The Baffler is America’s leading voice of interesting and unexpected left-wing political criticism, cultural analysis, short stories, poems, and art. Through its five annual print issues (and daily online content) it skewers every facet of our debauched social order.

Founded in 1988 by Thomas Frank as “the journal that blunts the cutting edge,” the magazine is currently edited by Matthew Shen Goodman and headquartered in New York City. It spotlights both new and established writers, and our regular contributors include Barbara Ehrenreich, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, George Scialabba, Rafia Zakaria, and Kim Kelly, among others.

Regular targets include Silicon Valley snake-oil, the deadening weight of consumer capitalism, our faithless media, the authoritarian overlords of our decaying body politic, and their undead neoliberal consensus. 

Read The Baffler for essential dispatches from the front lines of the dystopia we all call home.

Dedicated to the mercenary and the freelancer, “Hirelings,” The Baffler’s issue 83, contemplates the gigification of American life and the privatization of conflict around the world, as solopreneur gun-for-hires join the freelance masses daily, increasingly dominating every trade.