{"id":262065,"date":"2025-12-16T15:52:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/?page_id=262065"},"modified":"2025-12-16T15:52:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:52:49","slug":"january-2026","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/january-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"January 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Are we slaves?<\/h3>April 1, 2026<\/small>

Referring to employment as wage slavery is sometimes seen as an exaggeration. After all people who work for a wage or salary are not owned by other individuals and their labour is not enforced by law and violence. <\/p>\n

Capitalism is seen as providing freedom. But is it anything more than an appearance of freedom? While you are free to walk away from your job, you can\u2019t walk away from the need to survive, the need for food and shelter. That\u2019s what makes you a wage slave. The system holds you in place not with chains of iron as in the past but with chains of necessity. Only the cooperative, moneyless, free access society that socialists advocate will remove those chains.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

Stealing the common from off the goose \u2026<\/h3>March 25, 2026<\/small>

The UK government has just published the first ever Land Use Framework for England<\/a>, in which joined-up thinking, better mapping tools, and free access to ownership data will supposedly rationalise legacy chaos so that “land can support house building and infrastructure, a resilient food system, climate mitigation and thriving nature.”<\/p>\n

The framework enthuses about community consultation and partnerships but never, of course, questions the very idea of ownership. 10 percent of land is held in secret and just 8 percent of England is public access. Capitalists got their start by stealing the land off the people, worldwide, forcing generations to live as landless wage-slaves. We will never be free until we take the land and other resources back and abolish capitalist ownership laws.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

If only …<\/h3>March 18, 2026<\/small>

… there existed an international organisation that could protect the world against the scourge of war, that acted in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, that settled international disputes by peaceful means.<\/p>\n

Wait … there\u2019s been one around since 1945, called the UN. But its solemn Charter<\/a>, from which we nicked the verbiage above, is just fantasy. The real world under capitalism<\/a> is better described by a nasty piece of work, Stephen Miller, who seems to have a big say in US policy at present:<\/p>\n

\u201ctalk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world … governed by strength … by force …by power.”<\/p>\n

Yep, under capitalism. might is right.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

Unhealthy Living<\/h3>March 11, 2026<\/small>

The ONS recently reported<\/a> that there had been small increases in life expectancy in the UK since the 2019\u201321 period. However, it also revealed that in 2022\u201324 there had been decreases in healthy life expectancy (HLE) since the previous period. <\/p>\n

HLE is the number of years that people can expect to spend in \u2018good\u2019 general health. In the more recent period, HLE at birth was 60.7 years for males and 60.9 years for females. The reductions here are 1.8 and 2.5 years, respectively.<\/p>\n

So the chances are that at least a fifth of a person\u2019s life will not be spent in decent health, a situation which is deteriorating. That\u2019s life and health under capitalism!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

How many people can you kill?<\/h3>March 4, 2026<\/small>

\u2018We aim to kill 50,000 Russians a month\u2019, Ukraine\u2019s new defence minister has said<\/a>. This is an almost 50% increase on 2025 when around 35,000 per month were killed. Since the war began there have been around 1.2 million Russians casualties (killed, wounded and missing). Ukrainians have suffered fewer losses – estimates<\/a> vary from 500,000 to 600,000 casualties. Another 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers are absent without official leave.<\/p>\n

In the cold light of day, all this seems pretty unbelievable. But war and the devastation it causes is a constant feature of the capitalist world, where governments are prepared to sacrifice their populations in support of the economic interests of the tiny minority who own or control the vast majority of the wealth.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\tNext<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"First time? WATCH THIS<\/strong><\/a> or START HERE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Socialism – it may not be what you think…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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JANUARY LIVE <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Meeting on now? Zoom link here<\/a>
\nLoads of talks, debates, other audio stuff here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"FORUMS, BLOGS, CHATS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Want to chat, discuss, ask a question, disagree? Yes, this is<\/em> the right room for an argument…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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JANUARY BOOK REVIEWS<\/a><\/h5>\n

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\n\tSee full catalogue<\/a>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First time? WATCH THIS or START HERE Socialism – it may not be what you think… JANUARY LIVE Meeting on now? Zoom link here Loads of talks, debates, other audio stuff here FORUMS, BLOGS, CHATS Want to chat, discuss, ask a question, disagree? Yes, this is the right room for an argument… JANUARY BOOK REVIEWS … <\/p>\n

Read more “How many people can you kill?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2605,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-fullwidth.php","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-262065","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/262065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2605"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/262065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262066,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/262065\/revisions\/262066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}