Bertolt Brecht was one of the most innovative and unique cultural products of “the Left”, his work is the product of lived experiences in Weimar Germany, Nazi Germany, the United States, and the German Democratic Republic. Consequently, Brecht, politically and ideologically, inhabits a distinct space that has many lessons for socialism today. Brecht lived through multiple defeats of socialism in an age…
It’s August and, with nothing better to do, Morgan embarks on an epic quest to discover what Modern Monetary Theory is, enlisting the help of trusty companions Megan Corton Scott (fellow-not-knower-of-what-MMT-is), William Sorenson (TSR writer, Labour Tenants), David Klemperer (TSR writer, former Institute for Government researcher) and Shreya Nanda (Economist at the IPPR). iTunes
Harlan Ellison’s 1967 work “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” looms large on the internet. The Hugo award winning short story tells the tale of the only five people left alive after civilisation has been wiped out by a supercomputer called “AM”. Initially a weapons system in an escalated cold war (“Allied Mastercomputer”), AM becomes self aware (and namewise moves…
Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center We must all have lost count of how many times recently it’s been said that we face an unprecedented crisis. It isn’t exactly true. Arguably human history contains little but precedent: the plague and the Spanish flu have been called upon the most. Perhaps what is unprecedented is our ability to manage the situation, and to…
With workplaces across the country now reopening, we are officially moving to the next stage of lockdown. This raises several issues, not least because Covid-19 has yet to be eliminated, but namely the economic reality we find ourselves in will acutely affect working parents. Childcare provision was inconspicuously absent from the Chancellor’s Summer Statement, provoking outcry from MPs, business groups and campaigners.…
Photo Credit: Tejvan Pettinger In the U.K, bicycle use peaked in 1952 and has been in permanent decline since. We are outflanked by our European neighbours when it comes to levels of cycling, yet the British and the bike are not natural antagonists. Certain media outlets and politicians may help to drive such attitudes from drivers, but this largely stems from being…
Picture Credit: M J Richardson After a brief hiatus, politics is back in full flow. Normal disputes have replaced the relative unity of the first weeks of lockdown. But we can be sure that post-pandemic politics will not look the same as the politics we left behind. The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the lives of millions of people and will undoubtedly inform…
If you’re the type that engages with contemporary left theory, chances are you’ll be familiar with “capitalist realism”; Mark Fisher’s idea that neoliberal capitalism has done such a number on our capacity for radical imagination that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”. However, the affliction of the contemporary left (here covering everything…
