Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
We are awash with pharmaceutical companies in Ireland. Some of the high-end jobs are well paid, and that should be welcomed. But the global pharmaceutical industry provides one of the strongest illustrations of how the profit motive can misdirect humanity’s creativity and badly miscalculate resources, something we are all familiar […]
Women’s pay When people talk about the pay gap they often cite the generally accepted figures of 10–14 per cent difference in pay between men and women, this gap being more noticeable in the higher echelons of business. Critics admit that the pay gap is real but explain away pay […]
One of the lessons of the fall of the Soviet Union is that Marxists should seek to look critically at states that are attempting to build socialism, while also not being over-simplistic. Most views of China today write the country off as simply selling out and having fully embraced capitalism, […]
Readers of Socialist Voice may be familiar with the idea of worker self-directed enterprises, or WSDEs. The idea is promoted in the United States, particularly by the Marxian economist Richard Wolff. Those who are not acquainted with the logic behind WSDE might be well served by engaging with this topic, […]
The continuing struggle over Catalan independence raises many questions for socialists and the left, especially those in countries, such as Ireland, where the national question still has a prime place in politics. Events in Catalunya show that independence movements are not, as idealists would think, concerned only with such issues […]
Letter from Cuba Cuba’s elections are organised and conducted in two stages, on a no-party basis, as opposed to—as often suggested—a one-party basis. The Communist Party of Cuba is not a political party in the sense in which this term is generally understood. No candidates for the Communist Party (or […]
This November, tens of millions of working people around the world will celebrate the centenary of the Russian Revolution, which took place on 7 November 1917 (or 25 October according to the Julian calendar, then used in Russia). To understand how the revolution happened we need to place it in […]
With the Russian Revolution of 1917 the dispossessed took control over their destiny, for the first time in history. How did artists respond to this liberation? Artists from all artistic movements worked with the Soviet power. The revolution offered the state and the arts a real opportunity to merge their […]
September 2017 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Das Kapital (Capital), the central work of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and the book that most influenced social and political thinking ever since. It has especial relevance today, describing, as it does, the labour relations of a […]
Under Fidel Castro’s direction, Cuba has become a “medical superpower,” setting new standards for global solidarity in the interests of human health.
The play Jimmy’s Hall, running at the Abbey Theatre, is said to be adapted from Paul Laverty’s film script of the same name, directed by Ken Loach. When the film was first mooted it sent a scurry of excitement around certain sections of the left, and in particular the CPI, […]