Two copies of this Circular are sent you; please pass one copy on. PAY OF OR ELSE: Future issues of this Circular will be sent to all PSI Supporters. If you are not a Supporter and wish to receive it please send £1 for one year. Otherwise we may send it you or we may… read more »
Winner, 2015 George Walford International Essay Prize. INTRODUCTION The first time I heard about Systematic Ideology, I could make sense off the term ideology yet the term systematic was not clear to me at all. The systematic in Systematic Ideology, however, is the most crucial part about the theory and the one differentiating it from… read more »
Freedom, the anarchist journal, quotes David Ricardo: ‘The interest of the landlords is always opposed to the interest of every other class in the community.’ [1] Back in the days of raging inflation a Wilson government declared a moratorium on increases in office rents. They had to abandon it in the face of desperate pleas… read more »
Under this head IC presents instances of the political divisiveness displayed by the eidodynamic movements; most of these come from the movements themselves. When possible we also offer, for contrast, examples of the emphasis on party loyalty, faith in the leader and ‘don’t rock the boat’ of the eidostatics. (Co-operation being less newsworthy than conflict,… read more »
The Inquisition destroyed the bodies of its victims (or had the secular authorities do so) for the good of their souls. For its first cenury or so, while still enthusiastic (and still feeling itself insecure) the Anglican Church followed suit. Later it stopped going to such extremes, but it long set the spiritual above the… read more »
Although nobody has been rude enough to raise the question, readers must have wondered why IC should speak so often in favour of familiar capitalism, with the market and the state; the system does have substantial disadvantages. An explanation appears when one notices a similarity between capitalism and getting old: bad as each of them… read more »
From the French Revolution Forward society seemed to be growing more open, more secular, more rational. Education and literacy spread, free thought and even outright atheism became socially acceptable, democracy largely replaced monarchy, and a prospect of socialism, communism, even anarchy, opened in the distance. The Great War revealed other possibilities, but that got dismissed… read more »
South Africa, Afghanistan, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and even once-mighty Russia; the states have been taking a pounding. In our more optimistic or pessimistic moments (according to ideology) we may even find ourselves contemplating the end of the institution. Orthodox anarchists tell us that our troubles come from the state. Get rid of it, with… read more »
Having paid the larger subscription for the Socialist Standard we proudly declare ourselves now officially a Supporter of the Party. THE NEW ABOLITIONISTS At Chiswick Branch on Friday 22 January. A debate between the (Anarcho)-Socialist Party (SW4) and Lord Desai of the Labour Party. His lordship, in good Labour Party style, kept to reforms he… read more »
The major ideologies, outlined on the facing page, have developed through history. Each of them provides the conditions which permit the next one to emerge, and each of them has fewer people attached to it than the one before. The diagram below indicates the outcome, the ideological structure of contemporary society, but the model needs… read more »