Walking on the Far Left

Happy Workers Day, comrades! Today on Workers Day upon marching through London on the annual May Day march, exactly a century after the monumental nine day general strike that took place in 1926 in response to unjust working conditions and poor pay, the striking inequalities many workers have to face, along with the rise further major concerns of violence and the physical and emotional stress and vulnerability of workers (which would in turn influence their performance and ability to gain the most success and satisfaction from their work) still remains a pressing issue for today's society, even after its supposed social and economic advancement over the course of this period. In a world governed by image and pressure to function effectively in a material and consumerist led society in which capitalism takes centre stage, the current mental health crisis can prove to act as another means of developing new means of monetising wellbeing and self-fulfilment through creating marketing o...

In its crude sense when used in colloquial dialect, anarchism is regarded as the operation of a society without the presence of a state or alternative political vanguard to enforce law and govern the people, often being synonymous with chaos and connoted with political violence. It is also clear to note that little is done to distinguish the similarly rooted yet subtly differing ideas of anarchism and anarchy, with the latter being more widely used in quotidian discussion, relating more to a state of disorder and limited organisation of society. However, what is often disregarded is that anarchism and anarchy can often exist in more implicit forms that do not necessarily feature use of force, direct action and political violence so as to achieve revolutionary aims and reconstitute existing models of society (Christoyannopoulos, 2024). It can instead take on a more pacifist appearance. As described in Henry David Thoreau's Theory of Civil Disobedience , an approach similar to what ...

The integration of the radical and revolutionary far left into Africa's political landscape historically is a topic that continues to remain hugely influential in understanding the development and transition to democracy for Africa and the means by which colonial exploitation and racial discrimination could be better understood. These aspects of African history when observed from the perspective of many Western imperial powers, however, tend to be somewhat obscured by ideals of colonial eulogy and the legacy of the British Empire in relation to its assistance of the UK's influence as both a cultural and imperial  superpower. It is through books such as this that a greater insight into the individuals and political philosophies that the voice of the oppressed and those fighting for emancipation can be better heard and understood. Harsch's engaging and brilliantly written biography in which Sankara's political career, as well as his personal interests, ambitions and exper...

What appears striking is the sheer breadth and diversity of forms in which republicanism can be observed, spanning a range of ideological perspectives, positions along the political spectrum, and uses to fulfil a variety of objectives that satisfy the needs of many differing demographics. Yet, despite this, in today's political discourse, republicanism appears to be used mainly to refer to either the US government's comparatively conservative, economically libertarian, and capitalist values, or, for many European nations, the abolition of the monarchy and the transition to a presidential republic. It is also surprising that there remains minimal implementation of many typical republican values, and their relative merits and failures in resolving the social and economic issues posed by existing political systems. This can be observed when examining the primary interests and means by which several UK MPs who identified themselves as republicans defined their own version of republ...

The notion of communism being considered as a means of corruption of authoritarian power and acting as a theory of governance by which the supposed communitarian and anti-capitalist ethos supporting complete equality of opportunities and abolishing class, state and wealth overrides against this, as well as that communists are considered to be merely power hungry dictators, always surprises me especially considering that this completely opposes the original key principles of communism. According to Engels' 1847 work, The Principles of Communism, communism is defined as "the doctrine for the liberation of the conditions of the proletariat", this definition thus clearly proving to emphasise the communitarian aspects of communism and support collective liberty as well as promoting the individual rights and freedoms of the people, particularly the supposedly oppressed proletarians (those who live to support their needs through the selling of their labour to be benefited from (...