Theory and analysis

UUK’s deal with Egypt: Uni bosses ignore brutality in search for profit

In recent months, Universities UK (UUK) and the British government have been collaborating with Egyptian higher education (HE) institutions to form a series of academic partnerships between universities in Britain and Egypt. UUK and the government have conveniently failed to mention, however, that Egypt’s Sisi regime is currently involved in repressing trade unionists, silencing political dissenters, and generally disregarding human rights both on and off campus. This critique was voiced recently Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 yearsSeptember 7, 2018 ago

Fire ravages National Museum of Brazil: capitalism’s crime against civilization

A little over a year after a fire consumed 72 lives in Grenfell Tower, another avertable blaze incinerated Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, home of 20 million items charting the country’s history. Most of those – current estimates stand at 90 percent – will be irretrievably lost. Just as with Grenfell, the smouldering ruin stands as a charred indictment of capitalism and austerity. On Sunday night, as flames cracked Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 yearsSeptember 5, 2018 ago

Wouldn’t everyone be lazy if we’re “all paid the same”?

It’s often argued that socialism couldn’t work as, if everyone is “paid the same”, there would be no incentive to “work hard”. This argument is wrong on many levels. Firstly, it assumes that those who are paid the most under capitalism work the “hardest”. In fact the wealth of the super-rich is not “earned” from their work but through their ownership of the productive forces. This allows them to appropriate the unpaid labour Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 yearsSeptember 4, 2018 ago

UCU strike ballot: vote yes to strike action!

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) in 110 colleges in England and 147 UK universities are being balloted for strike action in a row over pay. The ballots opened on Thursday 30 August and will close on Friday 19 October. The dispute in universities has arisen after management made a final offer of a 2% pay increase for staff. This does nothing to address the falling value of higher Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 yearsAugust 31, 2018 ago

Fighting for student-worker unity in Pakistan: interview with the Pakistani Marxists

At the recent international congress of the International Marxist Tendency, two British comrades, members of the Marxist Student Federation, had a discussion with some of our comrades working in Pakistan, about the present situation there and the work that the comrades in Pakistan are doing, with particular reference to the student movement. The current situation in Pakistan reveals the global crisis of capitalism at its most barbarous. Historically and today, it Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 years ago

How can we fight for a real living wage?

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) recently reported that working class families with parents in low-earning jobs cannot afford even basic necessities. Basic necessities are those costs that families simply cannot survive without: food, clothing, rent, utilities, etc. This report, unsettling though it may be, can hardly be surprising to anyone who has been following how the crisis of capitalism, and a decade of austerity, has destroyed the lives of countless Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 yearsAugust 28, 2018 ago

ABC of Materialist Dialectics

Trotsky’s ‘ABC of Materialist Dialectics’ is a brilliant short explanation of Marxist philosophy. It was written as part of a defence of Marxism against a middle-class revisionist tendency in the American Trotskyist movement in the late 1930s, which attempted to challenge its basic principles. As opposed to pragmatism and empiricism, Trotsky defended dialectical materialism as a richer, fuller, more comprehensive view of society and life in general. ——— The dialectic is Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 yearsAugust 22, 2018 ago

Lessons from the student movement in France: interview with a revolutionary

Since 2008 social welfare institutions have been attacked on a global scale because capitalism in crisis is unable to afford them. In this context the French ruling class has tasked President Macron with smashing every gain the working class has made since the beginning of the post-war period: from the Labour Code to National Insurance. State universities, renowned in France for their affordable tuition fees and few eligibility criteria, were inevitably Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 yearsAugust 21, 2018 ago

Burberry burning bags: capitalism’s credibility going up in smoke

Burberry is the latest multinational corporation to have incinerated millions of pounds worth of their own stock – £28.6 million to be precise. The luxury fashion brand burned bags, clothes, and perfume in a bid to maintain its brand image and reputation. Incinerating stock is apparently less damaging to Burberry’s brand than selling it at lower prices. Lamentably, this is all too common in the luxury fashion industry. When considering what Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 years ago

Why I Fight: we have to change society just to survive

The most significant turning point in my life to date was a brief conversation in the Fitzroy Tavern in central London, after a demonstration against tuition fees in 2011. My friend had taken me along to meet some supporters of the organisation she’d got involved with that summer, the International Marxist Tendency, and I brought along a few leaflets that we’d used to try – largely unsuccessfully – to get fellow Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 yearsAugust 16, 2018 ago

There’s something in the water

The recent heatwave has allowed the water line to drop low enough to fully reveal the wretched monsters that lurks beneath the surface of the stinking sewer that is the UK’s privatised water industry. So what is to be done to deal with the repulsive leeching beasts who have been encouraged to spread into the water system? There are nine privately run water monopolies in England who have made almost £20bn Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 years ago

Why I Fight: the point is to change it

I was brought up by French financiers and former Cambodian aristocrats, which is an unusual childhood through which to develop communist ideas. Ever since primary school I was taught that you cannot redistribute wealth because “people are inherently greedy”. These ideas characterised my upbringing. But the society I lived in was filled with contradictions. Every school in France was emblazoned with the words “Freedom, Equality, Fraternity”, and yet I was taught Read more…

By Marxist Student, 8 yearsAugust 14, 2018 ago

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