As someone who would describe themselves as a Eurosceptic, I do find this current debacle over the EU rather pathetic and tragic. The campaigns have made it all about reclaiming sovereignty, bringing back powers and so on. Yet from where I’m standing, looking at the webs of regulations and entry barriers in the economy, and the continuing political centralisation at all levels, I’m stood here wondering what leaving the EU would actually change about that. Continue reading →

Why don’t we ban cars? I mean, they’re effective death traps, create far too much pollution and can be driven by inexperienced people. There are said over a million uninsured drivers in the UK, so there are many cars that aren’t regulated at all. And it’s obvious that control measures, such as speed cameras and traffic lights, don’t work as deaths on the road still occur. Nowadays we have good public transport, such as buses and trains, that can get you anywhere you like and aren’t much more expensive than a car and are driven by responsible, government-trained drivers. Continue reading →

It is in no doubt that one of the greatest freedoms afforded individuals in most Western nations is the right to free speech. It encapsulates so much in such a short statement. The freedom of thought, of ideas and of the written word. Yet these ideas come into another realm, one often ignored by general free speech advocates. It is that of a binding culture, a conception of community or nationality whereby people actually belong to something, have a voice and an understanding. In modern liberal democracies (not so aptly named), these ideas regularly seem to come into conflict due to government regulation of speech and a lack of a voluntary social contract in unified communities. Continue reading →

Thatcher’s deconstruction of British industry is one of her lasting legacies. On the right, you’ll hear how it was necessary and beneficial toward moving Britain in the direction of a free market economy, a concept that Thatcher never truly believed in. On the left, you’ll hear how the government should have continued propping up the mining and manufacturing industries despite chronic problems and a reliance on stolen funds i.e. taxation. However, neither answer is satisfactory in understanding what has happened since the deconstruction of industry by Thatcher. Continue reading →

While universities are stereotypically seen as hotbeds of radicalism, particularly of a left-wing type, the bureaucracy and fake democracy that sits within most universities doesn’t really fit this mould. Most real power-holders in university (deans, chancellors and the heads of bureaucratic committees) aren’t elected and have little contact with the general student body, as well as the professors and researchers. Thus the students unions also become stunted, taken over by radical leftists who launch programmes or campaigns that bare little relevance to students’ issues, or they become quagmires of wannabe politicians who see this as a CV booster. Issues of accommodation, living costs, study spaces and class times, as well as the wider problems of the neoliberalisation of universities by cutting ties to local communities in which these universities are located, attracting international investment at the expense of local investment and student experience and denigrating certain degrees so as to favour more income-intensive ones, are ignored by the universities power-holders. Continue reading →

The increasingly globalised, transnational character of contemporary capitalism, with its attendant instability and crises, has led to the development of globally oriented social movements. These movements are an answer to the injustices and failures found in international capitalism, and aim to combat it through an equally internationalist outlook with heterogeneous characteristics and multiple sites of resistance. The post-industrial, fluid nature of capitalism has allowed for the structure of society to change in a way that suits global social movements. In particular, the capitulation of capitalist economies after the 2008 Great Recession and the move toward more networks within capitalist structures has created conditions that show weaknesses in capitalism’s armour. It provides an opportunity for social movements to create resistance and change economic identities. As Touraine describes it, “the reference is not to a certain type of civil society, but to a process of social transformation, to a process of globalization”[1]. Continue reading →

Among the conversations I’ve had with and the articles I’ve read by anarchists, there appears to be a general consensus that opposition to hierarchy is a requirement of a stateless society. This has always struck me as at best naive utopianism and at worst consigning modern society to the maintenance of the state and its artificial hierarchies and order. Now I’ve previously written about hierarchy and its role in anarchy, so I’m not focusing so much on its role as I am on its moral foundation and its necessity within a society. Continue reading →

Nietzsche’s famous invocation “God is dead” was meant to hail in the idea that the one truth of Christianity no longer made sense. That the order of society would be reborn into many different conceptions, with the Ubermensch leading toward different ideas and orders. While Nietzsche saw this as breaking away from the herd, I see it rather as resilience against a domineering power structure that aims to denigrate and suppress the urges of individualism and voluntary collectivism, and instead move toward the reformation of old ideas with the creation of new ones. Continue reading →

Today I fell into the unfortunate circumstance of watching three diatribes of absolute stupidity being put forth in a pointless CNN debate on Islamophobia and the West’s reaction to Islam. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ztGWnTU5oM Continue reading →