Commentary

Worker-Soliders Against the War

December 29, 2004
By FN Brill

We would like to alert our readers to the Harrass The Brass website. While not socialist, HtB is a usefull website showing the depth of resistence to the Iraq war on the part of “Coalition” worker-soldiers.

Read more »

Leonard Peltier and the primal needs of Capital*

December 23, 2004
By WSPUS

In a remote section of South Dakota just north of Nebraska lies an Indian reservation known as Pine Ridge. At one time largely agricultural, it became hugely attractive to the U.S. government when it was discovered that beneath the Indian lands lay one of the largest uranium reserves in the United States. All through the years, treaties with the Indians had been consistently violated because of the major mineral reserves beneath the Indian territories. When Pine Ridge became the focus of the United States government, the Indian residents were strongly opposed to uranium development on their turf. Bitterness grew...

Read more »

Better living through chemistry?

December 23, 2004
By virgo47

Pharmaceuticals & personal care products in the environment All chemicals ingested or applied externally have the potential to be introduced into sewage systems and from there to aquatic or terrestrial environments. When those chemicals are components of personal care products such as suntan lotions, makeup, and toiletries, or human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, they represent a particular class of pollutants now being investigated by the Environmental Protection Agency, water and sewage treatment services and academia. These chemicals are given the acronym PPCP to facilitate communication and research on what can be a mind-boggling array of substances.1 At present no research...

Read more »

HAPPY WAGE-SLAVE-OFF DAYS!

December 21, 2004
By Dr. Who
HAPPY WAGE-SLAVE-OFF DAYS!

Isn’t it nice to have a few days off from work, warming the cockles of our overgenerous souls after spending the past year producing large sums of wealth for the parasite class, singing Santa songs by the hearth, drinking mulled wine and pretty much anything else that will get us tipsy, opening our presents, and living those few golden days of celebration that we would wish for the other days of the year as well? But these holidays will end all too soon. We have barely begun to relax in our holiday mode when the alarm clock awakens us...

Read more »

Death of a Child

January 27, 1994
By SPGB

Socialist Standard, January 1994. We live in unfriendly times. As neighbourhoods have made way for wretched anonymous towerblocks, so neighbourliness has become outdated. It is not that people have chosen to become careless and uncooperative; as social animals we are never happier than when we are able to behave in mutuality, empathy and compassion towards our fellow human beings. But the way that life has come to be organised conspires against our will to be human. “There is no such thing as society”, said Thatcher, and her words were met with howls of protest by those who did not...

Read more »

Personal growth or social revolution?

August 27, 1989
By SPGB

(Socialist Standard) Open a few Sunday colour supplements and you’re likely to see a mention of some variety of “Personal Growth”. Look at the notices on the wall in most health food shops, or look in the back of city’s listing magazines and you’ll see adverts for this or that new approach. This term has come to refer to a whole variety of psychotherapies, holistic health methods, mystical approaches and self-improvement techniques. You may also see it referred to as “humanistic psychology”, “the human potential movement”, or “the growth movement”. If we were to make a rough and ready...

Read more »

Thanksgiving

January 3, 1975
By Bill Pritchard

Featured in the Western Socialist, 1975 Shall I give thanks? To Whom? For What? This Mad Chaotic World, its Schizophrenic Society, Where Affluence Parades and Struts side by side The Unmitigated Poverty of Stinking Ghettos; And holy clerks pour the Slime of their Hypocritical Blessings Over the Horrendous Fetid Mess?     For this Predatory Economy, this Organization of Status, Where, over-night, Mere Mediocrity is catapulted  Into the Category of Celebrity. While Genius, disregarded, molds and withers In some fouls and Darksome Garret, With Millions passing Blunted and Stunted Lives In the Grind of the Industrial Mill.    ...

Read more »

Man, The Enigma

May 17, 2012
By J. A. McDonald

From The Western Socialist, January, 1948 A strange animal – man – until we get to know him. Brilliant, in a sense, he has developed systems of production, exchange, communication, and transportation that make the other animals look rather stupid. But, on the opposite side of the scale, he suffers deficiencies that enhance the prestige of every competing organism. While not the only animal that works, he is the only one that looks for work; the only one that works for wages, the only one that the boss can afford to leave alone while working. The only one subject...

Read more »

The Job

May 17, 2012
By WSPUS

From the Sept-Oct 1949 issue of the Western Socialist To a worker, a job is almost a matter of life and death, for he is dependent on it for his daily wants – food, clothes and a place to sleep. If he cannot find a job, or is without one for any length of time his situation become desperate and it has occasionally happened that protracted unemployment has led to suicide. The alternatives the worker has to wage labor are few, if any, because the means by which he lives and propagates his species are owned and controlled by...

Read more »

Are We Armchair Philosophers?

May 17, 2012
By WSPUS

From the Western Socialist (August 1947) To the Western Socialist- The workers want something NOW and you ignore this altogether. Instead of having a program dealing with the everyday problems of the workers, you retreat into an ivory tower. Actually, you are nothing but armchair philosophers, divorced from the needs of the working class. You are concerned with the intricate problems of Marxian economics and the fine points of Marxian philosophy at a time when action is needed. CRITIC, N.Y. City REPLY We agree that the workers want something NOW. But, and that is the point – WHAT do...

Read more »