Now at 115,000 members and in some polls level with Labour in terms of public support, CHRIS JARVIS looks at the factors behind the rapid rise of the Greens, internal and external
What did Marx mean by ‘abolish the wages system’?
The exploitation inherent in the wage system was more obvious in Marx's time, but has essentially remained the same — and today it's far easier to imagine a world without wages entirely, where goods and services are free, explains the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Charlie Chaplin at work
Witnessing a war of words at a meeting on tackling militarism at The World Transformed, BEN COWLES spoke to a union rep who is organising against war from inside the arms industry itself, to hear about worker-led solutions to ending weapons production
FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ, ROGER D HARRIS and JOHN PERRY contrast Trump’s warships and F-35 fighters threatening Venezuela with the $20bn bailout for Milei’s collapsed economy, all enabled by a highly ideological IMF
KAY GREEN explains how the Middle East and colonialism were explored at at last weekend’s FiLiA conference
ROS SITWELL reports from Europe’s largest feminist conference – hosted this year in Brighton
Morning Star campaigns manager CALVIN TUCKER gives an update on the drive to raise £95,000 to see the people’s paper keep fighting the good fight against the rich and powerful
A LETTER to the Morning Star early last year asked what “abolition of the wages system” (a phrase used by both Marx and Engels) might entail.
There are two questions here: how that abolition might be achieved and what a society that replaces it might look like. But before suggesting the answers, let’s first examine in more depth what the “wages system” is.
For Marx’s readers the answer would probably have been obvious — the “wages system” is another word for capitalism, a situation in which capitalists own the means of production (raw materials, machinery, factories, means of distribution and exchange), exploit the “labour power” of workers, extracting more from them in the way of work than the workers themselves receive in wages (their “surplus value”) and then sell the commodities they produce on a market, realising that value as a profit.
Similar stories
From hunting rare pamphlets at book sales to online panels and courses on trade unionism and class politics, the MML continues connecting archive treasures with the movements fighting for a better world, writes director MEIRIAN JUMP
Labour’s fiscal policy is already in trouble. But simply printing money is not a solution, says the Marx Memorial Library and Workers School
RICHARD CLARKE recommends a hugely valuable text for those seeking theoretical analysis and practical action to defend public services
Author RACHEL HOLMES invites readers to come to her talk in London about the great foremother of the working-class women’s movement – Eleanor Marx