Author: alanjjohnstone
The Socialist Ecotopia
The problems of food safety are well-known. In China the baby formula scandal of 2008 hundreds of infants died or fell seriously ill. There have been several seizures of fake meat by police, the most notorious of which, in September 2013, involved the discovery of more than 20,000 kg of chemically treated pork which had…
We’re A’ Jock Tamson’s Bairns*
A nation is not a natural community that existed before the state, but that it’s the other way round: the state existed first and then proceeded to impose on those it ruled over the idea that they formed a “nation”. States pre-existed and in a very real sense created nations. Nations are groups of people ruled…
Internationalism of the Labour Movement
“Whatever national differences divide Poles, Russians, Prussians, Hungarians, and Italians, these national differences have not prevented the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian despots uniting together to maintain their tyranny; why, then, cannot countries unite for obtainment of their liberty? The cause of the people in all countries is the same—the cause of Labour, enslaved, and plundered…In…
Keeping It In The Human Family
The most common rebuttal of socialist society is that it is impossible to achieve because “you can’t change human nature.” Some people think that socialism sounds great but will never work in practice. They say it would only work in a world of perfect people. What socialists set out to prove is that not only…
The Impossiblist’s Way
“There are but three ways for people to escape their wretched lot. The first is via the liquor-store, the second is the path of the temple; but the third is by way of the social revolution.” – Bakunin In a land of 1.3 billion, an organisation of a dozen or so members which has never contested an…
The American Civil War And Marx
From 1861 to 1865 about 620,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. One estimate of the death toll is that ten percent of all Northern males 20–45 years old, and 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40 perished. It was perhaps one of the bloodiest wars in U. S history. Not…
Steady-State Socialism
In 1923 the communist activist Sylvia Pankhurst opened an article with the declaration that “Socialism means plenty for all. We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance…We do not call for limitation of births, for penurious thrift, and self-denial. We call for a great production that will supply all, and…
What’s Left of Reformism?
If there is one thing the employing class is more afraid of than anything else it is the possibility of the workers accepting the idea embodied in the term “social revolution”. Revolutionaries are described as wild visionaries, utopia builders, and so on. In the not-so-distant past, the labour and social-democrat parties did talk in terms…
Utopian Dreamers?
You may say I’m a dreamerBut I’m not the only oneI hope someday you will join usAnd the world will be as one John Lennon Is it possible to mobilise people to fight oppression without fashioning models for a socialist economy for people to fasten on to? The capitalist slogan ‘There is No Alternative’ was…
Who Needs Leaders?
In 1916, in Everett, Washington State, USA, a ferry filled with Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) free-speech activists attempted to dock and was met by the local sheriff, along with his armed deputies. According to lore, when the sheriff asked, “Who are your leaders?” the response from the ferry was a shout from everyone…