Communism |

George Walford: The Enduring Base (3)

July 16, 2012

Supernatural Powers: “When I wrote Chinese Looking Glass, certain superficial critics in England sneered at me for suggesting that superstitious belief and religious custom had survived Communism in China itself. The Chinese Communists, being rather better acquainted with the subject, have repeatedly admitted that the supernatural has been among their most stubborn ideological foes.” (Dennis… read more »

George Walford: Why Marxism?

July 21, 2012

Each age has its myths, and the Marxist myth of the revolutionary working class has overshadowed the political thinking of the industrial era. The heroic figure in overalls, erect upon the barricade, sledge-hammer in one hand, red flag in the other, has enlivened the fantasies of the left and haunted the nightmares of the right…. read more »

George Walford: Needs Under Dictatorship

July 23, 2012

Enthusiasts commonly claim to find support in the work of people who wrote with other intentions, and there is no good reason why IC should not join in the rush. Dictatorship over Needs, published in 1983, is written by Ferenc Feher, Agnes Heller and Gyorgy Markus, and published by Basil Blackwell, Oxford. It is an… read more »

George Walford: Latest News from the Communist Front

July 23, 2012

Latest News from the Communist Front – or does the front become the rear when they are retreating? Exploitation, class inequality, corruption and superstition are re-emerging in China on a scale not seen for 50 years. This is not the snap judgment of a cynical outsider. William Hinton, an American farmer once on good terms… read more »

George Walford: Age and Ideology

July 23, 2012

Common experience suggests that ideological development is usually completed by the early twenties; after that age most people are ‘set’; regression is common but further development rare. Here is some evidence confirming that impression and suggesting that development is sometimes completed even sooner than one would have thought. Lenin was 47 when he made his… 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: Latest News from the Class Struggle Front

August 5, 2012

Sir Anthony Blunt has confessed to being a Marxist and a Soviet spy. Sir Anthony is (or was) a Cambridge don, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures and a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. Another one of those Working-class Communists. from Ideological Commentary 3, December 1979.

George Walford: The Ideology of Freedom

September 11, 2012

This paper is mainly a commentary on David Friedman‘s book The Machinery of Freedom. [1] Where it expands into comments on Anarcho-Capitalism (one name for the social system Mr.Friedman expounds) it is still based wholly on his book. I have heard a talk given by an Anarcho-Capitalist to the Walsby Society, but my recollections of… read more »

George Walford: Political Individualism and Collectivism

August 10, 2012

The ideologist does not dispute the general opinion that the ideas of the Right are different from those of the Left, but he does add something to it. Right and Left, eidostatics and eidodynamics, not only have different ideas, they also have different ways of thinking. As Walsby phrases it, they differ not only in… read more »

George Walford: The Major Ideologies

August 10, 2012

Each of the major ideologies is capable of being expressed in relation to any field of existence, in relation to man, the natural World, the physical universe, the realm of ideas, and so on. In the field of abstract thought they appear as the different major philosophies (or classes of philosophies), and they can also… read more »