American Nationalism: A Debate
Does nationalism have a place in left politics?
Fall 2024
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An Economist’s Case for Open Borders
Amid today’s xenophobic tide, economist Branko Milanovic has made a controversial case for opening the borders—but without offering migrants full rights as citizens. Would such an arrangement reduce inequality, or only exacerbate the problems that have brought us to this point?
How Tax Havens Make Us Poor
Gabriel Zucman’s The Hidden Wealth of Nations offers a plainspoken explanation of what we are constantly told is “too complicated” for us to understand: the myriad legal loopholes the rich exploit to avoid paying taxes, and why closing them should be a priority for the rest of us.
Is HSBC the World’s Most Honest Bank?
Does your money cross borders as easily as you do? That’s a question that HSBC, “the world’s local bank,” posed to would-be clients in a slogan that appeared on posters around the world a few years ago. The prompt accompanied a photograph of smiling Asian cyclists before the University of Cambridge. “When life takes you or your family across borders, your money should seamlessly follow,” reads the caption. “You’re at home abroad. Now the same can be said for your money.”
Field Notes: Corporate State-Building (and a Godawful Cocktail) in Singapore
Over the past several months, Dissent editorial board member Atossa Araxia Abrahamian has been traveling around the globe, researching her forthcoming book on citizenship. In October, she began her trip in Singapore. For the first of a series of email dispatches …
Letter From Athens
The hopes and fears of leftists around the world following Syriza’s dizzying victory last week can best be summed up by a famous scene on the TV show Saved by the Bell where the episode’s heroine, Jesse Spano, takes too many caffeine …
Passports for Sale
Until recently, becoming a citizen of a country has largely been regarded as priceless—a rare intangible privilege that can’t be bought or sold. This perception is starting to fade.
Why the UN?
One of the more unsettling developments in the Gaza conflict thus far has been the shelling of UNRWA sites by the Israel Defense Forces. On July 30, at least nineteen people died and many more were wounded when a UN school-turned-shelter in …
Let Them Eat Code
In the tech community, the plight of homeless people has gone from being an unnoticed barnacle of urban life to a cause at once mourned, criticized, and celebrated. For many in Silicon Valley, homeless people are the “noble savages” of today.
The Socialite Network 
A Small World is a self-consciously exclusive social network aimed at a certain class of internationals—referred to interchangeably as “global nomads,” “citizens of the world,” or, more frequently, the “global elite.” The site reveals that modern cosmopolitanism has been a largely market-driven phenomenon, designed for capital, not citizens, to become “of the world.”
Citizens, Denaturalization, and Assassination
To be stripped of one’s citizenship rights is to be consigned to a ghetto of one. But it’s not just fascists and dictators who engage in such practices. As historian Patrick Weil notes, the United States has frequently revoked the citizenship of Americans, too.
The “I” in Union
At a time when unions are floundering and popular sentiment toward organized labor is at an all-time low of 45 percent, one workers’ organization is thriving. The Freelancers’ Union, a nonprofit organization based in a trendy Brooklyn neighborhood, has more …
