Category: Sociology
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I recently reached something of a milestone in my career. In April this year, I passed the point at which I had been in full-time employment for exactly 20 years. I have done a variety of jobs during that time, but all of them have involved the same kind of work: setting up spreadsheets, writing…
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I often go and sell copies of The Socialist newspaper in my local town on a Saturday morning, as do many of my comrades in the Socialist Party. One of the things we have noticed recently is that more and more young people are approaching our stalls with concerns about education and employment. These people…
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A brutal daylight knife attack on two Jewish men in north London last month has raised fears amongst British Jews. The attacker is reported to have a history of violence and also stabbed a Muslim man earlier that day. In response to these attacks – specifically the two on the Jewish men – the Joint…
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In recent times, right-wing parties have attempted to whip up transphobia as a way to create division amongst ordinary people. However oppression, harassment, and bullying of LGBTQ+ people are nothing new. LGBTQ+ people have faced persecution for centuries; but they also have a proud history of standing up against such persecution. This has led to…
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US and Israeli missiles are currently raining down on Iran. Neither Donald Trump nor Benjamin Netenyahu are motivated by ending the suffering of the Iranian people, despite what they might claim. Instead, both are motivated by distracting the citizens of their respective nations from their growing disaffection. Reports are emerging that the US is attempting…
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A recent post on twitter caught my attention as I thought it perfectly summed up the absurdity of the working world. The post went like this: “Wake up early to go to a job you don’t care about. Work all day doing things that don’t matter to you, for people who wouldn’t care if you…
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The Epstein files are currently in the news. These files comprise 6 million pages of documents, images, and videos detailing the criminal activities of American financier and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his social circle of public figures, which included politicians and celebrities. Three days ago over 3 million pages from these files…
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It’s end-of-year review time at the company where I work. This is always a stressful time and one which inevitably leads to disappointment for many people, particularly those who don’t get the rating / pay rise / promotion they were hoping for. Thankfully I am not one of them, having long ago given up any…
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We Marxists talk about class a lot. Specifically, we like to talk at length about how under capitalism there exists two classes – the working class and the capitalist class – whose interests are diametrically opposed. But is this really true? In order to answer that question, we first need to define what we mean…
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The political situation across the Western world is looking pretty grim right now. In the US, far-right populist and wingnut Donald Trump recently began his second term as president and seems even more unhinged now than he did the first time round. In the UK, Nigel Farage’s far-right populist political party, Reform, is currently ahead…
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Marxists often claim that workers are exploited under capitalism. In fact this is usually considered a central tenet of Marxism. But what exactly do we mean by ‘exploited’? In this blog post I will attempt to provide a rigorous definition (actually three rigorous definitions). To kick things off, consider an economy which produces m commodities…
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Capitalism is a system that requires continuous growth. Under capitalism, firms must compete to survive, which means they need to constantly expand and increase profits. To understand why this is so, we need to consider how firms operate. Any firm needs to invest before it can make a profit, and in order to invest, it…
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The UK’s new left-wing party, provisionally called ‘Your Party’, still hasn’t officially launched yet, but already cracks are beginning to show. The bone of contention appears to be the question of the new party’s stance on Zionism. The dispute seems to have been sparked by Zara Sultana’s recent Twitter proclamation that she is anti-Zionist. This…
Groucho Marxism 