Date: July 24, 2017 Author: Paul Cockshott I shall be elaborating on the following theses: The inability of 20th century socialism to progress to communism led to the crisis of the USSR. Communism requires a definite stage of development of technology. This stage was only reached at the very end of the 20th century. But this problem […]
Big Data and Super-Computers: foundations of Cyber Communism Read More »
Date: May 6, 2019Author: Paul Cockshott I have produced a couple of videos recently on the danger posed by global warming. This is something that I have been concerned with since about 1977 when I wrote a report for the shop stewards committee at GEC Trafford Park, called Workers’ Power. It was for the shop
No to carbon taxes! Read More »
Date: September 9, 2019Author: Paul Cockshott Last week I discussed the issue of slave reparations in the USA in the abstract. I now want to look at it more concretely, to put figures to it. I will be analysing just how much surplus labour was plausibly extracted from slaves in the USA from shortly after
Calculating Slave Reparations in Dollars Read More »
Date: December 1, 2017 Author: Paul Cockshott Marxian socialists have long been opponents of prostitution aiming to eliminate it once they came to power. Kollontai[1]speaking well before the cant about sex work had been invented, and in an early socialist, rather than capitalist, economy understood very clearly why it exists in capitalist countries and why
Socialists can never support prostitution Read More »
Date: March 10, 2019Author: Paul Cockshott 1 Capitalism Class society The most important thing about capitalism is that it is a class system. It is a society based on class hierarchy dominated by a rich upper class. Like any class system it is unequal. Like any class system it is based on exploitation, on majority working
Choose the future, choose socialism. Read More »
Date: August 29, 2017Author: Paul Cockshott It is today taken as almost axiomatic that the left supports the LGTB cause. It came therefore, as a surprise to me to find a communist journalist Gearoid O Colmain arguing that homosexuals, far from constituting a persecuted minority, are in fact key protagonists of the ruling class and
Class and the LGTB Lobby Read More »
Date: June 14, 2018Author: Paul Cockshott Allin and I have at times been criticised for proposing the use of labour time accounting in Towards a New Socialism . Surely, people have said, you can not use abstract labour in a socialist economy since abstract labour is a specific historical phenomenon of capitalism? The idea that under
Abstract labour and socialism Read More »
Date: March 5, 2017Author: Paul Cockshott The term law of value has exoteric and esoteric meanings. The exoteric or superficial meaning is that in capitalist type economy, relative labour values will act as an attractor for relative prices. The more esoteric meaning is that the distribution relations in all societies are constrained by the distribution
Why law of value really applies in socialist economies Read More »
Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski Mega-companies like Amazon and Walmart are already using large-scale central planning. We can wield that tool for good. Socialists need to renew our embrace of democratic planning and fight for a real alternative to capitalism. The latest book in our Jacobin Books series with Verso, The People’s Republic of Walmart:
Yes, A Planned Economy Can Actually Work Read More »
Paul Cockshott 28 Nov 19 In early November I was presenting a talk on planning algorithms to the Historical materialism conference in London. A major theme of the conference was historical materialism in the context of the climate crisis. One thing that struck me at the meeting was that people seem to be underestimating the
Proposal for collaborative project to work on green 5 year plan Read More »