 | |
 Issue 11/12 (fall 2013) | |
| Publisher | Remeike Forbes |
|---|---|
| Categories | Politics,culture |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| Paid circulation | 75,000[1] |
| Unpaid circulation | >3 million (online monthly)[1] |
| Founder | Bhaskar Sunkara |
| First issue | 2010 |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | New York |
| Language | English |
| Website | jacobin |
| ISSN | 2158-2602 |
| OCLC | 677928766 |
Jacobin is an Americansocialist magazine based inNew York.Bhaskar Sunkara was its founding editor. As of 2023,[update] the magazine reported a paid print circulation of 75,000 and over 3 million monthly online visitors.[1]
The publication began as an online magazine released in September 2010,[2] expanding into a print journal later that year.[3]Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara said that he intended forJacobin to perform a similar role on the contemporary left to that undertaken byNational 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".[4] In 2016, theColumbia Journalism Review called it "most successful American ideological magazine to launch in the past decade".[5]
Jacobin's popularity grew with the increasing attention onleftist ideas stimulated byBernie 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 afterDonald Trump's election.[4]
In spring 2017,Jacobin launched apeer-reviewed journal,Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, which is today edited byNew York University professorVivek Chibber and a small editorial board. As of 2022,Catalyst claims a subscriber base of 7,500.[6]
In November 2018, the magazine's first foreign-language edition,Jacobin Italia, was launched. Sunkara described it as "a classicfranchise model", with the parent publication providing publishing and editorial advice and taking a small slice of revenue, but otherwise granting the Italian magazine autonomy.[4] Today, other editions are published out of Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands.[7]
The name of the magazine derives from the 1938 bookThe Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution byC. L. R. James in which James ascribes theHaitian revolutionists a greater purity in regards to their attachment to the ideals of theFrench Revolution than the FrenchJacobins.[8]
According to creative director Remeike Forbes, the magazine's frequently used "Black Jacobin" logo was inspired by a scene in the movieBurn! referring to Nicaraguan national heroJosé Dolores Estrada.[9]
Sunkara has said he feels that "all of our writers fit within a broad socialist tradition", noting that the magazine does sometimes publish articles byliberals andsocial democrats, but that such pieces are written from a perspective that is consistent with the magazine's editorial vision.[10]
NotableJacobin contributors have included:
Jacobin has been variously described asdemocratic socialist,socialist andMarxist.[11][12][13] Writing for theNew Statesman in November 2013, Max Strasser suggested thatJacobin claims to "take the mantle of Marxist thought ofRalph Miliband and a similar vein of democratic socialism".[14] According to an article published in September 2014 by theNieman Journalism Lab,Jacobin is a journal of "democratic socialist thought".[15]Jacobin's own "Essential Guide toJacobin," published in 2023, states that "[o]ne of Jacobin’s primary goals from the beginning has been to popularize the idea of democratic socialism."[16]
In January 2013,The New York Times ran a profile of Bhaskar Sunkara, commenting on the publication's unexpected success and engagement withmainstream liberalism.[17] In an October 2013 article forTablet,Michelle Goldberg discussedJacobin as part of a revival of interest in Marxism among young intellectuals.[18] 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".[11]
In a 2014 interview published inNew Left Review, Sunkara named a number of ideological influences on the magazine, includingMichael Harrington, whom he described as "very underrated as a popularizer of Marxist thought";Ralph Miliband and others such asLeo Panitch who were influenced byTrotskyism without fully embracing it; theorists working in theEurocommunist tradition; and "Second International radicals" includingVladimir Lenin andKarl Kautsky.[10] Additionally, some of the main writers, such asBen Burgis, follow ananalytical Marxism perspective, represented byanalytic philosophy such asG. A. Cohen.[19][20] Dylan Matthews, writing forVox in 2016, described the ideology ofJacobin 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".[12]
In a March 2018 article published in theWeekly Worker, Jim Creegan highlighted the association of a number of the magazine's editors and writers with theDemocratic Socialists of America (DSA) while also stressing the political diversity of contributors, incorporating "everyone from social democratic liberals to avowed revolutionaries".[21]
In April 2016,Noam Chomsky called the magazine "a bright light in dark times",[22] while also in 2016Vox characterizedJacobin as "the leading intellectual voice of the American left".[12] In 2023, political scientist George Souvlis characterizes the journal as "an ideal platform for the diffusion of radical ideas and alternative narrations".[23]
In 2016,Jonathan Chait, writing forNew York, criticizedJacobin for downplaying or excusing the repressive actions of Marxist regimes under leaders such asLenin,Stalin, andMao.[24][25]
Also in 2016, Jason E. Smith, writing forThe Brooklyn Rail, contended thatJacobin promotes atechnocratic and nostalgic version of social democracy rooted in outdated DSA policies from the early 1980s. He criticizedJacobin's central demand for full employment as disconnected from the realities of contemporary mass movements, arguing that the masses are focused instead ondirect democracy,redistribution, andpolice and prison abolition. Smith was critical of Seth Ackerman's model ofmarket 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.[26]
In 2017, Uday Jain, writing for the British magazineNew 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 emphasizeintersectionality. Jain contended that this approach simplifies complex social dynamics and overlooks the multifaceted nature of oppression.[27]
In 2022,Sohrab Ahmari, writing forCompact, critiquedJacobin for its focus oncultural liberalism, suggesting it alienates working-class readers by prioritizingidentity politics over economic issues.[28] Also in 2022,Left Voice, the online magazine ofTrotskyist Fraction – Fourth International, published a critical analysis ofJacobin, accusing it of ignoring class struggle and the oppression faced by marginalized groups. The article argued thatJacobin's close alignment with theDemocratic Party leads it to prioritize electoral strategy over genuine socialist principles, resulting in the marginalization of labor movements andsocial justice issues in its coverage.[29]
Associated withJacobin,Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy is a quarterly interdisciplinaryacademic journal coveringleft-wing politics,capitalism, andMarxist theory.[30] Established in the spring of 2017 as a collaboration between editorsVivek Chibber,Robert Brenner, andJacobin,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."[31] Sunkara has describedCatalyst as "a more theoretical journal, a more academic journal" compared toJacobin.[32]
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, whileJacobin would design, produce, and circulate the journal. The intention ofCatalyst was to address and compensate for a perceived generational gap in left-wing politics after theNew Left, taking up political questions commonly explored in the past by the American left and readdressing them to the millennial audience that makes up theJacobin readership.[33] The first issue ofCatalyst was officially released in May 2017 at a celebration at theIn These Times offices inChicago.[34]
The print magazine is released quarterly and reaches 75,000 subscribers, in addition to a web audience of over three million per a month.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)There are of courseSocialist Worker andInternational Socialist Review which are associated with the International Socialist Organization (ISO), an AmericanTrotskyist group with about 1,000 members.Note:International Socialist Review commenced 1956; from the 1990s, continued as a publication ofCenter for Economic Research and Social Change; last issue produced in 2019.
In 2010, amid the wreckage of an economic crisis, Bhaskar Sunkara, then twenty-one years old, started the magazine Jacobin. Democratic socialist in outlook...
New York magazine contributor Jonathan Chait recently published a series of articles attacking the new generation of "Marxists" — as epitomized by Jacobin — for absolving "Lenin, Stalin and Mao" of their crimes.