CORRECTION IC25 included a brief note correcting certain ideas put forward in Ideologies and their Functions. On page seven of this present issue these corrections are set out more fully. MOZAMBIQUE In Mozambique they starve while Europe wonders what to do with mountains of “surplus” food. But disgust is a gut-reaction that helps nobody; before… read more »
LOTS OF LOVELY PEOPLE In this issue of IC we reprint another paper by Harold Walsby. It draws attention to the rate at which the population has been increasing and asks whether the purist ‘socialists’ – who tell us they need a majority have even been maintaining their relative numbers. It was written in 1951 and… read more »
Reprinted from here with the kind permission of the Socialist Party of Great Britain under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs copyright license. The group that formed around Harold Walsby and his ideas probably represents the most unusual breakaway from the Socialist Party in its entire history. During the Second World War this group developed a fascination… read more »
IC holds out a continuing invitation: We undertake 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 or supporters will be printed if they are cogent, interesting and concise, and if space permits. If you want your letter to appear… read more »
Dear Editor, I found the Outline Sketch of Systematic Ideology to be, superficially at least, quite an interesting pamphlet. However, closer investigation revealed that behind the words there was little of substance. Also, the reasoning contains several flaws. On page 29 appears: A purely eidodynamic society could not do so [i.e. survive]. Every society, if… read more »
From time to time IC includes short sharp jabs listed as “provocations”: This one appeared in IC5: Ideological uncertainty principle: The more precisely, an item of behaviour is quantified the less precise its significance becomes. Stan Chisman has responded: The more precisely an item of behaviour is quantified the less satisfactory it becomes as the… read more »
“An adaption of some notes about Walsby and the SSA I wrote in April 1965, when in Ghana […] it was not published […] The 1965 notes were called ‘Thoughts on the African Identity’ and included an account and attempted analysis not only of that question and of ‘Social Rationality’ (the expression I used for… read more »
“A draft Introduction for an intended second edition of Harold Walsby’s The Domain of Ideologies. […] It is important that a new edition of the book, if and when it appears, should have benefited from all possible sources of information about its background and a variety of views about its approach and implications.” Peter Shepherd,… read more »
I liked George Walford, but I do not think that he was a wise man or even a very bright man. Nor do I hold myself to be very wise or bright, but the facts relating to the Socialist Party of Great Britain [SPGB] and Harold Walsby are not very difficult to see. I was… read more »
I was registered for seven years at the London School of Economics to write a PhD thesis on Walsby’s theory. However, in the end I withdrew without having done it. There were many reasons for this, but one was paramount: it can’t be done. The reason is this: the definition of the lowest level of… read more »