Contents On This Site So Far

As a journal that calls itself Marxist, Labour & Socialism is faced with the task of defining what we mean by Marxism and how we see the relevance of Marx's ideas today, in the light of all that has gone on since Marx himself was alive. This first issue of Labour & Socialism takes on this task in the form of a discussion of Cyril Smith's excellent book Marx At The Millenium

Will The Real Marx Please Stand Up ?

Future issues of Labour & Socialism are in the planning stage. Some of the topics we hope to cover include -

The future of work ?

The latest wave of technological developments and the stubborn refusal of unemployment levels to drop across most of the world during the 1990's has led to an interesting debate over the 'end of work', raising the possibility that the production of commodities, which has come to dominate almost every sphere of human activity in recent years, may well be exhausting its possibilities. If so, then humanity could indeed be approaching a time in which social and economic relations will have to be set on an entirely new foundation.

Globalisation and the decline of the nation state

This is of course the key issue of the '90's, and the central challenge that faces the labour movement globally. Unlike many sections of the Marxist Left, whose main response to the debate around globalisation has been to play down its significance and to hold on to strategies that look to the nation state and national political power as the main instrument for transforming society, we believe that this approach is no longer viable and needs to give way to a new, more internationalist strategy

The shift from material to cultural production

The last few decades have seen a major development within capitalism, with more and more of the global economy devoted to the production of commodities with little or no material substance and whose value lies in their cultural content - from Hollywood blockbusters to the Olympics, casinos, computer software, fashion clothing, tourism and so on.

When these activities are added to business services, communications and the knowledge intensive industries, as well as those services that are products of the extreme inequality present in the world today - pool cleaning, 5 star restaurants and hotels, the production of luxury yachts etc, and not forgetting the vast criminal sector of the economy - drugrunning etc, or the more obviously parasitic sectors of finance, real estate, accountancy, legal practice and so on, this means that today a large proportion of the workforce are engaged in activities that make no sense outside of the existing cultural and social context of global capitalism.

This in turn makes it very hard to advocate taking over these economic activities and redirecting them to meet human needs as socialists have traditionally advocated, and so calls for a rethink on how humanity can move forward out of its current capitalist nightmare.

The break up of the family

This has to be another huge subject, with enormous implications for society. Its so big that we're not sure where to begin on this one and just what contribution Marxism has to make on the question, but its too important not to deserve a mention.

A vision of socialism ?

Just what kind of a society should socialism be ? How can the vision of a socialist future be sustained in the light of all that has taken place in the 20th century ? Just how can socialists meet the criticisms of post-modernists and others in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union ? These are crucial questions that confront every critic and opponent of the present world order. It is the absence of a clear alternative vision to capitalism that is probably the single most important factor holding back the Left at this point.

Of all the different forms of socialism that have been advocated over the last 200 years, our favourite, and in our view the most relevant to conditions today, is Oscar Wilde's 'The Soul Of Man Under Socialism'. Oscar Wilde's description of a kind of 'aesthetic' socialism, where the state 'produces what is useful' and individuals 'what is beautiful', is probably the most culturally acceptable and economically feasible vision under today's conditions. We recommend our readers to go and take a (another) look at this article as the basis for a new discussion on what socialism could look like.

Why did the Soviet Union collapse ?

The best explanation we have come across so far of the reasons behind the economic failure of the Soviet Union comes from Tatyana Zaslavkaya's 'The Second Socialist Revolution'. Her analysis fits in well within an overall understanding of trends within the global economy as a whole, such as those discussed in 'Capital - Who Needs It ?'

As you can see from this list, we intend to tackle some pretty big issues ! So don't hold your breath - these are all long term projects, that is if we're going to say anything constructive about these topics, and so we can't say how soon any of these issues of Labour & Socialism will appear.

What we will do, however, to keep this site developing, is produce some short reviews of some of the current literature that's around that deserves attention, and also reproduce some older material. This will include some specifically Australian articles.

And as activists within the movement we will also put on this site material relating to specific campaigns and more immediate political issues that we are and have been involved in.