Socialist Majority Reading List
People curious about the politics practiced by Socialist Majority often ask for suggestions on what to read (or watch or listen to) to best understand our approaches. We have compiled a list of relatively short and accessible pieces we recommend.
Racial Oppression & Black Liberation
As one of the most significant and impactful mass political movements in US history, the ongoing struggle for Black liberation and against racial oppression in general informs, inspires, and energizes every aspect of Socialist Majority’s organizing. United States capitalists have always relied on racialized fear-mongering and the allure of relative privilege and position extended to white workers to divide the working class along racial and ethnic lines and frustrate solidarity based on common class interests. Worse, the same appeal to white supremacy and privilege enlists white workers in racist projects like mass incarceration, militarized policing, and mass deportation that both divert public funds into the pockets of capitalists and away from the needs of communities of color and reinforce the authoritarian grip of right-wing governments. Socialist Majority asserts that the fight against white supremacy is a fight to destroy a uniquely potent weapon of US capitalist oppression and is thus absolutely central to the general struggle against capitalism and for a democratic socialist future.
The readings in this section explore the history of socialist antiracism and democratic socialist approaches to dismantling white supremacy.
W.E.B. Dubois, Black Reconstruction in America (excerpts)1935
Martin Luther King Jr., “Racism and the White Backlash”Ch. 3 of Where Do We Go From Here? 1967
Paul Heidman, “Socialism and Black Oppression”Jacobin, April 30, 2018
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, “Identity Politics and Elite Capture”Boston Review, May 7, 2020
Barbara Smith, “The Problem is White Supremacy”Boston Globe, June 30, 2020
Diana Caballero, “The Final Days and the Struggle Continues”The Agitator, February 4, 2025
Women’s and LGBTQ+ Oppression
Socialist Majority, since its founding, has centered intersectional materialist analysis and politics, in contrast to class reductionism or liberal identity politics. Our scope goes beyond individual expression of gender and sexual identity to the structures that reinforce the subjugation of those identities. We seek a system of true emancipation beyond just toleration or integration into the existing neoliberal capitalist order.
Just as capitalism in the United States is racialized, so too it is interwoven with patriarchal and heteronormative structures like the nuclear family, heightened by the current authoritarian Christo-fascist administration and the base that empowers it. The attacks on trans and gender nonconforming communities share roots with the dismantling of reproductive justice and queer liberation. The work of liberation, then, must tend to these intersections, by decommodifying care and transforming structures that reinforce patriarchy and heteronormativity.
This liberatory commitment also applies to our own organization. We build gender-diverse leadership, embody that there is no work ‘below’ anyone, and recognize the power in many forms of leadership. We cannot rely on the tools and culture of domination to lead us to liberation, and we also seek to build a DSA that generatively deals with conflict and welcomes all. These readings cover generations of activists and scholars dealing with these questions.
Barbara Ehrenreich, “What is Socialist Feminism?”WIN Magazine, 1976
“The Combahee River Collective Statement”April 1977
Ben Serby and Jeremy Cohan: “From Gay Rights to Queer Liberation”Jacobin, April 30, 2018
Tithi Bhattacharya, “What is Social Reproduction Theory?”Boston Review, May 7, 2020
Barbara Smith, “Organizing for Reproductive Justice”Black Perspectives, August 8, 2022
Kay Gabriel, “Inventing the Crisis: The Anti-Trans Panic and the Crusade Against Teachers”N+1 47 (Spring 2024)
The Labor Movement
The need to transform society to the benefit of the working class—and how to gain the power to do so—are goals that unite the politics of organized labor and democratic socialism at a core level. Socialist Majority is committed to DSA’s goal of winning transformational reforms that shift the balance of power from capital to labor; this is a long-term goal shared by labor. In every campaign Socialist Majority participates in, we use deep one-to-one organizing and countless other tactics and strategies created and used by the labor movement. In our current political climate, rank-and-file organizers are faced with the dual challenge of organizational transformation and power building. To be successful at both, it is critical to understand not only how to build an organized workforce, but also how to exercise power.
The following readings discuss well-tested organizing methods for building democratic unions led by workers. We also include timely case studies for leveraging labor power for mass politics that benefit all working people.
Alex Caputo-Pearl, “Los Angeles Teachers’ Road to Durable Power” (A five-part series)Convergence, September 2, 2024, to April 4, 2026
David Duhalde, “How How Can We Bridge the Gap Between Electoral and Labor Organizing?”Socialist Forum, Winter/Spring 2023
Chris Maisano, “What if the ‘Next Upsurge’ Never Comes?”Socialist Forum, Spring 2024
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, “At the River I Stand”April 1968, Memphis
DSA, the Democratic Road to Socialism, and Building a Socialist Majority
Socialist Majority’s case for a democratic road to socialism is based in the success and sustained impact of the momentous “democratic socialist/social democratic revolutions” of the twentieth century, including the US Progressive Era and New Deal and the post–WW2 wave of European progressive electoral and policy success that established the “social welfare state” model as we know it. Groundbreaking policies like the UK National Health Service and Social Security in the United States exemplify DSA’s concept of the “transformational reform” that radically changes the power balance between capital and labor. Socialist Majority attributes the remarkable longevity and resilience of these policies to the fact that they provide crucial and very tangible material benefits to the working class and thus have persistent popular support. However, even with popular support, maintaining and expanding these gains in industrial democracies has been an ongoing battle with powerful neoliberal interests. In developing nations, the democratic road to socialism has been much harder—and bloodier.
David Duhalde, “The Long Reroute”Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2025
Chris Maisano: “A Precious Legacy”Socialist Forum, Fall 2023
Nicos Poulantzas, “Towards a Democratic Socialism”Jacobin, October 6, 2020
Sam Lewis: “DSA Must Seize the Moment”The Agitator, April 4, 2025
Gøsta Esping-Andersen, “Social Democracy in Theory and Practice”ch. 1 of Politics Against Markets 1985
Grace Mausser, “The Socialist Movement is Bringing Democracy Back”Jacobin, November 5, 2025
Coalition Building and the Popular Front
What distinguishes Socialist Majority from other (but not all) caucuses in DSA is that our theory of change rests upon building broad coalitions, especially to defeat the far right, and a commitment to using existing infrastructure such as the Democratic Party ballot line for the foreseeable future. We do not think a socialist majority is possible until the most conservative elements of society are politically defeated. This is why we put a heavy priority on building popular fronts with nonsocialists to stop fascism’s growth and working with mass organizations as our primary orientation in coalition work. The following readings help situate our coalition and popular front strategy.
Genevieve Rand, “No One is ‘Politically Independent’”The Agitator, April 5, 2025
Michael Kinnucan, “The Absent Partner Strategy,” Parts 1 & 2The Agitator, Sept. 5 qnd Oct. 21, 2024
Eric Blanc, Waleed Shahid, and Leah Greenberg, "Welcome to the Resistance"The Dig, December 12, 2025
Al Richmond, “Notes on the Revolution and the 1930s”ch. 8 of A Long View from the Left 1973
Electoral Strategy & the Party Question
Socialist Majority’s position on DSA’s relationship to the Democratic Party and the feasibility of an independent socialist party with its own ballot line is grounded in or analysis of the particular historical development of the US political system and political parties. The long persistence of the two-party system means that the Democratic Party—which is where key social forces like organized labor, antiracist, feminist, and other movements are politically organized—is the only realistic venue for building democratic socialist power through the ballot box. DSA has adopted—and Socialist Majority supports—the “party surrogate” or “inside/outside” strategy. The following readings flesh out the historical context and theoretical grounding for Socialist Majority’s approach.
Renée Paradis and Mike D., “How SMC Members Contributed to the Historic Protest Vote Against Genocide in Gaza”The Agitator, July 18, 2025
Michael Kinnucan, “Political Parties Are Illegal”The Agitator, April 21 2025
Adam Hilton, “Organized for Democracy? Left Challenges Inside the Democratic Party”Socialist Register 2018
Tascha Van Auken, “Three Million Doors”The Dig, December 5, 2025
Seth Ackerman, “A Blueprint for a New Party”Jacobin, November 8, 2016
Internationalism and U.S. Imperialism
As democratic socialists, we abhor imperialism. As democratic socialists living in the United States, we work to build relations and strategic alliances with left-wing movements around the world with a mass, working-class base—and Socialist Majority members in the DSA International Committee provide ongoing leadership in this work. We take to heart what our international comrades tell us: our number-one task as socialists in the United States is to effectively win and wield power in the most powerful country in the world.
The readings in this section explore these issues. They favor a principled, antiwar position; a focus on effective organizing in the United States over the adoption of “correct” positions; and the view that workers here and around the world are part of a single international movement.
Rael Almonte Reyes, “Sowing the Seeds of an Internationalist Future”The Agitator, April 9, 2024
Jana Silverman and Christian Araos, “Make the Statement by Organizing: Integrative Socialist Internationalism for DSA”The Agitator, July 8, 2025
Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence”New York City, April 4, 1967
Bashir Abu-Manneh and Hoda Mitwally, "Ultra-Leftism Cannot Free Palestine"Jacobin, October 7, 2025
Capitalism doesn’t only pit humanity against itself; it also creates a deeply destructive relationship between humanity and the natural world. While climate change affects everyone, it doesn’t affect us all in the same ways. Moreover, those most responsible for the climate crisis constantly try to shift its costs to those least responsible and least capable of bearing them. Since working people around the world face the impacts of climate change every day, Socialist Majority considers the struggle against climate change and the interests that sustain it to be perhaps the most urgent priority in our fight against capitalism. Socialist Majority also recognizes that changing the trajectory of climate change requires socialists to materially improve people’s lives while advancing the goal of decarbonization. As such, these readings are focused not on what climate change is or how we got here, but rather the ways in which we can design strategic climate justice campaigns that meet that challenge.
Climate Change
Liam Egan, “Feel the Burn”Democratic Left, April 30, 2026
Thea Riofrancos, “Extraction”The Dig, November 13, 2025
Thea Riofrancos, “Plan, Mood, Battlefield: Reflections on the Green New Deal”Viewpoint, May 16, 2019
Matt Huber “The Key to Climate Action is Building Working Class Power”Jacobin, May 23, 2026
Our Process
With so much to choose from, a committee categorized and narrowed down the possibilities and sent a survey to all SMC members. Drawing on member preferences (and the additional recommendations!), they further narrowed down the list. The SMC Steering Committee then approved this list. We will update the list from time to time, as new research and analysis is published; members can share suggestions with the Political Committee.