Author: alanjjohnstone
Introducing the WSP(NZ)
Formerly known as the Socialist Party of New Zealand and founded in 1930 although its roots go well back into the dawning of socialist ideas in these islands, the World Socialist Party (New Zealand) clings to existence in the age of the internet. A new website promises to be the gateway for the revival of its socialist ideas…
Anti-Nationalism 2/3
“The nationality of the toilers is neither French nor English nor German; it is toil, free slavery, sale of the self. His government is neither French nor English nor German; it is Capital. His native air is neither French nor German nor English; it is the air of the factory. The land which belongs to…
Anti-Nationalism 1/3
Socialists assert the primacy of the working class struggle over all others. The working class has no allies among the capitalist of any country. The battle lines may not be clearly demarcated in this era of media sound bites and dis-information but there is no question that the real struggle is between capital and labour….
Understanding the WSM 3/3
Impossiblism or Possiblism – Which Shall It Be? Two International Congresses took place in Paris in 1889. This was originally due to an internal struggle within the French movement between the “Possibilists”, the “Marxists,” or the Impossiblists, represent Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue. William Morris in his address to the Marxist Congress explained: “We are striving for is a…
Understanding the WSM 2/3
Rally, all you workers The World Socialist Movement (WSM) seeks to re-establish the genuine meaning of socialism. We are not arguing that the absence of the market is the sole defining feature of socialism. On the contrary, socialism is not merely a society without a market system, it is also a state-free society, a class-free society, a money-free society, a wageless society. Nothing…
Understanding the WSM 1/3
Our Impossiblism “Impossiblism” is basically the view that a socialist party should only seek support on the basis of socialism and the abolition of the wages system and not possess any programme of immediate or transitional demands. It is the view that socialism can only arise when a majority of workers want and understand it. Our task as a socialist party…
How will we abolish war?
“Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.” Tennyson Capitalism has again plunged the people of the world into carnage and slaughter. It is good that workers are prepared to demonstrate their international solidarity, but it should be a demonstration of real and understanding solidarity. To…
Capitalist War or Socialist Peace?
Ukraine in rubble, men engaged in butchery with women sobbing and children in tears. The mad orgy of destruction which is now convulsing unfortunate Ukraine was caused by the conflict of capitalist interests. This was anticipated, by World Socialist Movement(WSM), we just did not know exactly when or where. There was little doubt today’s horror had been permanently incubating within capitalism as it was…
Class war 3/3
Hope and Change Unions use collective bargaining to improve levels of workplace justice for union members. Without unions, workers are reduced to a commodity that bosses can purchase as cheaply as they can possible. Left to its own devices, capitalism will concentrate money and power in the hands of a few and wealth inequality grows ever…
A Declaration of War against War
НЕТВОЙНЕ – NO WAR As war wages in Ukraine, it is well that the World Socialist Movement explains its attitude towards war. The Russian side wants us to believe that this war is a war for the defence of the people of the Donbas and against fascism, and the Ukrainian side seeks to convince us to believe that…