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 is a 'labour aristocracy' — did one exist in the past and does it exist today?
Did the entire British working class constitute a labour aristocracy during the colonial era? Do highly skilled tech workers now? The MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY investigates a controversial but useful area of communist discourse
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
LET’S start with the first question — what “labour aristocracy” means, because the term has been and is today used in a variety of ways and it remains an area of debate amongst Marxists.
The Russian anarchist (and anti-Marxist) Mikhail Bakunin first used the term “aristocracy of labour” in the 1870s to refer to what he called the “upper layer” of the working class; “those who are the most cultured, who earn more and live more comfortably than all the other workers.”
In opposition to Marx and others, he challenged the idea that organised workers are the most radical and could lead to a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
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