Trade Unionist Extraordinary (1985)
From the November 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard Eugene V. Debs was born 130 years ago, on 5th November 1855. Although a member of the reformist socialist Party of America, in his speeches and...
View ArticleThe Mind of a Social Democrat (1966)
Book Review from the 1966 – number 5 issue of The Western Socialist The Accidental Century by Michael Harrington (New York: Macmillan Co., 1965) Next to the world-wide Moscovite movement, the largest...
View ArticleJoe Hill: songwriter to the working class (2000)
From the October 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard Eighty-five years ago, on 19 November 1915, Joe Hill, a rootless, unassuming migratory worker and member of the IWW, was executed by a five-man...
View ArticleCan the Tea Party save the American Dream? (2010)
From the December 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard The right-wing Tea Party movement is, according to some commentators, turning into a mass, ‘grassroots’ movement and revolutionising politics in...
View ArticleMarxism in the USA (1968)
Book Review from the December 1968 issue of theSocialist Standard Marxian Socialism in the United States, by Daniel Bell, Princeton University Press. 17s. 6d. This book, written over fifteen years...
View ArticleThe Yom Kippur War (1973)
From the 1973 – number 6 issue of The Western Socialist There are several ways of looking at a problem, depending upon one’s point of view. Take an example such as the latest Arab-Israeli War, the so...
View ArticleThe Theoretical System of Karl Marx (1968)
Book Review from the 1968 – number 3 issue ofThe Western Socialist The Theoretical System of Karl Marx by Louis B. Boudin, Monthly Review Press, $7.50 The reprint of this book, sans introduction and...
View ArticleA Rose by any other name (1954)
From the May-June 1954 issue of the Western Socialist We are all “socialists” now. Let us witness the parade: The Churchill Tory socialists, the French Radical Socialists, the totalitarian “socialist”...
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Vietnam and the anti-war movement (1966)
From the September 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard Vietnam will one day take its place beside Hiroshima and Auschwitz as an example of a time when the sickness of capitalism exploded into a kind...
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Law and Order in the U.S.A. (1968)
From the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard A member of the World Socialist Party of the US paints a somewhat frightening picture of politics in America If you saw it only on television and...
View ArticleSocialism as a Practical Alternative
A talk given at the Community Church of Boston on May 11, 2014 (with minor edits for context) Since the keyword in the title of my talk is “practical,” I’d like to kick things off with a little thought...
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Council Communist
Book Review from the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard ‘Marxism in a Lost Century: A Biography of Paul Mattick‘, by Gary Roth. Chicago. Haymarket Books, 2015 This biography will be of...
View ArticleWaste and want: Grapes of Wrath revisited
In his famous novel The Grapes of Wrath (Chapter 25), John Steinbeck described how food was destroyed during the Great Depression: Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people come for miles to...
View ArticleThe ‘democratic socialism’ of Bernie Sanders
To a socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is far and away the least distasteful of the current contenders for the American presidency. He seems decent and sincere. Although he is running in the Democratic...
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The insanity of coal mining
National Public Radio (NPR) and the Centre for Public Integrity (CPI) teamed up to produce a special investigative report on the increased incidence of black lung disease in coal miners. The results of...
View ArticleA TV program: The Sanity of Socialism
ARCHIVE: This is the script of a television program produced by members of our party and aired in Boston in 1975, reproduced from the journal of the WSPUS at that time — The Western Socialist. We have...
View ArticleStudy guide to Capital for the anti-capitalist. Introduction
You Don’t Need Marx to be an ‘Anti-Capitalist’ Why do we need to read Marx’s Capital? Or should I say: Why do you need to read Capital? And who do I think ‘you’ are, anyway? Well, let me tell you . . ....
View ArticleThe cause of and cure for climate disruption
There is a political dispute going on about climate change, global heating, or global climate disruption. The dispute, unfortunately, is not simply about what to call it but about whether ‘it’ is...
View ArticleThe World Socialist Party of the United States Turns 100
From the July 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard It is now just a century since the World Socialist Party established itself in the USA. Other such organizations arose at about the same time in...
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Bernie Sanders Bows Out
Having acquired less delegates than Hillary Clinton in the primaries, Bernie Sanders has endorsed her as the Democratic candidate for the US presidency in the elections in November. Even if had won the...
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