By Peter Campbell, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston, pp.303, 1999. Peter Campbell discusses, and focuses on, the lives of four individuals—Ernest Winch, William Pritchard, Arthur Mould and Robert Russell, all of whom originally came from Britain and from religious backgrounds. The title and the phrase, “a Third Way”, is something of a misnomer, as the author himself admits, writing: “The description requires explanation, because these socialists might more accurately be called Marxists of the first way. Their guiding philosophy is to be found in the provisional rules of the International Workingmen’s Association, founded in London, England, September 1864...
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“Emancipation not Palliation” Socialism vs. Capitalism To understand socialism, one must necessarily understand the present social system; i.e., capitalism. Under capitalism, society is divided into hostile classes: an owning capitalist class, whose members have ownership of the various parts of the instruments of wealth production. This includes: The land, the factories, the railroads, the mines, and steamships, etc., upon which the whole of the people are dependent for their existence. A working class, whose members possess nothing but their labor power, which is useless to the worker unless he can have access to the raw material and the machinery...
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IN THE LAST DAYS of 1915 a request came to the DEC from the Alberta executive that I be sent to that province for a three months’ propaganda tour. The DEC agreed, urging me to accept. I talked it over with my wife, since it meant leaving her with two small boys, the youngest only three months old. In this, as on many other occasions, my wife was sympathetic and cooperative. “If the Party thinks you should go Will, I think you should.” So I went first to Calgary, where I met the members of the local, and a...
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