Also listen to Paul Robeson's great rendition of "Joe Hill" www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kx...

I'm always pleased to hear about new work published about the great socialist theorist and activist Harold Laski. Hence, I am delighted to announce the publication of a new monograph in Italian language by the brilliant scholar Pier Giuseppe Puggioni. See www.edizioniets.com/scheda.asp?n...

"The fact is that any Bill of Rights depends for its efficacy on the determination of its people that it shall be maintained." This quote from Harold Laski, "LIBERTY IN THE MODERN STATE (1930: p.53) is very topical today.

This is a very good article, making a great point very clearly and concisely.

Sorry, I meant the Times rather than the Telegraph. So I meant: It was also only three months after Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party and thus leader of the opposition. So wasn't this stuff in the Times in 1975 part of the campaign to unseat the Labour government at the next election?

It was also only three months after Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party and thus leader of the opposition. So wasn't this stuff in the Telegraph part of the campaign to unseat the Labour government at the next election?

For a good and very readable book on John Ball as a communist see William Morris, A Dream of John Ball www.marxists.org/archive/morr...

Great photo of three great American socialists: www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

Yes, preset hierarchies. The old adage of computing, 'Garbage In Garbage Out', still applies in the world of AI.

Those out there who are interested in the History of the British left will find the following piece on the Chartist Ben Rushton of interest, on the Web site of Friends of Lister Lane Cemetery @listerlanecem.bsky.social . Rushton's interesting grave stone is in the Cemetery.

The focus of this book on Marx's work on a wide range of parts of the world really makes very clear the worldwide scope of his revolutionary ideas.

Having read the abstract I think this looks like a great article. Perhaps an interesting issue arising from the article is whether, and if so how, the openings mentioned at the end of the abstract will require the left to be ready to win a competition with the right to harness the moral disapproval.

Yes, indeed, and Marx should also get more credit than he does for saying that such hollow phrases are the foundations of society.

Indeed, a key role for the local public sector is important. What is also worth mentioning is that it could be part of Community Wealth Building project, such as that in Preston (which is not far from Manchester).

Important research and article.

Indeed, whatever one's political stance and beliefs, this editing of Hansard could make it almost useless as a primary source for historians, especially if they expect it to report parliamentary discussions verbatim.

A person of Hegseth's position should know the US constitution off by heart. Its only a short document after all.

One way to consider this is as follows: Early theorists in a field are not necessarily better or worse than later ones. The early ones are, however important. By reading them we can see ideas the later ones built on, revised etc. So we thus get a fuller understanding of what later ones are saying.

It is very important that these issue concerning the conditions of platform gig workers is being discussed.

Great blog piece (or whatever a piece in a blog is called) by Phil Burton-Cartledge. As I read it I thought the following: Data as bourgeois morality (as Phil suggests) Data often as an important part of a commodity Data as bourgeois morality often involves commodity fetishism.

The Politics of Care Work by Emma Amador looks brilliant!

This new book by Emma Amador looks brilliant!

This new book looks great. I've just read the description. Were I still running my MA Foreign Policy Analysis module, which followed me into retirement, I would certainly be updating the module and using this book.

As its the anniversary of Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, published 21 February 1848, perhaps the following book of mine published in 2015 might be of interest: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/marx-and-...

Please excuse me commenting from the UK. As I reflect on what is happening in US politics and international relations, I am reminded fn a famous paragraph by Thomas Hobbes. Click this link to his book Leviathan, search for: nasty, brutish, and short. www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3...

Yes, fascism uses myths as a means to gain and build support. If science conflicts with their myths, it is science that gives way. Lets remember this on International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

Great words in a Guardian editorial today. Trump, the editorial suggests, "postures like a monarch because he's too weak to govern as a president." Add Discuss after the quote and I think that would be a brilliant exam question.

"Yet, after all, the main problem for the President is his relation to that queer, shifting, labyrinthine amalgam we call public opinion" Harold Laski, "The American Presidency: An Interpretation" (London, 1940, p. 264). Perhaps Laski's words will be prophetic. (In 1940, by queer, he meant strange.)

If governments, businesses etc don't start taking the exponential nature of climate change more seriously, by 2032 the world will have become such a hell hole that Asteroid 2024 YR4 will put us out of our misery.

I think this post by AOC, incorporating one by New York City Democratic Socialists of America, is brief but brilliant.

I'm glad I left X (Twitter) BEFORE Musk did his Nazi salute. I wouldn't want to be linked to this man in any way.

Okay, here's a little game: think of an artistic text which might serve as an example of this quote.

Thanks Michael (@michaeldunnauthor.bsky.social) for this summary, Also, Bakunin's intellectual and political rivalry with Marx is very interesting.

Great examples of Boeing and Lucas, and Blaenau Ffestiniog as an example of a democratic alternative, by Grace Blakeley (@graceblakeley.bsky.social) in her talk on her book "Vulture Capitalism".

This looks a great journal with a global spread. It really is "of the world" as its title declares.

Sorry, clumsy fingers by me; I meant to type 1886-1917.

Lived in London 1885-1917, where he published a number of books on various anarchist topics in English language. returned to Russia in 1917, died 1921.

This looks like a brilliant degree!

I expect many people will be interested in this notice from Prof Tony Craig about a very interesting degree programme.

I was pleased to see this review of my new book "Harold Laski, the Reluctant Marxist. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SU5DZ...

I very much enjoyed working with Chris Satoor on this discussion of Karl Marx. It is an episode of his series on philosophers: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDPR...

Apologies to those who've already seen posts about my books published in 2024, but perhaps some people who have recently joined Bluesky may be interested. Harold Laski, the Reluctant Marxist link.springer.com/book/10.1007... Historical Dictionary of Socialism, 4th edition rowman.com/ISBN/9781538...

An interesting article. For me it raised the question of what justification if any there is for suggesting that parties which adopt what is called "progressive neoliberalism" can still be categorized as "left". Perhaps they can; if so I'd be interested in some explanation.

Very useful for anyone studying or interested in Karl Marx

I've just been looking in the Marxists Internet Archive at www.marxists.org for the fist time for quite a while. It really is an excellent resource for anyone interested in Marxism and also the broader left.

Isn't it, instead, a reductio ad absurdum?

Thanks Joshua. In my mind I added a sentence to the end of the passage: "Hence the need for Critical Theory". I like to think Marcuse would have approved that addition.

Indeed, as Ralph Miliband put it in the 1990s, in his last book: "The convenient obliteration of the working class in the language of politics does not correspond to reality" (R. Miliband, "Socialism for a Sceptical Age", Polity Press, p. 20).

Very interesting and thought-provoking. Perhaps we should refer to it as an explanation of alienation instead of a theory.

As Staffordshire University, and before that Staffordshire Polytechnic, was a big part of my adult life before retirement, both as academic employee and a long time ago as student, this news makes me very unhappy.