Articles by Alex Wood
PhD sociology student at the University of Cambridge and member of the University of Cambridge Individual in the Labour Market research group.
Kony 1984
Posted on March 13, 2012 | 1 Comment
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell describes how two-minute videos whipped up support for endless war. Kony2012 took half an hour.
Anti anti-growth and the fallacy of economics
Posted on September 26, 2011 | 12 Comments
As our current economic model continues to drive us relentlessly towards the precipice of cataclysmic environmental destruction. While simultaneously forcing us to contemplate a ‘lost decade’ of stagnate high unemployment, reduction in the social wage and mass poverty. People are increasingly questioning the logic of a system based upon growth and the boom and bust [...]
The alienated ‘Multitude’: ‘the Class’ of the 21st century
Posted on September 6, 2011 | 3 Comments
Throughout the 20th century development amongst workers of ‘class consciousness‘, the subjective awareness of ones objective class interests, was seen as central to the hopes of achieving a transition away from capitalism; to a more humane and just system. A Marxist concept of ‘class’ has huge emancipatory potential. This is resultant from classes being forged [...]
Class still counts
Posted on July 16, 2011 | 9 Comments
The past year has witnessed an unprecedented level of class struggle, never before have the various mechanisms for mobilising class interests been so perfectly enacted. Sadly, I am not referring to the recent TUC demonstration or coordinated strikes. Unfortunately, no matter how positive, these acts are no more than flashes in the pan when compared [...]
It’s better to break the law than to break the poor
Posted on February 23, 2011 | 5 Comments
Brenner’s unemployment mortality rate formula suggests that the cuts will result in the deaths of approximately 20,000 people due unemployment alone. What we are witnessing then is the nothing less than a genocide of the vulnerable. In the face of such brutality the only moral position open to councillors is to refuse to act as the executioner for this government of millionaires. We must create a campaign similar to those in the 1920′s and 1980′s based upon the setting of illegal no cuts budgets.
The M word: It’s time to take Marx beyond ‘Marxism’
Posted on January 28, 2011 | 8 Comments
Following my last blog there were a few comments referring to how the Green Party must avoid being ‘Marxist’ and how left wing polices will only appeal to the dreaded ‘Marxists’. But before we can understand why we should be concerned about ‘Marxists’ we have to try and understand what being ‘Marxist’ actually means.
Why the left needs the Green Party
Posted on January 11, 2011 | 36 Comments
When I talk to left wing friends who aren’t members of the greens about why they should join, there are usually three reasons given for why they would not do so: 1. Political parties are inevitably reactionary, bureaucratic, undemocratic and unnecessary, 2. The Green Party is not anti-capitalist,
3. The Green Party is not a working class party. I think these responses are inaccurate With 15,000 members the Green Party is a promising platform for spring boarding socialist ideas and values
From Gramsci to the Greens
Posted on January 4, 2011 | 8 Comments
It seems that the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci is more pertinent now than ever, as we prepare for the most devastating assault on the welfare state, education system and living standards in history. For a hundred years radicals, from trotskists and communists to democratic and independent socialists, looked to the Labour Party to incubate, sustain [...]