Under this head the Socialist Standard (February) quotes an official report that of the 589 people accused of killing in Scotland 1986-90, only 193 were strangers to the victims. (Rape and child abuse, also, take place mainly between victims and aggressors known to each other). Yet there are people around who want us to exchange… read more »
S.i. identifies the ideology underlying anarchism as that of repudiation. Two examples: In fact, we regard the notion of Marxist and Anarchist traditions as only holding back revolutionaries today who hold on to either of them – an important element in the development of revolutionary ideas is the rejection of past ideas… revolutionaries today need… read more »
Half a century ago James Burnham saw that the Marxists, calling on us to admire their splendid revolutionary robes, were in fact naked. His book, The Managerial Revolution, [1] showed that socialism had not replaced capital- ism anywhere and had no reasonable prospect of doing so; instead, the managers were taking over. By managers Burnham… read more »
Witing on recent political events Ernest Gellner [1] traces their beginnings to the Reformation / Counter Reformation in division in Europe. One side moved towards limited and accountable government, high status for commerce and production, a generalized individualism and freedom of thought. The other favoured inherited status, martial honour and political domination. Paul Johnson had… read more »
MICHAEL Gossop reviews Solomon H. Snyder: Brainstorming; The science and politics of opiate research. (Harvard UP) and Ronald K.Siegel: Intoxication; Life in pursuit of artificial paradise (Simon & Schuster). Both authors point out how drug control strategies can do more harm than good. Snyder describes how the American campaign to eradicate the use of opium… read more »
UNITED Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation predicts that population will rise from five billion to eight billion by A.D.2020. IS BORIS GOOD ENOUGH? Under this headline Norman Stone recalls that when the tanks stormed into Moscow they stopped at red traffic lights. Memory adds that when the Parisian Communards wanted to open the bank vaults… 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 »
(Revision of May 1992) IDEOLOGICAL COMMENTARY announces itself as a journal of systematic ideology (s.i.), but it does not claim final knowledge of this theory; the formulation that looked like the ultimate last month needs alteration now, and the account given here undergoes continuing revision. Si. starts from observation of the limited success achieved alike… read more »
Angles on Anarchism by George Walford with a contribution by Peter Cadogan Angles on Anarchism breaks new ground. Neither history nor polemic, it starts from the observation that the anarchist movement has settled down among the other members of the political cast; accepted, almost respectable, but of mainly theoretical importance. It asks why this has… read more »
BEYOND POLITICS An outline of systematic ideology by George Walford BEYOND POLITICS shows that the influence of ideology extends beyond political parties and movements. In all our purposeful activities, whether playing with the children, practising a trade or profession, fighting a war, cooking, shopping or fox-hunting, we follow a pattern set by one of the… read more »