The Communist Club (1840-1920) was essentially a political social club, primarily for German émigrés, which, under a variety of names, operated out of various central London premises during the mid to late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most Left personages of the era had some association with the Club, but the most important was Karl Marx.
Marx and Keynes - Paul Mattick (1955)
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 for a social law of nature.
Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse : Our View of the Crisis - Edgar Hardcastle (SPGB) (1932)
We are in the midst of a crisis that is world-wide. Every country feels its ravages. Millions and millions of workers are unemployed and in acute poverty. Everywhere there is discontent and a feeling of insecurity, and the prestige of even the strongest of governments has been shaken. All sorts of emergency measures have been hastily adopted, but the depression still continues. Working men and women who normally ignore such questions, are now asking why the crisis has occurred, what will be its outcome, and whether it could have been avoided. In some minds there is a fear, and in others a hope, that the industrial crisis may bring the present system of society down in ruins, and make way for another.
Marx and Engels and the 'Collapse' of Capitalism - John Crump (1969)
In 1786, three years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, Gracchus Babeuf wrote:
"The majority is always on the side of routine and immobility, so much is it unenlightened, encrusted, apathetic . . . Those who do not want to move forward are the enemies of those who do, and unhappily it is the mass which persists stubbornly in never budging at all."
The events of 1789 disproved his gloomy predictions but, by the time Babeuf became prominent, the reaction was already setting in.
The Legend of Marx, or “Engels the founder” - Maximilien Rubel (1970)
Note from the author
In May 1970, upon the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Engels, the town of Wuppertal had organised an international scientific conference. This occasion brought together around 50 specialists from more than 10 European countries, as well as Israel and the United States whose task was to take stock of modern research on the thought of he who is universally taken to be, alongside his friend Karl Marx, one of the founders of “Marxism”.
Parliament or Direct Action? - Socialist Studies (2004)
In this day and age the idea of Black Rod solemnly knocking on the door of the House of Commons so that the Queen can go in and read a speech that has been written for her by the government is a piece of nonsense that accords well with the rest of bourgeois tradition.
The Thin Red Line: Non-Market Socialism in the Twentieth Century - John Crump (1987)
Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism (Part 2) - Amadeo Bordiga (1957)
Written for the International Communist Party. Though Bordiga's vanguardist conception of the party is questionable, his critiques of councilism and so-called "workers control" are essential reading.
Bordiga examines the weaknesses of purely workplace based orgainisations.
We Don't Want Full Employment, We Want Full Lives! - Ken Knabb (1998)
If a household gets a washing machine, you never hear the family members who used to do
the laundry by hand complain that this “puts them out of work.” But strangely
enough, if a similar development occurs on a broader social scale it is seen as a serious
problem — “unemployment” — which can only be solved by inventing more
jobs for people to do.
Revolutionary Self-Theory : A Beginners' Manual - Anon (1985)
This booklet is for people who are dissatisfied with their lives. If you are happy with your present existence, we have no argument with you. However, if you are tired of waiting for your life to change...
Tired of waiting for authentic community, love and adventure...
Tired of waiting for the end of money and forced work...
Tired of looking for new pastimes to pass the time...
Tired of waiting for a lush, rich existence... Tired of waiting for a situation in which you can realise all your desires...
Tired of waiting for the end of all authorities, alienations, ideologies and moralities...
...then we think you'll find what follows to be quite handy.
Today's popular content
- Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism (Part 1) - Amadeo Bordiga (1957)
- Towards a better understanding of the world, in order to change it.
- Marx, Theoretician of Anarchism - Maximilien Rubel (1973)
- Conversation With a Hairdresser’s Assistant - Wilhelm Reich (1935)
- The Thin Red Line: Non-Market Socialism in the Twentieth Century - John Crump (1987)
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