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FIRCROFT
COLLEGE,
BIRMINGHAM
SUMMER SCHOOL
The SPGB
Proudly Presents,
For Your Amazement And Amusement,
The Most
Noted Political Thinkers of the Last Century
Friday,13th
- Sunday,
15th
July 2007
At this year’s weekend of talks and
discussion, we turn the spotlight on the theories of some of the most
prominent thinkers of the last hundred years. What have we
learnt, and what should we learn from them?
The ideas of philosopher and sociologist
Jurgen Habermas
Speaker: Simon Wigley
An introduction to an influential family:
Thomas, Julian & Aldous Huxley
Speaker: Richard Headicar
The work of anthropologist and humanist
Ashley Montagu
Speaker: Adam Buick
A reappraisal of the journalism and novels of
George Orwell
Speaker: Mike Foster
An account of the life of the intellectual property
activist Richard Stallman
Speaker: Tristan Miller
Full attendance: £110. Concessionary rate: £55. Includes
accommodation and food.
To book, send your name, address and a cheque for £10 (payable to
The Socialist Party of
Great Britain) to Ron Cook,
11 Dagger Lane, West Bromwich,
B7 4BT. Booking enquiries
to Ron at yes-utopia@blueyonder.co.uk
or 0121 533 1712
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Swansea
Tuesday 10 July 7.3 0pm
Can Capitalism Ever be Green?
Speaker: Brian Johnson
Unitarian Church, High St (next to
Argos).
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West
London
Tuesday 17 July 9 pm
Discussion on Global Warming
Chiswick Town Hall,
Heathfield Terrace,W4.
Nearest tube: Chiswick Park
MANCHESTER
Monday 23 July, 8.30pm
'Immigration'
Hare and Hounds, Shudehill, City Centre
East Anglia
Saturday 28
July, 12 noon-4pm
12 noon: informal discussion/branch
business
1 pm: meal
2 pm: informal discussion (continued)
The Conservatory, back room of Rosary
Tavern, Rosary Rd, Norwich.
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Socialists
and the Press
WE
LIVE IN WHAT IS CLAIMED to be a “free country,” where there is
“free expression of opinion,” but this must not be taken
literally. It does not mean that anyone can say or write just what he
likes. The Official Secrets Act and the libel laws cut off
considerable areas of expression, into which you trespass at your
peril. Much greater restriction arises because we live in a money
world, in which capacity to make views known depends largely on what
you can afford to pay. If your resources run into hundreds of
thousands or millions pounds, you can publish the Daily Worker,
Daily Express, etc.: if not you may have to be
content with a
monthly journal. But what about the possibility of the “free”
expression of varied points of view in the columns of those and other
journals with the big circulations? This again is a very narrowly
circumscribed possibility when it is a question of securing publicity
for a minority and not popular point of view, such as that of the
S.P.G.B. When daily newspapers misreport matters of concern to us, or
when they refuse to publish our letters or advertisements, there is
no remedy—and this notwithstanding the existence of the Press
Council, which is supposed to keep an eye on the conduct of the
Press.
(From
front page article by ‘H’, Socialist Standard, July 1957)
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Declaration of
Principles
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Object
and
Declaration
of
Principles
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This
declaration is the basis of our organisation and,
because it is also an important historical document dating from the
formation of the party in 1904, its original language has been retained. |
Object
The
establishment of a system of society
based
upon
the common ownership and democratic control of the means and
instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the
interest of the whole community.
The
Socialist Party of Great
Britain holds
1.
That society
as at present
constituted is
based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories,
railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class,and the consequent
enslavement of the working class,
by whose labour alone wealth is produced.
2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of
interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who
possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.
3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the
emancipation
of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the
conversion into the common property of society of the means of
production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole
people.
4.
That as in the
order of social
evolution the
working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the
emancipation of the working class will involve the
emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.
5.That
this emancipation
must be the
work of the working class itself.
6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed
forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the
capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working
class must organize consciously and politically for the conquest
of the
powers of government, national and local, in order that this
machinery,
including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of
oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow
of
privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.
7.
That as all
political parties are but
the
expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class
is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of all
sections of the the master class, the party seeking working class
emancipation must be hostile to every other party.
8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters
the field of political action determined to wage war against all other
political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and
calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster
under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to
the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that
poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery
to freedom.
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Socialist Party |
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