TUC president and POA leader STEVE GILLAN speaks to Ben Chacko on the eve of Congress 2026
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What is ‘useful’ knowledge?
In their 100th Full Marx column, the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY looks at how socialists have grappled with the direction and framing of working-class self-education over the last 200 years
The Marx Memorial Library in London
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DOUG NICHOLLS welcomes a turning point at this year’s Congress, where many motions call for a co-ordinated plan to revive British industry, a perspective outlined in his new book
HOPE VIRGO of campaign Dump the Scales warns MPs voting today they should be alert to the threat legalised assisted death poses to people with eating disorders
The Together Alliance is hosting two summits, North and South, to build power and plan action against the scourge of racism peddled by the right. DANIEL KEBEDE urges mass participation
The drift toward militarisation in Europe is not inevitable, left-wing and peace movements can preserve sovereignty and prevent war, says DÁIRE HUGHES MP
Whatever differences exist among international sympathisers of the Bolivarian revolution about its current trajectory, they should unite against the imperialist power that is the source of an enforced retreat, argues ROGER D HARRIS
Trade unions need to step up and force a turn in the policies of the labour movement to effectively confront the far-right threat, argues NICK WRIGHT
MOST people would agree that all genuine knowledge is potentially useful — though a little knowledge can sometimes be a dangerous thing and, in the wrong company, knowing too much can be positively lethal.
We are bombarded continually with “facts” together with advice: “useful” knowledge — how to get a job, improve your credit rating, save for a deposit on a house. Rarely are we helped to any real understanding of the workings of a society in which poverty is increasing amidst massive wealth for the few.
This 100th Full Marx column is perhaps as good an occasion as any to mark the birth of a movement for workers’ education which started 200 years ago, in Glasgow, Edinburgh and most importantly in London with the establishment of the London Mechanics’ Institute (LMI, later London University’s Birkbeck College) and which spread rapidly throughout Britain as well as in the “new worlds” of Australia and North America.
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MML director MEIRIAN JUMP outlines the recently refreshed library’s busy autumn schedule that ranges from book sales, archival exploration, community work with online education and the ever popular site tours
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.
Nature as well as society works dialectically, asserts the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School