Date: December 26, 2019 Author: Paul Cockshott The case of Maya Forstater, which as already widely reported in the UK press gained further prominence after famous Scottish author Joanne (K) Rowling tweeted in support of her: Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your […]
Maya Forstater and Tony Blair’s post truth era Read More »
Date: May 4, 2020Author: Paul Cockshott This is not a new post but a corrected transcript of a talk given by me, as one of the Worker’s Party of Scotland representatives to the Open Polemic Conference about 25 years ago. Open Polemic was a journal that was formed in the wake of the Soviet collapse
Historical materialism and the repudiation of subjectivism Read More »
Date: May 7, 2020Author: Paul Cockshott There is a recent currently fashionable idea that Marx did not put forward a labour theory of value. I am surprised at how often I have come across this view over the last 20 years or so. Up until late 20th century, say until the fall of the USSR,
Defending the labour theory of value again Read More »
Date: June 18, 2020Author: Paul Cockshott Back in 2010 the materialist historian Turchin predicted in an article in Nature that 2020 would see a major outbreak of social disorder in the USA. His work distinguished between the long term stress that a society experiences and short term triggers. The long term stress predisposes a state
Date: August 20th, 2020Author: Rob Gowland As you have no doubt noticed, American leaders are fond of proclaiming their devotion to “human rights”. They have to say “human rights” because if they called them “democratic rights” – as they should – it would raise too many awkward questions. Questions like, if the US is such
Date: 20th August, 2020Author: Rob Gowland Or perhaps the heading should more correctly be “The Renewed Cold War”, for the original Cold War against the USSR never really ended. How could it? After all, it was simply a manifestation of the class war between capital and labour, between bosses and workers. And that won’t end
Did you see that bitter warning by Hilary Clinton to the American people to make sure that they reject Donald Trump by a very substantial margin because “otherwise you can get three million more votes than him and still lose the election”? She speaks from experience of course, but hers was not the first US
Date: 29th August, 2020Author: Rob Gowland In Orson Welles’ cinema classic Citizen Kane, newspaper magnate Kane runs for Governor. He has two headlines prepared: one optimistically trumpets, “KANE WINS”. In the event, he loses and has to use the other: “FRAUD AT POLLS” I was reminded of this by the recent goings on in the
Hands Off Belarus! Read More »
Julian Assange is clearly fearful of what might happen to him if British authorities yield to pressure form Washington and extradite him to the USA. And he has good reason to be fearful. He faces a very long stretch in the hideous horror of an American maximum security prison if he is convicted there. Assange,
Assange Extradition Farce Read More »