In (partial) defence of ideology
Ideology, with good reason, is a word freighted with dark associations. But it remains an essential concept for understanding how political and economic transformation happens.
Politics
Anarchism and mere anarchy: Venezuela’s adventures in ’21st century socialism’
As Venezuela’s economy fails, the Chavista governments have resorted to increasingly crude measures to retain power. And yet no word has featured more in the rhetoric of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution than democracy. A look at Venezuela’s efforts to realise the old socialist ideal of the commune.
Building Platform Socialism: Beyond the Taylor Review
An article written for New Socialist examining the future of work in the digital economy, taking the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices published in July as its starting point.
Could Preston provide a new economic model for Britain’s cities?
Could a blueprint for a self-sufficient local economy worked out by a Lancashire council struggling with poverty and austerity signpost the future for municipalities across England and Wales? An article published in CityMetric.
Hope in the suburbs: election notes from Suffolk
‘A few days after the general election was called a group of volunteers gathered under lowering skies, raindrops speckling the windows, in a small room in a community centre by a scruffy field in north Lowestoft.’ Some reflections on the General Election campaign fought in Waveney earlier this summer.
Jeremy Corbyn, ‘Holy Fool’
Jeremy Corbyn’s serene countenance during the election campaign drew frequent parallels with that of a Buddhist monk, Corbyn himself at one point referring to his efforts to attune himself to a Zen mindframe. But when watching Corbyn deliver his speech at Glastonbury last week, it occurred to me that a comparison with another spiritual archetype might be more appropriate.
Revolutionary music for a future which never came
A feature for issue 51 of The New European investigating the music of the Soviet avant-garde during the years immediately following the October Revolution.