TUC president and POA leader STEVE GILLAN speaks to Ben Chacko on the eve of Congress 2026
FRIEDRICH ENGELS’s book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, is a well-known classic of social history.
His investigations helped to inform the important understandings of Karl Marx and himself about how capitalism does and does not work.
One concept that he mentions in the book has recently begun to receive attention again.
Class struggle is the motor of history but the direction and detail of change at any time and place is the outcome of many factors, suggests the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School
Dignity is important to all humans, argues the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School, but it does not come about automatically. In a less than perfect world, dignity can accompany suffering, but the collective dignity of working people is achieved through acting together to change the world.
The Isle of Wight’s Victorian holiday boom drew visitors from across Europe, including the founders of scientific socialism, writes KEITH FLETT
NICK MATTHEWS recalls how the ideals of socialism and the holding of goods in common have an older provenance than you might think


