Socialist Democracy and Real Human Rights
Robin Talbot discusses the limitations of bourgeois democracy under capitalism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the promise of real human rights through socialism.
Reclaim Pride!
We’ve all been to Gay Pride at some point. Whether you marched behind the banners, covered your face with glitter or danced the night away surrounded by drag queens, there’s a special place for gay pride in the hearts of the LGBT community across the UK. However, there’s something very wrong .
Pride, sadly, is a shadow of its former self. What once started as a protest riot on the streets of New York against police harassment has become little more than a street party – decades of moderate politics, commercialisation and corporate sponsorship has turned protest signs into glossy adverts; angry slogans transformed into 2-for-1 offers at Nandos if you wear a rainbow badge.
Introduction
Back2Basics is the Young Communist League’s series on Marxist concepts made easy. Its aim is to provide a starting point for those interested in learning about communist theory and a foundation for further reading and study.
1. Materialism
The philosophical underpinning of Marxism-Leninism is often referred to as “dialectical materialism”. Parts 1 and 2 of this series set out what that actually means; materialism in this issue and dialectics in the next issue.
What connects supermassive black holes and dark matter?
Two theoretical objects, crucial to the understanding of the birth and life of our universe, are perhaps unsurprisingly connected at fundamental levels: their apparent abundance in the early universe, pivotal role in galactic formation, and names which afford them qualities of mystery and intrigue before one even knows what they are. But what exactly are […]
2. Dialectics
Every scientific investigation must have a method. The choice of method will affect the whole course of the investigation and it is important to base your method on the reality of the situation you are studying. The method used by Marxists in studying the world around them is Dialectical Materialism.
3. Commodity Production
The economic basis of capitalism is commodity production. In order to study commodity production dialectically, we must begin by studying its smallest self-contained unit – the commodity.
4. Surplus Value
In part 3, we discussed the value of a commodity and found that this came in two forms – use-value and exchange-value- and that they were derived from the labour required to produce the commodity, use-value from specific labour and exchange-value from abstract social labour. But under the capitalist system, labour itself (or more accurately labour-power, the capacity to labour) is sold as a commodity. So what is the value of labour? This was the stumbling block of classical political economy and it was Karl Marx who first solved the problem.
5. Class
“The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle.” (Marx & Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party)
Class is a concept at the heart of our Marxist understanding of the world, yet many claim that the ‘working class’ no longer exist. How do we approach this problem?
6. The State
The issue of the state is a crucial one for Marxists. Any serious revolutionary strategy must be based on an understanding of what the state is, how it operates and what role it plays in social transformation.
In order to answer these questions, we must look at the origin of the state. The modern state (government, judiciary, police force, army, etc.) may appear both impartial (at times) and ever present. In reality it is neither. In early society neither the state, nor anything fulfilling a similar role, existed. The emergence of the state appeared at that time at which society became divided into classes, into oppressors and oppressed.
