Russia abandons the drive towards communism, America (with a little help) drives Iran out of Kuwait, Mrs. Thatcher resigns the premiership. Great events, all of them. And now, to crown the series (spotlight, roll of drums): IC GOES QUARTERLY. This issue carries the date Summer 1991, to be followed by Autumn, Winter and Spring. The… read more »
Freedom, the anarchist fortnightly (23 February), reported that British opposition to the Gulf War (it came mainly from eidodynamic movements) fell into disarray. A meeting of the umbrella committee “degenerated into a series of bitter disputes and separate meetings,” the leftist groups involved pursued “their private sectarian battles,” and there was no agreed polity nor… read more »
Robert Michels’ book, Political Parties, a sociological study of the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy [1], first appeared in 1911, and quickly became famous [2]. The English translation has been available since 1915 (there were also Italian, German, French and Japanese versions) and in those seventy-five years nobody, so far as I have been able… read more »
Should the school be adapted to the child or the child to the school? An inclination in either direction is notoriously linked with political outlook, and this suggests a connection with the underlying system of major ideologies. Zvi Lamm, a professor of education in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has cut across these roundabout associations,… read more »
Review of Beyond Politics, an outline of systematic ideology. From PLAN, Journal of the Progressive League, November 1990, by Ailsa Pain. This is a readable and thought-provoking little book. While many people have come to somewhat differing conclusions as a result of their own studies and speculation, I am sure they will find interest and… read more »
Review of Beyond Politics, an outline of systematic ideology. From SELF AND SOCIETY, European Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. XVIII No.6, Nov / Dec 1990, by John Rowan. This is a book about ideologies. An ideology is a way of seeing the world, a more or less coherent philosophy of the way things seem to… read more »
Systematic ideology posits a range of ‘major’ ideologies, each of them (except the first, which is non-political) finding political expression through one of the main-sequence parties. In moving along the range from non-political through conservatism towards anarchism, economic collectivism strengthens and freedom of action in economics comes under heavier repression. This is not always self-evident,… read more »
Kitaro Nishida’s An Inquiry into the Good has been re-issued in a new translation. [1] Reviewing this, [2] Hide Ishiguro remarks that it does not contain the two concepts, of absolute nothingness and the self-identity of the absolutely contradictory, which account for its author’s fame as a Zen philosopher. Kitaro Nishida has doubtless earned his glory;… read more »
BEYOND POLITICS An outline of systematic ideology by George Walford 160 pages Paperback £2.95 Clothbound £9.95 For subscribers to IC and members of the (A-)SPGB paperback price is £1.95 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… read more »
This is the third (and final) part of a reply, by Merseyside Branch, to criticism of the party by IC. Part I appeared in IC47, Part II in IC48. These are both available on request. – GW In order to cover up its own failings IC always reverts to character by arguing that socialism has… read more »