Socialist Standard December 2009 Vol.105 Issue
No.1264. (Published since 1904)
Journal of the Socialist
Party of
Great Britain - Companion party of the World Socialist Movement
Graphics
version PDF version
| Introduction
to
the SPGB | Back
Issues |
Contents
Regulars
|
Editorial |
Contact
Details | Meetings
|
Cooking
the
Books
1 | Cooking
the
Books 2 | Pathfinders |
Material
World | Pieces
Together | Tiny
Tips | Book
Reviews | 50
Years Ago | Greasy
Pole | Voice
from the Back |
Cartoons
|
The
Irate Itinerant | Free
Lunch |
Features
Down
and out in
Mayfair
We still live in a society that if
you don’t have the ability to pay
you ‘goes’without.
Paying fuel bills can be hard at the
best of times but you are twice as likely to fall into fuel poverty if
you’ve recently been treated for cancer, according to new research from
Macmillan Cancer Support. Following diagnosis, three-quarters of cancer
patients in active treatment need to use their heating more, yet those
under 60 do not qualify for any help to pay for it. Fuel poverty –
having to spend more than 10 percent of your income on heating – is a
relatively new phenomenon that is beginning to grip Britain faster than
the spread of swine flu and serves as the cold reminder that we still
live in a society that if you don’t have the ability to pay you go
without...Read >
Capitalism
and food security – an oxymoron
Food security for all the people of
the world will only be possible
when the profit motive is taken out of food supply.
It's official! Now more than one billion people are hungry and in
desperate need of food aid according to the World Food Programme. To
meet this need $6.7 billion will be required this year alone (of which
less than half has been raised so far). $6.7 billion equates to less
than 0.01 percent of that heaped on the needy banks and corporations
during the recent and ongoing financial crisis.
But help is at hand, at least for Africa's hungry millions, in the form
of a New Green Revolution courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. Or is it? ...Read >
How I got to be a socialist
“… I came to know about ‘mine’ and
‘thine’ but always preferred
‘our’.”
At the age of 5 I had never heard the word “socialist”, but something
happened on my first day at school that suggested I was one. ...Read
The world around you
Someone employs you, and you work for
them, and they control a big part
of your waking hours.
Look around you at the world you live in. You may live in a scenic but
desperately dull village, or in a lively but overcrowded city. You
travel to your work, which is a mixture of routine and interest, and
you enjoy a drink and a laugh with your work colleagues. Or you stay at
home, concentrating on housework and childcare. Or you wish you could
find a job but there are far more people searching for work than there
are jobs....Read >
Too
good to be true
We are conditioned to accept the
absurdities and contradictions that
capitalism throws up.
It is possible now to build a world where every single human being is
adequately provided with the material means of a full and happy life in
a truly meaningful democratic society; where there is no such thing as
world hunger; where wars and armaments no longer exist; where all have
access to the knowledge and information they desire and where the
system of rich and poor, the brutal class system that alienates human
beings from one another, is a historical memory....Read >
Debating
the “S-Word”
Is any word more over-used and
misunderstood today than “socialism”?
In the United States, the “S-word” appears in almost every other
sentence uttered by Republicans, who depict the Democratic Party as
marching – or at least creeping – towards socialism.
“Socialist” has replaced “liberal” in their vocabulary as an insult to
hurl at political opponents, while the meaning remains unchanged as a
term to indicate an advocate of government intervention in production
and the social infrastructure. ..Read
On
modern life: Eric Fromm
“Capitalistic society is based on the
principle of political freedom on
the one hand, and of the market as the regulator of all economic, hence
social, relations, on the other. The commodity market determines the
conditions under which commodities are exchanged, the labour market
regulates the acquisition and sale of labour. Both useful things and
useful energy and skill are transformed into commodities which are
exchanged without the use of force and without fraud under the
conditions of the market.” ..Read
Produced
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published
by
the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High
Street, London SW4 7UN