The link roundup makes its triumphant post-holiday return! I have flexed my linking muscles and am ready to jump back into action.

Let’s start with… pencils. How do we make them? Do we use computers? Aaron Benanav on how socialists could actually implement a planned economy.

Sam Adler-Bell in Dissent on organising the unemployed. I feel like we’re ahead of the Americans on this with the AUWU - never been a better time to join.

The diary of a student trying to organise workers in a factory in Guangdong that pays 59c an hour. If you want to know what labor exploitation looks like in a very real and immediate way, read this.

The Spy Cops bills in the UK puts the police above the law. This is obviously bad - Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti explains why in detail.

And whatever happened to Scandinavian noir? How did it go from its Marxist origins to sadism and serial killers? Also, did you know it had Marxist origins?

Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash