SPGB now online in Discord – Audio talks – Meetings – Debates
Forthcoming events for September 2020 here >
Visitors are very welcome and are free to join any online Discord meeting just as they would be free to attend any physical meeting by the Socialist Party or its companion parties.
If you’d like to drop in and chat to us online, or come to one of our talks or other events.
Contact Forum Admin for special invite or email spgb@worldsocialism.org‘.
Check our Audio page for some recordings of these talks.
Whether you are new to socialist ideas or not, these links provide both introductory as well as in -depth analyses
|Welcome| |What is capitalism?| |What is socialism?| |Reform or revolution?|
|The Case for Socialism| |In Depth articles| |Study Guides| |A-Z of Marxism|
No. 1393 September 2020
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| Socialist Standard September 2020 PDF |
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| The Socialist Standard is a monthly socialist newspaper published without interruption since 1904 by the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
Socialist Standard Archives
The newspaper is written in a simple, direct style and focuses mainly on socialist advocacy and Marxian analysis of current events, particularly those affecting the United Kingdom from 1904 until the present.. |
Features |
‘Made in Leicester’People often associate sweatshop conditions in the clothing industry with Bangladesh or Cambodia but one consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic has been to reveal garment factories in Leicester which can very easily be described as sweatshops. .. Read |
A is for Alpha |
 The UK news media always has a bun fight over the annual August A-level results, but this year’s turned into a bigger furore than usual. With schools closed due to Covid the exams had to be replaced by estimated grades based on the students’ but also the schools’ track records, in order to replicate the year-on-year average. Objections rapidly mounted that this ‘locked in’ existing biases which excluded talented outliers and underprivileged schools that had previously been making fast progress..Read |
Selfishness |
 A common objection to the realisation of socialism is that it’s a nice idea, but contrary to human nature. This presupposes that there is a human quality fixed for all time acting as a prophylactic to prevent people collectively achieving a more benign society. Motivated by self-interest, individuals will act against the common interest.
There is more than a little anecdotal evidence for this being the case. Many a survey has declared that voters are prepared to pay higher taxes to better fund the NHS. Come election day, secluded in the polling booth, many then vote for the party offering tax cuts…read |
Capitalism and Democracy : Part 1 |
 Capitalism’s relationship to democracy is similar to a conversation in a film set in apartheid South Africa, where a lawyer addressing a client described the relationship between the law and justice in general as being similar to distant cousins who were not on speaking terms. Capitalism, as we know, is a world-wide system. However, the type of political system that underpins it differs in various parts of the world. In many places it operates on the basis of what are clearly totalitarian regimes, although even here terms such as ‘Peoples’ Assembly’, as in China, try to create the illusion that it contains democratic features...Read |
What do protests signify and why so many? |
 Just what is wrong with the world today, so wrong that there are huge numbers of protests in numerous countries with millions of people crying out for change? Some of these protests get much publicity, others in different parts of the world are rarely heard of except locally. A brief search on the internet for protests will supply reams of information from countries many people from the West will not be able to point to on a map, let alone be aware of the protest and its purpose – but they are there in great numbers and appear to be growing annually...Read |
Imperialism Part 2: Super-profits and the labour aristocracy
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Lenin’s theory of the ‘weakest link’ led him to believe a ‘socialist proletarian revolution’ would most likely occur first in parts of the world still transitioning towards full capitalism, not the advanced capitalist countries themselves. Partly, this arose from his belief that a stratum of workers in the latter – the ‘labour aristocracy’ – had been ‘bribed’ into supporting capitalism out of imperialist ‘super-profits’ produced by a super-exploited colonial workforce. ..Read |
Crime and Capital |
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At the beginning of July, it was loudly trumpeted in the media that hundreds of people had been arrested in operations across Europe. It was a directed strike at organised crime groups, enabled by French police compromising the communication servers of a company called Enchrochat, which offered secure encrypted communications. Believing themselves safe from police surveillance the criminal entrepreneurs using its services were caught planning drugs deals, kidnappings and murders. ..Read |
Population growth: women choose |
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Reviews
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Click on images for individual reviews. |
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Click on images for individual reviews. |
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