'' is an American socialist magazine based in New York. Bhaskar Sunkara was its founding editor. the magazine reported a paid print circulation of 75,000 and over 3 million monthly online visitors. Established in 2010, Jacobin's circulation grew in 2016 with the increasing attention on leftist ideas stimulated by Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. The magazine's name is inspired by C. L. R. James's 1938 book '' The Black Jacobins'', about the Haitian Revolution. Ideologically, the magazine is associated with democratic socialism and the Democratic Socialists of America.

History and overview

The publication began as an online magazine released in September 2010, expanding into a print journal later that year. ''Jacobin'' founder Bhaskar Sunkara said that he intended for ''Jacobin'' to perform a similar role on the contemporary left to that undertaken by ''National Review'' on the post-war right, i.e. "to cohere people around a set of ideas, and to interact with the mainstream of liberalism with that set of ideas". In 2016, the ''Columbia Journalism Review'' called it "most successful American ideological magazine to launch in the past decade".

''Jacobin''s popularity grew with the increasing attention on leftist ideas stimulated by Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, with subscriptions tripling from 10,000 in the summer of 2015 to 32,000 as of the first issue of 2017, with 16,000 new subscribers being added in the two months after Donald Trump's election.

In spring 2017, ''Jacobin'' launched a peer-reviewed journal, ''Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy,'' which is today edited by New York University professor Vivek Chibber and a small editorial board. As of 2022, ''Catalyst'' claims a subscriber base of 7,500.

In November 2018, the magazine's first foreign-language edition, ''Jacobin Italia'', was launched. Sunkara described it as "a classic franchise model", with the parent publication providing publishing and editorial advice and taking a small slice of revenue, but otherwise granting the Italian magazine autonomy. Today, other editions are published out of Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands.

Title and logo

The name of the magazine derives from the 1938 book ''The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution'' by C. L. R. James in which James ascribes the Haitian revolutionists a greater purity in regards to their attachment to the ideals of the French Revolution than the French Jacobins.

According to creative director Remeike Forbes, the magazine's frequently used "Black Jacobin" logo was inspired by a scene in the movie ''Burn!'' referring to Nicaraguan national hero José Dolores Estrada.

Contributors

Sunkara has said he feels that "all of our writers fit within a broad socialist tradition", noting that the magazine does sometimes publish articles by liberals and social democrats, but that such pieces are written from a perspective that is consistent with the magazine's editorial vision. Note: ''International Socialist Review'' commenced 1956; from the 1990s, continued as a publication of Center for Economic Research and Social Change; last issue produced in 2019.

Notable ''Jacobin'' contributors have included:

Ideology and reception

Ideology

''Jacobin'' has been variously described as democratic socialist, socialist and Marxist. Writing for the ''New Statesman'' in November 2013, Max Strasser suggested that ''Jacobin'' claims to "take the mantle of Marxist thought of Ralph Miliband and a similar vein of democratic socialism". According to an article published in September 2014 by the Nieman Journalism Lab, ''Jacobin'' is a journal of "democratic socialist thought". ''Jacobins own "Essential Guide to ''Jacobin''," published in 2023, states that " e of Jacobin’s primary goals from the beginning has been to popularize the idea of democratic socialism."

In January 2013, ''The New York Times'' ran a profile of Bhaskar Sunkara, commenting on the publication's unexpected success and engagement with mainstream liberalism. In an October 2013 article for '' Tablet'', Michelle Goldberg discussed ''Jacobin'' as part of a revival of interest in Marxism among young intellectuals. In February 2016, Jake Blumgart, who contributed to the magazine in its early years, stated that it "found an audience by mixing data-driven analysis and Marxist commentary with an irreverent and accessible style".

In a 2014 interview published in ''New Left Review'', Sunkara named a number of ideological influences on the magazine, including Michael Harrington, whom he described as "very underrated as a popularizer of Marxist thought"; Ralph Miliband and others such as Leo Panitch who were influenced by Trotskyism without fully embracing it; theorists working in the Eurocommunist tradition; and "Second International radicals" including Vladimir Lenin and Karl Kautsky. Dylan Matthews, writing for '' Vox'' in 2016, described the ideology of ''Jacobin'' as broadly socialist and ideologically ecumenical, noting that the magazine deliberately avoids rigid factionalism and party lines to create a space where "social democrats, democratic socialists, Trotskyists, council communists, Chavistas, and even the odd liberal can coexist".

In a March 2018 article published in the '' Weekly Worker'', Jim Creegan highlighted the association of a number of the magazine's editors and writers with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), describing ''Jacobin'' as "the closest thing to a flagship publication of the DSA left" while also stressing the political diversity of contributors, incorporating "everyone from social democratic liberals to avowed revolutionaries".

Praise

In April 2016, Noam Chomsky called the magazine "a bright light in dark times", while also in 2016 '' Vox'' characterized ''Jacobin'' as "the leading intellectual voice of the American left". In 2023, political scientist George Souvlis characterizes the journal as "an ideal platform for the diffusion of radical ideas and alternative narrations".

Critiques

In 2016, Jonathan Chait, writing for '' New York'' criticized ''Jacobin'' for downplaying or excusing the repressive actions of Marxist regimes under leaders such as Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.

Also in 2016, Jason E. Smith, writing for ''The Brooklyn Rail'', contended that ''Jacobin'' promotes a technocratic and nostalgic version of social democracy rooted in outdated DSA policies from the early 1980s. He criticised ''Jacobin's'' central demand for full employment as disconnected from the realities of contemporary mass movements, arguing that the masses are focused instead on direct democracy, redistribution, and Police and prison abolition. Smith was critical of Seth Ackerman’s model of market socialism, arguing it preserves core capitalist structures such as profit-driven firms and capital markets, merely rebranded as "socialized", while sidelining class struggle and the systemic transformations needed to confront the crisis of work.

In 2017, Uday Jain, writing for the British magazine ''New Socialist'', argued that Jacobin tends to prioritize class over other axes of oppression, such as race and gender, effectively marginalizing the contributions of Black feminists and other scholars who emphasize intersectionality. Jain contended that this approach simplifies complex social dynamics and overlooks the multifaceted nature of oppression.

In 2022, Sohrab Ahmari, writing for ''Compact'', critiqued ''Jacobin'' for its focus on cultural liberalism, suggesting it alienates working-class readers by prioritizing identity politics over economic issues. Also in 2022, ''Left Voice'', the online magazine of Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International, published a critical analysis of ''Jacobin'', accusing it of ignoring class struggle and the oppression faced by marginalized groups. The article argued that ''Jacobins close alignment with the Democratic Party leads it to prioritise electoral strategy over genuine socialist principles, resulting in the marginalisation of labour movements and social justice issues in its coverage.

Catalyst

Associated with Jacobin, ''Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy'' is a quarterly interdisciplinary academic journal covering left-wing politics, capitalism, and Marxist theory. Established in the spring of 2017 as a collaboration between editors Vivek Chibber, Robert Brenner, and ''Jacobin'', ''Catalyst'' attempts to "promote wide-ranging discussion and to organized debate on the urgent questions facing the working class, the emergent mass movements, and radical and socialist political organizations." Sunkara has described ''Catalyst'' as "a more theoretical journal, a more academic journal" compared to ''Jacobin''.

In 2015, Chibber and Brenner approached Bhaskar Sunkara about the possibility of publishing a theoretical journal of socialist politics where Chibber and Brenner would assume editorial control, while ''Jacobin'' would design, produce, and circulate the journal. The intention of ''Catalyst'' was to address and compensate for a perceived generational gap in left-wing politics after the New Left, taking up political questions commonly explored in the past by the American left and readdressing them to the millennial audience that makes up the ''Jacobin'' readership. The first issue of ''Catalyst'' was officially released in May of 2017 at a celebration at the '' In These Times'' offices in Chicago.

References

Further reading

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