US Corporate Profiteering in Israel; Reviving the Call for a Shorter Workweek
Check out two new articles this month: one on the worst-offending US corporations profiting from Israeli crimes against Palestinians, and one on Bernie Sanders’s badly needed 32-hour-workweek bill.

We’ve taken a bit of a break at Left Notes this month, but we’re still here! Neal and I are planning to get back to a regular posting schedule in April. In the meantime, I wanted to share two pieces I recently published:
“The U.S. Corporations Profiting from the Israeli Occupation,” for the March / April 2024 issue of Dollars & Sense: A rundown of some of the most egregious US-based companies like Chevron, Caterpillar, and Airbnb, in addition to American defense contractors — profiting from Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide. I also share some thoughts on why and how US corporate investment in the Israeli state matters. As I write in the article: “U.S. trade with and investments in Israel play a significant role in Israel’s economy, constituting a potentially powerful source of leverage on the Israeli state.”
Something I didn’t make explicit there: in my view, the reason to care about which companies are profiting from Israeli crimes is not because, as some vulgar Marxist takes would have it, the quest for short-term profits is driving the United States’ grotesque pro-Israel policy. I don’t think that’s very plausible. But boycotts and pressure campaigns against US companies invested in Israel can hopefully be a means of pressuring the US and Israeli governments to change course, as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has long advocated.
“Bernie Sanders Is Calling for a 32-Hour Workweek,” March 14, 2024, Jacobin: A quick write-up of Sanders’s recently introduced Senate bill mandating a federal standard of a thirty-two-hour workweek with no loss in pay. I think it’s exactly the sort of demand that can and should be part of a popular social democratic agenda, and one sorely needed in our world of increasing economic insecurity and social isolation.
The legislation has also been endorsed by the AFL-CIO and major national unions including the United Auto Workers, who championed the thirty-two-hour week in their strike against the Big Three. By the way, if you haven’t already, you should really check out UAW president Shawn Fain’s barn burner of a speech in support of the bill.