Adam Buick and John Crump, The Alternative to Capitalism (Theory and Practice, 2013) This short paperback is a concise introduction to basic Marxian concepts concerning the current system of society – world capitalism – and the alternative to it – world socialism. The texts are carefully written to be...
The most vicious enemies of the working class in the United States are bourgeois pseudo-democracy and the combined power of congress and the courts. Just prior to each election cycle a hidden primary is held by the corporate elite behind the voters’ backs. It is through this informal primary...
The dismal art? After the socialist revolution, will economics be demoted to an art form? Is economics even “soft science”? There is one small problem … A recent article in Science News notes: Annual forecasts of currency values from December 2001 to December 2010, which guided banks’ investment decisions,...
The work of Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick contains some insights for socialists but it is not Marxian economics and is not socialist. The late twentieth-century saw the demise of many governments that viewed themselves as heirs of the ideas of Karl Marx. The failure of these regimes was...
It is hard to tell what is real in the ongoing Korean ‘crisis’ and what is contrived. Up to a point – after all, it is in no one’s interest to frighten the markets too badly – it suits both sides to foster a sense of crisis. For Kim...
To understand capitalism Marx employed three key concepts: constant capital (c), variable capital (v), and surplus value (s). By “constant” capital he meant that part of a firm’s capital invested in workplace buildings, plant, machinery, raw materials and energy. He called this “constant” because the value of these products...
Below is an interview with a comrade of ours who explains his progression from being a member of the IRA, through Trotskyism to a World Socialist position. Discussion between Richard (Dick) Montague and Ciaran Crossey Belfast, 21 November 1987 CC I was given your name as a socialist activist...
Well, I just had to do it: go see this movie everyone was talking about. Let’s just say that Argo has more in common with Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream than with Jason and the Argonauts searching for the golden fleece. The film features a fake movie (“Argo”) “produced”...
“I treat the ridiculous seriously when I treat it with ridicule.” Marx explained in “On Freedom of the Press and Censorship.” Born on 5 May 1818, Karl Marx died 14th March 1883 after a long illness, his end undoubtedly being hastened by the death of his wife in 1881...
Big Pharma: pushing harmful drugs
Last year I wrote about the rebellious teenagers ‘diagnosed’ with the newly invented Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and the highly profitable industry that has grown up to ‘treat’ – that is, abuse – them (MW, January 2012). The American Psychiatric Association has included ODD in the latest edition of its authoritative handbook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), together with Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder, for people who get angry too often, and Hoarding Disorder, for people who don’t like to throw things away. The biomedical model In early May the Division of Clinical Psychology of the...
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