Dylan Matthews spent some time with Bhaskar Sunkara and Neal Meyer of Jacobin Magazine recently, and produced a marvelous profile piece for Vox. He points out that although the magazine is currently riding a wave of interest sparked by the Sanders campaign, it’s relevance will continue beyond the elections of 2016.
Jacobin has in the past five years become the leading intellectual voice of the American left, the most vibrant and relevant socialist publication in a very long time.
Sunkara started publishing copies of the magazine in his George Washington University dorm room back in 2011, when he was all of 21. The financial crisis appeared to have given socialism and Marxism another inning, and Sunkara wanted an outlet that took socialist theory more seriously than existing outlets like the Nation. Jacobin took off; it now boasts a print circulation of about 20,000 and has gained about 400 more subscribers a week since Bernie started his ascent in November. Jacobin’s success is a sign that even if Bernie fades, there’s still a constituency for socialist ideas — a fact that could turn out to be much more important than the Sanders campaign itself.
I think of Jacobin as a way to feed my mind each day, via their website as well as the print issues, and it’s a great pleasure to be involved with the magazine via our Southland Reading Group.
Read the entire profile: Inside Jacobin: how a socialist magazine is winning the left’s war of ideas – Vox