Communism against democracy: theses - GCI-ICG
These theses were first published in February 1984 in issue #19 of 'Le Communiste' the French-language journal of the Internationalist Communist Group. The French language original can be found on the GCI website. This translation has not been made by them.
Capital and state - Jean Barrot
A section from 'Le mouvement communiste', Editions Champ Libre, 1972, Troisième partie : Révolution et contre-révolution., pp 166-176. Gilles Dauvé, who wrote 'Le mouvement communiste' (under the name Jean Barrot) was also involved with a group called 'Le mouvement communiste', which produced six issues of a journal of the same name between 1972 and 1974.
The State and Society
This is the text of a lecture given to the Cole Society {Oxford University
Sociology Society) at All Souls, on February 19th.
West Germany: Censorship and Repression in the Model State
In West Germany, repression is now 'democratically' sanctioned and seen as a model for other countries to adopt.
Editorial: "In defense of the state"
An anti-state editorial, probably written by Ralph Chaplin. Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker (July 17, 1934)
The nuclearization of the world - Jaime Semprun
In this Swiftian “nuclearist manifesto” first published in France in 1980, the author uses “laughable sophistry” and “black humor” “disguised as apologetics” in the “spurious defense” of a “program” to save the State and the status quo by “nuclearizing” the world, ridiculing “emotional” opposition to nuclear power, exposing the widespread “mistrust” of “specialists” as a “revolt of the ignorant”, calling attention to the many (non-economic) advantages of nuclearization, and concluding with a proposal to merge the police and the trade unions for the “self-management” of the security and social control functions that will be indispensable in a nuclearized world.
Disenchantment – Argelaga
An essay on political corruption in Spain published in May 2015, its impunity, its roots in the “partiocracy” that emerged from the “Transition”, its penetration of the Judiciary, and the resulting disenchantment of the population—awakened from its apathy regarding such chicanery now that the economic boom that accompanied the construction of the new Spanish State-form has come to an end—which has led to attempts by political opportunists to rehabilitate the party system by forming new, vaguely progressive “civil society” parties and regional separatist movements, rather than recognizing that “corruption is not the exception, but is inscribed in the very nature of the system”.
The civil society plague: the middle class and its discontents – Miguel Amorós
A critical outline of the main features of the civil society or citizens’ movement, understood as a response of the managerial middle class to its ongoing proletarianization in the current crisis; its ideological basis, a “postmodern version of bourgeois radicalism”, its program, “consciously opportunist”, and its ranks filled with “careerist” tyros, it merely aims at a realignment of the party system of capitalism in order to resuscitate capitalist growth by means of an improved administration of the existing system combined with social democratic reforms whose goal is not socialism, but to “save the middle class” and to create jobs for large numbers of unemployed college graduates.
The question of centralisation - Karl Marx
Karl Marx writes on state power and centralisation.
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