Periodicals |

George Walford: Arguments For (and Against) Socialism

July 31, 2012

Mr. Tony Benn has issued a book entitled Arguments for Socialism (Penguin 1980). One of his themes is that some of the changes which have taken place in Britain since the seventeenth century, changes generally regarded as significant advances toward freedom and democracy, are less substantial than is usually thought. They are, he argues, changes… read more »

George Walford: Fifty Million Lemmings Can’t Be Wrong

July 31, 2012

What is the supportive force of quotations? They are, often necessary as examples if it is intended to approve or criticise a statement it is usually well to quote it verbatim. But can they ever help to show that a proposition is valid? Sociologists (in particular) do seem to believe that quotations possess supportive force…. read more »

George Walford: On Getting Oneself Straightened Out

July 31, 2012

RELIGION: I’m an atheist, thank God! POLITICS: I’m an anti-ism-ist. WOMEN’S LIB: I want to be a male chauvinist pig, but my wife won’t let me. from Ideological Commentary 9, February 1981.

George Walford: Just Issued

June 15, 2013

JUST ISSUED: SOCIALIST UNDERSTANDING A Study of the Thinking of the Socialist Party of Great Britain Available (20p including postage) from [address] from Ideological Commentary 8, November 1980.

George Walford: Vesteyed Interests

November 6, 2012

It was recently reported in the public prints that the Vestey family had succeeded in avoiding, by legal means, the payment of some improbable amount of tax. Katharine Whitehorn, in the Observer of 26 October, 1980 (I think, but I omitted to date the cutting), makes her resentment plain: Every time the Government announces further… read more »

George Walford: Segal on Trotsky

July 31, 2012

From The Tragedy of Leon Trotsky, by Leonard Sega1. 1979, p.161. On the 22nd October, 1917, Trotsky addressed a mass meeting. He began by describing the suffering in the trenches: A Soviet regime, he went on, would end that suffering, It would bring peace… And when Trotsky asked the thousands there to join, him in… read more »

George Walford: Military Ideology

August 2, 2012

In Ideologies & their Functions, on pages 59-401, attention is drawn to certain features of the behaviour of an army. It has now been pointed out (by Geoffrey Clark) that Captain Liddell Hart, one of the foremost military theoreticians, has made statements which go far to support the view there taken. The following passages are… read more »

George Walford: How Exact is Eysenck?

August 2, 2012

People who try to understand why society behaves as it does are accustomed to being asked: “Why do you not pay more attention to Eysenck’s work?” The idea behind the question is usually that we ought to pay attention to Dr. Eysenck, more than to other psychologists who concern themselves with political and social behaviour,… read more »

George Walford: That Silly Rosa

August 2, 2012

These sentences appear in the August, 1980, issue of the Socialist Standard, official journal of the SPGB: (Rosa Luxemburg) therefore tried to show where Marx had gone wrong, but only succeeded in exposing her own utter confusion about economics. She made the silly mistake of assuming that the level of Market demand was determined exclusively… read more »

George Walford: Noting the Negative

August 2, 2012

A writer in the Ethical Record quotes, apparently without seeing anything odd about it, a statement once made to her: I never make negative statements. (Vol. 05, No. 10, p.16) from Ideological Commentary 8, November 1980.