Social democracy
Social democracy, including its British counterparts such as the Social Democratic Federation and successors including the Labour Party, saw workers as passive, an electorate, a force to be harnessed,
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Labour aristocracy
Anxious to work out why the oldest working class, the British, had avoided moving to revolution, external commentators at the height of empire concocted a false argument in an effort to explain away this behaviour. In some circles it is still lazily dispensed a century or so later.
The profit-lined way to motorway madness
The devastation of the rail network that began in the 1960s was a conscious decision to move away from a state-owned industry to private profit – led by a transport minister whose family ran a road-building company…
1956: Britain, France and the Suez Canal crisis
The Suez Crisis and ensuing war saw a fundamental change in both imperialist alignments and nationalist movements in the Middle East.
The calculated ruin of the NHS
When they talk of a health market they mean health chaos. That, and a nice little earner for someone. We should begin by understanding what is being proposed.
The force for revolution
How do we counter capitalism’s relentless and absolute decline? How do we gather together our power (recently often left dormant) and commence our absolute rise?
Two classes in Britain
In Britain, there are only two classes – those who sell their labour power and those who exploit the labour of others, in other words workers and capitalists.
1863: The First International
The International Workingmen’s Association united a variety of different political groups and trade union organisations to further the prospects of the working class.
Contradiction and change
The question of change (and what determines it) is a fundamental part of philosophy. In spite of appearances, nothing can remain the same – all life is development, or motion, and all development involves a series of changes.
The 1810s: The Luddites act against destitution
Luddite machine breaking began in 1811 in the hosiery districts of the Midlands counties but quickly spread. More and more factories began installing machinery and increasingly handloom weavers were thrown out of work.
State and revolution
In 1917, after three years of world war, Lenin identified the nature and function of the state. He declared that a partnership exists between the state and the dominant ruling class with the former charged with serving the interests of the latter.
Workers are thinkers
Nothing is more insulting to the history of working class struggle than the notion, born of ignorance and malevolence, that workers have to be instructed and commanded to do the correct thing. Indeed, according to some of the disconnected, to do anything at all.