Five hundred days of Trump in power, and what has been achieved? No more forever wars – except there is a war. The biggest paychecks in history – except hundreds of millions of Americans say the cost of living is the worst they can remember. No wonder thirty-four percent of young Americans now hold a favourable view of communism.

The Iran war has set off a cascade of crises which are working their way through the world economy. Oil reserves are at a twenty-year low, inflation is rising, bond yields are spiking, and the IMF is warning of a worldwide slump. But is there a way out on a capitalist basis?

What will Israel, the Gulf, the Middle East and Asia look like after the Iran War? This was the starting point for this week’s special Q&A episode of Against the Stream, in which Hamid Alizadeh and Jorge Martín worked through the best and toughest questions from our comment section.

A stereotype holds that British workers have always been conservative and averse to radical class struggle. But a century ago, they waged a general strike that reached revolutionary proportions, threatening the very foundations of capitalist society. The Guardiannewspaper declared on 10 May 1926: “It is just a week since Civil War was declared in this country. It is not a war of arms; it is not yet even a war of tempers; it is a trial of strength.” But the strike ended suddenly after 9 days, at its peak. What happened?

Six prime ministers in ten years. Labour just lost fifteen hundred council seats. Has Britain become ungovernable?

Trump is in Beijing. He thinks he has gone to negotiate from a position of strength, but in reality, he is negotiating from a position of weakness. That is the story of American imperialism in 2026.

Europe was the birthplace of capitalism. Now it's in freefall. In this week’s Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh and Jorge Martín dive into the deepening crisis gripping the continent. Germany is launching a trillion-euro rearmament drive while simultaneously slashing €38 billion from pensions and healthcare. France can’t pass a budget. The AfD is overtaking the CDU in the polls. And across Europe, the old political centre is collapsing.

Is AI a revolutionary leap forward for humanity – or the latest crisis capitalism has engineered for itself? In this episode of Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh and Fred Weston cut through the hype to give a Marxist analysis of the AI bubble, its roots in the capitalist crisis, and what it means for the working class.

Did you know that Adam Smith, the poster child of free-market capitalism… was also a major influence on Karl Marx?

Against the Stream is back! Since our last episode, the world has been plunged deeper into crisis. With no end in sight for the Iran War, with energy prices and inflation rising, the global economy is teetering ever more precariously on the brink of a historic slump. 

Spectre of Communism – the theoretical podcast of the RCI – kicks off a new season by exploring one of the most fundamental and important topics of today: imperialism.

Spectre of Communism, the RCI’s history and theory show, returns next Tuesday (31 March)! We’re kicking off with a deep dive into Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, appropriately at a time when US imperialism has plunged the Middle East into a disastrous new conflict.

"Head-spinning betrayal." These are the words of dissident Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene – and they are undoubtedly echoed by millions of Trump voters across America, who have watched their 'peace president' turn warmonger while they foot the bill at the gas pump and the grocery store.

As the war on Iran enters its third week, US imperialism finds itself mired in a deepening crisis. What Trump envisioned as a swift decapitation strike is rapidly proving to be the gravest blunder of his presidency – and perhaps one of the most catastrophic miscalculations in the history of American foreign policy.