Debs - Jones - Douglass Institute

Named for labor champions Eugene V. Debs, Mother Jones, and Frederick Douglass, the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute (DJDI) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1998. DJDI works to promote a government and an economy that works for working people.

"What Would Our Country Look Like
If It Were Governed By and For the Working Class?"

What We Do

Working people in the United States have – to an alarming degree – lost faith in the ability of government to serve our needs. Public trust in government is at an all-time low. According to the Pew Research Center, while nearly three-quarters of Americans in 1958 said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing most or all of the time, in 2024, only 22 percent said the same.

Much of this widespread anti-government sentiment is the direct consequence of four decades of bipartisan efforts to undermine our government’s capacity to guarantee economic security for working people. Particularly with the rise of the free-market consensus at the end of the 1970s, politicians on both sides of the aisle have actively worked to cut public budgets, privatize services, and attach excessive red tape and confusing bureaucracies to government programs, all while pushing tax policies that allow the richest businesses and individuals to escape paying their fair share while burdening average citizens.

These efforts have left us with an ineffectual yet often intrusive administrative state that works for the wealthy instead of for workers—a predicament that has, in turn, eroded the promise of a democratic society in which good jobs, health care, education, and other resources are the rights of all Americans, rather than commodities sold on the market or luxuries reserved for the rich.

In this light, anger and anti-government sentiment are understandable outcomes. If we cannot effectively address working people’s concerns with concrete, plausible programs and initiatives, those dangerous political tendencies are likely to grow in strength.

DJDI seeks to restore that faith through popular political education around advocacy of policy issues that promote the Public Good.

Our projects include:

Class Matters Podcast

Class Matters is the podcast where we ask the question: “What Would Our Country Look Like If It Were Governed By and For the Working Class?”

Episodes include:

* Have Workers Lost Faith in Government?

* The Need for Health Care Reform: View from the Union Hall

* What’s Behind the Attack on Public Schools?

* Why the Supreme Court Matters to Working People

* Medicare Advantages: What Unions and Retirees Need to Know

* Inflation: What Workers Need to Know

* When Compromises Come Home to Roost

< Listen Here >

The Crisis in U.S. Health Care

DJDI is working to address the health care crisis in the United States by organizing working people in support of Medicare for All through organizing and popular education.

Workshops include:

* Runaway Inequality & the Crisis in U.S. Health Care

* Medicare for All and Just Transition

Policy in the Public Good

DJDI’s Working Group on Policy in the Public Good convenes scholars and advocates around the project of reviving the ideal of government as a vehicle for the improvement of working people’s lives, a tradition that can be traced from the mass public works programs of the New Deal era to the creation of landmark federal worker protections such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to ongoing campaigns to establish universal health care, among many other efforts.

© Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute 2024