A review of William Clare Roberts, Marx’s Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital (Princeton University Press, 2017), £27.95. Marx’s Inferno by William Clare Roberts seems unsure what kind of book it is supposed to be. On the one hand, it… Continue Reading
For many people the only association they have with the work of Robert Burns is singing Auld Lang Syne at New Year celebrations or at annual Burns Supper events. The real Burns, the radical, revolutionary Burns, is rarely even hinted… Continue Reading
From the early summer to the early winter of 2017 several industrial action campaigns were making the news, both nationally and at more regional and local levels. Rail workers employed by Mersey Rail, Northern Rail and Southern Rail were mounting… Continue Reading
A review of Raj Patel and Jason W Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet (University of California Press, 2017), £19.95. Every airport bookstore features books… Continue Reading
How did the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), loyal to the Soviet Union deep into the second half of the 20th century, react to a social revolution in 1974-5? The moments are rare when we can study workers’ revolutions in a… Continue Reading
Marx remains the essential base of any adequate study of history, because—so far—he alone has attempted to formulate a methodological approach to history as a whole, and to envisage and explain the entire process of human social evolution. In this… Continue Reading
In the first ten years of independence in Africa, even leaders of states that were not explicitly Marxist expressed an allegiance to socialism and an admiration for the Soviet Union. This included many famous leaders of independent Africa: Gamal Abdel… Continue Reading
The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States crystallised fears among sections of the financial elite that the world economy was beginning to spin towards a new era of protectionism. During his campaign Trump used rhetoric that… Continue Reading