It’s a strange thing that whenever Katharine Whitehorn is confirming what we say she writes better than when disagreeing. This happens even though to our knowledge she has never heard of IC or s.i. In the Observer of 26 April 1987 she writes of the way unrestricted competition tends to eliminate itself, producing monopoly instead…. read more »
The series IC was running under this head has not been abandoned, only squeezed out by other things. The main point to be developed is the absence of any natural, inborn or inherent need of work. There are people, lots of them, who feel this need, but it has been acquired in the course of… read more »
IN THIS issue we print letters from Austin Meredith and Shane Roberts; further Letters to the Editor are invited. Please try not to exceed 500 words – “Small is beautiful.” If you want your letter to appear unedited or not at all, please say so. ANARCHISTS proclaim themselves in favour of freedom, and they (sometimes… read more »
Reforms have an unfortunate tendency to produce unintended consequences; Katharine Whitehorn recently noted some more instances of this: Clear away slums and you destroy family relationships; give children school meals and mothers stop thinking it their job to feed them; introduce the potato to Ireland and produce the famines of the 1840s, and Irish Americans… read more »
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 »
NIAT: Is it not absolutely true that the earth moves round the sun? ‘There is no privileged position in space. In one sense it is therefore as true to say that the sun moves round the earth, as it is to say that the earth moves round the sun.’ (M. Payne, S&MN Newsletter 51) DEPRESSED… read more »
NEW babies don’t laugh, make war, walk erect, use tools, or make love at all seasons. Does any definition of humanity include them? ABBOT John Chapman: ‘I wish I could join the ‘Solitaries,’ instead of being Superior and having to write books. But I don’t wish what I wish, of course.’ CHILDREN under 17 commit… read more »
FREEDOM of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. If you doubt that, try getting a piece on systematic ideology into the Socialist Standard. DEATH with his scythe leading the victim away, they pass Santa Claus: ‘I bet you didn’t believe in him, either.’ NATIONALISATION of telegrams in 1870 and telephones in… read more »