The truth of Capitalism

Capitalism. The system that dominates practically every country in the world and which has led to so many benefits for those who have been blessed by its touch… Except it isn’t really like this. The economic principles under which it runs – private ownership of the means of production, generating profits before anything else and an excessive and unhealthy amount of personal greed – have punched the working class from every angle, only to prosper the lives of the capitalist class. Very few and extremely calculated improvements for the proletariat have been used to advertise it as the only possible way forward, but that can never be the case.

Euroscepticism from the Left

Euroscepticism has haunted the European Union in recent years. Unfortunately, this threat to the organisation is largely coming from the right – UKIP in the United Kingdom, Marine Le Pen in France, Matteo Salvini in Italy or the AfD in Germany, amongst many others – who mainly focus on nationalism and migration issues. Meanwhile, the left has mostly been supportive, but it shouldn’t: the European Union has plenty of reasons to be attacked by socialists.

Does socialism work? The Soviet Union

Socialism has long been advertised in the Western World as a system that has failed on numerous occasions. However, that may not be an honest assessment of the effects socialism has had on the people who lived under it. Here we analyse benefits that this system offered to the Soviet Union.

Polls

–Pew Research Center took a survey of Russia and several other countries in Central and Eastern Europe between June 2015 and July 2016. The participants were asked if they thought the breakup of the Soviet Union had been a bad thing for their country.

What is anarchism?

The concept of anarchism is one of the ideas in political theory that is most regularly misconceived. Many believe it to want to impose “violence”, “chaos” or “disorder” and to return to the “laws of the jungle”. However, this is far from the truth.

For starters, it must be made clear that anarchism is a line of thought which is part of the socialist ideology (it aims for the workers to take control of the means of production) and the communist ideology (it aims to create a stateless and classless society). However, it is in opposition to the Marxist conception of socialism as it aims to steer away from state control of the economy.

Capitalism, socialism and communism

There is a lot of misconception with the meaning of capitalism, socialism and communism. These are thoroughly intertwined ideologies, so understanding their true definition is important to see how they relate to one another.

Capitalism

In the purest form of capitalism, it is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit (the means of production are natural resources, raw materials, factories, facilities, machinery and tools used in the production of goods and services are owned by individuals, rather than the government or a collective of all members of a working group). These means of production are owned by a minority capitalist class – known as the bourgeoisie –, who exploits the majority working class – or proletariat – in a system of wage labour (the worker sells its labour for a price, known as a wage or salary).