Jack London who was born on this day in 1876 is the subject of an article in this month’s Socialist Standard. Older editions of our journal have also examined London’s oeuvre, including The Iron Heel. This book was reviewed in February 1975 and from the introduction we learn that “Jack London wrote over fifty...
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Capitalism
The People of the Abyss
Green without being Green
October 25th‘s New York Times contained a special full-color insert titled “Corporate Social Responsibility – Designing a Sustainable Future”. The introduction, given by the President and CEO of Business for Social Responsibility Aron Cramer, tells us that “Consumers are paying more attention to the sources of the food they eat and the safety of...
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The “logic” of Capitalism!
From the Lehigh University newspaper: In early August, representatives from Sands BethWorks appeared before the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to announce that the opening of the casino will be delayed from mid-2008 until early 2009. The delay is caused by a lack of steel available to construct the casino complex. The elaborate complex needs...
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Adam Smith: A Capitalist Icon?
Mention of the name Adam Smith calls to mind the “invisible hand” of the market, free trade, even capitalism itself. And money makes this capitalist world go round. So the Bank of England’s decision to feature Smith’s face on its twenty-pound notes, starting this spring , certainly seems appropriate. The Bank’s Governor, Mervyn King,...
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Common Ownership: Our Last Chance
A recent episode of the PBS program Now, broadcast nationwide in most states on 4/22/2005, announced gravely not only that “scientists are convinced our Earth is warming, and with scary consequences,” but also and even more gravely that “meanwhile industry funds a campaign to do nothing.” The program quoted Dr. Richard Alley, professor at...
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Prisoners of Capital
Millions of human beings around the world are forcibly detained, their liberties removed by governmental authorities. Anyone who takes seriously the immediate potential for replacing capitalism with a world of real abundance and freedom knows already that the great majority of crimes are either crimes against property or involve the illegal trafficking of property...
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A World Without Prisons
Few institutions illustrate the oppression of people in capitalism better than prisons. Millions of people, almost completely members of the working class, in the United States and around the world, are presently wasting away for violations of the laws of private property or for crimes that stem from residing in a society based on...
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The Ethics of Capitalism
Herbert Spencer’s concept of Survival of the fittest…Pseudo Scientists, in Economics, Anthropology, History, etc., have have probably erected more obstacles to the clear understanding of reality than any other group, for their misconceptions are tinted with the gild of scholarship. Herbert Spencer, with his Social Statics, was perhaps the most outstanding of those scholars...
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Production for Use
From the Western Socialist, #2, 1969 “PRODUCTION FOR USE” – a phrase uttered so often by socialists as to become almost a cliché, yet understood (in a superficial fashion) by both enquirers and opponents. It describes our concept – our visualization – of a future social system superceding the present “un-social” system we call...
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Resurgent Japan
From the Western Socialist, #1, 1968 From mythological archives comes the legend of the phoenix, a bird of rare and unseemly attainments. After a lengthy and variegated existence, a pervasive act of its own volition caused it to be consumed in fire, and eventually to rise in callow newness from its ashes. Modern Japan...
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