The Socialist party of Great Britain (not to be confused with the Labour Party) is a small organization to the left of Left. It holds that modern industrial society is divided into two classes, a large working class the produces but not but does not possess, a small capitalist class the possesses but does not… read more »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Sacred and Profane Cannibalism; They Rotted in their Own Dung, The Fickle and Verminous Colony; Putrid Worms and Vile Snails Those are some of the chapter-headings from Camporesi’s Bread of Dreams, [1] not a work for the faint-hearted or weak- stomached. Neither is it a work for the evidence-collector, being impressionistic and uncritical; for Camporesi… read more »
The Labour Party Conference of October was remarkable for the prevalence of agreement; unlike earlier ones it did not justify Norman Tebbit’s description of the comrades and brothers as “firmly united in fraternal hatred of each other’s guts”. An editorial in the Independent of October 7 spoke of “a respectable measure of unity at most… read more »
REVOLUTION is supported mainly by the working class, but so is reaction and – even more important – so is apathy. SIR ROBERT MARK, former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, defined a good police force as one that employed fewer criminals than it caught; he noted that the Met did not then meet this criterion…. read more »
Dear Editor, Is it a wise policy on your part to keep on calling the SPGB the (A-)SPGB? If you want co-operation you must do something positive. Karl Marx’s quarrel with the anarchists has affected the SPGB and other socialist parties ever since; why not acknowledge this? In your Introducing IC (Revision of May 1989),… read more »
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 so. Each… read more »
FEW OVER MANY Those who maintain that society embodies mainly the preferences of the ruling few land themselves with the task of explaining how these manage to impose their will. They sometimes claim that it is done by force, but again, how? In The Politics of Obedience (Montreal, Black Rose Press 1975), Etienne de in… read more »