Summer School 2021

A socialist society will only come about when a sizeable majority of people worldwide want it and democratically and co-operatively work towards it. As such, it can only happen after many of today’s attitudes have changed, once people have rejected capitalism and its institutions of states, employment, money and classes. Instead of the dead-ends of reformism and division, society will be working together to make a world which satisfies everyone’s self-determined needs and wants.We can’t say anything certain about what life would be like in a socialist world. That’s for the people at the time to decide, and would vary between communities and regions. How things run will also be shaped by future advancements in technology, and also by what environmental damage has been inherited from capitalism. Although we can only speculate, we can say that a socialist society could only succeed by being based on the principles of equality, democracy and voluntary co-operation.

This weekend of talks and discussion is an opportunity to imagine some of the possibilities of this new world. How might decisions be made? What kind of job roles would we have, and what would motivate us? How might friends and families spend time together? How would free access to goods and services work in practice? And how would we balance a world of abundance with safeguarding the environment?

Friday 7pm BST
Socialist Recipes
Richard Field
Humanity makes its own history, and socialists in the process of building a post-capitalist society will make choices based on what they believe to be possible and desirable. The success of the socialist project will rest in some measure on the choices made. So what arguments can we make now to ensure a positive outcome?

Saturday 10am BST
New News From Nowhere
Glenn Morris
In 1890 William Morris wrote the utopian novel News from Nowhere in which one William Guest fell asleep and awoke in a socialist society. Glenn will focus on a few areas of what life in a socialist society might look like today over 100 years since Morris’ novel.

Saturday 2pm BST
Do Utopias And Works Of Sci-Fi Offer Appealing Visions Of A Socialist World?
Leon Rozanov
Are there any works of fiction that offer a vision of an appealing and realistic future socialist society where one really wants to start living right away?

Saturday 6.45pm BST
Town Planning For Socialist Living
Carla Dee
What could a town high street, village or city look like in a post-capitalist world? What would or wouldn’t be needed and wanted? This is your chance to be designers and planners of our new world – all you need bring to this session is your imagination.
Note: this event may not be live streamed

Sunday 10am BST
Socialist Decision Making And The Rule Of Three
Paddy Shannon
In the past the World Socialist Movement has favoured delegate democracy as the decision-making model most likely to be adopted in a future socialist society. But that was before modern online communications made direct democracy a real possibility. Though attractive in theory, it sounds like chaos in practice. Who would get to vote on what, and on whose say-so? But actually the entire thing might be managed by the application of just three rules, backed by the same ethical principle that applies across every other sphere of socialist life: from each according to ability, to each according to need.