How do we acquire knowledge, and how reliable is it? Is there a real world beyond our senses, or is each of us an isolated atom? Can we really understand the workings of society and change it for the better?
In his podcast, Alan Woods – editor of In Defence of Marxism – mounts a defence of materialism against the trends of subjective idealism, such as positivism and postmodernism, that deny the possibility of objective and scientific knowledge about the world and society.
May 1968 was the greatest revolutionary general strike in history. This mighty movement took place at the height of the post-war economic upswing in capitalism. Then, as now, the bourgeois and their apologists were congratulating themselves that revolutions and class struggle were things of the past. Then came the French events of 1968, which seemed to drop like a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky. They took most of the Left completely by surprise, because, they had all written off the European working class as a revolutionary force.
Alan Wood’s new book ‘Ireland: Republicanism and Revolution’ takes a serious approach to drawing the lessons of the Irish struggle. With Ireland at another turning point in history, Marxists must be ready to present a programme of Irish liberation. As James Connolly said "the cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour and the cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland".
In 1911, school students joined the class struggle en masse, taking their lead from the organised working class. Both then and now, the radicalisation of the youth terrifies the ruling class.
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