Search results for ""The Merlin Press Ltd""

Bakunin was a propagator of Anarchistic Socialism and an active promoter of the International Workers' Association (IWA). He argued for International workers' solidarity, change involving rural and industrial workers, and a Libertarian or Anarchist form of Socialism

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This is a book for parents and teachers of c hildren aged between three and twelve. It contains over 200 ideas and activities to promote co-operation and peaceful co nflict resolution in young children. '

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For children, teachers and parents: How to get in touch with nature, how to care for the planet, 500 ideas for children ages three to fourteen, 150 illustrations

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The 59th annual volume of the Socialist Register examines the growth of corporate power and other important organizational trends in global capitalism. It rejects such notions as stakeholder capitalism and reviews the organisation and strategies of unions and the left, and its current and potential practices, as it searches for new routes to socialism.

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Millions of people across the globe face a precarious existence because of Covid-19, climate change, and the greatest wealth inequality in a century. In Britain, the pandemic has revealed critical failings in the social safety net, especially the damage to the National Health Service caused by years of underfunding and creeping privatisation. The role of the state in sustaining the economy with huge disbursements of funds has been thrown into sharp relief, showing how little truth there was in the phrase: 'There is No Alternative'. We do depend on each other. Funds can be found. Most Labour supporters confront the problems of poverty and social inequity with the ethical socialist values of collective solidarity, respect, and equality. How did these ideals develop? This book follows their evolution in Britain since Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in the early twentieth century, and reviews developments over the last hundred years. The 1945 Labour government inspired hope that nationalisations were a 'first step' towards socialism, and for a time ended poverty and mass unemployment. It was followed by the Labour governments of 1964-1970, then Tony Benn, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Jeremy Corbyn. Despite defeats and setbacks, ethical socialism still lives on in the Labour Party, inspired by historical events and social struggles. This book looks at the importance of socialist ideals for the challenge of building a fairer and more equal society, and a better world.

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transform! 2021 looks at capitalism’s impact on the world ecosystem through global warming and the current pandemic and the concomitant economic crisis, with their effects on logistics and borders, the structure of work, healthcare systems, European​ integration, geopolitical power relations, and gender relations and the economic status of women – but at the same time the breaches in neoliberal hegemony and the growth of system-critical thinking, with new labour-organising approaches and even a new socialist sensibility in the US.​ transform! 2021 is the seventh of an annual series reporting on and analysing European and world political and social developments. transform! europe is a network of 39 organisations from 23 European countries, active in the areas of political education and critical social analysis.

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Margaret Llewelyn Davies (1861-1944), a co-operator, feminist and socialist, was well known in her time as the outstanding leader of the Women’s Co-operative Guild. This first full scale biography chronicles her life and achievements, intertwining activity among working class women with her personal story. Margaret Llewelyn Davies’ system of education, discussion and campaigning opened doors. Women became impressive activists, committed to change both in the co-operative movement and the wider public world. As one Guild member put it, ‘from a shy, nervous woman the Guild made me a fighter’. The Guild flourished, developing what has been termed a distinctively working class feminism. By 1914 the Manchester Guardian could describe it as ‘probably the most remarkable women’s organisation in the world’. The Guild pressed for boycotting ‘sweated’ goods, supported trade unions, battled for a minimum wage, fought for the vote, new divorce laws and for state maternity benefit to be paid to the wife. Cohen draws on original research: in newspapers, the women’s pages of the Co-operative News, Guild records, unpublished papers, and more. This book breaks new ground, providing not only compelling insights into Margaret Llewelyn Davies’ life and politics, but a fresh perspective on working class women’s activism, rediscovering their words, lives, ideas and campaigns.

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How can we build a future with better health and homes, respecting people and the environment? Connecting with and going beyond classical socialist themes, each essay in this volume combines analysis of how we are living now with plans and visions for new strategic, programmatic, manifesto-oriented directions for alternative ways of living.

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How can we build a future with better health and homes, respecting people and the environment? Connecting with and going beyond classical socialist themes, each essay in this volume combines analysis of how we are living now with plans and visions for new strategic, programmatic, manifesto-oriented directions for alternative ways of living.

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Hugo Blanc is Peru’s best-known revolutionary. A leader of the indigenous people of the Andes, he was born in 1934 in Cusco, the former Inca capital. He is a lifelong environmental campaigner in defence of the natural riches of the Andean region and beyond. In the 1960s he led a successful armed peasant uprising demanding land rights. He was placed on death row and released only after a huge international campaign supported by Jean Paul Sartre. In exile in Chile he was lucky to escape death after the 1973 coup. More recently Hugo Blanco was a Presidential candidate and was elected as a Senator in Peru. He was exiled to Mexico, where he was influenced by the Zapatistas. Still politically active today, he publishes the newspaper Lucha Indigena (Indigenous Struggle). This engaging political biography will survey the life of this unassuming but compelling activist – a guerrilla fighter praised by Che Guevara, one- time member of the Fourth International – from the 1960s to the present. It is a story of ideas and activism: surveying Hugo Blanco’s views on defence of the environment, social and political movements, indigenous peoples, left governments and political strategy. Hugo Blanco is one of the most significant activists and ecosocialist thinkers in the world today.

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Transform 2018 discusses contemporary and other issues facing the Left: What are the Left's key issues? How to make Governance accountable and democratic? What has changed in recent elections? BREXIT? Lessons from history? Dialogue between Marxists and Christians? Contributors come from across Europe and beyond.

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What is the meaning of revolution in the twenty-first century?One hundred years ago 'October 1917' was a unique event inspiring socialists and oppressed peoples and became an inevitable point of reference for 20th century politics. Today the left needs both come to terms with this legacy and to transcend it, through a critical reappraisal of its broad effects - positive and negative - on political, intellectual and cultural life, considering also new revolutions after 1917. The main point of the volume is to look forward. Nowadays, when reform as it was understood in the 20th century appears to be as impossible as revolution, it is necessary to rethink the relationship between capitalist crises and both revolution and reform. Change needs to be understood in relation to the distinct trajectories of radical politics in different regions. Contributors will consider, interrogate and explore many issues:* Alternatives to neoliberal capitalism: Socialist strategies - or detours? * The immense ecological challenge to revolutionary political strategy.* Reframing revolution amidst accelerated technological change.* What is the salience today of the concept of the revolutionary party?* Questioning agency - of the working class and other oppressed groups. * Socialist feminist perspectives on the meaning of revolution today. * Revolutionary vision, including its artistic expression in the 21st century.

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Today the Left faces new challenges from political forces amassing on the radical right. The 52nd volume of the Socialist Register presents a serious calibration and a careful political mapping of these forces. It addresses pivotal questions on the reordering of the new right. These essays - very broad in terms of themes and places - speak to the global challenges the new right poses for the left at this historical moment. * What is the nature of the right's populism, nationalism and militarism? * What is the social base and organizational strength and range of far right political forces? * To what extent are they influencing mainstream parties and opinion? * How have they penetrated state institutions?* What role do state security services and police forces play?* Does our political situation today require comparison with 1930s Fascism? * How should the left respond to defend democratic and human rights?

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This book explores some of the main channels and bye-ways in the history of Chartism; it considers: The place of Chartism within the wider framework of Victorian politics The Chartist Land Plan The impact of Canada's 1837-8 rebellions on Chartism Chartism's endurance in Wales beyond the 1839 Rising The role of children in Chartist campaigning Key questions in Chartist historiography Chartism's impact on the mid-Victorian ethos of 'self-help', and on the workings of parliamentary democracy Malcolm Chase's earlier book Chartism: A New History was hailed as a landmark in published works on Chartism. This collection, firmly located within Britain's tradition of writing 'history from below', offers an unusually wide variety of stimulating perspectives on key issues in the history of what, effectively, was Britain's civil rights movement. Written in an open, accessible style it will appeal to a wide range of readers, specialist and non-specialist alike.

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The dream of contemporary capitalism is that everything should become a terrain of profitable enterprise, including most of what has been seen hitherto as the business of government. Like total war, total capitalism demands the subordination of everything to a single goal - national competitiveness, as defined by trans-national corporate elites. The result is a dramatic erosion of democracy, social cohesion and honesty in public life. The three essays collected here, which have been hailed as modern classics, summarise a decade of critical analysis of these dynamics: The 'Rise and Fall of Development Theory' shows how neoliberal globalisation put an end to the concept of development as a collective endeavour and marginalised the two-centuries-old intellectual tradition it rested on. 'Market-Driven Politics' analyses the determining features of the new politics Since the end of capital controls, the politics of once-sovereign states have become more and more integrated with market forces Voters no longer set the political agenda and the business of government becomes the business of adapting public opinion to the perceived interests of business. 'The Cynical State' analyses what happens to policy-making and the quality of public debate under total capitalism. The privatisation of public services is a cardinal element, producing a dynamic that is lethal to public accountability and social solidarity. Colin Leys lives in London. He is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and an Honorary Professor at the Centre for International Public Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh

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Pierre Broue (1926-2005) is famous for his grand histories: The Revolution and The Civil War In Spain (with co-author E. Temime, 1970), his History of the Communist International (Fayard, 2003) and for his monumental study The German Revolution (Haymarket & Merlin Press, 2006) as well as a number of exceedingly scholarly edited collections of other works. Trotsky's Oeuvres which he edited is regarded as both more scholarly and deeper than its English equivalent. This book brings together essays by Broue hitherto unavailable in English, throwing light on the role of the opposition to Stalin within Russia and on the development the Fourth International up to 1945. A biographical sketch of Pierre Broue, by Vincent Presumey paints a substantial, frank and illuminating portrait of an original historian and political analyst.

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Presents a study of Joseph Cowen, (1829-1900) a radical newspaper magnate and MP, who was first elected to represent Newcastle in 1874.

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The story of an early pioneer in the field of African Studies is featured in this illuminating biography. In the late 1940s, Thomas Hodgkin set out--through his travels and writings--to overcome the false visions of African history and independence propagated under the colonial agenda, yet his interests were not restricted to Africa. A longtime Marxist shaped by the colonial effects on Palestine and Vietnam, Hodgkin was an unconventional scholar, sent all over the world to witness and document revolution in action.

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How do people acquire knowledge and understanding of the world they are in? Who has access to the resources and maps facilitating research and debate? How is power mobilised to shape ideas and ideologies? Socialist Register 2006 considers contemporary debate, policy-making, research, education, and scientific practice generally, and examines the role of the state in intellectual life, the press and the media. It investigates the management of scientific publications, the role of the internet, and the influence of foundations, think-tanks, political parties and the World Bank. What standards of integrity exist? How important are new intellectual currents? (including post-modernism) and what are their effects and after-effects? It investigates the quality of thought and ideas, the extent of freedom for critical and heterodox thought, and the formation of new intellectual cadres.

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After Iraq traces Iraq's colonial history, Saddam Hussein's brutal rise to power and their relationship to Iraq's major oil reserves. Harding also explores the rise of Pax Americana and the worldwide military expansion of the US following Bush Junior's presidency. He exposes the stark challenges to international law, multi-lateralism, the UN and to the USA's neighbours and allies. Harding suggests there are frightening ramifications for the USA's own democracy lurking in the fundamentalist proposition that we must make a choice in a "clash of civilizations." He emphasizes the need for concerted activism to challenge a US-dominated new world order.

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Zimbabwe's government is tired and discredited. Mugabe's ZANU (PF) party has stretched the country to breaking point. What will come next? Can the society shift from rule by an exhausted nationalist clique, ruling by terror and intimidation, to a "neo-liberal" free-market economy, as advocated by international financiers and the big-business wing of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)? Taking the plunge in either direction will depend upon whether voters can cast ballots in a free-and-fair March 2002 presidential election, and whether the military will go through with their veiled threat to carry out a coup d'etat if Mugabe loses. No matter who wins, this book argues that Zimbabwe must explicitly confront the myriad of political-economic contradictions that bedevil both nationalists and neo-liberals. An alternative political project is sketched out, drawing upon the Zimbabwean people's own struggles for social justice. The social, political and economic lessons from Zimbabwe are relevant, the authors insist, to any other society in turmoil. This book makes essential international comparisons, and applies great analytical depth to this country's fast-shifting political landscape. Four appendices provide current seminal economic texts from the ruling party, the MDC, the National Working People's Convention and Jubilee South.

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This book reasserts the need for a bold and revolutionary social imagination, one aimed at saner ways of living and more rational ways of organising society.

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Thirteen critical essays on the economy and politics of the modern world are presented here. They include socialistic analyses of gobalization, the modern capitalist state, the "weightless economy", the ideology of neo-liberalism in Britain, and the economic crises in Southeast Asia.

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An account of the origins of World War Two which challenges conventional beliefs that Chamberlain was naive and deceived by Hitler's intentions, providing evidence that certain British leaders welcomed Nazism as an alternative to Communism.

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Alexander Somerville (1811-85) was an extraordinary figure, notorious in his own lifetime for his espousal of political reform. The youngest child of impoverished farmers from the Scottish border country, he was the last soldier to be flogged publicly in Britain, after openly stating that his regiment would not fire on Reform agitators. In his subsequent journalistic career his stance was influenced by his concern that violent revolution would inevitably be crushed and so lead to greater suffering among the working class, and he therefore supported the less radical reform movement urged by Cobden. He was a passionate opponent of the Corn Laws, and The Whistler at the Plough (published in 1852) is a collection of his letters and essays for the Anti-Corn-Law League, based on information gathered during his own travels around the country. The volume also contains his eyewitness account of the Irish famine of 1847.

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One of the seminal texts of the British New Left Leo Panitch Parliamentary Socialism presents a detailed and scholarly record of the Labour Party's thinking and of its role in British politics from 1900 until the 1960s. A postscript reflects on the period of Harold Wilson's Labour government from 1964 to 1970. Reviewing the book on first publication in 1961, Michael Foot described it as 'the most important contribution made for many years to the study of the way the Labour Party works'. Contents includes: Labour in Parliament; Labour in the First World War; Parliamentarism versus Direct Action; From Opposition to Office; The General Strike; The Challenge of Appeasement; The Climax of Labourism; The Sickness of Labourism Ralph Miliband (1924-1994) was one of the key intellectual figures of the British New Left. He was the founder of the Socialist Register and author of Marxism and Politics, The State in Capitalism Society (new edition published 2009) and Socialism for a Sceptical Age. He taught for many years at the London School of Economics before taking up the Chair of Politics at the University of Leeds. He subsequently taught at Brandeis in Boston, York University in Toronto and the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York.

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A facsimile Chartist reprint of two newpapers, originally published in 1850-1851, with news, letters and articles on poetry, politics, etc.

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Why this book? Firstly, because the Spanish anarchist movement of the early 20th century was, without a doubt, the most powerful and influential anarchist movement on the planet and remains so even today. Secondly, because the Spanish anarchism that emerged before 1939 provided a very rich and innovative terrain for social and revolutionary experimentation. Indeed, it has been suggested that Spain developed the strongest and most creative working-class culture of any that materialised in interwar Europe. Thirdly, because given our current situation, in which words like eco-fascism and collapse are again becoming current, and it seems that libertarian ideas and practices are destined to resurface. This concise text offers a critical introduction to the Spanish anarchist movement. It surveys achievements, contradictions and shortcomings. It acknowledges controversies and sharp divergences of opinion and addresses often-neglected issues: self-management, decentralization, federalism, nationality, and the role of the State and of the bureaucracy. It includes a bibliography and a listing of documentaries and movies.

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WHAT SHOULD THE LEFT AIM TO ACHIEVE TODAY? This book addresses the challenges facing socialists and the recent shift from protest to politics. It examines the limits and possibilities for class, party and state transformation and the democratic and socialist insurgencies inside the Labour Party in Britain, and the Democratic Party in the USA. One of the most unexpected aspects of politics today is the coming to the fore of socialists at leadership level in the British Labour Party and the US Democratic Party. Their class-focused political discourse is directed against the power of capitalists, corporations and banks - and against the state policies which reflect and sustain that power. This is more than mere left populism - the focus is on addressing the dynamics, structure, inequalities, and contradictions in capitalism, confronting ruling class privilege and power, and the systemic core of neoliberal globalization. There is a new will: to build the power, cohesion, and capacities of the working class; to struggle for broader and deeper reforms. New socialist movements know that they must offer systematic political education to realise their great potential, and to overcome the barriers that they face. The authors provide essential historical, theoretical and critical perspective. They stress the need for renewing working-class politics through new kinds of socialist parties.

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5th Edition with new preface. This book focuses on the origins of Marx's thought and on his early writings especially The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. It was a winner of the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize. 'In the hands of a creative thinker conviction and passion can give wings to the freedom struggle. Meszaros' book is a 'winger' - one of the most far-reaching books of on the subject of Marx's theory of alienation since Lukacs' seminal Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein." [History and Class Consciousness] The Review of Metaphysics. 'Immensely learned and well-read" Times Literary Supplement

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Lukacs explores problems of consciousness and organization, drawing on Luxemburg and Lenin. "When the proletariat proclaims the dissolution of the existing social order," Marx declares, "it does no more than disclose the secret of its own existence, for it is the effective dissolution of that order." ..theory is essentially the intellectual expression of the revolutionary process itself. In it every stage of the process becomes fixed so that it may be generalised, communicated, utilised and developed. Because the theory does nothing but arrest and make conscious each necessary step, it becomes at the same time the necessary premise of the following one -

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