Stories and links that are of interest or relevance to leaders, strategists, campaigners and organisers.
Inequality and the economy
Global inequality is as urgent as climate change: the world needs a panel of experts to steer solutions
There is a great institutional need for strong inequality analysis. That’s why the world needs to establish an International Panel on Inequality.
Mass Layoffs Are Fueling the Growth of Far Right Authoritarianism
To stop the momentum of the far right, we need to confront mass layoff capitalism, says labor expert Les Leopold.
How Amazon turned our capitalist era of free markets into the age of technofeudalism
Amazon Web Services owns the basic infrastructure for other businesses to operate online, turning even governments into its serfs, says the leader of MeRA25, Yanis Varoufakis
Global affairs
Awkward truths about US and UK AUKUS challenges
Three reports over the past two months are required reading for anyone involved in or scrutinising the Australian Government’s work on AUKUS. Two are US reports and one is from the UK.
Mass protest and the two worlds of Indonesian politics
A subculture of street protest survives beyond Jokowi
The 2024 Trump “realignment” is over already
Claims of a conservative realignment of non-whites, the working class, and young voters have been highly exaggerated
Europe’s rightward drift is not set in stone
Parties – and the media – across western countries may be giving too much importance to the politics of migration.
Unions
Google contractors objected to reading obscene Bard prompts — now they’re unionizing
More Google contractors are unionizing.
Workers’ rights
New Data on Employee Ownership and Economic Well-Being
When employees own their company, they get paid more.
Data, tech and privacy
Google steers Americans looking for health care into “junk insurance”
Google is sending people searching for health care plans to “junk insurance” that take your money and then pretty much just let you die
Europe is dismantling its digital rights from within
Hollowing out some of the world’s strongest digital safeguards will harm us all. But there is still time to change course
AI and the future of work
The DoorDash problem and the great AI browser fight
Amazon sued Perplexity this month over its Comet browser, which uses AI agents to do online shopping on your behalf. This is the first major front in the war over who gets to browse the web.
Nvidia’s ‘I’m Not Enron’ memo has people asking a lot of questions already answered by that memo
The Streisand effect strikes again
AI as Algorithmic Thatcherism
AI can turn some impressive party tricks, but it’s unsuited for solving serious problems in the real world. One thing that these models definitely do, though, is transfer control to large corporations.
The AI Circular Economy
Big tech companies and wealthy investors are driving an AI bubble – but they won’t be the ones feeling the pain when it bursts.
UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges
For the largest health insurer in the US, AI’s error rate is like a feature, not a bug.
Meet Nightshade—A Tool Empowering Artists to Fight Back Against AI
A newly released research paper outlines a tool artists can use to make their work act like “poison” if it is ingested by an AI image generator
Campaigning, communications and social media
Digital Campaign Tools and Performance in Virginia’s 2025 Elections
Across 168 races, Democrats continued to dominate online fundraising, particularly among small-dollar donors, while Republicans struggled to convert digital presence into electoral gains.
Dispatch: Building A Strategy to Contest the Far Right
It’s long overdue – we need to learn more and re-examine our current strategies to tackle narratives and win campaigns against the far right.
Two new polls show learning about Trump’s policies moves public opinion toward Democrats
Your weekly political data roundup for November 13, 2025
How Progressives Should Reframe Their Economic Messaging
Interested parties memo on how progressives should message on the economy.
Society, media, news and culture
GenZ vs the far-right: roots and responses
It’s no surprise that youth around the world are at the forefront of protests challenging broken and corrupt systems of governance. Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton said, revolution is in the hands of the young.
PwC bosses caught in sham “complaint” against top professor
After more than eight months a university professor has obtained a secretive “complaint” made against him by disgraced consulting giant PwC.
The Problem is Epistemic. The Solution is Not.
Doubts about the wisdom of the masses are as old as philosophy itself. Yet interest in democracy’s “epistemic” merits has surged in the last decade—and it is no mystery why. Democracy is collapsing around us in large part for epistemic reasons: because so many people have become so profoundly detached from reality. Why did “protesters”
