Socialism

George Walford: Letters to the Editor (44)

FAITH AND EVIDENCE Sir: [Nobody has yet begun a letter to IC with “Sir,” but one needs some standardised way of starting it off as a letter]. Sir: On the back page, of IC43, I wonder whether you are not being unfair to the SS Prod committee in asking them to produce evidence showing something… read more »

George Walford: The (Anarcho-) Socialist Party of Great Britain (43)

SOME BACKGROUND This party set out in 1904 to get a majority for ‘socialism’ – more accurately described as anarcho-socialism. the world population has increased by thousands of millions while the number of ‘socialists’ remains in the hundreds – of people, not millions. Further from their majority than when they started, they believe they are… read more »

George Walford: Secret Science

SECRET SCIENCE Leo Strauss died in 1973; some of his books are now being re-issued. He thought advanced political ideas valuable but also dangerous; the Enlightenment led to Hitler. His answer was to keep scientific and philosophical thinking secret from the general body of ordinary people. (TLS 1 Dec 89). Such caution hardly seems called… read more »

George Walford: The Ideology of the Trade Union Movement

Social and political affairs present a scene of confusion, but systematic ideology claims to perceive underlying regularities. Prominent among these stands the tendency for movements to be smaller in proportion as they value co-operation above competition, the material welfare of the community above the freedom of individuals to accumulate possessions. It is a rule with… read more »

George Walford: The (Anarcho-) Socialist Party of Great Britain (42)

SOME BACKGROUND IC undertakes to print any statement of up to 1,000 words carrying the approval of this party, or one of its branches. Letters from individual members will appear if they are cogent, interesting and concise, and if space permits. If you want your letter to appear unedited or not at all, please say… read more »

George Walford: We’re All Right Jack

A character of T. S. Eliot’s claimed to have measured out his life with coffee-spoons; other people see themselves differently, and the groups out towards the revolutionary and repudiative end of the ideological range like to think they are engaged in the political part of a struggle between classes, with the trade unions fighting on… read more »

George Walford: The Higher the Fewer (42)

RAVEN, the anarchist quarterly, [1] includes a review-article by Brian Morris. Against the writers who seem to be kidding themselves that as a serious critique of marxism anarchism doesn’t exist [p. 278], he insists that it does. He is, of course, right. Anarchism exists as a critique of marxism, but marxism has no theory capable… read more »

George Walford: The (Anarcho-) Socialist Party of Great Britain (41)

REPLYING to the suggestion from a correspondent, that IC ought to co-operate with the (A-)SPGB, IC40 asked, rhetorically, how one can possibly co-operate with people who declare themselves opposed to all other political parties, even at war with them. The answer, of course, is: by opposing them, by fighting them. This party affirms the value… read more »

George Walford: Mount Everest

REFORMERS and revolutionaries, demanding that people should think for themselves, tend to claim that they are increasingly coming to do so. The evidence goes against this belief, the latest item appearing in reports of a survey undertaken for the new “Sky” television system. This has very few subscribers and the fact itself operates as a… read more »

George Walford: Is Cheaper Better?

Smith (Ken) Free is Cheaper, John Ball Press, May Hill, Gloucester. Cloth bound, pp 259, £12.95. Some accept modern society, some support it, others feel they have had it thrust upon them. Ken Smith belongs to the last group, and he fights back. His attack opens on the first page, with the charge that never… read more »

Sidebar