Posted by Phil Dickens on 07/03/2011 · 5 Comments
The somewhat poetic title to this post comes from a status update I put on Facebook last week; Best descriptor for Marxism and Leninism I’ve ever read has to be “analysing everything through the eyes of corpses.” Genius. This was a reference to the tendency of nearly all groups and currents (though far from all … Read more
Filed under Debate and discourse · Tagged with building the new world in the shell of the old, Capitalism, central committee, class consciousness, communism, democratic centralism, federalism, Karl Marx, Leninism, Mao, Marxism, Pol Pot, revolution, self-organisation, Soviet Union, Spain, Stalin, transitional stage, Trotsky, vanguard of the proletariat, Vladimir Lenin, workers party, workers' state, working class
Posted by Phil Dickens on 25/11/2010 · 2 Comments
Unemployment in Britain currently stands at roughly two and a half million. This is not far from the three million mark of the Thatcher era, which became a watermark for social discontent. With public sector job losses – and the private sector fallout – expected to claim another million people, it is unsurprising that people … Read more
Filed under Capitalism · Tagged with adam smith, Beyond Hypocrisy, Capitalism, casualisation of work, Conservative Nanny State, Dean Baker, economics, Edward Herman, Hugh Stretton, job security causing unemployment, Karl Marx, laissez-faire, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, NAIRU, Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Employment, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, private feudalism, retail price index, trade unions, unemployment, wages
Posted by Phil Dickens on 18/07/2010 · 1 Comment
Media pundits, politicians, and the outraged chattering classes often go on about the “underclass.” Faced with levels of crime, poverty, and social anger that they are neither willing nor able to understand, the term is one of blame and accusation. It’s a useful catch-all for the long-term unemployed, welfare recipients, the homeless, petty criminals, drug … Read more
Filed under Capitalism · Tagged with Abahlali baseMjondolo, ANC, BNP, Capitalism, chavs, Communist Manifesto, dregs of society, EDL, Fascism, Frederich Engels, Homeless Workers' Movement, immigrants, Independent Working Class Association, IWCA, Jade Goody, Jeremy Kyle, Karl Marx, Kerry Katona, Landless People's Movement, lazy workers, LCAP, Leon Trotsky, London Coalition Against Poverty, lumpenproletariat, middle class, mikhail bakunin, Movement for Justice in El Barrio, Raoul Moat, reactionary, scum, South Africa, Take Back the Land, The Daily Mail, The Sun, underclass, Western Cape Anti-Eviction campaign
Posted by Phil Dickens on 27/06/2010 · 8 Comments
The fundamental difference between anarchist communists and any other kind of communist (Leninst, Trotskyist, Titoist, whatever) can be boiled down, ultimately, to two sentences from Karl Marx; Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in … Read more
Filed under Debate and discourse, The state · Tagged with Alliance For Workers' Liberty, Anarchism, Bolsheviks, communism, democratic centralism, dictatorship of the proletariat, International Workingmen's Association, Josef Stalin, Karl Marx, Kronstadt, Leninism, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, mikhail bakunin, Militant Tendency, Piotr Archinov, Pol Pot, POUM, revolution from below, self-organisation, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers' Party, Spanish Civil War, Stalinism, transitional state, Trotskyism, vanguard of the proletariat, Vladimir Lenin, workers party
