IMAGINE Autumn 2020

New journal ‘World Socialist’

The World Socialist Party of the United States is excited to announce the first issue of its new quarterly journal, World Socialist. It contains articles on the coronavirus pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests, the US–China confrontation, the presidential election, ‘human nature,’ the Wall Street bombing of 1920, revolution in ancient Anatolia, ‘How I became a […]

After shipwreck

William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies describes how boys marooned on a deserted island descend into ‘savagery.’ But here is a true story of real boys in the same situation who behaved quite differently.

Mind your own business, Mr. Goodman!

Ventilators at a hospital have defective valves. A helpful neighbor replaces the valves and saves at least ten lives. For doing so he is at risk of being sued. Why?

Homelessness in North America

Canada and the United States are supposedly among the world’s wealthiest countries. Yet many people in those countries are homeless, while at the same time many homes are left empty.

River Silence

40,000 indigenous people have been forced off their land along the Xingu River in order to build a dam. Who gives a damn?

War with Iran? Teetering on the brink

Strictly speaking, the United States is already at war with Iran. By the rules of international law, the drone attack that killed General Soleimani and other high-ranking figures was an act of war. Iran will now retaliate against an American asset. How long can this crazy game of tit for tat go on without triggering […]

Fire on 9th Street

A lethal fire at an apartment block in a poor neighborhood of Las Vegas was in the news recently. An accident or a predictable result of the business of letting housing accommodation for profit?

A Ray of Socialist Hope

The World Socialist Movement (WSM) was founded to strive for a better world with an economy based on common ownership. Today, however, socialism has  been equated with state wage-slavery. The absence of private companies or individual capitalists, being substituted by government ownership or control, is now viewed as “socialism”.  The term “socialism” has long been associated with the USSR and although it was never socialist, we keep on […]

The Hope of Humanity

“The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not you and I.” Karl Liebknecht Whoever travels across the world can see the magnificence of its beauty and will also encounter its bountiful natural resources in sufficient abundance to adequately supply the needs of all. It could be a paradise for people. But our planet is not a paradise for the […]

One World, One Humanity

Society cannot exist without the working-class. It is the working-class which puts into operation the world’s formidable know-how and technology. Yet the riches collectively produced are appropriated by individual capitalists. Socialism is not a reform, it is a revolution. We are not reformers — we are revolutionaries.We mean by revolutionary the capture of political power by the working class as […]

COMMUNISM, SOCIALISM: ANY DIFFERENCE?

The World Socialist Movement, like Marx and Engels, use the names “communism” and “socialism” to mean the same relation of production. Marx and Engels had used the two names alternately to signify the post-revolutionary democratic world system of “cooperative”, “communal”, or universal ownership. Why they preferred communist identity at the beginning of their studies and organization whilst socialist at the end remains well stated in […]

One Humanity. A World Without Borders

We live on a planet which has the potential to adequately feed, house and provide clean water and decent medical care for every single man, woman and child.  The resources exist to banish poverty and squalor forever. World socialism could end hunger immediately, and provide the conditions for material security for all within a very short time. Our capabilities are […]

We Are The World Socialist Movement

Month after month, year after year, our fellow-workers appear to be satisfied with the capitalist system — or perhaps too apathetic —to want to put an end to it. They seem to look with an almost fatalistic resignation upon its continuance, despite  having to suffer the anxieties and indignities of that system. Workers feel powerless to deal with the vital questions […]

Lest We Forget

We cannot let March pass away without a reference to an event of great significance in the history of the working class movement. 2021’s March has some important dates in socialist history. In Germany it is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Luxemburg and a hundred years since the abortive March Action by the Communist […]

Sex in a free society

From the Winter 1985-6 issue of the World Socialist It is a myth to believe that only the wealthy suffer from sexual and neurotic problems. My work as a Reichian psychotherapist allows me a glimpse of people’s private lives, their joys and their misery. There is an enormous amount of shame, self-loathing and guilt. Some feel […]

Marx and Keynes

From the November-December 1955 issue of the Western Socialist Classical economy, whose beginning is usually traced to Adam Smith, found its best expression and also its end in David Ricardo. Ricardo, as Marx wrote, “made the antagonism of class-interest, of wages and profits, of profits and rent, the starting-point of his investigation, naively taking this antagonism […]

 A Modern Fairy Tale

Palace in Blunderland From the February 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard Once upon a time there was. a strange world called Bluuderland. In this world there was a palace in which there lived Baron Butrich. He wore the most costly clothes, and adorned himself with bejewelled rings on his fat fingers, and a sparkling tie-pin in […]