The following articles are recommended for those new to socialism and the World Socialist Movement. For more in-depth socialist analysis of particular topics, please visit our main archive of articles on this site and on the this page on Socialist Party of Great Britain website.
- What is capitalism?
- It is often assumed that capitalism, the social system in which we now live, has existed forever, or at least for most of human history. In fact, capitalism is a relatively new social system. But what exactly does ‘capitalism’ mean?
- Revolution or reform?
- It seems obvious that something must be done about capitalism. But what? Can capitalism be made to work differently? Or must there be a social revolution to replace capitalism with some other society?
- The problems of reformism
- An examination of how some reform legislation has fared in capitalism.
- What is socialism?
- Socialism means a global system of social organization based on common ownership, democratic control by all, production for use, and free access.
- It’s a nice idea, but could it work?
- “It’s a nice idea but it will never happen” is one of the most common responses to the suggestion that it is in our interests to work towards building a socialist society. The assumption is that socialism will rely upon everybody being altruistic, sacrificing their own interests for those of others. But socialism would actually involve the majority of people recognising their common interests.
- Introducing the World Socialist Movement
- The WSM is a global socialist movement that believes capitalism cannot meet the needs of the majority of us, the workers (or proletariat) of the world, no matter how progressive it might become in the future. To meet these needs we contend that capitalism must be replaced by socialism.
- Object and Declaration of Principles of the World Socialist Movement
- The Object and Declaration of Principles is the basis of our organization. This annotated version includes explanations of what the Object and each Principle means to us.
- How the World Socialist Movement is different from other groups
- A comparison of the differences between the WSM and other so-called “socialist” organizations, including followers of Lenin, Trotsky, and De Leon.
- Assumption and ignorance versus reason and reality
- Our response to a correspondent who apparently chose not to read the literature sent to him, or assumed that the literature did not represent the actual ideas of the World Socialist Movement.