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	<title>World Socialist Party (US) &#187; Marxism</title>
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	<copyright>Copyright &#xA9; World Socialist Party (US) 2010 </copyright>
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		<title>World Socialist Party (US)</title>
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	<itunes:category text="Society &#38; Culture" />
	<itunes:author>World Socialist Party (US)</itunes:author>
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		<itunes:name>World Socialist Party (US)</itunes:name>
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		<item>
		<title>Are &#8216;Living Wage&#8217; Campaigns Effective?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/03/2483/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/03/2483/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 04 Mar 2012 04:27:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theory]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2483</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The World Socialist Party is frequently lambasted for its opposition to reformism. The workers clamor for something concrete now, it is claimed , not abstract socialist principles. They demand immediate improvements that can be obtained by campaigns for legislation it is argued. The World Socialist Party case that although some reforms may be of material benefit to the working class, advocating party policy to struggle for particular reforms hinders the struggle for socialism and diverts our energies into what often results in dead-ends. We found this article by Stephanie Luce on the Labor Notes website particularly relevant in that it offers some support for our analysis and it is worth extensively quoting from it. &#8220;&#8230;20 years ago a “living wage” campaign by pastors and union organizers in Baltimore caught the attention of activists around the country. It looked like a way to address the fact that so many people were working but were still poor. Living wage activists have accomplished a lot since then, winning more than 125 living wage ordinances in cities and counties, three city minimum wages, and state and federal minimum wage increases. Eight states have indexed their minimum wage to inflation because of activist pressure, and campaigns to raise [...]


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		<item>
		<title>The Myth of the Transitional Society</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2011/05/the-myth-of-the-transitional-society/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2011/05/the-myth-of-the-transitional-society/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 22 May 2011 00:34:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ALB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theory]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World Socialist Perspective]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2254</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[by Adam Buick, in Critique (Glasgow) [ISSN 0301-7605]. – 1975 (5) : pp. 59-70 Critique has recently published the translation of an article by Ernest Mandel, in which he develops his now familiar theme that, in the course of social evolution, there intervenes – and must intervene – between capitalism and socialism a transitional “society” with its own social base, relations of production, etc.[1] This is a point of view worth discussing but, despite the Marxist terminology in which it is expressed, it is in fact not a view held by Marx himself. As the present article will try to demonstrate, Marx did indeed speak of a “political transition period” between capitalism and socialism but never of a “transitional society”. What, then, did Marx mean when he spoke of this “transition period”? Contrary to what is generally supposed (largely as a result of decades of Stalinist and Trotskyist propaganda), for Marx this period was not that between the establishment of the common ownership of the means of production and the time when the principle “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” could be implemented. Rather it is the period during which the working class would [...]


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		<title>150 Years of Materialist Conception of History</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/06/150-years-of-materialist-conception-of-history/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/06/150-years-of-materialist-conception-of-history/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:44:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>FN Brill</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=1021</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This year is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin The Origin of Species but also of the publication of Marx’s first economic writings after his more detailed study of the workings of capitalism, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. The Preface to this work contains a summary of Marx and Engels&#8217; materialist conception of history. Marx comments that during the course of his studies he reached the conclusion that the explanation of social development was not to be found merely in the realm of ideas but rather in the material conditions of life, and that a proper understanding of capitalism is to be found in economics. Marx then gives a condensed account of his key concepts and their likely relationships which provided the guiding thread for his historical research: “The general result at which I arrived and which, once won, served as a guiding thread for my studies, can be briefly formulated as follows: in the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations [...]


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		<title>Marx and Engels on The Origin of Species</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2009/03/961/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2009/03/961/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:46:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theory]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=961</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Engels bought a copy of Darwin’s The Origin of Species as soon as it was published. Two books of importance were published in 1859, one in June and the other in November. Each one stands at the opposite pole of popularity at the time they were published. And this contrast has persisted up to the present day. One hundred and fifty years after their publication, one is being celebrated as one of the most significant and audacious books ever to be published; the other is virtually forgotten. Both were written with some degree of reluctance by their authors, requiring pressure from theirs friends and supporters. Great things were expected of both. However, only one of them fulfilled them. The first book, published in German, was by Karl Marx: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. This was to be the first instalment of a series of pamphlets, presenting what was to be a withering assault on the ideological foundations of capitalist society. But the beginnings were not good. Marx even had to write to his publisher to find out whether it had been published or not. And then there were the reviews, or rather their absence. Writing to Lassalle [...]


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		<title>The return of Karl Marx</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/12/the-return-of-karl-marx/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/12/the-return-of-karl-marx/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:09:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ALB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=831</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From the December 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard Marx is again enjoying something of a revival. After his views on the globalising tendencies of capitalism, it is now his theory of crises that is attracting interest and being discussed in the media. Unfortunately not always accurately. For instance, in an article headlined “BANKING CRISIS GIVES ADDED CAPITAL TO MARX’S WRITINGS”, Roger Boyes, the Berlin correspondent of the (London) Times wrote (20 October): “Marx&#8217;s new relevance relates mainly to his warning about the creation of an exploitative capitalism that ends up destroying itself: ‘An over-expansion of credit can enable the capitalist system to sell temporarily more goods than the sum of real incomes in created current production, plus past savings, could buy,’ said Ernest Mandel, the Marxist scholar, quoting his guru, ‘but in the long run, debts must be paid’. Since these debts cannot be automatically paid through expanded output and income, capitalism is destined for a ‘Krach’ &#8211; Marx&#8217;s word for a crash.” If the suggestion is here, as it seems to be, that it was Marx’s view that capitalism will end up destroying itself in one big Krach, then it is wrong as Marx never argued that there [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Socialism: Utopian and Scientific</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/11/socialism-utopian-and-scientific/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/11/socialism-utopian-and-scientific/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:19:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>WSPUS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[History]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=806</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[[Excerpts from a talk at Cooper Union, N.Y.C. November 23, 1973. This was originally printed in the Western Socialist, No.1, 1974. The talk was delivered by World Socialist Party comrade Charles P. Davis] Our subject this evening is &#8220;Socialism &#8211; Utopian and Scientific.&#8221; Most relevant in the examination of this subject is history. Not the history you have studied at school nor the history with which current literature is so preoccupied. Currently a history titled &#8220;History as Mirror&#8221; comparing the fourteenth century and its horrible conditions with the twentieth century that we know contributes very little to understanding with a statement such as: &#8220;Chivalry was to the landowners ideology, their politics, their system &#8211; what democracy is to us or Marxism is to the Communists.&#8221; The speakers that I have listened to at Cooper Union with their declaimers of being apolitical and their talks of historical developments with a collection of &#8220;we,&#8221; &#8220;our,&#8221; and &#8220;us,&#8221; spoke as if the world were made of one homogeneous non-political mass of mankind rather than those who own little but the ability to work for wages. Such speakers never impressed me as understanding their subjects. As to being apolitical, that is some kind of [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Materialist Conception of History</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/11/materialistic-conception-of-history/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/11/materialistic-conception-of-history/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:37:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>WSPUS</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[History]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=799</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Down through the ages there have been various interpretations of history. For example, there are the theories which see in history the working out and realization of some sort of divine plan &#8211; like Hegel&#8217;s philosophy of history, which sees the whole historical development of society as the realization stage by stage of the so-called Absolute Idea. Again, there are the various theories which see history as moving through &#8220;cycles,&#8221; every civilization passing by some inescapable necessity through the cycle of rise, plentitude of power and decline &#8211; as in Spengler&#8217;s Decline of the West or Toynbee&#8217;s Studies in History. These are idealist theories and socialists are opposed to them. The idealism of such theories lies in the fact that they see the laws of development of society as a &#8220;fate&#8221; imposed upon society from outside, so that men and women are mere instruments of fate, the tools of external necessity. If such theories are accepted, then we are driven to fatalism. If what takes place is in the hands of God, or is decreed by fate, or follows by some iron necessity &#8211; it makes little difference in practice which you say &#8211; then it follows there is little [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Increasing misery?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/10/increasing-misery/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/10/increasing-misery/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:37:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=573</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The theory of World Socialist Movement is Marxist in the sense that certain of our key ideas about society, economics and politics are derived from Karl Marx. Although our case rests entirely on its own merits and not on what Marx may or may not have said, we have always been ready to defend Marx’s views where we believe them to be correct against criticisms based on an ignorance of what he wrote. It is common, for instance, to read that “Marx has been proved wrong on fundamentals; the workers far from being denied a fair share of proﬁts and so becoming poorer, are vastly better off”. Is this true? Was it fundamental to Marx’s economic theory that under capitalism the workers would come to own less and less material possessions? The short answer is, No. Marx did not believe that the amount of goods and services the workers consumed would necessarily have to decline. What he did say was that the misery of the workers would increase, but he did not equate this misery with destitution. For him, as we shall see, misery referred to the general circumstances under which workers, however well-paid, had to live and work. Poverty [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Marxism and needs</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/09/marxism-and-needs/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/09/marxism-and-needs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 27 Sep 2008 05:16:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=547</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is the “world of abundance” traditionally advocated by socialists feasible? Not according to Claude Bitot, known as the author of a book on the future of the movement for communism (see Socialist Standard, December 1995), in his recent book Quel autre monde possible?  (“What other world is possible”?). Echoing the ideas of some Greens but denying any affinity with them as “bobos” (trendies), Bitot argues that the only viable form of communism (or socialism) today is the austere pre-industrial communism advocated by Babeuf and his followers during the French Revolution and first part of the 19th century. His criticism of Marx – that he accepted the development of capitalism as a necessary step towards socialism –  can be traced back to the influence of a “productivist” or technological determinist reading of Marx, based on The Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto, which the great man was considerably qualifying by the time he got round to writing the Grundrisse. According to this simplified version of Marxism – faithfully trotted out by Bitot – it is the development of the forces of production that drives history. Capitalism in the form of merchant capital develops in the pores of feudalism, notably in [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Inflation of Logic</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/07/inflation-of-logic/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/07/inflation-of-logic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:45:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>FN Brill</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marxism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=471</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Zimbabwe inflation has reached an estimated 2.2 million percent per year. Shown here is a Z$500 million note. If our rulers are to be believed, high wages cause inflation. If this was true, it would make sense that Zimbabwe&#8217;s working class is the most affluent in the world. Instead the poverty rate is over 80%. Wages are subject to the &#8220;law&#8221; of supply and demand, right? So if high wages cause  inflation, Zimbabwe&#8217;s workers are the most in demand in the world. So why are we constantly bombarded with propaganda that higher wages cause inflation? The answer is obvious, so we don&#8217;t ask for more wages. So we identify with the bosses needs and not our own. So what causes inflation? No related posts.


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